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Ok so I got this: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4213561

In the mail earlier this week and have had what I think is enough time with it to do a mini. The 4 games I got were Oblivion, Burnout Revenge or Revolution I forgot which, Fight Night 3 and DOA 4. Right off the bat I am going to say that not only does Fight Night 3 look f-ing AWESOME, it’s a blast to play if you take the time to learn the fight controls. Kelly and I beat the sh*t out of each other the first night for like 2 hours, she knocked me out twice and I only knocked her down once… I’m not a man aparently.

I went online the next day and fought a few people, that was awesome.
I have the headset so talking with them was fun and screaming profanities into their faces.

Overall the Operating System on the 360 is tight, it’s really smooth, good looking and all that stuff. I would say at first glance… like first 5min type glance it is information overload… but you learn how each section is laid out in like 1min and then you understand it.

XBox live is cool but the actual online play per game doesn’t seem iron clad. I had to reattempt connections to Fight Nights servers twice before getting in… it can also be really confusing. Lots of controls and you don’t realize that pressing the on/off button on the controller gets you back to the “Dashboard” at first.

I also installed Windows Media Connect on my PC so I could share over pictures and music, that’s tight but movies don’t share, I guess the fags want you to have a goddamn media center PC or some sh*t, oh well.

One thing I don’t like about the XBox OS is this whole concept of “sign in”… there are like 3 different kinds of sign in and I have no goddamn clue what they mean. You “sign in” when you turn on your controller, and that’s a separate name from the sign in you use when you login to Live, and then there is of course another type of sign in for each game, or preference loading… basically it means you can’t just turn the thing on and smash buttons until you are playing… there is this new level of “accounting” that you have to care about all the sudden. While I’m not fond of it, I don’t know of a way around it now that these console systems offer online play and accounts and sh*t.

Controls are easier to learn then I thought they were. Obvlivion is requiring the steepest learning curve right now, and I wish there was a gamma setting for dark dungeon scenes cause my TV isn’t HD, but that’s minor. The game rocks.

The console performs well, but you can hear it when it’s on. If you are used to fanless systems like Dream Casts, Nintendos and stuff like that, this will seem “strangely computeresque” to you. Is it loud? No way, but white noise doesn’t bother me. My computer tower is like 5x as loud as this. It just sounds like a little small form factor computer with a single PSU fan in it or something… it’s probably just as loud as a Shuttle. I don’t know HOW loud it can get though, some folks said it can get insanely loud, but then again microsoft will fix that I think under warrenty.

Over all, if you look at the package I got, I think the experience of all the hardware is worth about $400. So the package I got was $750, but that included a lot. So subtract $200 for the games, that gives you $550. So I think the bundle (minus the games, sinc eyou can get GameFly) is about $150 overpriced. This is comming from someone that likes games, plays casually and values money. If you are looking for something totally mind blowing and revolutionary to make you sit up and say “F*CK!”, wait for the revolution. If you are looking for your computer games on a controlled and integrated platform that is easy to use and sort of computery, get an XBox or a PS3.

After having this for a while, I *would* most likely not buy it myself if this hadn’t been a gift… if I could have gotten this entire pack plus the games for $400 I would have thought about it and probably gotten it, but really it’s just a computer with nice looking computer games when you boil it all down.

I’d give it a 9/10. If I missed anything ask away.

Whew… I’ve been putting writing this off for a long time on purpose. A lot of you expected this mini days after I got the MBP, but I have to admit, having never used Mac before I had no goddamn clue what was going on so I didn’t WANT to write a mini. It would be things like “Where the sh*t is the Start menu LOLZ PONIES!!!111″

I will say the laptop has some quirks to work out. It gets f-ing hot, like “goddamn I’m going to put this on something other than my lap” hot. The batter life sucks, in Battery Saver mode, it’s barely 3hrs, more like 2hrs 45mins and in Performance mode is like 1hr 45mins which is useless in my opinion. The battery life is just short enough that I don’t really feel mobile, I always need to be near a plug. This isn’t the laptop’s fault and I’m hoping that fuel-cell batteries later this year correct this issue and get me atleast 6hrs, that would be awesome.

