Nintendo has announced a 3D successor to the Nintendo DS line of handheld gaming devices, tentatively called the Nintendo 3DS. According to claims by Nintendo, the video game console will feature “3D Effects” that can be enjoyed “without the need of any special glasses”.

Nintendo 3DS

Since technology for such a feature is not yet available, it can be safely assumed that Nintendo is sitting on a golden egg, one that will keep the other portable gaming consoles lagging even further behind. Further information about the Nintendo 3DS will be revealed by the company at the E3 event this year, which starts June 15th in Los Angeles. The new Nintendo 3DS will also be backward compatible with the Nintendo DS and Nintendo DSi

Creative has had its signature X-Fi technology in the sound blaster series of speakers and sound cards. Now it has decided to move this to it’s range of PMPs, with the Creative Zen X-Fi being one of them. We received the and we see here if it lives up to its name.

The X-Fi has a silver faux metallic back plate. The from of this PMP is piano black with the 2.5 inch screen towards the left, while all other controls are on the right side of the device. The Power and the Lock sliders are located on the back, the top is where you find the microphone and the SD Card slot.

Creative Zen X-Fi

Many PMPs don’t come with the memory expansion slots; but, since this one has only 8GB capacity, the expansion slot is a good idea. One side has the microUSB port and 3.5mm jack and next to that is a small LED light which acts as a battery indicator and along the same side is a reset button. This PMP is also comes with an inbuilt speaker which is located at the bottom.

The button on this device are somewhat unusual and unlike other PMPs, the X-Fi comes with nine buttons, an Options button and a Shortcut button. The later can be customized to give you quick access to a particular menu of your choice. There are additional features and menus that have been added to this player.

The Creative EP-830 earphones are good to use as they fin in the ear, thereby reducing the the level of external noise that is heard. While listening to our test tracks, with the supplied earphone we found that this PMP will be enjoyed by bass lovers as its heavy on the lows; the mids are fine, but the highs need to be cleaner.

Movies need to be converted by the software provided. The viewing angles for the left, right, bottom are great, but the top angle is bad. If you tilt the player towards you, then the appearance of the screen washes out.

Overall, priced at $249, we feel the X-Fi is a good PMP for audio, although the screen is still too tiny to enjoy videos on it, it will do for occasional viewing.

What is the future of gaming? Can it evolve to an extent that it suppress the use of a keyboard or mouse? These are the questions that the OCZ NIA that we have with us can answer. NIA is the acronym for Neutral Impulse Actuator and is a device with advance technology that claims to read your brainwaves and helps you improve your gameplay.

The NIA is a band that you put on your head with three diamond shaped sensors on the front that come in contact to your forehead. This head band is attached to the NIA Box that reads and interprets your brain activity which in tern is connected to the PC via a USB cable. The NIA also detects muscle movements such as clenching your teeth or raising an eyebrow, or even your glance. Alpha brain signals are associated to images and what you watch while beta brain signals kick in when you start to think logically.

OCZ NIA

The NIA does allow you to control your character’s movement within a game, such as Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament, without using the keyboard or mouse. However, it has its limitation as the technology is fairly new. Instead, OCZ encourages the use of NIA along with your keyboard and mouse to help increase your reaction time within the game that you play.

The software provided with the NIA is where you calibarate the device to your needs. The calibaration section is mainly for muscle movements and is done by starting at a gyroscope displayed on the screen. The BrainFingers is the section where you can view your alpha and beat signals and your glance activity. You will also be required to tweak your key presses in accordance with the different features of the NIA. You could set the movement of your character through glance, firing your weapon with the muscle movement and may be even reload the weapon through the alpha and beta signals. Again, these settings will need to be worked on till you get the right combination. To test your settings, you can try out a simple game of Pong which comes along with the software.

Even after calibrating the NIA, do not expect immediate results as you will need to completely change the way you play before you see results. If you are an average gamer and just like to play for fun, this pricey ($109.00) this really not be your cup of tea.

Zebronics has come up with an MP3 solution for wire free music as the Air gear MP3 player is the headset itself.

The Zebronice Air gear is worn behind the neck.These headphones look like Bluetooth headphones, and in fact,are the MP3 player itself.There is no device that needs to be plugged in to play music.The only time you need to connect the headphones to a wire is for charging or transferring music through the mini USB port located on the earphone.All the controls are located on the right earphone.The power on/off and the play and pause buttons are all combined into one button,whereas the volume controls and the next/previous buttons are also combined into two buttons.This is not very easy to use and takes a while to get used to.We faced a frequent problem between switching songs and controlling the volume.

