Nintendo and the second screen

 

When the Wii U gamepad features were first laid out by Nintendo, I was very excited. Being able to use touch, having a second screen ala a tablet while gaming, and being able to transfer some entire games to the gamepad screen. Basically, this is a handheld-ification of a home console. I have to admit handhelds have become my favourite consoles, so this got me so hyped and intrigued.

Nowadays I almost always have my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 tablet with me when I watch TV. I'm surfing the net during commercial breaks, or looking up stuff.... so I thought that the second screen philosophy Nintendo is going for would fit in with my lifestyle very comfortably.

Now that we've had some time to try out the features, I have mixed feelings about the gamepad.

It was such a bold and frankly, weird direction Nintendo chose to go with this generation of console. On paper it sounds great. But in real life gameplay..... I find it unwieldy.

Playing games like Lego City Undercover, which relies on the Gamepad for the map... I know it sounds lazy but it's kind of a drag to have to look down to see the map, then look back at the tv again. It's not as easy as it sounds, especially if you're involved in a fast chase or being pursued and have to look down at the map to plan your destination route while you're driving. And even in slower paced situations, having to regularly trade focus between the screen that is 12 feet away (TV) and the one that is 1.5 feet away (Gamepad) just kinda messes with your eye focus. It would almost be easier to just have the traditional onscreen map in the corner. Playing Infamous on my PS3, having to use the SELECT button to bring up the map screen, as clunky as that is, is still easier than using the gamepad for the map because all my focus stays on the TV screen.


When I first unboxed my Wii U, I was carefully going through all the peripherals and cables... and was rather shocked to find *ONLY* an HDMI cable for TV hookup. My thought was something like, "What the F--???"  At the time, I only had a 27" CRT TV, so I cannibalized my Wii AV cables to hook up the Wii U to my TV. It works ok, but I felt like the Wii U was never meant to be used on a CRT TV, just like PS3/Xbox 360 weren't... which is why I never bought those systems.

But this past Xmas, I got a nice 55" LG smart 3D TV. So nice... sigh..... *ahem*, yeah, and I was *so* psyched to hook up my Wii U to it. Of course it looks great and it's awesome to play games on the big screen. But that great TV screen also makes it harder to go back down to the smaller, crappier resolution/screen quality of the gamepad screen. I have tried playing Darksiders II (Wii U) on the gamepad, and it looks good. But unless I *have to* play it on the screen, as in the TV is being used by others, it's not preferable to play games fully on the gamepad. If only it was *MORE* handheld-ified and games could be fully loaded onto the gamepad for truly portable play anywhere... that would be awesome.

So I have some trepidation as to Nintendo's second screen direction for this generation. I am going to stick with it, and maybe it will grow on me more. But unless the console gets a lot more quality titles and unique uses for the gamepad that set it apart from the other systems, my doubts may continue to grow about this second screen philosophy.... and I still have to really devote a lot more time to Darksiders II, hopefully it will click more with me...



later
don

I bought a Playbook... again

Wow, I almost can't believe I bought a BlackBerry PlayBook again. Last time I thought it was a good deal at $250.00? But since then the 32GB version has come down to $118.98 during sales, and $150.00 regular price. Poor RIM... there's no denying that they are in a bad place in the mobile marketplace but the Playbook is still a good piece of hardware that is undervalued, perhaps even by BlackBerry themselves.

I was humming and hawwing for awhile about rebuying a Playbook, but at the price point, it serves my needs: photos, Internet. Video playback is still atrocious for me, but at least I found a free player that will play the videos made on my Galaxy S Glide phone (the default player stutters and drops frames on these videos like crazy-- awful) So I have limited needs for the PlayBook this time around, mostly just a 7" photo viewer I can put my China trips photos on... I do hope that functionality improves even more in the future... BB10, hope, hope?

I have to say, the onscreen keyboard is one of the better ones I've used. I'm typing this entry on it in portrait mode right now, and the word correction and "thumb span" seem very good. Not to mention that it actually works with Blogger, unlike my Android phone... Hello, clueless Google? If I can upload pictures, it will be near perfect.

