Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

Warnlaser recently sent us their 20mw Razor Series Laser to review. This is Warnlaser's new series of violet lasers which actually use a genuine Sony Blue-Ray diode.

The Laser we are reviewing currently retails at $99.99/ £60 which does seem quite expensive though this is actually the cheapest in the Razor line with the 200mw laser retailing at $379.99!

However this is no cheap and tacky laser pointer you buy off the market, you can immediately tell it is quality by the quality black case you receive with it similar to what you would get if you bought an expensive pen.

The laser is quite large compared to cheaper laser on the market, and is about the size of a pen, though if you are using this for a presentation it is probably more comfortable to sue this way.

It also comes with an attachment which appears to spread the laser into multiple tiny dots, I am not sure if there is any practical application for this but I guess it looks pretty.

The beam itself is quite appealing and it does appear to have a good range, it manage to cover about 20m of my office with no problems.

Overall I think their is limited appeal to this gadget, it would make quite a nice stocking filler but at £60 it is a bit on the steep side for a stocking filler. If you spend most of your work time doing then presentations then yes this laser definitely will have some appeal.

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The King of Fighters XII (KOF XII) is the latest instalment of The King of Fighters series and is currently available on the PS3 and Xbox 360.

King of Fighters XII is very Street Fighter esque though it uses a 3 on 3 team system with each fight consisting of up to five rounds. Though it is possible to play in a versus mode where you can either have 3 on 3 or 1 on 1 against another player or against a CPU opponent.

One of the main things I noticed about the game were issues with the graphics. All the backgrounds in each fight are colourful and well drawn but the actual characters are blocky and have very poor detail, it was certainly not something I would expect on the PS3 unless it was a PSN game.

KOF XII has a slimmed down roster than previous versions of KOF and this has come under quite a bit of criticism from fans.

In terms of the game play it does play well and the animations of the characters are fluid and if you are not used to fighting games you can chose a simple mode which allows you to pull of character moves without pressing a ridiculous combination of buttons, or if you are more used to fighting games you can play it normally.

The game also has some issues with lag that comes with online multiplayer though I suspect this will eventually be fixed with a patch.

This game without a doubt is focussed on the more seasoned fighting game player and I am sure they will play it, however for other gamers I am unsure how appealing it is. One of the main problems I have with it is the £39.99 asking price. For a game with questionable graphics and problematic online multiplayer this is extortionate.

If the game was £10-£15 and available to download on the PSN I would say go for it, it could provide quite a lot of fun while playing against your friends on a LAN, but as a £40 game I just don't think it is worth it.

The Sony X1000 Walkman has been eagerly anticipated since its announcement at CES this year.

The NWZ range of walkmans was already well known for their excellent sound quality and the X Series ups the game a little further with the inclusion of noise cancelling, an OLED Touch Screen, Wi-Fi and a Web Browser.

These additions mean there is an inevitable comparison to the iPod Touch, but can it really compete with a player that has such a dominant hold on the market?

The X Series is quite a small player measuring 52.5w x 97.4h x 10.5d mm compared to the iPod touch at 61.8w x 110h x 8.5d mm, and this small size means that it has a smaller 3 inch screen compared to the 3.5 inch screen of the Touch. However what the X Series lack in size it makes up with the quality of the screen, its OLED screen far outclasses the iPod Touch screen.

I found the touch screen on the X Series to be excellent, however it doesn’t have the multi-touch or accelerometer of the touch. It does have coverflow, which is excellent though personally I find it easier just using the list view, I find coverflow to be a bit gimmicky. 

In terms of looks I think it will be a bit love it or hate it. It has more angular edges and faux granite sides. I can’t think why someone would come up with the faux granite texture for a PMP but I do quite like it and I generally like the overall style of the X Series.

In the past Sony has got a lot of grief for the abysmal software it used to transfer music to its devices. For some strange reason people still seem to think Sony use Sonicstage. I can assure you this is long gone, in fact I completely ignored any CDs that came with the X Series and just plugged it straight into my laptop. It is recognised as a mass storage device which therefore means that you can drag and drop music onto the device or you can sync it via Windows Media Player. It should also be compatible with iTunes as long as you are not using and files with DRM. Therefore I find the X Series is far much user friendly when it comes to connectivity than any Apple device.

