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Shifting Winds at D4RE
April 3rd, 2010 by Eric » No commentsSo, It’s been over 4 months since I first set up d4re.com. It’s come a long way. But, There is one thing I should let my readers know. With this comes the change of what we will be reviewing. You will begin to see a lot less Software, and much more hardware. There will be the occasional review of a piece of software, but overall, D4RE will focus much more on Hardware. I hope you understand.
But, with this negative change comes something positive: I should be able to do a much higher quantity of reviews than before, so you can start checking this site regularly for any electronic that you may need reviewed.
Mitsubishi WD60C9
February 18th, 2010 by Eric » 4 comments
The Mitsubishi WD60C9
The WD60C9 is one heck of a TV. It has great HD, 3 HDMI ports, 3D capability, and is a whopping 60″ big. At a retail price of around $1200, this is a great feature set for a cheaper TV. There are a few things to be aware of, though, before shelling out any money for the WD60C9.
The first is that Mitsubishi support is terrible. I spent 5 hours on the phone with 8 customer service representatives trying to figure out why part of the image on my TV was getting cut off. I never got an answer. Since this issue only happened when hooking up to my computer, I sent a note to Nvdia Support. There they found the TV, did some testing, and told me that it wasn’t what is called overscan, but A frequency issue. Who is at fault? Mistubishi. So for now, I’m using Nvidia’s resize desktop option and I’m running on slightly less than 1080p HD resolution. This is disappointing, because I bought the TV for full HD 3D, and I’m not getting full HD. But, I digress.
» Read more: Mitsubishi WD60C9
The Xbox 360 Arcade
February 13th, 2010 by Eric » 1 comment
Xbox 360 Arcade
The Xbox 36o. What to say? This is an amazing gaming console. I’ve had a few run-ins with Microsoft and the Xbox 360 before, but somehow I felt this experience was different. I feel that with the Jasper chipset (The one in all the new Xbox 260 Arcades) the Redmond based Mega-Corporation may have finally gotten it right.
Let’s start off with the basics.
1st: This version of the Xbox 360 Arcade, the one with the Jasper Chipset, overheats a lot less. I got a good 12 hours in before my first freeze, where I had to restart and everything worked fine again. That’s the only time I’ve had to restart it.
2nd: The new Arcades are very quiet. The disc drives are a significant amount less noisy.
3rd: The new Arcades use quite a bit less power than their older counterparts. Even the external power supply is noticeably smaller.
Nvidia 3D Vision Kit
February 12th, 2010 by Eric » 3 comments
Nvidia 3d Vision Kit
3D is coming. It’s coming fast, whether you like it or not. Nice thing to know if you’re a gamer is, Nvidia has you covered. Not to mention that these are the cheapest wireless 3d shutter glasses (of descent decent quality) that I have found to date.
The Nvidia 3d vision kit comes with everything you need to get your compatible system up and running, but there are a few requirements that even the most powerful systems in the world typically won’t even meet, so read carefully, or you may waste $200, and have hours of frustration.
- First, and Foremost: You need a 120hz monitor or a 3D compatible DLP tv or a 3D projector.
- Second: You need an Nvidia video card that is a 9800 or above.
- Third: You should have at least a Dual-Core Processor or better.
For a full list of requirements, please, look here, and download the system checker to see if your system can run 3D.
Now that I’ve given you a full disclaimer, lets get to the reviewing.
Bioshock 2 (PC)
February 9th, 2010 by Eric » 2 comments
Bioshock 2 Big Daddy
Bioshock 1 was an outstanding game, regardless of whether or not FPS games are your style. Well, Bioshock 2 only adds onto the Expansive story and city that is Rapture. The first thing you’ll notice is the visuals. I thought Rapture was amazing before, but this is just amazing. The second thing you’ll notice is your character. You now play as a big daddy, trying to protect your little sisters from the others, and choosing whether or not to harvest them. A lot of the Plasmids are the same, but to the same effect, a mass amount of Plasmids are new. The most important expansion though, are the guns. Even in the first 30 min of game, you are shown around the same amount of weapons as there were in the entire first game, and the list gets very big very fast.
» Read more: Bioshock 2 (PC)
The Zune Pass
February 9th, 2010 by Eric » No comments
Rating: 4/5
The Zune Pass is a subscription to the zune marketplace that allows you to download millions of songs, and pay a per month subscription, rather than paying per song. If you are someone with over 2000 songs in your itunes library, you’ve probably spent over $2000 getting those songs. Along with that, there is always new music, so you are always downloading more music, which can really add up fast if you pay 99c per song. This is where the Zune Pass is useful. Because it allows unlimited downloads, you can really download all the songs you could ever want, at a flat fee of just $15 per month. The only real problem that I have with the Zune Pass is the extensive DRM. You can’t copy it to an ipod, you can’t open it using windows media player, and if you get banned from Zune, (or Xbox Live) for that matter, you could loose all your songs. However, a person like myself uses only his Zune anyways, so this was not really an issue.
The one question you really need to ask yourself is “Do I download 15 songs or more per month” if the answer is yes, get the zune pass. It could save you heaps of money. If you don’t download more than 15 songs per month, I would advise not getting the Zune Pass. It really comes down to the simple mathematics of it.
The Novint Falcon
February 6th, 2010 by Eric » 2 comments
Novint Falcon Game Controller
Rating: 4/5
This winter we got our hands on the Novint Falcon. It is a gun game controller with force feedback haptic response. In english, it goes “bang” when you shoot it. The Novint Falcon has amazing potential, that is held down by lacking software support by N-Vent and it’s drivers. The forces on the Falcon are amazingly realistic, the control scheme is perfect, and The Falcon is easier to use than any mouse I’ve ever used. But, Novint’s proudest technology doesn’t have a great game library. Unless you’re a die hard source fan, I would wait until it at least supports modern warfare 2 before buying the Falcon, because once that happens, their “High-Support” or “F-Gen HD” title support should pick up very quickly. Other than that, this is an amazing device, with one of the great features of it being a very active community, one where even the Novint CEO (tomnovint) is constantly spotted commenting. This means that if for some reason your Falcon breaks beyond repair, you can immediatly talk to the “Head Honcho” who will issue a refund or send you another one. I have yet to run into any hardware issue with the Falcon, but it’s nice to know I have that safe padding.
It a great device held down by lacking software, thats why it only gets 4 stars out of 5
