Top 10 PC Games

1Portal 2

A must buy, must play experience that will keep you smiling for up to a week later.

2Deux Ex: Human Revolution

Deus Ex: Human Revolution's overall experience is quite simply an A+.

3Dead Space 2

Dead Space 2 is genuinely scary, filled to the brim with content, and has tight gameplay mechanics.

4Dirt 3

Codemasters took Dirt 2, a nigh perfect rally-based racing simulator, and made it better.

5The Witcher 2

One of the best RPGs out there, The Witcher 2 brings great graphics to the engaging story and world.

6FIFA 12

FIFA 12 is a worthy successor to FIFA 10, with realistic graphics and gameplay, and more.

7Dead Island 2

Surprisingly good, Dead Island 2 combines the best of zombie apocalypse games.

8Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition

SSFIV:AE is currently the best looking, most complete and nuanced fighting game for the PC today.

9Limbo

If video games were art, then Limbo would be in the Louvre. Limbo is fun, scary and engrossing.

10Crysis 2

One of the best looking FPS games this year, Crysis 2 also has a solid plot and mechanics.

Asus to launch first Jelly Bean tablet, Key Lime Pie to be Android 6.0?

Comments by Asus’ corporate vice president, Benson Lin, indicate that the Taiwanese company, because of its close relationship with Google, will be one of the first manufacturers to offer devices with Android 5.0 Jelly Bean update.

Speaking to TechRadar, Lin said: "Asus is very close to Google, so once they have Android 5.0 I think there will be a high possibility that we will be the first wave to offer the Jelly Bean update."

Apart from offering an update, speculation has it that Asus will launch the platform lead device forAndroid 5.0 Jelly Bean – a 7-inch, $200, Google Nexus Tablet, according to a Digitimes report. If you remember, the Transformer Prime was initially going to share that distinction, but ultimately, did not ship with Ice Cream Sandwich out-of-the-box, or the Nexus moniker accompanying it.

Jelly Bean will apparently also be optimized for multi-OS environments, capable of being simply loaded onto say, a Windows 8 tablet.

In the meanwhile, even as Ice Cream Sandwich is rolling out, and Jelly Bean is being spoken of, rumours of Android 6.0 being called ‘Key Lime Pie’ are now doing the rounds. The name follows alphabetically, and could actually be what the next version will be called. Google has yet to officially confirm the rumours however.

Asus also recently announced that its Eee Pad Transformer series will be rebranded as Transformer Pads, with the Transformer Prime now being called the Asus Transformer Pad 300. At the same time, it announced a new Transformer tablet, the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity, which bears much the same specifications as the original Transformer Prime, but instead, features a  10-inch full HD (1920x1200) Super IPS+ display, with a 224 pixel per inch density.

However, the Wi-Fi only version of the Transformer Pad Infinity is the only one to offer the quad-core Tegra chipset, clocked at 1.6GHz, while the 3G and 4G versions will come with a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 Krait processor. The Transformer Prime's Tegra 3 processor was clocked at 1.3GHz. Asus will also offer a 16GB version of the Transformer 

Motorola Atrix 2 now available in India for Rs. 22,990

The Motorola Atrix 2 (successor to the Motorola Atrix) wowed us at CES 2011 and is available for preorder in India at Rs. 22,990 today.

The device has a 4.3-inch qHD display with a resolution of 540x960, a 1GHz dual core cortex A9 processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB internal storage expandable up to 32GB via MicroSD card, 8MP rear shooter, a front facing camera and runs on Google’s Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS with the MotoBlur interface added to it.

The Motorola Atrix 2 is competitively priced and takes on the HTC Desire HD (Rs. 19,000 approx.),HTC Radar (Rs. 23,990 approx.), Samsung Galaxy R (Rs. 20,000 approx.), and LG Optimus 2X (Rs. 19,000 approx.).

Like its predecessor, the Atrix 2 is also compatible with the Motorola Lapdock 100. The Lapdock essentially turns your smartphone into a 10.1-inch netbook giving you additional battery life and the ability to watch videos and edit documents with a physical keyboard.