There were a couple of minor issues with the connectivity. I found transfer slightly slow and the device doesn’t accept Flac files. Not a huge deal to me personally but audiophiles tend to have a problem with this. More annoying is the use of a proprietary connector between the device and the PC. This is more of a personal gripe than anything else, a lot of other players do this, including iPods, but I just don't understand why they all cant use mini USB!

When it comes down to playing your music the X Series really shines especially compared to the iPod. The audio quality is far superior than an iPod and the bundled headphones are infinitely better than the crap ones Apple send.

Unfortunately there are a couple of little issues here, I actually found my relatively cheap Sennheiser CX300 sounded better. So if you want to really make the most of the audio quality you probably are best to upgrade your earphones. The other problem here is that the noise cancelling that comes with the X Series actually requires you to use the Sony supplied earphones. This is because the earphones have a microphone in them which is used in the noise cancelling process, but to be fair the noise cancelling wouldn't work if the microphone was on the device itself as it needs to sample the sound as close to your ear as possible.

When it comes to the noise cancelling itself I have mixed feelings for it. While it did seem to work quite well for some reason when I switched it on it started to make me feel slightly nauseas. At first I thought I was imagining it but on further research I found that some other people have experienced it and the explanation given is:

“Sarah Stackpole, a New York ear, nose and throat doctor, speculates that the sound waves that cancel each other out may still transmit enough very low frequency vibrations to stimulate the balance receptors that are connected to the hearing hair cells in the inner ear. These vibrations are akin to those caused by blast explosions or barotrauma in scuba diving, but much less forceful, she says. The disequilibrium that some people may feel from this is made worse because the vibrations falsely signal that the head is moving, but the eyes report that the head is stationary. Those mixed signals make the headphone wearer feel dizzy.”

While I did not get time to check the video capabilities of the player there have been mixed reports. The X Series has a 432 x 240 resolution however the video mode can only handle 320 x 240 clips at a maximum.

As for its Wi-Fi it managed to stream videos nicely but you are forced to use a phone like keypad requiring multiple presses of a key before reaching the correct letter.

The biggest stumbling block of the X Series is the web browser. I personally thought it couldn’t be all that bad, but I decided to try a few websites out and one included Diggnation to see if I could download their podcast. Unfortunately no such luck, the website was completely unusable using the X Series browser.

Lastly the X Series does not have applications that the iTouch has and this seems to be a deal breaker for many. The App store allows the Touch to become much more than just a PMP including a games machine and this certainly gives Apple an advantage over the X Series. I am quite surprised Sony didn't try and integrate it with the PS3 and the Playstation Network somehow, though maybe this will be something that will be added in later generations.

In conclusion the X Series is without a doubt a great device. In terms of a music player it is probably one of the better devices on the market, possibly even the best if you can cope without Flac support. In terms of the extended functionality the player is somewhat of a let down and I think this will mean it does not get the praise it deserves.

At the end of day if you want a device primarily as a music player the X Series is a much better choice than the iPhone, but if you are more interested in being able to play games, browse the net etc the iPod Touch will be a better choice.

It is also worth noting that currently on Amazon the 16GB X Series costs £179.99 while the 16GB iPod Touch costs £196.89 if you then take into account an extra £20 or replace the awful iPod earphones then the the X Series is quite a bit cheaper than the Touch. In fact I wish Sony had priced the X Series at £150 and £200 for the 16GB and 32GB versions as then it would be much easier to recommend the X Series over the Touch.

If you haven't got a copy of Windows 7 yet and would like to try it out then you are in luck as Microsoft have extended the Beta download to February 10th.

While beta OS downloads from Microsoft don't normally sound like a whole lot of fun, largely due to MS being notorious for developing buggy software, Windows 7 could be an exception.

So far it has received a lot of praise from the press and public alike and I have read many reports of people ditching Vista to use Windows 7 as their main OS. Even though it is only in Beta a lot of people are reporting that Windows 7 has good driver support, is stable and is faster than Vista. Many people are even claiming better frame rates for gaming.

