Sennheiser CX300 review

My first in-ear earphones was the Sony NC-11 which I returned because while they sounded great, they tend to channel echos to the ears every time the cable touches my shirt. Since then I stayed clear off in-ear phones until I finally bought the EX71. They were the best budget earphones back then without resorting to professional graded earphones from Shure and Etymotic. After the EX71 broke I went through a number of earphones looking for a replacement, including the Shure e2c (which lasted me about a year before it too broke).

The Sennheiser CX300, at less than £20 if you shop around wisely, is a nice in-ear passive noise isolation earphones that Jennifer ordered to replaced her own broken EX71. These are canal phones that goes into the canal of your ears, sealing outside noise so that you can enjoy your music in peace. It works just as well as the EX71 when using it on the Tube, sealing out noisy passengers and rattling trains. Because the drivers are inside and because of the lack of ambient noise, those using in-ear phones like the CX300 are capable of enjoying their music with less volume.

The CX300 is as comfy as the EX71, with Sennheiser (like Sony and Shure) providing different caps for different ear size. The caps are silicon made and soft like the ones provided by Sony. They fit in snugly into the ear and we had no problems with the earphones accidentally falling out. While not as tough as the e2c, the CX300 does seem to be capable of withstanding most abuses provided you treat it well. The sound quality is not as great as the e2c, but at the price you can't really complain. It is still much much better than stock earbuds that are provided with your digital music player and is capable of providing so much more detail and warmth than a £5 set. Bass, mids and trebles are all good.

We like the CX300. It is available in black, grey and white and retails for £30. Shop around and you will definitely save some money (mymemory is one such suggestion). The only issue I had with the CX300 is the rather thin cords which tangles easily and may also break if it is tugged with force, as well as some microphonic issues (echos when caable rubs against something).

Specification

Bass-driven stereo sound
Frequency response: 18Hz - 21kHz
Cable length: Asymmetrical, L: 170 mm; R: 510 mm, (850 mm divider to plug)
Impedance: 16 Ohm
Sound pressure level (SPL): 112 dB (1 kHz, 1 Vrms)
Jack plug: 3.5 mm stereo (angled)
Ear coupling: intraaural (ear canal fit)
Transducer principle: dynamic, open

More Apple BS

Man, Apple does seem to love bullshitting, don't they? Already having to put up with them pretending that they hate DRM and that they created 'minimalism', Harddrive based DAP, Operating System GUI, the colour white, the word 'pod' and the alphabet 'I', they now want to take the mickey out of people who buys cheap mobiles.

Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. predicted that 10 million customers will pay at least $499 to buy an iPhone next year because they realize most free mobile phones are worthless.

Typical classic Apple bullshit really. In the UK I can walk into any mobile phone store, sign a one year contract and get pretty much any reasonably new mobile phone for free such as the XDA Exec or Nokia N80, most of which has features the Iphone would not have when it launches six months from now. Let's see. My mobile, which is worthless according to Apple, has a better resolution screen, faster processor, QWERTY keyboard, 3G radio and the ability to use both MemoryMap (for Ordnance Survey maps) and TomTom Navigator route maps. Plus it has a replaceable battery. Hell, we have an Ericsson T28m where the stock battery still works. Even the almost decade old Motorola StarTAC 75+ had replaceable battery too. Which is more worthless now eh Apple?

Frankly I am not surprised. This is the company who charges £99 on a screen-less portable music player, and had the cheek to call it innovation because somehow it came in white and can shuffle music. Consider this the last Apple rant, for now.

Pink PSP for only 99 quid

Amazon UK has a cheap pink Sony PSPon sale from the usual RRP of £150 down to £99 (including free shipping), making it effectively the same price as a standard DS Lite. That is what I call a bargain. I would even be tempted to get one but sadly I have overstretched my gaming budget so no PSP just yet.

Technorati tags: Sony PSP PlayStation Portable

Final Fantasy III figures

Remember Final Fantasy III? It is a great and old school game. Well, after playing it, why not have those chibi characters adorn your video game cabinet? Or you could scatter them around your consoles.

via GayGamer

Update: Play Asia's stock is now sold out, but you can get five of them (see below) from Tokyo Toys.

Video Game Impressions: Final Fantasy XII battle system

Vaan and Penelo was at Level-4 when I had them hunt a large wolf called the Wolf in the Waste. We were almost raped by the giant. Lucky for me Penelo was on Gambit, which allows her to automatically target and fight nearby enemies. I was busy using Vaan to heal instead and occasionally having him cast a wide variety of offensive Magick. Before long she (or he) was down and I was off to collect my 500 gils bounty. Then I went to the Clan Hall to gloat at Montblanc, the cheeky Clan Centurio head honcho who also happens to be a Moogle, while he showered me with gifts due to my updated clan status from Moppet to Hedge Knight. Nice. Hunts are basically side-quests but this is the only way one can increase the clan status (how very MMO).

Enemies now visibly roam the open land (or dungeons) so there are no longer any random encounters that jRPG-haters hate, no longer turn based (turns are still governed by an ATB like gauge similar to that of Final Fantasy VI), but thankfully still menu-based. If any enemies are nearby simply open the battle menu and select attack. The party will automatically attack the enemy of whom the party leader has selected. It is also possible for different party members to attack different enemies in the surrounding by navigating the d-pad and opening their individual battle menus, but I found this chaotic. I am looking forward to expanding the auto-party control system called Gambit once Yamoora's Gambits store opens and Gambit is available on the Party Menu.

