Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Gamertell’s Pulkit Chandna is reporting that Alienware has again pushed the envelope, producing one of the most powerful notebooks known to us Homo sapiens. The Area 51 m17x notebook is Alienware’s newest addition to its lineup and it surely will make its owner the subject of very pleasant geeky envy.

At its heart is an Intel Core 2 Extreme processor with a 4 MB L2 cache. Combine this with the 800 MHz front side bus and 4GB ofDDR2 RAM and one can already sense a winner.

Read [Gamertell]

Sony has long been claiming that all its consoles have a 10-year life cycle. Its claims of console longevity seemed inflated at first, but once you take into account the life cycles of its past consoles, those claims hold some merit. In North America the PSP reached its third anniversary on March 24, 2008, and if John Koller, senior marketing manager for the PSP, is to be believed then even the handheld is supposed to have a 10-year life cycle.

Read more [Gamertell]

Apple has conned over a million people to watch its video on last weeks SDK announcement.Ok, maybe “cons” is a bit harsh.  Apples video was up after most of us had already written about it and spilled the beans on what the video held.  But that didn’t stop the 1 million plus see Steve and Co. talk about the SDK for themselves.  Judging from the numbers, the iPhone is still gaining fans.  Check out this graph of what Apple is holding up as excitement for the SDK:

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Let’s face it, most cellphones are now marketed with strange and wonderful features (making calls is barely even mentioned anymore), and the Fly MC100 is no exception. While you may have thought the games on cellphones have not advanced recently, this handset will prove you wrong. It is like no other because it can emulate the old-school consoles to run NES, SNES, Game Boy, and Game Boy Color games. Now Mario, Sonic, Streetfighter, Tetris and Pokemon can be loaded onto the same device that offers you a QVGA display, Yamaha audio chipset, multimedia player, email, 2-megapixel camera, microSD expansion and an FM radio.

Okay I’m not 100% sure whether the emulation of Nintendo games is exactly legal or going to cause copyright infringements but there’s no doubting that the phone looks very charming. It retails for around $270.

Product [Fly-Phone] Via [Mobile Mag]

Much like cartoons, most gadgets and videogames are really not meant for kids. Let your toddler play Grand Theft Auto for a while or mess with your iPod and you’ll probably not be too happy with the results.

As a safer and more education alternative, LeapFrog Enterprises has been selling the Leaspter educational gaming system for about four years in retail stores across the US. This Summer (2008), LeapFrog will update the Leapster with web connectivity and also release a new handheld, web-enabled system called Didj.

The web element for both systems will be LeapFrog’s upcoming Learning Path where parents will be able to log in to track their children’s progress in each educational area.

Read [Gamertell]

Sonys CES site has got the rumors up and running with mention of “a Skype client for the handheld console” which translated could mean Skype on your PSP.

With the UK about to see a partnership between BT and Sony regarding VoIP it would sort of make sense for the US to follow suite, and lets face it VoIP is one of the key trends we have already predicted for 2008.

Via [Pocket Lint]

This new PMP made by Gemei, is called the United States X900 and comes with a few cool features that are sure to come in handy wherever you are and whatever you are doing. As you can tell from the picture, you can see a gaming like design. At first glance, it looks more like a gaming controller rather than some sort of PMP. The gaming interface, is just one of the few cool features of this PMP.

Let’s begin with the PMP aspect of the United States X900. It comes with a nice 4.3-inch touch screen, and plays AVI, MPEG4, MP3, WMA, and FLAC. Now, regarding the gaming aspect, the cool thing here is that the game pad is attachable, so if you don’t need it for something, you can easily detach it. It uses an ADI chip, which should allow for NES and SFC gaming. Furthermore, it can even act as a GPS if you add on the GPS receiver. So far, with its audio and video capabilities, gaming, and GPS, it is sure to keep you entertained and keep you from getting lost. Lastly, it comes with an FM tuner, an e-book reader, and it can use SD cards for up to 4GB of memory. Unfortunately, no word on pricing or availability as of yet.

Via [PMP Today]

It was just last week that we heard that N-Gage would be launching on the N81 and before it even went live, it was delayed yet again. According to Nokia they delay was caused by “unexpected difficulties.” While its refreshing to see them hold off until the release is going to be right for the customers, its hard to see it being pushed back, hopefully the delay will not be very long.

A new release date was not given, but it was made clear that they will not be able to release the N-Gage First Access before the holidays. The issue that caused this delay was discovered after an internal testing period, no word on just what the trouble was, however they did mention that the games and service were “working smoothly.”

Read [N-Gage Blog]

Nokia will be launching N-Gage beginning next week. Initially the service will be available for the Nokia N81 or N81 8GB, however this will be a limited pre-release version and users will have access to “one or more N-Gage games.”

In addition to the access, Nokia will also launch a “First Access” forum that will allow users to give feedback and make suggestions to help improve the N-Gage service. While its still not a full release, the N-Gage service was announced a while back and its launch has been delayed a few times already, so it is nice to see it available, even in a limited way.

Read [N-Gage Blog]

The Nintendo DS Platform has a number of great games out and just in time for the holidays!  By the end of the year, there will have been more than 400 games released for the DS, which can make shopping for the DS a little difficult.  If you are shopping for a DS gamer and need some suggestions on what to purchase, here are some of the top games you might want to consider!

Some of the classic games, which are those that were released as far back as November 2004 (when the DS was launched) but still offer loads of entertainment for those who might have missed getting any of them, include NEW Super Mario Bros., Pokemon: Diamond Version and Animal Crossing Wild World.

Here are some options for DS games that are targeted specifically for children who own the DS.  These include Chibbi Robo: Park Patrol, Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck (featuring Daffy Duck), and the adventure game Touch Detective 2 ½.

Meanwhile, when shopping for individuals that are specifically interested in adventure or role playing games, gift-buyers might want to consider Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, Luminous Arc or Rune Factory.  Some of the most likely RPG games to drawn gamers in, each of these has a different and separate type of RPG world to display.

And since DS games are not just appreciated by younger audiences, Dementium: The Ward, Ultimate Mortal Kombat and LifeSigns: Surgical Unit are some great options for mature players who are interested in adventure, fighting or simulation games, respectively.

For some more in depth information regarding the games mentioned above check out our sister site Gamertell.