The most shocking comments I have read are quite a lot of Mac Fanboys loving it. I find it very rare for Mac users to compliment Windows but some are even considering choosing it over Leopard OSX.

So with all these compliments I decided to install it on my home PC. Recently it has been playing up so I was going to do a fresh install anyway so there was no better time to try out Windows 7.

Download and installation was a breeze, you can get Windows 7 beta from here. The download took a while with my speed only reaching around 0.5 Megabyes per second. Once it had downloaded everything went smoothly.

In terms of load times and how the OS performs my initial impressions are quite similar to Vista to be honest. I don't think I have seen noticeable improvements but I have only played around with it for a short period of time.

Without a doubt the biggest difference most people will notice is the new Windows Taskbar. The new taskbar is no longer just used to manage windows but it is now a full application launcher which is being compared favourably to the OS X Dock. In fact Gizmodo have declared it beats the OS X Dock.

Another important difference you will notice quickly is the removal of Windows Sidebar and the ability to use gadgets on your desktop. Side bar was just a pain in the ass it just ended up getting in the way, however having the Gadgets on the desktop means they never really get in the way, when you minimise everything they are just their nicely visible in any spot you have placed them.

If we look at other review the general consensus appears to be that Windows 7 out performs Vista however Infoworld found that XP still outperforms Windows 7 in terms of multiprocessing. Infoworld did state that this is likely due tot he fact that Windows 7 has a lot of extra code for muticore optimisation's and the benefits of these changes won't be felt until core counts climb well beyond today's dual-core and quad-core implementations. Gizmodo also found that Vista was pretty much unusable on a Dell Inspiron Mini 12 but with Aero switch off it was quite usable and more than capable of light multitasking.

Overall Microsoft seem to be be on with a winner with Windows 7.

Check out some more review of Windows 7:

PC Advisor

Gizmodo: First Impressions

Engadget: First Impressions

CNet

Tech Radar

I am sure most people have noticed there has been a big push by the big mobile phone companies recently towards selling mobile broadband.

Most new mobiles come with 3G and some form of a web browser and most companies sell some form of web access on top of the normal phone contracts. Companies like O2, T-Mobile and Vodafone are also pushing the independent mobile broadband devices where you pay anything from £15+ per month for xGb usage.

This relatively new and compeatative market has led most mobile companies to try and lure the buyer in with free laptops or netbooks if you sign up for a set period of time.

I must admit I have been a bit skeptical about it all, I have had mobile Internet on my past 2 phones. I had Web 'n' Walk from T-Mobile on my Tytn and now I have a bolt on from O2 on my E90 and while I do find it useful I get the feeling the performance is not nearly as good as it is made out to be, nor do I use it as much as I would expect.

Anyway recently I have had chance to try out one of Vodafone's offers. It is the £30 a month mobile broadband with free Dell Inspiron Mini 9.

The contract is for 24 months and the download speed is up to 3.6 Mbps with an upload up to 384Kbps.

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Review

I received the Mini 9 last Friday so I have had some time to play with it.

The specification of the Dell is:

1. Intel® Atom Processor® N270 (1.6GHz/533Mhz FSB/512K cache)
2. Windows® XP Home Edition
3. Glossy 8.9 inch LED display (1024X600)
4. 512MB² DDR2 at 533MHz
5. 4GB³ Solid State Drive
6. Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950
7. Wireless 802.11g Mini Card
8. 32WHr Battery (4 cell) (Over 4 hours battery life claimed)

My initial impression of the Mini 9 were simply its size, I have a 15" Acer and the Mini 9 in literally mini in comparison. My winter coat has massive pockets on it and I can nearly fit the Mini 9 in one of them.

The general look of the Mini 9 is quite basic, it has a glossy shell and it is quite plasticy though you can hardly expect an aluminium casing when the Mini 9  only costs around £250 to buy without a mobile broadband contract. The general build quality does feel excellent.

On booting the Dell I was a bit surprised to see Vodafone have chosen to use Windows. These devices are only really designed to be used on the Internet and for basic activities so Ubuntu would of been more than adequate and it would of reduced the cost for Vodafone.