I would point out when you plug this thing in and it’s running in performance mode, it flies. The HD is pretty smoking fast. Also there are issues with sleep mode and shutting down that I can’t figure out. Sometimes opening the laptop doesn’t bring it out of sleep mode, and on a few occasions banging around on the laptop didn’t help either. Also shutting it down and closing the thing while it’s shutting down seems to halt it into sleep mode instead of finishing the shut down sequence… this is weird. Now the BIGGEST complaint is that f-ing open office runs under X11 on Mac and has no native port for Mactels (NeoOffice doesn’t run on Mactel). The sucky part about running in X11 is like that it looks like the old school retarded Open Office interface, running inside of a shell and shares no common clipboard (copy paste). It’s basically like running OpenOffice inside of a VMWare window if you want a comparison and I refuse to buy MS Office for this thing. I’ll just wait until Open Office or NeoOffice stop sucking on Mac. Hell, even Gimp looks native with GTK, just use the goddamn GTK version or something (I’m yelling that at the Open Office developers, not you guys)

Now all that aside, everything except the heat can probably be fixed by software upgrades so I’m just keeping my fingers crossed.

Ok so OS X is slick. Is it the greatest thing ever and I’m so productive now that I could kill a family of 3? No, it’s just another operating system to get work done on.

I will say this, I DO NOT use ANY of the super slick Mac software that makes the Macs so popular. iTunes, i(Whatever), Garage Band, etc. I do email, browse web and program on this thing so I’m missing out on like 80% of the Mac experience. I will say what little I have used of the Mac software (Front row, iDVD, etc.) it is truely f-ing sweet. Let’s put it this way, if I used ALL this software and was a big blogger, had tons of music and watched tons of movies, this review would look a lot like:
“OMFG SO F-ING NICE!”
but since I don’t, and I basically use this thing like a vanilla laptop, my review is more “This is a totally smooth/stable experience but nothing is leaping out at me”. SO try and figure out what kind of user you are.

I would say that now with bootcamp, there isn’t much incentive to NOT get one, except you might wait for next year when Apple does a refresh on the new Conroe (or Murano or whatever they are calling the laptop part) which will be probably like 33-40% faster than these Core Duos, although I’m quick happy with the speed of the laptop. I wouldn’t compare it to other laptops, but most likely to my desktop… that’s a good sign.

The monitor is great. I am not Robert Heron so I don’t know the details of it, but if you like your Dell 2405’s quality, it’s probably like that or any other nice LCD. It does 1440×960 or something like that.

I do have to say working with OS X and having everything set and updated real time (like video settings, net settings, etc.) is pretty tight. It really is a nice OS. Safari is missing some features that Firefox has that annoy me, but I don’t want to use Firefox and Thuderbird on Mac, I want the full Mac experience. At first Mail’s threading annoyed me (with the coloring) but then I loaded it up once and was able to immediately tell what threads were read and which were not… so I came around and liked it. This has been happening with other mac things as well.

This whole drag-and-drop install business is slick. Finding free software to do stuff with on Mac is hard. While you can run most linux stuff, I avoid it (after the Open Office fiasco). Really unless it’s written FOR mac, or is atleast Mac aware (like a Java app that has been tested on Mac), my guess is it sort of sucks. Matt sent me a huge list of tools to install for Mac, I barely understand what is there already so I didn’t install any of them yet but for you more experienced users out there, this might make the Mac boners for you.

Spotlight is slick. I sort of miss my Start > All Programs menu, but really if all I hit is Apple-Space, then type what I want and hit enter… I guess I don’t need a menu to navigate.

Two things that really annoy me because I suck is a) there is no easy shortcut to maximize a window and the green plus doesn’t fill the screen on all apps, like Safari. It’s smarter than me so it maximizes the screen based on the current page (just enough to show as much vert and not show a horz scroll bar), which is super not-helpful since I don’t stay on the same website the entire time I browse the web. Also Safari always opens it’s download window when it downloads anything and won’t close it after it’s done. Clutter rocks.

Mac automatically understood my USB key drive (FAT) and my new Windows partition I installed with bootcamp (NTFS), that’s cool.

Adium is a good browser, but something feels incomplete about it. I wanted to just use iChat and stay all “pure” but it only supports Google and Yahoo or AIM or something, and I read somewhere that each account creates a separate contact window which is not helpful. I really wish all these IM clients could converge.

Java runs great on it and looks good as well. Oh yea and for some reason Mac wireless is like super-charged, I really get awesome transfer speeds on the wireless connection anywhere in the house and pretty readily keep a strong connected signal with my router.