The new system to obtaining new skills such as Magick or the abilities to don certain armour or weild new weapons are now governed by the License Board, which looks like a checkers/chess board, and is similar to Final Fantasy X's Sphere Grid. Basically each victory will yield License Points (LP) in addition to Experience Points (EXP) and loots (which have to be sold to obtain gils, the currency of Final Fantasy games). You can then trade in LP on the License Board to unlock new Licenses. I believe this is a balancing feature. If a party member obtains a powerful weapon early in the game he or she would not be able to use it until you unlock the particular License to use it on the License Board. In addition to Magick, the License Board is used to unlock Technicks (eg. steal) as well as permanent stat bonuses.

I have only been playing the game for 3 hours now but so far everything about the latest Final Fantasy numbered game is engrossing. The visual style is excellent and the graphical capability of the six year old PS2 console is pushed to the limit. The architecture of Rabanastre, the town Vaan lives in, is beautifully constructed. I can't wait to start exploring Ivalice. Sadly there isn't an option for enabling progressive scan, but the game does support widescreen in the PAL version. Game of the year candidate, surely.

Play the game now.

Final Fantasy XII PAL and Piggyback limited edition hardcover strategy guide

Well, Final Fantasy XII has just been released in Europe today.

With the local indie game store closed down and the nearest Gamestation some 4 miles away the only choice I had to getting Final Fantasy XII at launch was either at GAME or HMV, both not my first or second choice when it comes to gaming needs, but never mind. I still had this unused gift card. Plus Jenni was chipping in for the game itself through another gift card.



So it was off to GAME then. Along with collecting my pre-order Final Fantasy XII game, the friendly sales monkey offered a free crappy swag pack which contained a Final Fantasy XII double sided glossy poster (featuring renders of the protagonists including Balthier, Fran et al.) and a promotional business card size CD, as well as a "free" mini-guide (actually just an advert to Piggyback's Final Fantasy XII: The Complete Guide...



...which I also obtained):



This Piggyback Interactive Final Fantasy XII hardcover strategy guide is very pretty, but I rather have them releasing a limited edition version of the game like our buddies in North America and Japan got, but then again Square Enix hates Europe. The guide is pretty useful though. No more trawling through those ASCII maps at GameFAQs:



Character info:



Detailed bestiary:



Have only been playing with the new game for an hour. The license board is an interesting concept in obtaining new skills. So far I am finding myself loving the new open battle system and the visual style. Not sure about Vaan's voice acting though.

Technorati tags: Final Fantasy XII Final Fantasy 12 Square Enix PlayStation 2

50 quid PS2 consoles at Asda today

I hate posting news, least of all anything that has got to do with Asda, but this is simply too important to pass up on. Asda is today selling PAL slimline PS2 consoles for £50. Yep, fifty bloody quid. They normally retail for £80, so you will be saving at least £30.

This is just too cheap to ignore, and anyone who doesn't already own one or is thinking of replacing their massive launch PS2 units should get one. With a built-in LAN port and infrared receiver, the slimline version is about the size of two DVD case stacked. Sure the PS2 as a platform is a dying breed but it hasn't been abandoned yet like the Xbox or GameCube. There are still plenty of great titles that were just released (Okami, God Hand, Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2) and many more coming soon (God of War II, Final Fantasy XII and Rogue Galaxy).

If there was an Asda nearby me I would even buy one just so I can offload the old one to eBay.

Software Impressions: Access NetFront 3.4 Technical Preview

I have been trying out the new Technical Preview version of the upcoming Access NetFront 3.4 for roughly a week now. Really this has got to be one of the best damn browser on any portable platform. The good thing about 3.4 TP is it can co-exist with NetFront 3.3 (see here for my write up on 3.3 TP) on my device (WM5.0), so don't worry about switching between 3.3 and 3.4 TP, which is effectively a restrictive demo product.



Anyway 3.4 TP has some nifty features that will be implemented on the forthcoming NetFront 3.4 commercial release next month. New to 3.4 TP is the PagePilot feature which has a similar function to Symbian S60 3rd Edition's Mini Map, albeit in a very stripped down mode. Basically every time you press any of the vertical D-pad buttons, the browser will zoom out giving you a full view of the website you are visiting. Move the cursor up or down and after a moment or two the browser will zoom back in to the cursor's current position.


PagePilot in action

The rendering quality of Access NetFront 3.3 was never a problem and judging by my informal testing, nothing has change in the way NetFront renders common websites. Even my blog, which template I messed up pretty badly in order to get that damn header up, rendered properly with all its Google and Amazon ads glory. There is a notable significant improvement in terms of performance. With the cache set to the storage card (Sandisk SD), 3.4 TP loaded and rendered my blog site quite a bit faster than 3.3 did.


Navigating GAF's legendary threads on the go made easy

NetFront is an essential purchase for owners of web enabled Windows Mobile device, especially those with VGA devices. The default crap that Microsoft calls Pocket IE doesn't cut it if you even remotely want to go on the web. There are of course other products such as Opera Mobile, I found that it wouldn't allow a full web browsing experience (newer builds maybe better but I haven't tried it yet). Don't even talk about Minimo. Like Firefox, Minimo is a bloated software. However, unlike its desktop cousin, the performance is pathetic and the rendering is near hopeless.


I don't believe him either

Whatever you try, I don't recommend purchasing Netfront 3.3 as Access rarely (if ever, that I know of) allows end users to upgrade on their dot commercial releases. NetFront 3.3 users who don't need the new features would probably want to wait for the next version 3.5. But based on the improvements I have seen on NetFront 3.4 Technical Preview, and the fact that the 3.4 release will support AJAX and embedded document viewer, I think it would be worth the entry fee.

Two more days to go...two more days to go...

Technorati tags: NetFront Windows Mobile Pocket PC