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Date |
: Dec 20th, 2001 |
| Category |
: Hardware |
| Manufacturer |
: Various |
| Author |
: Jin-Wei Tioh |
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Labtec Verse 704 USB Microphone
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Labtec's Verse-704 is a graceful, functional mini work of art. Long, slender and gently curved, it's as if it is arching toward you, poised to hear every single word. Alright, great looking microphone you say, but just a microphone. That's where you'd be wrong, as the Verse-704 is a digital, uni-directional USB mike that yields very clear recording quality in our tests (we've had one in the labs for quite some time now). Construction quality is good, and the device has some added robustness with its metal base. A combination mute and power switch on the base illuminates when the microphone is active, something that would definitely appeal to case modders (though blue would have been cool). As its name implies, it plugs into your computer's USB port, and appears as a separate device. OS compatibility is good, with support for Windows 98 or higher, as well as Mac OS 9.0.4 or higher.
At $39.99, it sadly doesn't clean the dishes, mow the lawn and take out the trash as well. But it is one swank looking microphone that any case modder will be proud to place beside his / her modded case, plus it provides recording quality that surpasses most analogue microphones. This one's a keeper for me. Highly Recommended!
Purchase Verse 704 |
RumbleFX Force Feedback Headphones
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Evergreen Technologies have begun to branch out with their RumbleFX line of consumer electronics products. The first product sporting the RumbleFX name are the RumbleFX force feedback headphones, which we reviewed
back in May.
Overall, I was a lot more impressed with the RumbleFX than I thought I would be. The last time I got this excited about an audio product was when I first auditioned the Altec Lansing ACS-48 (which immediately lightened my wallet). The RumbleFX force feedback headphones offer very good pure audio quality (ie. with force feedback disabled), albeit with slight deficiencies in the midrange. While probably not rivaling the audio quality of better headsets such as the Sennheiser line, you have to look at the price delta; US$39.99 list for the RumbleFX, US$160 for the Sennheiser HD570. What can we say? After all, we did award the RumbleFX our Excellence Award!
Purchase RumbleFX Force Feedback Headphones
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Xitel MD-Port DG2
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One popular use of MiniDiscs is to record MP3 compilations. One typically has to do either analogue recording (low quality and real-time), or digital recordings with soundcards equipped with digital outputs (expensive). Not anymore. If you've got a PC with USB ports and a MiniDisc recorder, Xitel has something right up your alley : the MD-Port DG2. The DG2 addresses the compatibility and pricing concerns of the original DG1. For $59.99, you get the DG2, a USB cable, a quality TOSLINK cable (better than the stock Sony cables), as well as a full copy of the MusicMatch Jukebox software. We've had one in our labs for quite some time. Though we never published a full, formal review, we can report that the DG2 offers superb recording quality when tested with a Sony MZ-R90 portable recorder. Ease of use is good, simply just plug and play (after installing the provided drivers of course). The bundled software is more than sufficient to start recording compilations, but you can opt to use your regular playback programs instead, as the DG2 appears as just another audio device to the system. Moreover, being an external unit, the DG2 can be utilized on virtually any system (desktop or notebook), even without a real soundcard being present. Very Highly Recommended!
Purchase MD-Port DG2
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eyeSCREAM Light, E-D Glasses
We've come a very long way since the emergence of 3D accelerators such as nVIDIA's RIVA 128 and 3Dfx's Voodoo. Each successive generation brought more performance and features (trilinear filtering, FSAA, 32-bit textures, etc.) to the table, in part spurred by nVIDIA's aggressive 6-month product cycle. However, for all the improvements made, the resulting 3D images are painted onto a very 2D surface, your monitor. Thus, while looking realistic, the on-screen action just doesn't seem to be in your face.
Solution? Implement stereo vision in the virtual world, which is exactly what Wicked3D and E-Dimensional have done. Both solutions force compatible applications to render two separate images. Your mind does some fancy processing to combine the images in such a way that you actually perceive yourself to be "in" the virtual world. As you can imagine, this would definitely increase the immersiveness of games.
Wicked3D's eyeSCREAM light is unique : it is a software-based stereoscopic solution. Thus, the eyeSCREAM costs a lot less than competing hardware-based solutions - only US$14.95. Don't expect too much in the package. You essentially get a CD, an instruction sheet, and two pairs of black cardboard red/blue color filter glasses.
While you can read our full review here, suffice to say it works remarkably well, bringing stereoscopic gaming to the mainstream, and is also an excellent way to test the waters. However, compatibility is an issue due to the lack of Direct3D support. That said, we whole-heartedly recommend that you at least give them a try. Recommended.
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E-Dimensional chose to go the hardware route. You get a base unit which functions as a pass-thru device between your video card and video connector (as well as your keyboard PS/2 port for its power source), the LCD shutter glasses, a utility/driver CD, as well as a compilation of sample games and stereoscopic images.
With broad support of operating systems (Win9x/ME/2000/XP), as well as both OpenGL and Direct3D support, the E-Dimensional glasses are definitely a more elegant (though more expensive) solution than Wicked3D's software-based solution. The wireless and wired models will set you back $99.95 and $69.95 respectively.
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