After waiting for months and hoping the format wars would end, I decided to take the plunge and buy a Toshiba HD-D3 DVD player. I was taken in by the hype that the format wars would continue for a long time and that the stalemate would go on and on. I should have gone with the gut instincts that were telling me that the Toshiba price cuts were a last ditch attempt by them to lure customers. Eventually, content was going to rule the format wars. And in our world today, most DVD content is from the movie studios. Toshiba was always going to be outmaneuvered by Sony in that department. I can only say that I now have a decent “upconverting” DVD player, since the HD-DVD movies are going to dry up pretty soon. It looks like Universal and Paramount are still talking about “holding on”. Come on, for how long?  We know these movie companies are going to move on to Blu-ray.

Bottom line: Not every Sony format dies. So what if Beta, MD and UMD died? Blu-ray’s won. Time to buy some real cheap HD-DVD movies (if there are any halfway decent ones out) and enjoy them for a while. I’ll be looking for that Transformers disc to see all the great effects it supposedly has, thanks to the HTGuys podcast (scroll down the page to read the features list).

1. Western Digital 1 terabyte MyBook drive
2. Toshiba HD-D3 HD-DVD player
3. Plantronics BlueTooth set
4. Sony Ericsson W580i cell phone – Mine’s the same, except for the black color

I am going to review these devices over the next few days as I use them. Unfortunately, I forgot to do the whole “unbox” thing a la Engadget! Oh well, none of these gizmos was particularly well-packed so I guess a straight, simple performance and looks review is all that I can do.

Part of the problem with Microsoft is they seem to have taken the usual Windows route in their mobile OS as well – pack in lots of features with software of fairly average quality – and hope to improve the “user experience” as they get feedback and improve over releases. The Q, with service provided by Sprint, tends to fail me at the most inopportune moments. I have had issues of “phone freeze”, very slow response times, and the lack of features in the phone such as Copy and Paste. On the other hand, the voice recognition feature is quite good although the text-to-voice translation produces unintelligible sounds. Some program, like Google Maps, work very poorly. Now I realize the blame probably lies with Google for designing such a poor user interface, but somehow I also feel that they are constrained by the design of the hardware and the operating system.

All in all, I ‘m quite satisfied with the performance. I just wish the screen size were bigger and I had fewer menu options to choose from to accomplish things. And please, for heaven’s sake, give me a Copy and Paste feature. I so miss it!

Ok, now the fun begins. I came back home from work one September evening and my son told me “Dad, the Xbox is not working”. So I took a look at the 3 red lights and realized this was starting all over again. This time I called Microsoft and got to the point straightaway. No waiting to follow diagnostic steps, no irritating Alex or whatever that “voice guy” is called (is he a relative of Clippy??). I even told the lady on the phone politely but firmly that I had already followed all the troubleshooting steps, that I knew exactly what the problem was and that I guessed I had to send it back to them for repairs/replacement. To her credit, she quickly realized that I probably knew something about this problem and told me they would be sending me a box. But here’s the kicker! She then proudly told me Microsoft would be giving me a whole free month of XBox Live subscription, no kidding! Now isn’t that great, considering the fact that I am already a subscriber? When I politely informed her that Microsoft’s kindness did not help and that I needed to be compensated in other ways, she was at a loss. So I knew where that one was going. To cut a long story short, I decided to ask for the instructions to send the console for “repairs”.

Update

I got my Xbox back a couple of days ago. Microsoft’s letter accompanying the console states that in the interest of letting me enjoy the experience of playing games quicker, they have sent me a replacement console with a different serial number. And, of course, I get one month’s free subscription to Xbox Live!!

I was hoping I would at least get the new version of the Xbox 360 with HDMI but no, that didn’t happen. I’d read in a blog (written by a prominent blogger) that he managed to get an upgraded console after his repair incident. No luck with mine. I’m going to start screaming now because this is the second time my console packed up. I don’t even know what kind of hardware/firmware is in my “new” console. Or which poor soul is going to get my previous console after its been “fixed”.