UPDATE: I found an issue with the screen, there was something stuck under the glass. Not a dead pixel, but a little dot of something. Also, there was a gap along the edge where the volume/power buttons are. I returned the unit, lucked out that Staples had another. This one has no screen issues or gap, though I'm not sure if the wifi is quite as strong on it.



later
don

returned the BlackBerry PlayBook & PS Vita non-excitement

Sigh... just got back from returning the 32GB Blackberry PlayBook. It's a great device, if only it played my videos better.... I was really on the fence about taking it back, part of me wanted to be past the 14 day return limit that Staples has.... but in the end, as much as I like the PlayBook, I'm not sure I *needed* it. Between my Toshiba NB205 netbook & HP Touchpad, those needs are fairly well met. Not to mention the browsers I have on my HTC Legend phone, PSP/PSPgo, and 3DS. None of those last 3 devices have particularly robust internet browsers-- certainly not as good as the PlayBooks-- but at least they have the basic functionality.

One thing that I really noticed about the PlayBook & the HP TouchPad is that flicking around a webpage is easier on the TouchPad. It scrolls more smoothly. When I'm websurfing with either device, I like to lightly "cast off" with my finger to move the page slowly down. If the screen was a lake, and the webpage a raft (my finger being a pole I guess) the HP Touchpad makes webpages glide along it. The PlayBook felt more resistive; I had to actually push the page a lot more to get it to move. It's a small thing but it is a big part of the overall experience. I also like how the TouchPad changes portrait/landscape orientation a little easier than the PlayBook-- but sometimes the TouchPad changes TOO easily, it's over-sensitive. So there are advantages & drawbacks to either styles.

My next big gadget purchase is going to be the PS Vita in mid-February.... and yeah, I'm "excited" for it, but I'm kinda not, y'know? I don't feel that frenzy that I felt in anticipation of past console launches or big game releases. I remember how I could not wait for the 3DS launch. This time around, I dunno. There aren't any huge PS Vita launch games that I'm super-excited for. the device itself looks nice, I know it has added touch functionality but... it looks pretty much exactly like a PSP-1000. An IGN writer wrote an article where he took his PS Vita out in public & nobody noticed. THAT'S BECAUSE IT LOOKS LIKE A FRIGGIN' PSP. Everybody has seen a PSP before, why would they care? You'd have to stare directly at it to notice the differences, and who does that when they're walking by? Even I would be hard-pressed to notice it... and I DO stare at people playing PSPs-- I always want to know what model it is & what they're playing.

So yeah, the Vita feels like it's 2005 all over again. That's not good for 2012.

When it gets closer to launch I'll probably be more jazzed. At this point in time, I'm just.... meh.



later
don

Blackberry PlayBook

So I took the bait on Xmas eve, and ordered a Blackberry Playbook 32GB tablet from Staples online. But I don't think I'm keeping it....

The price point at $250.00 is fairly ok... and what I read about it seemed like it's a fairly solid tablet. I enjoy my HP TouchPad a lot but sometimes it is a bit big, especially when I take it out with me. With the case, it weighs in around 2lbs, which is close to my netbook weight. 2lbs may not sound like a lot, but when you're talking portability, trust me it is a consideration.



The Blackberry PlayBook definitely has a nice form factor. It's 7" as opposed to the TouchPad's 10", and it's very thin. On the bottom edge, there's the memory storage size (32GB) a micro HDMI port for output to an HDTV, a micro USB port, and a proprietary 3-pin port for a dock(?) One of the small issues with the micro USB port is that it's not shaped like most and you have to be careful to plug in the USB cable the right way. Usually the shape of the port shows me which way to plug it in.




The top edge has a headphone jack, power button and volume/play buttons. It's good to have hardware buttons but on the PlayBook I prefer to put it into sleep mode just using the onscreen buttons.

What's really great about coming out of sleep mode is all you need to do is swipe from bezel to bezel (either up/down or side/side) So I only need the power button to turn on the PlayBook from a full turned-off mode.





The back is a very simple soft touch rubber. Resists fingerprints but can pick up lint. It feels very comfortable though.




I love the thinness and simple design. However, the PlayBook is quite heavy considering its size. I suppose it's not unreasonable for it to weigh almost 1 lb, but when you look at the size and thinness of it, it looks like it should weigh less. So it can be a bit of a burden to hold for long periods... but the HP TouchPad weighs about 2x so....



I may not be a typical tablet user, my needs are fairly simple. I want a tablet for internet browsing, photos, music, videos and apps.