The initial boot up of Windows did seem very slow which was a bit of a shock as I was expecting it to be much faster as it uses a solid state drive, however this was likely due to the limitations of the processor rather than the SSD. I also found the machine was installed with a lot of the crap associated with Dell computers including Mcafee, Dell's Support Center, Dells Video conferencing etc etc. I am sure all of this will certainly be slowing down the boot time.

Vodafone have only added one piece of software to manage their 3G connections.

The keyboard on the Dell is very small, which is no surprise. I wouldn't want to be typing out a novel on their, however it is still quite usable, the only problem I really had was the right hand shift key as it really is tiny and I always use this key when typing the @ symbol so I frequently made mistakes.

The Screen of the Dell is good, the resolution is 1024X600 so you can comfortably browse the Internet. It is nice and bright though one downside is that it is glossy. To be fair most laptops now use a glossy screen but considering these netbooks are designed for mobility you would think some consideration would be taken for outdoor use. Unfortunately if you are outdoors in the sun viewing the screen can be very hard.

The dell also came with the usual ports and inputs, there were 3x USB, 1x VGA, Ethernet, Card Reader, and audio jacks. I was quite impressed it has 3x USB ports as you would think it wouldn't have room for this many.

The general performance of the Dell was actually quite good. Granted there was a bit of a delay in starting up but once running I was able to do everything I wanted, I was happily running Firefox with half a dozen tabs open and I had a few apps running in the background. I also played an AVI in VLC and it played smoothly. I didn't have any HD files to play but I suspect it would start struggling a bit here.

Finally I found the battery life to be quite good, I had a meeting on Monday in Manchester. I used the Dell on the journey to and from it which was about 2.5 hours in total and the battery was still going. I am not sure if it would last past 4 hours though my use was quite heavy and I did have a 3G connection at the time as well.

Overall I found the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 to be an excellent little netbook and I plan on using it for the foreseeable future on any trips I go on. It can easily handle any daily task while being extremely portable. Yes there are a couple of little issues but they are certainly not big enough to put you off it.

Vodafone Mobile Broadband Review

So now we know that the Dell is a great little netbook how does Vodafone's mobile broadband handle?

Surprisingly very well, connecting to the Vodafone network is a simple task, you just load up thei mobile connect software wait for it to find a connection, click connect and Bobs your Unkle, you are browsing the net.

I checked the speed of the connection via Think Broadband and Speed Test (Maidenhead + Dublin) and was pleasantly surprised with the following results

Think broadband = 1.8 Mbps down and 0.3 Mbps up

Speedtest Maidenhead = 2.5 Mbps down and 0.28 Mbps up

Speedtest Dublin = 2.05 Mbps down and 0.28 Mbps up

I agreed to review the netbook and Vodafone's mobile broadband expecting to slate the performance, I have always been under the impression there is a lot of mis-selling going on in this industry and while I am sure some people sometimes maybe able to get the full speed I always thought that due to reception issues, volume of users etc the average person would not get a fraction of these speeds.

I have even previously tried another mobile broadband connection from 3 and found the connection to be 0.1Mbps down and 0.1Mbps up. This was tested knowing the reception was bad but I was expecting to see similar results from Vodafone. So to receive the above speeds is a very nice surprise indeed, granted I probably wouldn't recommend this type of connection over a ADSL line but for someone on the move then it really is worth it.

Finally now we know the Dell is excellent and Vodafone is excellent is the deal worth it? Well I think it is up to personal opinion. I wouldn't personally go for this deal. £30 per month x 24 months is £720. You can get the same 3Gb monthly allowance without the Dell for £15 per month on a 12 month contract which is £180 this would leave £540 to spare on a laptop which could be used for a better laptop. Granted this would mean an initial outlay of several hundreds of pounds which a lot of people may not have in which case the £30 a month deal is certainly appealing.

So if you want mobile broadband I would 100% recommend Vodafone and all the deals are good, but I would look at the various options and find which one suits you best before you buy.

