I got a big parcel through the post last week. Not having ordered anything, i was kinda curious as to what it was, only to open it up to find… A severed ear!.. Well okay… a plastic severed ear with some earbud headphones wrapped around them. Now, i loath earbud headphones, for the over-riding reason that they never stay in your flippin ears!

However, these headphones (from Coosh), are your standard earbud with the added extra of a soft bit made out of a rubbery type material that wraps around the ear. Extra bits that hook over your ears aren’t a new invention, but all the previous versions i’ve tried do tend to really hurt after a while, but the material the Coosh headphone straps are made from didn’t seem to have that issue.

I have to say, i’m rather impressed. Not only are they extremely comfortable, but they stay in place pretty much whatever you do. I passed them round the office to a few people, and despite some rampant headbanging antics, they weren’t budging. The sound quality is pretty good, and the price is affordable too (starting at $19.99).

Don’t take my word for it about them staying in place, they’ve got a bunch of vids on youtube showing off people breakdancing whilst wearing them!

More info at www.coosh.com

	92%
“Coosh Earphones. Inexpensive, comfy, and actually stay put when you wear them!”

A couple of weeks ago, the nice folk at 3mobilebuzz.com contacted us to see if we’d like to user test the new 3 Skypephone for them. Now, if you’re reading this, you know how much into gadgets and gimmicks we both are, so you can imagine how long it took us to decide to agree! Plus here at Geektown, we have a some what love/hate relationship with Skype on the PC. We love the convenience and sound quality, but hate the fact that it can be a bit flakey, and suddenly decide to stop you hearing the person your calling, or drop the call all together. So, it was going to be interesting to see how the technology faired on a mobile.

What is the 3 Skypephone?

Well… it’s a mobile phone, on the 3 network, and it lets you use Skype from anywhere (the 3 Skypephone does what it says on the tin!)

What’s it look like?

Like this:

It’s 100 x 44 x 13.6 mm and weights 86g, so very nice little lightweight phone.

What’s the Spec?

3G phone, with 2 megapixel camera, MP3 Player, 16Mb internal memory expandable to 1GB by micro SD.

Getting Started

The phones arrived promptly and we got them charged straight away. Once the lil green bar reached maximum charge we were off.

Setting up a Skype account is really easy via the phone. Or you can log in via an exisiting account if you have one. Personally, I’d advise setting up a 2nd account on the phone. Initially I tried using my exisiting account, but if you don’t log out of the PC when you log onto the Skypephone, it really confuses the hell out of Skype. This would result in replies to text messages I’d sent via Skype on the PC only showing on the skypephone, not to the PC. It’s either a seperate account, or log out of the phone everytime you want to use skype on the PC, which is a bit of a pain.

Once that was sorted we made the first call. Sound quality isn’t up to Skype PC quality, but the call quality was better than expectations, and was easily as good as a regular mobile phone call.

What’s it Like to Send a Skype Text (Skype Chat)?

We then discovered the chat facility, now this is good fun! Maintaining an on-going chat is sooo much easier to follow then text after text, if you forget what you are talking about you just scroll up the chat!

However, there’s an odd delay between the phone beeping to say you have a new Skype Chat and it appearing on the screen. It’s like it goes

Skypephone: “Hey, i’ve got a message for you!”

You look at the phone

Skypephone: “Ermm… hang on a min… I wrote it down somewhere…”

Still looking at your phone…

Skypephone: “Oh, one sec… There it is!”

It’s not too much of a problem once your used to it, it’s just a little weird at first.

What’s the Tariff Like?

Pretty decent actually. £49.99 for the phone on pay-as-you-go, and £10 a month topup, or free on contract.

So, What’s Your Final Verdict?

The phone is a nice little gadget, incorporating some clever software. Skype (obviously), plus all usual 3 network 3G functions (ability to watch streaming TV channels, internet access etc…), and the launcher app, with links set up to popular site such as Google and eBay.

The overall design of the phone is lightweight and looks very similar to Nokia type phones, but actually when put side by side next to Daryl’s Nokia N73, it makes the N73 look like a house brick!

There are little niggles, like the Chat system delay but nothing that would stop us buying the phone, and nothing that won’t get ironed out in time.

A really good little gadget.

	80%
“Inexpensive 3G phone with free Skype calls in a nice little package.” More info at www.3skypephone.com

 

Its been 3 weeks since the official launch of NCSofts newest MMO, Tabula Rasa. Working on a completely unique story line around the scattering of the last of humanity across the stars to fight a war. Richard Garriott along with NCSoft has created a very unusual but appealing game.

The main feature most people will know of is the blend between MMO and FPS style combat. You literally aim your weapons at your targets, and squeeze off the rounds you want, rather than go into combat by button mashing certain combos of hotkeys.

The system is far from perfect, but gives you a nice sense of interaction. Sadly, the process can be slightly hampered when a lag spike hits you, and your poor alter-ego can be seen stood in battle-field firing their entire clip with no control like a shell-shocked soldier. Here lies another problem, as of the date of this post, only one European server is online, compared to three American servers. This has caused some disrupt amongst the gamers, mostly language differences, everybody shouting out in their respective languages can make reading General chat very difficult. A hotfix has been applied giving a few language channels, but still, further servers are required.

Ok, lets get the problems outta the way then we can move on to the good. The European server is under a heavy load, and is prone to lag spikes, but, bear in mind, this game only went Live 3 weeks ago, and is still in teething process.

SUMMARY

The story line is compelling, the lands are vast and interesting, with large array of weird and wonderful creatures. Its a very visual game, and with the almost click-combat in use it makes it far more fun to jump at your target firing multiple shotgun rounds! Its a good game, and my experience with NCSoft tells me they will support it well. I wouldn’t be surprised if this game grows in popularity over the coming months.

Watch this game, its gonna be huge!

	90%
“Great sci-fi fun, with room for future improvement”