It is very delicate as the plastic neck band that holds the whole device together looks very likely to break if not handled with care.This device will not survive a trip in your bag, if you intend to travel a crowded train or bus during peak hours.

There is no management in transferring music, as you can directly drag and drop the songs you want into the removable disk folder. there is no shuffle or repeat feature available with this player, which means you have to be very selective of the songs you want to listen to, or it will be a cumbersome task to look for that one particular song you feel like hearing.

Priced at $49, it’s not the best of MP3 players. If the neck band was sturdier with a slight improvement in the sound quality, we would recommend it to users who don’t like wires, or to those who like listening to music while they exercise. So until an improved version of this wire free MP3 player comes out, we wouldn’t suggest you buy it.

One of the key attraction of this month had to be the Nikon D90, which is also the costliest camera we’ve tested so far. Nikon has brought in the D90 to replace the trusted D80. The D80 was one of the best upper entry level to mid range cameras from Nikon. The D90 then has a lot to prove before it can earn its place.

Going through the D90′s key features, it certainly looks impressive. The D90 utilises a 12.3 Megapixel CMOS sensor going up from the D80′s 10.2 Megapixel CCD sensor. The sensor size remains unchanged. Most entry level cameras are supplied with an 18mm to 55mm lens which can be quite limiting to the kinds of photos you can take. We received the camera with a Nikkor DX 18 to 105mm VR zoom lens. This makes a good all purpose kit for wide angle and telescopic shooting.

Nikon D90 Front View

The shape and size of D90 is somewhat larger then the D60 and also the D80 itself. The body is made with plastic, but feels extremely sturdy and the buttons are great as expected on any Nikon DSLR.

The D90 now comes with a 3 inch screen that is incredibly vibrant and crisp. The other thing that makes the camera interesting inclusion of Live View that allows you to use the LCD screen to focus. This is a feature rarely found on DSLRs.

The D90 is undoubtedly one of the easiest cameras to operate, if you have that a basic knowledge of using a decent point-and-shoot camera. All the functions of the camera such as ISO, White Balance, Exposure Metering and Focusing Modes can be accessed by holding down the respective buttons and rotating the jog dial. Shutter speed and aperture size have dedicated dials.

Its very difficult to criticize the D90 on quality as well. The 12.3 MP CMOS sensor does its job well. Photos turn out crisp across the entire aperture range. The lens isn’t made for marco photography, so, you will have difficulty with up-close shots. Mind you, great close ups can be shot by moving back and zooming into the target. Good depth of field can be achieved easily too. The flash is powerful and good enough for indoor photography every now and then.

Nikon D90 Back View

Nikon D90 Top View

The auto mode works well along with the auto focus feature. Focusing is instantaneous and there is no delay whatsoever. There are a few auto focus hiccups every now and then, but nothing that can’t be fixed using the other auto focusing bracket modes. As expected from any DSLR, the manual mode gives you total control of the camera. You won’t be disappointed with the D90, if you like to select a scenario preset either, a dial for doing that is present.

Another new feature hardly ever seen on DSLRs is video recording, The D90 can capture up to 1280×720 resolution videos at 24 FPS. What makes it even more special is that you can zoom and focus manually while shooting videos. The video quality is great and the frame rate is quite stable but you will need to buy a fast SD/SDHC card for it.

We’d be lying if we said that weren’t impressed with the D90. It’s filled with surprizes. The camera is incredibly simple to use, it has the performance, the features and is undoubtedly miles ahead of the D80 in every aspect. Nikon has yet another winner on its hands and we highly recommend this if you have a serious interest in photography and also the money. The D90 along with its lens is priced at a whopping $1500. The body by itself can be bought for $1200. This makes the D90 almost as costly as the D300. It makes better sense if you spend more and go for the D300 instead.

Nikon’s lens are known to be cheaper than some other brands, so buying just a body then a good lens can also be a good move. If you don’t need the Live View or the video recording or even the small changes Nikon has made, then other older D80 is a better buy, especially with its more wallet friendly price.

The Canon Digital IXUS 80 IS is a camera very similar to the slightly superior IXUS 85 IS. It brings along a decently built design for people on the move. There aren’t too many settings and controls to play around with on this camera. It is made for users who want a camera that’s really compact to carry around – like a mobile phone of short.

