SlashGear’s October Review
As October draws to a close and we edge towards the eight week countdown to Christmas, it’s time for another SlashGear Month in Review. And let’s face it, if you haven’t got a few additions to your letter to Santa from the past 30 days or so, what the golden trouser inflation have you been doing?
Next-gen consoles are likely to top the Christmas wish-list for a lot of people, and it’s the PS3 that has been making most of the headlines this month. Sony unveiled thePS3 retail displays, got somehardware unitsinto reviewers' hands, sawGameStop pre-orderssell out and revealed thelaunch game line-up, oh, and courted controversy with theSIXAXIS controllerthatdoesn’t have rumblebutvery easily could do, and still had time topound importers-favourite Lik-Sanginto the ground with a very costly lawsuit. Good of them, eh? Sadly all that coverage didn’t help them winSlashGear’s console survey; our readers would still rather buy a Nintendo Wii!
Microsoft has been coming under some pressure this month too, with theWiFi wireless in its ZuneDAP going under the microscope and turning out to be flawed. Their big browser update, Internet Explorer 7, had some competition withFirefox 2.0 being launchedjust a few days later; still the IE7 team sent Mozilla a lovely cake! In drool-worthy hardware news, Microsofties had to distract themselves by thinking of Vista while Apple flaunted theirnew MacBook Pro range, the Cupertino company also causing interest with yet anotherpotential iPod interface patent.
Smartphone addicts have had some new hardware to consider, with thePalm Treo 680 being announced(and subsequentlypicked up by Cingular) as well as theT-Mobile Dash(which was the subject of some juicyunboxing photos). Personally, though, I think our exclusivevideo demo of the Synaptics Onyxwas most interesting, and I can’t wait to find out exactly which lucky manufacturer has commissioned them.
On the subject of concepts,HP’s crystal-ball gazinggot picked up all over the internet, while Optimus – they of the LCD-key keyboard – released something that, frankly, looked like a concept, thekeyboard-cum-display Upravalator.
Biggest money of the month has to go to Google – or, more accurately, from Google to YouTube’s founders – in a$1.65bn acquisitionthat left blogosphere opinion divided between “of course” and “but why?”
Finally, October saw the addition ofBob Blandto our writing team, whosereview of the Nokia E62certainly caught your attention. Welcome aboard, Bob!
Roll on November!