Models	Motorola Atrix 2	Samsung Galaxy R	LG Optimus 2X
Screen Size	4.3-inch	4.2-inch	4-inch
Screen Resolution	540x690 pixels	480x400 pixels	480x400 pixels
Processor	1GHz	1GHz	1GHz
RAM	1GB	1GB	512MB
Internal Storage	8GB	8GB	8GB
Expandable Storage	Up to 32GB via MicroSD card	Up to 32GB via MicroSD card	Up to 32GB via MicroSD card
Front Camera	VGA	1.3MP	1.3MP
Rear Camera	8MP	5MP	8MP
OS	Android 2.3 Gingerbread	Android 2.3 Gingerbread	Android 2.2 upgradable to 2.3 Gingerbread
Price	Rs. 22,990	Rs. 20,000 (approx.)	Rs. 19,000 (approx.)

Moser Baer launches credit-card shaped Zap pen drive, 4GB at Rs. 1,100

Moser Baer has launched a new USB flash drive in the shape of a credit-card, designed to fit easily in wallets and card holders, for convenient portability. Called the Moser Baer Zap pen drive, it for now will be available in only one capacity – 4GB, at Rs. 1,100.

The Moser Baer Zap credit-card pen drive has dimensions of 84.15 x 52.83 mm, and has a USB2.0 interface. It’s quite lightweight as well, at 10.25 grams. The Zap USB flash drive is compatible Windows 2007, Mac OS 9, Linux Kernel 2.4.0, and their higher versions.

The Zap drive has been given an introductory price of Rs. 399 by Moser Baer, at the company’s online store. It will hit retail shelves soon. Moser Baer is likely to introduce other capacities as well, depending on the Zap adoption in the market.

Seagate GoFlex Satellite 500GB

With devices such as tablets and smartphones increasingly being used for media consumption, the capacities on offer on these devices do not really evoke glee. Imagine having 100s of HD movies, or 1000s of songs which you may want to carry along and watch or listen to on your tablet or smartphone. The only way to do that was to carry an external HDD, transfer the movies to a laptop, sync your tablet or smartphone with that content and then get only a fraction of it on your device. Pretty time-consuming, and involving lots of cords or wires.

Enter Seagate GoFlex Satellite which is a network attached storage device with a difference. Instead of having a LAN port on the 500 GB drive, the Satellite has an inbuilt WiFi adapter. The concept of the GoFlex Satellite is very simple. Store your data on the drive, then connect your tablet or smartphone wirelessly to the Satellite and stream content.

Design and Build
The Seagate GoFlex Satellite is like any other GoFlex drive with a similar form factor. It does appear thicker than the portable drives due to the in-build wifi and battery addition. The drive has a glossy black finish on the front facing side and a matter black one on the other. There are two indicators – for the USB transfer and WiFi indicator. The edge is lined by a grey plastic body with a power switch on one edge. There is a DC power in switch.
If feels a bit heavier than the GoFlex drives but the build is quite sturdy. The glossy finish is a finger print magnet though.

Features and Performance
The Satellite comes with the GoFlex adapter which connects to the SATA port located on the base of the drive. On the other side of the adapter is a USB 3.0 port. You can also use the FireWire and eSATA GoFlex adapters with the Satellite drive. Data can be transferred to the Satellite drive via the USB port. There is a USB port to power-in switch which can charge your Satellite drive.

The drive section contains a 500 GB drive, a built-in web server and an 802.11 b/g/n WiFi module. Once the data has been put on the drive, a press of the power switch on the drives edge will turn on the streaming capabilities. You can stream content to any iOS devices or Android devices or even your laptops / netbooks which have WiFi connectivity option. The type of data that can be streamed includes video, audio, documents, images, among others.

You will need to download the free My Satellite app for using it on your tablet or smartphone. Else you can open a web browser if you are on a laptop or netbook. The app has sections such as Videos, Photos, Documents, etc.

GoFlex Satellite app user interface

With the iOS and Android devices you will have to disconnect from your current wifi network and connect to the GoFlex Satellite network, so you will lose your internet connection when you are connected to the Satellite drive. The power button switches on the WiFi module within the Satellite. Once you set the GoFlex Satellite network as your WiFi network, then you are connected to the Satellite drive and have access to all its files. By default there is no password set on the drive, but you can enable that by going in the Settings tab. For tablets and smartphones, you will need to download the free GoFlex Media app from the Marketplace. This app is divided into two sections, on the left hand pane you have the various types of file categories such as Videos, Photos, Music, Documents, Folder View among others. On the right hand side you will see the content under each of the folders n the left hand side. So when you click Videos, then on the right hand side you will see all the videos that are there on your Satellite drive. You can also switch to the Folder View to get an overall view of the content within the drive.