Conclusions

So what kind of a product is the Xbox 360? It certainly provides a great user experience for game playing. It is also a great console for watching movies and images. And I have to confess I usually go for the underdog (Numero Duo) when it comes to purchasing products. My motto is the old Avis one – we try harder. I bought the original console when the PS2 was king. I bought a Sony PSP although the Nintendo DS seems to be the king of the pile. I selected Sirius satellite radio over XM at a time when Sirius was clearly number two. I went for Dish Network over Direct TV although in this case Dish was clearly ahead on its HD programming at the time I subscribed to their service. But this “numero duo” story should be rested for another rant. Let me get back to the Xbox 360 story.

When giant corporations like Microsoft create products, sometimes things do go wrong. However, the Xbox 360 seems to have problems unlike most other pieces of hardware. I’ve owned a Toshiba TV for the last 7 years and it has never broken down. NEVER. I’ve owned a Dell desktop PC since 2000 and that thing has never broken down. EVER. How come the Xbox 360 seems to have these problems? And Microsoft’s way of soothing my feelings is to provide me free repairs and 1 month of free Xbox Live? This after I told them I already have a Xbox Live subscription. I’m going to have to write/talk to Microsoft to see what they have to say. But hey, when they don’t directly answer questions from folks at PC World, what can I expect? Not even a PR response, I bet! I’ll save my fingers till after I’ve tried to speak to Xbox 360 support. And that’s after I’ve gone past Alex.

1. At the time of its launch, it was one of the few that had built-in WiFi
2. It allows for browsing the web using it’s (rather clunky) web browser
3. The PSP lets you play Flash games and watch Flash videos
4. You can subscribe to podcasts through the RSS feature of the PSP
5. The display is gorgeous despite being a smudge magnet
6. The USB interface enables an industry-standard ready to be exploited

Now to some of the features that are not all that alluring:

1. That terrible UMD disk – DOA is the word (or is that a phrase??)
2. Poorly designed controls for gaming – leads to finger and hand fatigue within a matter of a few minutes
3. Sony’s constant “upgrades” to the operating system that prevents or hampers the creation of third-party applications
4. Lack of a podcatcher software – Sony’s basic assumption that everyone has an always-on, always-available WiFi connection is highly suspect at best, and ludicrous at worst
5. The “Sony crawl” with respect to add-ons to the PSP – where is the GPS, the camera (yes, yes, I know we’ve all heard that these are “available”; that’s Sony speak for we will get it to you when we desire)
6. The horribly difficult virtual keyboard that one uses with the browser, for instance

Ok, let me not get carried away. I think the PSP is a versatile device that needs a few things to make it a serious competitor in many ways to the iPod, the iPhone, and several other similar devices. Let’s hear what you have to say.

My 5 year-old son is hooked on several E-rated games on the original Xbox console. For unknown reasons, Microsoft never came out with backward compatible versions for most, if not all, of these games. My read on this is that the selection process for these games was probably based on some survey of Xbox Live or general sales volumes of titles. Most of these games are rated either Teen or Mature, probably reflecting the highest demographic of game players. But Microsoft tends to forget that children probably form the second largest demographic.

My original Xbox console recently gave up the ghost and stopped working. After long conversations with Microsoft I was told that if I would have to pay upto $175 to get it repaired. My intention was to get the Xbox repaired so my son could play his old games that would not work on our new Xbox 360. He loves many of the new games on the 360 including Marbles, Bejeweled and even Uno! But he still yearned for his old favorites like Tak Attack, Scooby Doo, and others. I finally found that my local Microcenter store sold used Xbox consoles for between $100 and $120. There were no warranties and I took a risk and bought one for about $115. Now there is a happy youngster and a somewhat apprehensive dad, waiting for the console to pack up.