The Blackberry Playbook does most of these very well. The interface is very similar to the HP TouchPad's WebOS: apps close into a window view, you scroll horizontally between them, there's good multi-tasking.

My big problem with the Blackberry PlayBook is videos. I record videos in simple profile MP4 format, usually 368 x 208. Suited for PSP playback, but they also play very well on my HTC Legend phone and HP TouchPad. But on the PlayBook the videos are very pixelated. My videos look better on my TouchPad which has only a slightly higher resolution, but a bigger screen. Videos should look better on the PlayBook because of the smaller screen. I'm not sure if RIM is using a not very good MP4 decoder for video playback or what.... it makes me sad that my videos look so crappy on this thing.....

I really want to love the Blackberry PlayBook-- in fact I actually DO love a lot about it. Just not videos. That's not the most important part of a tablet but it is a major one for me. It's such a shame. So I think, with great reluctance, that I have to return it....... hopefully I can find a 7" tablet that will better fit my needs...... but there is also the PS Vita coming which will suck up as much $$$ as the PlayBook so maybe I need to just save up for that.




later
don

HP TouchPad brightness issues

I did miss my HP TouchPad while I was in China.... 5-6 weeks away from it-- I did charge it before I left but I thought the battery would be dead by the time I got back. But the charge held, was almost full power when I turned it on again.

But one thing I have noticed since that little hiatus away from it... there are some brightness issues with it. There is a light sensor that can auto-dim the brightness, I used to use it but the case I got for it covers it up so I had to turn off the sensor. But even with the sensor off, for some reason the screen will dim on its own. I loaded the HP TouchPad up with a bunch of my pics from China, and swiping through them, the brightness changes quite a bit and I can't figure out why.

It could be the latest WebOS update (I think 4.0.7) but I'm pretty sure I had this issue before the update. It even affects the videos I watch, and I don't think there was a problem with the screen going bright & dim, fluctuating so much..... I watched lots of video in the same format before I left.

My guess is that the corner of the TouchPad where the sensor is is a bit wonky. I know when I had it turned on, sometimes I'd accidentally cover it and that caused weird problems. Maybe because my case pressed down on that light sensor it's affecting it? I don't know. But now I don't keep my TouchPad fully in the case-- I make sure the corner anchor/straps aren't keeping it in place. the problem with that is I gotta be careful the TouchPad doesn't fall out....



later
don

HP TouchPad 32gb

So Friday/Saturday was a tech frenzy the likes of which I have never seen... the great & terrible HP TouchPad hunt.

I heard about the HP TouchPad being discontinued, so I kept a bit of an eye on it, then I heard about the massive price slashing by The Source & Future Shop on Friday afternoon-- I rushed down to FS to grab one, they only had a 32gb left for $149.99 which I snatched up as quick as I could (this being Future Shop it took about 20 mins. waiting for a stupid manager to enter a password into a till)... what kinda irks me is that all the FS employees bought up most of the stock before the general public could get a chance-- they were crowing about it quite proudly, as were The Source employees when I went there looking for one. I didn't know a whole lot about it when I bought it, and had I known it has such a smooth UI & user experience I would've bought another for my dad. I *really* wish I could get another one for him. That's my big regret of this whole debacle.

What a score though... this has to be the best tech deal of the year for me. It's a sweet gadget that is not as good as it should be, but for my needs, it fits the bill quite well.

So basically, the TouchPad is one of the many tablets that have been released this year; in fact I think it only came out something like 50 days ago? Bizarre that HP would just drop it like they did & slash the price by 75%. It's a dead product but I'm still seeing those annoying HP Touchpad ads with Lea Michelle, or that boxer/politician on my TV in heavy rotation... guess HP paid up at least through the weekend. I can't imagine how much money they're losing by this decision to just scrap it.



There are good things & bad things about the HP TouchPad. For multimedia, pictures, music, video, it's as good as a phone/PSP, but with a bigger screen. HP's WebOS is different than what I'm used to, but surfing the web is a mostly smooth endeavor on it-- though there are a few quirks. Not a huge deal, but the web browser can't be set to launch on a homepage. You tap to open it & then you gotta input a URL or side swipe to open the Bookmarks list. Just little things like that which make it less dynamic than it should be. But compare it to my phone browser (Android 2.1) which is OK, but is clunkier than the TouchPad browser. Then we go down further on the handheld browser list, to the Nintendo 3DS (very clunky) browser and the PSP browser. So for a portable/handheld, the TouchPad scores very well. But... compare the TouchPad to my Toshiba NB205 netbook, and it's a different ballgame.



