iPhone Dilemma

As some of you may know, the new iPhone 3GS has been announced, and due for release on the 19th of June 2009.

Currently I have a 32Gb iPhone Touch 2G and a Nokia E90 running JoikuSpot so I have an internet connection wherever I go, however this does mean carrying 2 devices around with me.

So I’ve been eagerly awaiting the new iPhone announcement as it’s been rumoured for months now.

The new hardware specs are for the 3GS are

Improved performance
3-megapixel autofocus camera
Video recording
Voice Control
Digital compass
Cut, Copy & Paste
MMS
Spotlight Search
Landscape keyboard
Voice Memos

Compared to the below for the 3G

2-megapixel camera
Cut, Copy & Paste
MMS
Spotlight Search
Landscape keyboard
Voice Memos

Now I’m happy that I feel I need one in my life, to minimise the amount of hardware I carry, however below are the pro’s and cons

Pro’s

New Shiny iPhone
Contestant Internet connection
Only have to carry the 1 device
The E90 is quite an ugly phone

Con’s

£180 to pay off my existing contract
Another £187 for the iPhone on an 18 month contract.
No 3G signal in my home on O2 (but I would have wi-fi, so wouldn’t really matter)
Would loose my Vodafone Stop the Clock
Would have to pay for tethering which I currently get free with JoikuSpot
Would have a redundant iPod Touch

There is another dilemma, currently the iPhone is exclusive to O2, however I’ve read many rumours, and even been told by a guy at Vodafone this morning that O2 loose exclusivity of the iPhone this month, so expects them to be on all networks within the next couple of month, which if correct, I’ll stick with Vodafone. However, the clock is ticking, and in 10 days I could be holding in my hand an iPhone….

Although the Cons do seem worse than the Pros, it is a shiny new device, and over the past 6 month I’ve come to love the iPod Touch, and couldn’t imagine life without it, so I’m assuming having this in phone form would just be perfect.

Tags: 2g, 3gs, amp, camera, Con, connection, Copy, digital compass, dilemma, exclusivity, hardware, hardware specs, internet, internet connection, iphone, ipod, ipod touch, JoikuSpot, keyboard, Landscape, megapixel, Memos, MMS, month, new hardware, nokia e90, o2, Paste, recording voice, rumours, search, Spotlight, touch, video recording, vodafone, voice, voice control, voice memos

You’re In The Movies

Well, after drinking a few beers last night, we decided we were ready to play “You’re In The Movies”. The game fires up, and you have some little actionman type dude running you through how to get the best from the game, camera positioning, lighting, etc etc……….then load screen.

We then selected a new movie (“Everyone’s a Superhero” I believe). It than ran us through all the lighting and postioning setting again, took a snapshot of the room without us, and then asked up to come back…..we had become ghosts….
Dependant on where we stood we either got 1/2 a head, or no legs, or I’d shed a few pound as one of my sides had disappeared….
So before we continues, I went back to the main menu, turned on more lights as my assumption was the contrast on the shadows was making parts of us disappear.

Ran through the configeration again, we were still ghosts, with no legs…ran through all the settings but to no avail, so we though, meh…we’ll do it anyway.

The games seemed to consist of running, a lot of running !, not the kinda thing you want to do with a belly full of beer, however in a crazy catch 22 situation, this was the only way you would want to play this game, after a few beers.

We ran through the “virtually run”, “virtually hold weights”, etc, etc. We did however have one major problem, C is 5″ smaller that I, so we ended up putting coins on the floor to mark where we needed to stand to have optimal recognition, but before each “challenge”, we seemed to have to move quite alot to get within the outline, then the camera still failed to correctly pick up movements.

Once we’d endured all the tests, we sat feeling a tad sick (from the beer inside us being shook up so much) to watch the finished production. It seemed to last 30 seconds…….5 mins of jumping about and painful loading times for this ?!?, it did as it says in the title, we were in the movies, well a 30 second click on the Xbox

Foolishly thinking that as it was the first level, and in most games the first level is always a tad lame, we did the 2nd one, again after reconfiguring we still had no legs, still much running, still poor recognition, after about 5 mins, we sat to watch the 2nd vid, and again about 30 secs of….well movie I guess. The thing is, with there only being 2 of us playing, and the game designed for 4, half of the time was using pre-rendered footage for the other 2 “players”, so we got even less screentime.

All I can say is, with is painful loadtime, and poor recognition, I’m glad I didn’t just buy game only (£25 on play.com), otherwise I think I would have been gutted !

I think the only way this would have worked well is with a green screen behind me, and me in a red jump suite, with my face painted red in a kinda Hellboy Stylee.

If I was to be really generous, I would give this a 4/10, as it’s Microsofts answer to the eyetoy, on the upside, I no longer have to buy a webcam for my Vista machine.

Tags: 360, actionman, Add new tag, assumption, avail, beer, beers, camera, catch 22, coins, Dude, everyone, finished production, game, game camera, games, ghosts, kinda, legs, level, lighting, load, loading times, movie, movies, night, positioning, problem c, Ran, recognition, screen, snapshot, superhero, tad, thing, type, way, weights, xbox

I have issues..I think

Well today I had Tony Hawks project 8 turn up in the post…the worrying thing is, I couldn’t remember ordering it !

Anyway, checked the invoice, and sure enough I’d ordered it from Amazon, from one of their Fleabay style used sections. So cool I thought, I’ll play on that today.

When to town this morning to have my haircut, once done did the regulation “Call in at Game, and Gamestation” to check out the titles, and ended up buying You’re in the Movies, (you know the one with the webcam), so looks like I’m playing that tonight instead, however I have just checked on Gamespot, and it gets a massive 4.5 /10 …Can’t Wait !!

However if you take into consideration that the games was £40 and the cam is £35 then it’s not too bad, kinda like buying Wii Play….there is no way you would have paid £30 for the game only.

Tags: 360, amazon, cam, camera, consideration, ebay, Fleabay, game, games, Gamespot, gamestation, haircut, hawks, invoice, morning, movies, post, project, regulation, style, thing, today, tonight, tony, Tony Hawks, tony hawks project 8, town, webcam, wii, worrying thing, xbox