One of the first issues is the battery door: as is the case with the IXUS 85 IS, the battery door here too feels weak and flimsy. Most of the interface design as well as the frame design is identical. The big change is in the Megapixel rating – the 80 IS is a 8 MP camera.

Canon Digital IXUS 80 IS

All the other Canon cameras in this price bracket run on AA batteries, but the IXUS 80 IS has a Lithium-ion battery. This, coupled with its compact design makes it a lot lighter than the rest. However, the shrunken size means its no longer chunky enough to hold in your hand as easily as the Powershot Series cameras.

Its overall performance isn’t bad at all. In just plain image and video quality tests, it lags behinds all the canon cameras, but not the others. Macro shots aren’t as easy to take as with the SX100 IS or the A720 IS. In video quality, once again, colors are a little too prominent, but the exposure meter helps changes the intensity of light instantly, and there’s not a lot of lag in lightning correction while moving from bright areas to dimmer ones. Overall, it’s a very good camera if you aren’t particular about pristine quality and manual controls.

The Canon PowerShot A720 IS is an upgrade to the A710 IS, which was a very good point-and-shoot camera-one of the best that we saw during our comparison test lest year. The most prominent change in the A720 IS, is it’s resolution. It is now an 8 Megapixel camera as posed to the 7.1 MP A710. The picture quality has stayed pretty much the some too. The ISO level on this camera goes up to 1600. The A710 IS had a maximum of 800. The amount of grain beyond 800 is pretty bad and should be avoided as fer as possible. The zoom lens is decent and theres no serious degradation of quality at maximum zoom.

The colors- as with all other Canons-are vary neutral and not exaggerated. The images aren’t too high on contrast so there’s a smooth balance between the dark and the bright areas. This makes for some good portrait photography. The flash is pretty powerful too and the slow sync mode works rather well in illuminating the background in shots with the flash on Macro shots are fairly easy to shoot and it’s possible to get extremely close to the object. The A720 IS now has a face detection feature , which works well and tracks people through darker areas as well.
The movie quality is decent and actually usable in low light situations . there are no sudden jumps in exposure while moving from bright areas to dark ones. Image stabilization evens out the bumps and the zoom works well, although a little aggressively, in the movie shooting mode. The A720 IS, is incrementally superior to the A710 IS. The problem with the A720 IS, is not so much to do with the camera itself, but with the other cameras even from canon itself in the same price bracket. The SX100 is more or available for the same price in the market and comes with a 10X optical zoom. If any, the A720 IS’s only advantage is that of being a little more compact then the SX100 IS.

With touchscreen devices getting cheaper and making their way into every possible gadget, cameras aren’t being left out. Now, it’s Kodak’s turn. The EasyShare V1073 is an 11MP camera with a 3x optical zoom. It is thin enough to fit into a shirt pocket easily, but that also make it a little difficult to hold with a single hand. The touchscreen also makes it difficult to use the camera with just one hand. The power and shoot buttons are positioned close to each other. The 3-inch screen doesn’t have great quality-it is pretty difficult to use outdoors even with the brightness turned up high.

The quality of photos isn’t too different from its predecessors. The colours in the photos are pretty natural but the sharpness will likely be a little too much for most people,s liking. There is image stabilization, but images still end up a little blurry in well-lit scenarios. There is vary little control given to the user, so there is not a lot you can experiment with. One of the key features is the HD 720p video recording resolution. A typical 25 second clip is 43 MB in size. The quality of the video clips is pretty impressive. The touch screen makes a few other features easily accessible. For example, you can actually type in a tag for every single photo that you shoot using an on-screen keyboard. The high definition video recording is a feature that will interest many.
The price of $300 is a fairly attractive price for a camera with these unique features.

Altec Lansing inMotion iM600 is an iPod dock that doubles as a radio and speaker for your PC or any other MP3 player. The dock itself is stylish and compact, and is a small rectangular block but can be unfolded on a table. All the iPod models can be docked, including latest ipod touch. You can charge your iPod or synchronize your music as well.

There are controls for volume adjustment at the base of dock and the track switching buttons on the top. The volume control buttons are hard and tacky, whereas the smaller track controlling buttons are very soft and tiny. There dose not seem to be any button for pausing or stopping tracks. Other then that, the dock is simple to use and comes with an inbuilt display on the front, which shows the source of track and volume control. There’s also a compact little remote control, like those found on many of there desktop speakers sets.