I'm not sure it's fair to compare a tablet like the HP TouchPad to a netbook/laptop, but with the MSRPs of tablets being firmly in the $400.00-$500.00 range, it's gotta be a consideration. Let me put it this way-- I'm typing up this post using my netbook. Hell yeah did I consider doing it on the TouchPad, but the onscreen keyboard is pretty finicky. I'm used to the Android keyboard on my little HTC Legend being cumbersome... yes the TouchPad is bigger, but it takes more than double the time to type things than it does with my netbook keyboard. Using the TouchPad to do general websurfing is great. Flash loads up fine, and I haven't had any problem viewing embedded video. I can post the odd comment on message boards, but any sort of content creation, whether it's blogs or whatever, is kinda hard. I will try to post an entry using the TouchPad sometime.



The body is very black, rounded & smooth. It's also a huge fingerprint magnet. It's heavier than I thought it would be, and with the rounded body shape & weight I can't find a decent stand for it yet.



There are 2 speakers along the length of the side/bottom of it, which sound better than most handhelds (including my crap netbook speaker)but they are recessed into the smooth body & the speaker holes feel bit sharp when you hold the tablet soemtimes. the HP TouchPad also has bluetooth, I synced it with my Creative D100 bluetooth speakers and it sounds great.

The TouchPad has a front-facing camera, but no rear one. And the camera can only be used with one app, Skype. Reminds me of my PSPgo mic that has never been used because I don't Skype.

I bought the HP TouchPad with the hopes of it being a good photo viewer, music player & most important: video player.

USB - The TouchPad is seen as a USB drive, which means drag & drop. I love that! I hate having to use software to load media onto a device... it's one of the main reasons I haven't gotten an idevice yet. It has a micro USB port at the bottom of it, again no proprietary cable, I can use the same cables that I use for my phone. The USB cable it comes with also plugs into a dongle that is a power adapter wall plug. I don't think that a USB drive or memory stick can be plugged directly into the TouchPad, it does not look like there's a USB Hosting feature. The only quirk I discovered with the TouchPad is that it has to be ejected by right-clicking EJECT on the device icon in Windows. If you use the Eject USB Device command in Windows, it doesn't unmount it properly, and you'll get this "Ouch!" message on the TouchPad.

Music - The HP TouchPad supports .mp3, AAC, non-protected files (non-DRM) I haven't put much music on it yet, it's not high on my list as I'm really happy with my HTC Legend phone as my main music player. The HP TouchPad music player interface is basic, there are 2 views, list and side-scrolling album view. Playlist creation is fairly easy, tap+hold a song, then drag it to a playlist along a side panel to add it. Songs can be repeat one/all/shuffle & the usual album/artist/genre categories.

Video - Much like Android, videos are in the Photos section, all mixed in. There's 2 settings for video: fullscreen or original aspect ratio. It only plays .MP4 files, .MP4 simple profile, H.263/H.264. Which is very limited. But-- it actually plays my PSP Video 9 encoded PSP videos!!! I am *so* happy about that because I've rarely come across ANYTHING that can play those. And it plays them well, usually the best I can get is a buggy playback from any handheld that's not a PSP. So for me specifically, this is an awesome video player. More codec support would be nice. What's bad about the video playback is that it doesn't show the name of the video file, nor a thumbnail image. So you load it up with videos & get a bunch of generic video icons with only the length. No title, no date, nothing about it other than the length. That is very annoying especially if you want a lot of vids on it. I think the TouchPad was rushed to market, though things like this could be fixed with a software update if only HP hadn't abandoned it so quickly. UPDATE: I installed WebOS update 3.0.2 68 and now videos show their names! So that's an improvement.

The video controls are very basic, it's similar to the Android/iOS with the length bar, but the bar is ridiculously small for the size of the screen. So moving the playback cursor is really tricky & strangely not nearly as good as on the tiny screen of my HTC Legend, which itself is not nearly as good as the precise video playback controls of the PSP. For a screen the size of the TouchPad, it's stupid to have such a small playback bar. Again, could be fixed with an update, but...