The range of the Satellite drive is quite good. We could stream an HD clip smoothly, by having the Satellite and the iPad in the same room, in adjacent rooms and even three rooms away. Ideally, you will have the Satellite drive right next to you or a few feet away at maximum, so there is more than enough range to play videos smoothly, access music files and other documents.

The next test we tried was to access the same file using different devices. So we played an HD clip on the iPad, then tried accessing it on two smartphones. Although the smartphones easily accessed it, we did notice some amount of frame skipping with the smartphones, but the buffering on the iPad was flawless. Standard definition content (a 480p clip) played smoothly on all three devices. This was an extreme case we were testing, as it is rare that the same clip will be accessed on three different devices in the same room.

If you try to access the web browsers on these devices which are connected to the GoFlex Satellite network, then you will see a web interface of the same UI that you see on its app.

If you use a laptop or a netbook to access the Satellite drive, then it tends to download the file first and then play it. This is a bit disappointing, as downloading a full HD movie over the air takes quite a while.

While listening to music on you iPad for instance, the current tracks opens in a new popup window. You can click on Done and come out of the GoFlex Media app and maybe read an iBook or write some notes on the side. But if you open some game puzzle app for instance, the music will stop playing.

You can also download content from the Satellite drive to your local device. But uploading content from your device to the satellite drive is not possible.

The car adapter which is bundled is great for charging your Satellite drive, to keep the family entertained on your long drives out of the city.

VerdictSeagate GoFlex Satellite is a great companion to your tablets and smartphones which have a limited storage capacity. The 500 gigs of the Satellite are more than enough to carry your whole music and some of the HD movie collection on the go. With around 4 hours of charge time, USB 3.0 interface, the Satellite drive is ideal for those wanting to consume content on the go, but have limited space to have all that content on their tablets or smartphones. Pricing of Rs. 14,500 though is ridiculous for a 500 GB version. We would advise you to wait till the pricing drops to sensible levels.

On the whole a wonderful product with bad pricing. Under Rs. 10,000 this is a good investment for your entertainment needs.

ContactSeagate India
Email: sandeep_joshi@melcole.com
Website: www.seagate.com
Price: Rs. 14,500

Top 10 Laptops

1Dell XPS 15z

Sophisticated, premium 15-inch desktop replacement laptop for home entertainment.

2HP Envy 17 3D

Good package - strong graphics, Blu-ray playback and a stereoscopic 3D display with bundled glasses.

3Alienware M14x

Offers enthusiasts a laptop that's easy to drag to a LAN party without compromising on performance.

4Lenovo IdeaPad Y570

This is a solid home entertainment laptop, with the just the right mix of hardware & features.

5Acer Aspire TimelineX 5830TG

Brilliant for its price, it stands very high in the entry-level Sandy Bridge category.

6Lenovo ThinkPad X1

A business ultraportable meant for frequent flying executives - slim, sturdy and easy to tuck away.

7Dell Vostro 3350

Dell Vostro 3350 is a powerful, portable business laptop with a style statement.

8Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 420s

Inheriting the heritage of its predecessors, it adds a whole new style and design.

9Apple MacBook Air 11

The slimmest MacBook ever can deliver quite a performance punch.

10Dell XPS 14z

An attractive design, above-average performance and good battery life.

Assassin's Creed III coming to PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in October

For the past couple of years, Ubisoft has given us the pleasure of being a part of some of the best historic locations through their Assassins Creed Franchise. With the end of Assassins Creed Revelations, we saw the saga of Ezi oAuditore da Firenze and Altaïr Ibn-La'A had come to an end.

Throughout the 4 games in the series -- Assassins Creed, Assassins Creed II, Assassins Creed Brotherhood and Assassins Creed Revelations -- we have visited a variety of locations such as Rome, Firenze, and Constantinople to name a few.The Assassins Creed franchise has been famous for taking actual historic events and locations and adapting it to suit the games story.

Ubisoft has now confirmed that Assassin's Creed III will launch for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in October 2012. If you log on to the official website, there is a timer counting down to “a big reveal”.

From the images that have been unveiled by Gameinformer, it is clear that the game is going to take a dramatic shift in location.

The lead protagonist (still unknown) is seen wearing an Assassin outfit heavily influenced by the Native American culture. In the images, he is seen with a quiver full of arrows and a bow on his back along with a gun in one hand and an axe in the other. It is believed that the story of the game will take place during the 18th century (1777) during the American Revolution. Ubisoft has also released the box art for this forthcoming title.

Source: Gameinformer