Douglas

So let me get this straight.... Apple's considers themselves to be able to have the same faults as other cell phones?

Good to know that glistening Apple standard is now down in the muck with every other cell phone out there. What, exactly, is innovative about saying, "Well, they do it too!" when someone points out you have a flaw?

Swan 2.1s. The best computer speakers I've ever used. They are so much clearer and more balanced than Klispch or Logitech, it's not even worth comparing.

For the ~$100 range, the Futuresonic Atrio M5s and the Denon AH-C700s are both solid entries. I recently went to an audio meet in Chicago and compared the similarly priced Denons to the Shure E310s.

It was astonishing. The Shures produced a distant, recessed sound compared to the Denons. The Shures might have a more well-known name for earbuds, but the Denons absolutely blew them out of the water in almost every category.

The Etymonics mentioned are great as well, and in the sub $50 range I would recommend Ultimate Ears Super.Fi 3s.

I was visiting my Alma Mater last night.

I went with some friends to play Bingo, cause... well, it sounded like a modestly boring activity that I could at least nap through.

When we got there, we decided to go bowling instead. Why?


There were 300+ people standing in line.

That's right, to play Bingo.

While at first I thought this demonstrated what a phenomenally boring university I used to attend, my eyes caught on a sign. It said, "Tonight's Grand Prize for Bingo: A Nintendo Wii." Then it started to make sense. Everyone was waiting for a chance at the Wii.

I don't think interest in the Wii is declining yet, at all.

"seriously this kinda stuff is ridiculous, kids are getting more and more disrespectful"

Yes, because it's obvious that it's the fault of the 14 year old that he has no respect. I'm sure he has wonderful loving parents who have taught him well.

But I support the teacher. I hope he's ok, that he doesn't change a thing, and that the school backs him and anyone like him 100%. It's long past the day when teachers should get at least a modicum of control within the legal system back.

Maylon: I apologize. That was out of taste and had no place here. It's just an argument I'm tired of hearing, much like you are with the ring of death.

Vista has been known to have a lot of driver problems for games, mostly because it's a new OS and Microsoft could care less about the gaming population. In a month, you'll probably see the number of problems you have running games decline to almost zero. I'm running XP on this laptop, and the only problem I've ever had is when I tried to download custom drivers that were supposed to ramp up performance, and instead left a lot of ghosting on the screen. I went back to the Nvidia drivers, and have had no problems before or since.

Also, I'm not sure you can make the argument that console gaming is cheaper today. To get the most out of a Ps3/360, you need a console ($400-600), HDMI cables (~$20-40 average), and a high def TV ($400 for a crappy set, $1000+ for a decent one). That tranlates into $820, for the bargain basement stuff, and well over $2000 if you want top of the line gear, much like a PC. Considering you can now run TV connection to a PC monitor, the advantage of consoles are completely gone, unless you've already dropped a load of cash for an HDTV. Most people haven't.

@ Maylon:

One more thing. If you're looking for the best drivers around, check out www.notebookforums.com
It's mainly for laptops, but they have a great community who is willing to help anyone with a problem, as well as suggestions on how to get the most out of that sweet system you just bought.

@ Maylon:

I've never had that problem. Sounds like a poorly coded game. I'm pretty sure I'd rather hunt around online for drivers than watch a huge red ring pop up on my screen though.

And since when does a console complete 10x the operations a PC does? It's the other way around, genius. A PC can do 1000x the number of tasks avaliable to a console. Consoles are dedicated gaming machines, and yet years of development results in less performance than the equivalent PC architecture.

For the record, I'm neither a PC gamer, nor a console gamer. As of now I have a high performance laptop and a Wii. I plan on adding a 360 or Ps3 if I see must-have exclusives, and GoW is the only really awesome title so far, however it's a shooter, and shooters feel limited and pointless without a mouse and keyboard. As fun as GoW is, I have more fun playing BF2 online, but that's my personal opinion.

The point is that PCs can do everything consoles can, and much more. Ps3/360 fanboys talk about how powerful their individual consoles are -- the humorous thing is that they are already fighting for a (distant) 2nd place. Crysis will likely be just the tip of the iceberg, but it will show just how dominant PCs are in the techincal department. Note that it doesn't mean Crysis will actually be a good game -- the simple fact is that if you want to talk about horsepower, nothing, NOTHING compares to a PC. Let's see, up to 2 Gigs of (expandable!) Video RAM vs. 512? Yeah, no contest.

@49

I'm speaking strictly of video ram, not system ram. The former, until the release of Vista, is not used by an operating system and therefore is completely independent of the actual computer.

It has been well documented that two Nvidia 8800s are already much faster than a Ps3. And this is now, when the Ps3 hasn't even been out for half a year. While it is obvious that the 8800s cost more than a Ps3, future iterations of the chipset (9800, 10800) will be around the same price (or cheaper for the downclocked versions) as a Ps3 and likely offer performance that is simply unmatched, especially when Dx10 is added to the equation.

Looks like developers are already pushing the limits of what "nex-gen" systems can do.

It's humorous that these systems that have been bandied about as being top of the line for the next 10 years have the same amount of dedicated video RAM... As my laptop. That I purchased prior to the PS3 launch. Which runs Oblivion just wickedly awesome.

There are already laptops with 1 GB of vid ram. This gen might be the one that truly humbles the consoles.

Don't get me wrong, I love Wii, and I'm planning to pick up a 360 or Ps3, depending on who gets the exclusives. But whoever thinks the "graphics race" will continue past another 6 months is not aware of how powerful the latest Nvidia chipset is.