Photos - Supports .JPG. Photos do show thumbnails, and the basic functions are here, there's a slideshow option of course. The slideshow transitions, well.. there's only one that I know of, and it's not very good. It works, but it ain't fancy. Even my Aluratek has better slideshow transition options.

Multitasking apps - The HP TouchPad can do multitasking quite well. I can play music while web browsing, open up vids/pics, pause that to do some web browsing, and come back to it. The interface uses windows "cards" which works fairly well. Let's say you're looking at a web page, and you want to open another web page up, it creates another card that stacks up over the previous one, and so on. So you swipe from the bottom of the TouchPad to go back to your stack of cards, and you can tap on whichever in the deck or to close one or all, you flick it up & it throws it away. That's how all the apps operate. Very nice & smooth. I love just flicking things away on this thing.

I think the TouchPad was rushed to market too early, and I also think that all the tablets are overpriced. Last year I was lusting a bit for an iPad, and I've always been interested in the tablet market. I was hoping that these tablet wars would offer some good deals as the competition heats up. I did not expect a firesale like this. It's kinda sad, actually, even though I don't think the HP TouchPad is worth $400-$500, it shouldn't be discontinued, especially so early in its lifespan. HP has some weird things going on, and with the rumblings that they might be leaving the PC market altogether, that's not good for consumers at all. I think we may see computer prices rise sharply if there's one less major company making entry-priced PCs. If the TouchPad or other tablets were priced starting at $350.00 or $250.00, then they'd be more enticing for people to buy. I don't know if it's the iPad(1/2) effect or what, but it just seems like the pricing is too steep for what they actually offer to the user. Just go to Staples, seeing their display of tablets, there are so many out there that I wonder if we'll see some more tablet firesales as competitors fall by the wayside. Motorola Xoom, BlacBerry Playbook-- I'm looking at you!

Before buying the HP TouchPad I wasn't familiar with WebOS, so now I'm trying to discover as much as I can about it. It's essentially a phone OS with a UI tweaked for tablets. But basically the same can be said for all the tablet OS's, right? Tablets are just bigger versions of smartphones. In some ways that's a good thing, but they need to be priced more reasonably. Smartphones themselves are also frustratingly overpriced, but the market demand for them unfortunately has made it profitable for all the companies (manufacturers & service providers) to overcharge.

It's too bad that there will be no support for WebOS, while I don't like it overall as much as Android, it's a smooth interface that could be improved and could have been a contender. That's the same that could be said about the HP TouchPad itself. We hardly knew ya.... there may be no future for this gadget, but in the meantime I'm having fun with it, for the price it was a great buy & now I'm looking harder at other tablets. if I could find one that's better than this, I'd gladly pay more for it.


later
don

iPad/Macbook Pro

I finally got a hands-on with the iPad at London Drugs about a week ago.... and I have to say, on first inspection it is one impressive piece of kit. I was amazed by how small it is, and light. It also doesn't seem to get too hot-- though I'd wonder whether that's the case during prolonged real use. There is a real smoothness to the interface, it is just like an iPhone in that regard.

So I've been crushing a bit on the iPad.... but lately I've really taken a shine to the Macbook Pro. Yes it's overpriced but the overall package is elegant. Metal body, illuminated keyboard, not too much screen bezel and a huge trackpad...

I still really like my Toshiba NB-205 netbook, but like anything, there are little issues about it. The body looks fairly nice and at least it isn't too much of a fingerprint magnet... but there's still a bit of a cheapness in the materials-- it's got a plastic body, the keyboard area flexes a bit. I've been noticing a bit of a clicking noise when I hit the PgDn (page down) button. The trackpad buttons are nice & big but they click very loudly, a lot of times I tap the pad so as not to make so much noise, but tapping the trackpad isn't as responsive as a physical button.

But my biggest problem isn't hardware, it's the OS. I'm getting pretty tired of the Windows OS being so vulnerable to malware. It would be nice to not have that worry all the time... I'd still run a firewall & anti-virus on a Macbook, but there is just much more peace of mind knowing it's not quite as big a target as Windows.

Man, a Macbook Pro would be nice... but my NB-205 isn't quite a year old yet. There's no GOOD reason to get another computer at this point. But I'm pretty sure that my next computer will be a Macbook. I'm really leaning that way at this point.



later
don