Archive for February 1st, 2008

Nokia 7900 Prism

posted by admin
Feb 1


When Nokia first dropped the 7500 Prism last year, us gadget hounds were cooing at its nifty style, neat looking keys and the, er, interchangeable coloured centre.

Alas, initial excitement subsided and once we had a play, found the keypad a bit of a pain and its style the wrong side of niche. Now though, Nok is back for seconds, offering up the slinky 7900 Prism.

This time around, we're talking a far more sturdy bod', with cheap plastic being eschewed for a more metallic vibe. This means that while it's slimmer, it weighs a ton and you'll certainly notice the heft when you shove it in your jeans pocket.

The keypad has improved this time round, with the raised buttons of the 7500 being given the heave for a more flush to the body design. Still, they're shaped like triangles, are tiny and caused our podgy digits no end of pain when we tried to fire off a few missives to AQA during the local pub quiz.

On board, you're looking at a pretty standard Nokia cell. There's an average 2-meg snapper, which just doesn't cut it these days, 3G and 1GB of internal memory for stashing your tunes. Screen-wise, we're talking a lovely OLED viewer, something which is quickly becoming the norm.

The music player is fair enough, but with Nokia's Music Store shackled to the high end N Series, we couldn't get the Boston or Foreigner tracks we were after when we were on the go.

Being a so-called fashion phone, the wallpapers have been specially created by creative designer Frédérique Daubal. Their 'laser-etched' style does look pretty neat, but we'd rather have a picture of our mutt or missus staring back at us to be honest.

The 7900 Prism is a more than passable fashion phone, that'll draw plenty of envious glances from trendy types down the pub. Still, if you want a cell with a bit of grunt, we'd look elsewhere.


Feb 1


Trawling the CES show last month, we happened across a rather juicy piece of gadget gossip.

According to a particularly well-informed insider, it seems that the Big S is prepping an all new PlayStation 3. The new incarnation is supposedly slimmer, lighter weight, and sexy as hell.

It's not as if Sony haven't got a history of making things slimmer and, er, lighter: The PSP shed a lot of its weight last summer, the original PlayStation ended up as the minuscule PSOne, and the PlayStation 2 re-incarnated as the PSTwo, which was an all-round sexier piece of kit to boot. Roll on PSThree?

Specs-wise, we're probably looking at the same machine with stacks of space and the trusty Blu-Ray player on board. The new PS3 is a proper looker: if it's anything like the illustration our team of designers have come up with, then we're looking at one hell of a sexy piece of kit.

We wouldn't be at all shocked if the much-touted 160GB PS3 is in fact this slimmed down puppy.

Sony has peddled their usual line of 'not commenting on rumours and speculation', but that is exactly what they said before they dropped the size zero edition of the PSP.

For now, that's all we have. But rest assured we'll be pounding the phones and keeping our ears pricked for any news as soon as we get it.

Like the pictures we've got here? Then you'll love the ones we've got in T3 magazine. This little beastie looks a hell of a lot better in full, glorious, glossy high-definition print than on a pesky computer screen!

For more pics and info, check out the March issue of T3, on sale February 7th!


The Club (PS3)

posted by admin
Feb 1


The first rule of Fight Club is that you don't talk about Fight Club, the second rule of Fight Club is that you don't talk about Fight Club..." The third rule was probably that you couldn't use AK47's, but The Club, a first person shooter which echoes the David Fincher's film ignores that one.

Not an overly complex game, you just fire this up and start shooting. The better you get, the more arenas you unlock. You can play as any one of eight heavily armoured low lifes, each with their own motivations and strengths.

With a plethora of single-and multi-player modes to choose from, this is fast paced and well-animated manna for the gun happy.


Microsoft in for Yahoo

posted by admin
Feb 1


Microsoft is lining up a hostile takeover of internet giant Yahoo, in a move worth a mind-boggling $44.6 billion.

The offer is a massive 62% above Yahoo's closing share price yesterday. Their shares have been tumbling in recent months and this could represent a major breakthrough for the ailing company.

The deal is aimed at stifling Google's domination of the web and offering punters a decent choice when it comes to search, mail and myriad net services.

Analysts, however, say that Microsoft is offering too much and that Google still holds all the cards when it comes to the worldwide web. Some are even calling it a desperate move by the Big M to impose themselves on the net.

Microsoft tried to buy Yahoo a year ago, but they resisted. Now it seems likely that they will buckle.

If the deal does go through, Microsoft would inherit Yahoo Mail and Flickr. Whether punters, not to mention competition commissions in the EU and US, would be happy with the deal remains to be seen.


Feb 1


Nokia's been threatening to unload its iPhone competition on an unsuspecting public for some time now. And it looks as if the wait is almost over.

The blogosphere is ripe with talk this morning about plans for the Finns to show off Symbian's S60 Touch software at the World Mobile Congress in a couple of weeks.

Up until now, any close ups of the touchscreen interface that Nok hopes will knock the iPhone off its perch have been fleeting.

But now, they're set to show off a stack of features, including full web browsing, using the OS to get together social networks and how to fart around with settings such as themes and wallpapers.

All this points in the direction of a new handset packing the tech being unveiled in Barcelona. Could it be the very phone that our mates at NokNok caught a glimpse of at the end of last year?

We'll be on the frontline at WMC, bringing you all the news as it happens, so be sure to keep it here at T3.com.