The iM600 has good music quality, but it lacks bass in the tracks due to its flat design. It loud though, and there is little or distortion with the volume set to maximum. The SFX button doesn’t really do a whole lot other then making the sound slightly better. The dock comes with an auxiliary connector, which means you can connect any other ipod MP3 player to it, or even your computer for that matter. You also can use it an FM radio, and the antenna comes well tucked in to the back of the dock. One of the biggest plus points of this product is the inbuilt chargeable Liion battery that charges itself when powered on. This dock is then mobile but docking an ipod in a moving vehicle might not be good idea-the base plug could damage itself or the ipod connector from the vibrations.
The Altec Lansing iM600 is priced at $190. It’s a tad costlier then we’d like it to be, but the functionality, flexibility and performance that it offers is hard to come by in such a product, especially in the iPod’s Accessories market.

The XPS 420 is the top of the line Dell desktop model for the International market. Cramped with features, the XPS 420 is a multimedia powerhouse aimed at gamers,enthusiasts,etc.
This new model features a new completely revised chassis.Finished in shiny black plastics,the front panel is a smudge magnet and attracts much dust as well.The side panels finished in brushed aluminum with a big xps logo scream for attention.One unique thing about the xps 420 is the presence of small LCD screen on the top(Windows Sideshow) an extension of vista sidebar. This small LCD can be used for showing small tidbits of information via the sidebar gadgets. New gadgets can be downloaded from Microsoft’s Web site.
The base configuration consists of Intel quad core q6600,2GB of DDR II 667 MHz,250 GB hard drive and 8600 GTS graphics card. These components are powerful enough to ensure a high-end rig experience, though we think the 8600 GTS is aging and expect dell to replace it soon with the newer 9600GT card.
The 20-inch LCD monitor comes bundled with the system is breathtaking.The screen is glossy and reproduces crisp images.Movies are fun on this monitor,so is editing photographs and the sheer space on offer will allow you to open two word pages side by side.The LCD also has an embedded 2Mp Web camera,which can be used for chatting,taking photographs and capturing video.The capture quality is good and colors are faithfully reproduced.
There is also an MPEG 2 transcoder with front mounted AV ports,wich can be used for importing video from camcorders and encoding it to Divx.The accompanying software,however.is not user friendly and requires lot of patience to learn.additionally, there is the 19-in-one memory card reader with Bluetooth 2.0 module,wireless (Bluetooth) keyboard and mouse and a Hauppauge TV tuner card with remote.Miscellaneous items include micro fibre cloth for wiping the LCD,soft and hard mouse pads and a folder with the necessary manual and CDs all perfectly packed in the box.
The cabinet can be opened without any tools.All it requires is pulling a singal latch to release the side panel.On the inside,everything is neatly packed.Since Dell has opted for the BTX form factor,the system requires just one fan to cool itself.The cables and wiring are tied down and routed optimally without affecting the air flow.The single 120-mm fan is placed right after the huge CPU cooler and throws out hot air from the front of the cabinet. Throughout our testing process the system remained cool and quiet.Though the cabinet is tall and the internals are neatly organized,there is not much space for future upgrade;just two hard drive slots thats what you get here.
On the software front,Dell has bundled in Adobes Elements studio package consisting of the lite version of Photoshop Elements, premier Elements and SoundBooth Cs3. The typical Dell in house software is present and they provide complete control over every aspect of this beautiful machine.
The XPS 420 performs admirably in all aspects,thanks largely to the powerful hardware thats under the hood.The Q6600 simply chewed through the test we put it through and has enough grunt to trans code home videos on the fly. Though the 8600 GTS ran through the entire graphics test delivering playable frame rate,we think its best to upgrade to a higher card. Dell offers 8800GT in lieu of the 8600GTS and if you pocket permits you should upgrade for better gaming experience.Overall,the system performance is more than satisfactory is more than satisfactory,despite vista running on the system,it was responsive with hardly any lag.
Priced at $ 1750,we fell the XPS 420 is overpriced considering the weak graphics subsystem. However, it is very difficult to recreate the overall look and fell that the XPS420 has-the beautiful case,neatly packed interiors,stupendous hardware and the tiny LCD screen on the cabinet!If you have money to blow and appreciate style,then the XPS 420 fits the bill.

Specifications:
Intel core 2 Quad Q6600,2 GB DDR II, 250 GB, Media Xcelerator,8600 GTS, 20-inch LCD screen with 2 MP cam and Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.