ComputerDumb.com

Wired Reviews Category

The jury is still out on Windows 7 tablets — and, at this point, it looks like it may never come in — but with the Series 7 Slate, Samsung at least gives this difficult niche the old college try.

Our last encounter with a Windows tablet dates back to March’s Viewsonic ViewPad 10, which disastrously attempted to combine Windows and Android in one device, dramatically failing at both. Here, Samsung is at least wise enough to pick … [Read More...]

Space heaters have always struck me as inherently — how shall I put it? — low-echelon devices. They seem best suited to college dorm rooms, along with Simpsons VHS tapes and a Costco-sized box of ramen noodles. Relying on one is maybe one small step above warming your cold-water flat with the gas oven.

In other words, the thought of a “Cadillac of space heaters” seems a bit of an oxymoron.

But the Dyson of space heaters?

Having tackled vacuum cleaners, hand dryers and artificial summer breezes, Dyson is once again taking a mundane home appliance to task.

Meet the … [Read More...]

It really is the Sony Way. Take a product that’s been around for a while, soup it up, throw in every possible feature imaginable, and make it smaller and lighter than everyone else’s machine.

Then double the price.

Such is the state of Sony’s entry into the suddenly white-hot ultrabook space, a market experiencing a full-scale pile-on as a half dozen competitors all attempt to outdo the nearly three-year-old Apple MacBook Air.

If anyone’s going to best Apple at its own game, it’s probably going to be Sony, and for one reason: If you’re looking at sheer specs, Sony has … [Read More...]

Extra dimensions don’t come cheap. If you’ve dreamed of a Sam Worthington-shaped avatar running through your living room, you know that 3-D projectors — the few that are available — have price tags in the $3,000-and-up range. (You also know that Avatar has yet to see a public 3-D Blu-ray release, but that’s another story.)

Optoma’s HD33 brings 1080p 3-D home for a 2-D price. At $1,500, it costs less than many 3-D-ready TVs, which, incidentally, can’t produce images as large as 300 inches. That’s 25 feet, in case you’re math-challenged. Eat it, local Cineplex!

Actually, don’t shred your concession-stand … [Read More...]

Let’s cut to the chase here. If you’re pondering buying the Acer Aspire S3, it’s because you desperately want an Apple MacBook Air but are too freaking cheap to pony up the $1,300 (minimum) for the 13-inch model.

The Aspire S3 is a glorious knock-off of the Air — stripped down to the basics and slashed to just $900. Is a 30 percent price cut a compelling enough reason to buy it over its inspiration? That’s debatable, but it’s at least worth a look.

The tale of the tape tells the story the best: The Acer Aspire S3 is almost … [Read More...]

The battle over the mainstream tablet market all but over, smart competitors are turning to a familiar tactic to attempt to compete with the iPad juggernaut: Slashing prices.

Bargain tablets are set to hit the market in droves — expect CES 2012 to be flooded with the things — as manufacturers race to hit that magic price point that drives so many consumer electronics devices, $200.

Velocity Micro — a brand better known for its ultra-pricey, high-end gaming rigs — is getting there. Its first tablet product, the 7-inch Cruz T301, was met with general disdain, and VM went back … [Read More...]

Inventing excuses after losing, dying, or in general just playing like crap is a time-honored tradition among gamers. We’ve heard them all — teammates who don’t pull their own weight, cheaters, tons of lag, screen glare, and worst of all, faulty or unresponsive controllers.

So here’s the bad news: Razer’s Onza TE will make covering up your ineptitude with hardware-based justifications even less tenable. But don’t panic. The good news is you might not have to make as many.

At just $10 more than Microsoft’s standard-issue wired controllers (and the same price as the wireless versions), the Onza TE is … [Read More...]

As an artist, I’ve always wanted some sort of one-to-one input when working in Photoshop or zBrush. I’ve used several of the traditional input tablets, but I’ve never been fully satisfied. I still ended up drawing on paper and scanning the results. It’s just more natural.

Input tablets have been constantly improving in the decades they’ve been around. But the technology remains imperfect. The pressure-sensitive pad sits on the desk, separate from the screen, which takes away some of that natural feel you get from drawing with a pen, especially when trying to add tiny details to your work.