Oh wait, something I do need to give props to is installing anything or upgrading anything on the mac. It’s such a smooth process. Like installing bootcamp required a Firmware upgrade. That was totally easy. Same goes for Bootcamp. Good description of OS X: It does everything with class, from setting mouse tracking speed to updating the OS. It’s all automated and easy to do, no interference or fuck ups.

So I would give the MBP a 7.5/10. It would be an 8.2/10 if it didn’t get so hot and it would be a 9.2/10 if the battery lastest atleast 4-4.5 hours. It’s really hard to give this a score because really all it boils down to is that it’s a nice laptop. It’s made out of great hardware, looks good and has a nice feel… so what am I rating? OS X? I know nothing about it and barely use it. Should I rate Windows on it? That doesn’t make sense… so I guess this whole review is like a “Retarded man’s view of a Mac”. I really need to reiterate, If you are the type to make use of all the iApplications on the Mac, you should go buy one right goddamn now. They really are as slick as they sound and look in the keynote speeches. If you are like me and just use the laptop as a tool I really can’t say if this is better for you or maybe a Thinkpad with the extended 7-cell battery.

P.S.> In reference to my track-pad issue on Windows being “floaty”, it’s actually just floaty when going towards the edges of the pad, the cursor likes to float left to right, maybe it’s because it’s an extra-wide track pad? Dunno.

Ask any questions you have, I’ll try and be more detailed.

-Riyad

It seems there has been a huge lack of minis on the nerds list in the last 6 months… I refuse to believe we aren’t buying stuff, so here goes.

Kelly has had a 98 Dodge Neon since time began. She got it in college and we’ve run it into the ground. The car was still running fine but it was an issue of “I swear, one of these days, it’s going to just die and cost a lot of money to fix up again” type of situations. So we went to Showcase Honda in Phoenix (great service, good buying experience and a price we were comfortable paying).

Right off the bat I’m going to say, if you are a person who thinks of cars as “Boxes with wheels that get you from point A to point B” and want SUV-like functionality but think it is perverse to drive a Yukon or some “huge american SUV” then the CRV is going to be one of the best fits for you on the market.

If you are a slut (like me) that likes leather, bells and whistles, and the whole “manly” image, the CRV is not for you (you can only even get leather in the Special Edition).

• It’s got the Element’s more powerful 156hp engine which really gives some surprising get up and go when you floor it
• I think the interior will be snug for larger people or people (like
• me) that like big roomie interiors of most huge american cars
• The controls are well laid out and make sense
• Visual appeal of the car externally was 0 for me previously, but has grown on me quite a bit since. Nice simple styling.
• Functional car, the back seats not only fold forward, but also unlatch in the back and roll up against the backs of the front seats to give even more room.
• The rear area of the car (where you expect to find the spare) lifts up to reveal a handy container area. The top of this portion is actually a little square picnick table you can take out and use which was cute.
• Lots of door pockets and rear seat pockets for maps, bathing suits and stuff of that nature.
• Seating 4 people is a good roomy fit. Seating 5 works but it will feel the same as seating 5 in a Toyota Camry or Honda Accord.
• Since the CRV is built on the accord platform, the ride is smooth.
• Suspension is nice and not floaty and the tramission is like butter.
• Hard to feel the shift points.
• While the CRV isn’t intended to be towing trailers around, it is equipped (with D3-mode) to handle some towing if you need to. Like a small popup camper or trailer.
• Gas mileage is pretty good for a 156hp SFF SUV (25mpg).
• As with all Hondas, the organization under the hood is awesome.
• Everything is easy to get to and roomy (for such a small car).
• Build quality is excellent, doors close solidly with a nice tight feel.
• Rear window is dual-mode. You can open the glass or the whole door
• Car comes with these nice full-floor mats, not just little mats that go under your feet, but actually cover the full floor.

Overall I’d give it a 8.2/10 right now. It would be a 9/10 if it had leather interior and a 10/10 if it was just a hair roomier in the front knee area. When you are driving you don’t notice it, just getting in and out. You can put he seat farther back to make more room, but I think where I have the seat now is a good fit while driving. If you were 6ft or taller you might find this a tight fit, probably the same as finding any other small car a tight fit and would opt for the Pilot (assuming you were a Honda man).

If I forgot anything, let me know!

-Riyad

So look forward to some awesome mini-reviews soon!