For those of you that despise the mess of wires and enjoy a bit of retro gaming on the Wii there are a growing number of solutions for you. One of which is the Snakebyte Wii Wireless Retro Controller.

The manufacturer of this controller, SnakeByte, a European peripheral manufacturer that is offering an increasingly large range of peripherals for the NDS, PS3, PSP, Wii and the Xbox 360.

The Wireless Retro Controller is quite simply what it says on the box, a wireless version of the retro controller.

The controller works by inserting a wireless dongle into the Wiimote, and it requires 2 batteries on top of the 2 you already have in the Wiimote. This is one thing I did think that was bad about the controller, just think of the number of batteries you could potentially go through? Though to be fair this is an unavoidable issue.

The controller itself is well built, it feels really solid, I haven't used any 3rd party retro controllers but I did use a 3rd party Gamecube controller (which I cant remember the name of) and I found the build to be quite poor.

Performance wise the controller met all expectations, it works just as well as the official Nintendo wired version and I had no issues with losing connection. I have not played it enough to test hw long the batteries last but all seems well so far.

The controller currently retails at £29.99 in comparison you can get the Official Nintendo Wii Classic Controller for £14.99.

In conclusion the controller is excellent, and if you hate having wires everywhere then it is a must buy, however if you are not that bothered about wires I am not sure if double the price is worth it. I would however happily pay £5-10 more than the official wired controller.

Along with the Snakebyte controller I also received the Snakebyte Wii Premium Component Cable, again this is what it says on the box. Some of the features of this premium cable include:

- Optimal picture quality with 480p signal

- Anticorrosive gold plated contacts for ideal signal quality

- Metallic cinch connectors with rubberised grips

- Additional stereo audio cinch connectors

- Solid copper wires with multiple shielding

- 2m cable length

My first reaction to the cable was very positive, the build quality is considerably better than that of the cable supplied with the Wii. All the metal connectors are gold plated and noticeably heavy compared to the cheaper Nintendo ones. The cable is also wrapped in a plastic/fabric sheath which decent improvement over the rubberised cover of the normal ones.

I have been told that the component cable is supposed to retail at £14.99 but I can currently only find it available on Amazon for £23.59.

If you are looking at upgrading your cable or want to get the best picture possible out of your Wii then I 110% recommend this.

Ever thought how good would it be if there was a way to reduce the harm of cigarettes without giving up the habit of smoking? Here is the answer, Myvic Electronic Cigarette is a revolutionary new product which is drastically healthier than traditional smoking. It will improve your health while giving the same sensations as ordinary cigarettes.

There are more than 4000 chemicals found in the ordinary cigarettes, of which at least 400 are harmful for the human body. They contain, tar, carbon monoxide, benzene, acetone, formaldehyde, arsenic and many others. This chemicals contribute to lung cancer and many other diseases associated with cigarette smoking.

While using Myvic Electronic Cigarette you have to change nicotine refills, which range from high concentrate nicotine to zero nicotine content. The refill contains nicotine and propylene glycol (harmless to human body). Nicotine is not believed to cause cancer, and compared to all the chemicals inhaled while smoking ordinary cigarettes it is relatively harmless.

This revolutionary device can be used anywhere where traditional smoking is forbidden: restaurants, clubs, pubs and even on the planes. It completely simulates the sensation of smoking ordinary cigarettes, it even produces 'smoke' which is actually water vapours. 98% of the nicotine contained in the inhaled mist is absorbed by the organism, leaving only propylene glycol which is exhaled and is absolutely harmless to people around you, therefore there is no passive smoking. The 'smoke' disappears within seconds after being exhaled, leaving no smoke what so ever inside the building.

Myvic Electronic Cigarette is also cheaper than ordinary cigarettes. It could save you £528 a year, or even more depending on individual smoking habits. The cigarette can be purchased at the price of £39, and a 5 pack of Myvic Refills is priced at £5. One Myvic Refill is equal to approx. 10-20 ordinary cigarettes, which means you pay £5 for the equivalent of approx. 50-100 ordinary cigarettes.

More information on the benefits of the Myvic Electronic Cigarette can be found on the official website at www.myvic.co.uk.