And now, of course, we hear that Microsoft is going to yank whatever little is left of this backward compatibility humbug. I read some of the comments on the Gizmodo article about how much worse Sony is. I could be hardly bothered because the only Sony gaming device I have is a PSP. All I can say is that after investing in nearly 40 games I will not have any options in case my second Xbox console dies on me.

Update on October 4, 2009

I finally got myself an iPhone 3GS a few months back. I do take back my comments about it not being “business user” friendly. I think Apple has done a great job with the Exchange integration and so many other features that make this device so great. I still miss multi-tasking and am hoping Apple does bring it out in the next release or two.

I had to replace my Palm Treo 600 but needed to stick with my Cingular service. Don’t ask me why, I HAD to!. I could have gone to a normal Cingular store (as in company-owned store) but decided to try a Cingular dealer only because they were closer to my office.

The store layout was an excellent example of utilizing a lot of space to show nothing much. After all, most cell phone stores in the USA belong to one cell phone company or another. Even if one were to create a superstore a la the big box retailers such as Walmart, Best Buy, Circuit City the whole thing would probably fit within a 30′x30′ area. Meanwhile, the place was manned by just two persons, one of whom appeared to be significantly more knowledgeable and customer-oriented than the other. This person, who it turned out, was a visiting regional sales manager for the chain of dealer stores, and I spent a considerable amount of time doing something relatively trivial. I needed to pull out my phone number from its existing plan that belonged to my company and switch it to my personal pre-existing Cingular account. That process, including the time it took for me to get the regional managers undivided attention took 2 hours. I kid you not. However, this blog entry is not about my travails regarding switching my service but about the Sony Ericsson phone. I finally got around to seeing the various phones that were available. I decided on the W810i only because 1) I liked the camera resolution (3.1 megapixels) and 2) It had a Memory Stick Pro Duo slot. I have a Sony PSP and had recently purchased a 2 GB stick so I had a spare 1 GB Memory Stick to use.

But what about the price you ask? Well, it cost me a cool $220 bucks. Very expensive, particularly since this was not even the latest Walkman phone. But of course, one does not harbor such ambitions when one lives in the US. Those are best left for people in Europe or Asia. Maybe even Africa but I am not sure.

Anyhow, coming to the phone itself. Let’s start with the camera. It works fine in daylight but is terrible under artificial lights. The camera does not have a built-in flash, only a bright LED light. This is not sufficient for taking decent pictures unless you ensure that the subjects of your pictures remain very still and really bring them up close to whatever artificial indoor lighting there is available. I took some pictures of my son while we were visiting with relatives in Florida this Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, I decided to take the pictures inside a dimly lit restaurant. The pictures were anything but good.

As for the phone, I am slowly getting around to learning about the various keys and shortcuts. I wish they had built a bigger screen although I like the resolution. As for the keyboard, that really is one of the problems with this sort of phone. It tries to keep it within the structure of a general telephone for alphanumeric dialing. But what it ends up doing is make life miserable for SMS, emails and web browsing, particularly entering web addresses.

What I like the most is the Walkman feature. With my 1 gig memory stick inside (it comes with a paltry 16 MB memory stick) I use it as my primary podcast player. These days I drive 90 minutes each way to and from work. I have it hooked up to an FM transmitter that plugs in to my car’s 12V input. Makes for a great audio player. But Sony has messed up big time on the software I use to transfer files to and from the camera. Transfers take place in slow motion and I really need to give myself plenty of time if I have to upload new podcasts in the morning. It is very irritating to have to wait for 20 minutes to get my 4 hours worth of MP3 podcasts. I have to find a way to either improve the speed or get the podcasts to automatically load onto my memory card overnight, a la the iPod.

The sound recording feature is quite neat as are some of the built-in applications for music creation. The DJ is a good application and I played with it to create my own unique ringtone from a combination of built-in rythms and sounds.

I still have not used some of the other multimedia features of the device yet. Using them under my current data plan would not be the smartest thing to do. Hopefully I will be able to provide an update once I get a new plan from Cingular.