So … [Read More...]

From its humble beginnings as the Netflix box to its current status as one of the pre-eminent media streamers, Roku has come a long way in just two years. And while the new Roku 2 XS doesn’t really move things forward much, it does just enough to retain that title.

If you’re keeping track, the XS usurps the XDS as the new king of the new series, with the XD and HD following in its path. I’ll just go ahead and say it at the outset: Ff you already own a previous gen, 1080p-capable Roku, this is probably not the … [Read More...]

My head started hurting after the first hour of using Mac OS X Lion. Two words: inverted scrolling.

That’s correct — Lion’s default scrolling behavior is to scroll down when you swipe up on your multitouch mouse, and to scroll up when you swipe down, just like you would on an iPad.

This modification in scrolling clearly illustrates Apple’s ambition with Mac OS X Lion, which was to make the Mac operating system more like the mega-popular iOS software powering not just … [Read More...]

The best home theaters are the ones that make you scoff at the very notion of going to an actual theater.

The key ingredient: a pro-grade projector, something that bathes the dark end of your living room in such jaw-dropping color and clarity, you’ll routinely find neighbors at your door holding popcorn and candy.

The M-Vision Cine 230 is among the few projectors to accomplish that without the need for a second mortgage. Digital Vision’s big, homely black box relies on a single chip, so it costs significantly less than most 3-chip models. But you’d never know that from the … [Read More...]

Mothers, lock up your gamers. The PlayStation phone has arrived.

And while it’s a bit on the chubby side, we think that, for Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play, big is beautiful.

You could almost call the Xperia Play the shorter, fatter cousin to the svelte Xperia Arc, which Sony Ericsson once described as the “world’s thinnest smartphone.” At .62 inches, the Play looks positively bulky compared to its Xperia-line relatives — a veritable Jan Brady to the Arc’s Marcia.

But Sony Ericsson had to … [Read More...]

There’s a really famous road — maybe you know it. It’s paved with good intentions. And by now you should know all too well where it leads.

It must have been aggravating for ViewSonic — which has made Windows-based tablet PCs since 2001 — to see its market destroyed by the Apple iPad in 2010. So the company did what it (and everyone else has) had to do: embrace Android.

The result is the ViewSonic ViewPad 10, a 10-inch, dual-booting Windows-Android tablet with a lot of heart and lofty goals, and an utter disaster on nearly every front.

To be … [Read More...]

It’s safe to say there are few companies paying as close attention to the sound, construction and design of the lowly clock radio as Tivoli Audio.

Co-founded over a decade ago by hi-fi–audio veterans Henry Kloss and Tom DeVesto, the company quickly built a reputation for making beautiful-looking and great-sounding radios with stark retro styling. Tivoli systems have big tuning knobs, analog clock faces and come in handsome wooden boxes.

The company is celebrating its 10th anniversary with the release of another well-designed table top system, the Model 10. Like other Tivoli radios, there’s a base unit that runs by … [Read More...]

Undeniably attractive and super skinny, Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Arc is ready for a career as a runway model.

This fashionable specimen measures a mere 0.46 inches thick at its thinnest point, the middle of the concave arc that runs vertically down the back of the phone. It manages to make my iPhone 3GS look almost obese in comparison.

Slimness is a virtue in devices, as it reduces that embarrassing Visible Phone Line in your pocket. But premium phones usually have a bit of heft to them, and in that respect, the Xperia Arc feels a little too thin. Flimsy, even. … [Read More...]

The Veer is ridiculously small. Almost Zoolander ridiculously small.

When you first grip the thing in your hand and try out the keyboard, you think, “Oh man, this is never going to work.” But after a few initial typos, it’s actually not that bad at all.

At 3.25 inches long, the Veer is tiny, stealthy and unassuming. It’s so small, it’ll even fit in the coin pocket of your jeans. The back of the black model has a rubberized texture that keeps your brain from mistaking it for a large, smooth pebble.

The 2.6-inch touchscreen is minuscule compared to giant … [Read More...]