248AM's Review: Sony Personal 3D Viewer

The Sony Personal 3D Viewer is big and also comes with an external processor unit around the size of a small satellite receiver. You need to hook up the processor unit to a power supply, you then run an HDMI cable from the unit to say your AV Receiver, Satellite Receiver, Videogame console or any other device and finally you connect the personal head display to the processor unit with a very long cable. So again this is not a portable head display.

Above is an image of the overhead viewer and how it fits on your head

 Display

Once you put on the display and turn it on you’re going to be in for a surprise. I really wasn’t expecting it to be this freakin’ good! I was behind on Mad Men and had three episodes to watch and I watched them all one after the other on these Sonys. My regular tv is a 50″ plasma that’s around 3 meters in front of me so it’s a pretty large picture. The Sony personal display made it look small in comparison. Watching Mad Men through the Sony unit felt like I was sitting in a large movie theater. The picture quality was ridiculously good and because the Sony uses OLED screens, the blacks were blacker than my regular tv which was unreal. Now I did find issues with the Sony Personal 3D Viewer. The first is something I experienced but my brother didn’t which is I had a hard time getting the whole display in focus. Not sure why but in my case I could either get the center in focus and the far corners out of focus or the outer corners in focus and the center slightly not. 

Price

They cost KD259 at the Sony dealer and it’s not because the dealer is expensive, even Amazon sells them for around KD225 before tax and shipping to Kuwait. This is why I had a hard time figuring out who would use or need these. If they were say KD99 I would get one right away but at KD259 its not an impulse buy. So yeah you can tell I really love these but I just wish they were a lot more cheaper. If you want to try them out, they had them on display at the new Sony branch in Tilal Complex.

Sony discontinuing Cassete Players

Sony has announced that they are officially discounting cassette player in January 2013. The tangible forms of music is a dying market, Cassette and CDs have become seemingly unpopular over the past few years. This market started slowing dying with the introduction of intangible music, such as MP3 and MP4. The introduction of portable MP3 players and iPod sure didn't help the cassette market.

To those born before the 90s, if own this gadget above then know you lived in time where music meant something

Generation

To the younger generations, the discontinuing means nothing but there is still a cassette market for the older generations. Your grandparents maybe even parents arent going to jump on the bandwagon of the iPod world and start downloading music from iTunes; they rather have a finer taste for music which means they have a smaller collection of music. The older generation appreciates physically going to the store and purchasing their favorite artists, because buying the tape makes you a true fan and supporter.

Whats your form of Music?

Since we can kiss cassette players goodbye now, we know that CD players will be next. Listening to music has become so easily nowadays, you have a choice of streaming it via bluetooth, Docking your phone into almost any device. As the late Steve Jobs described it "Having a thousand songs in your pocket".

Is this the end of an era? 

Please visit the survey below regarding your form of music so we can discuss music forms further:
 Music Survey

iPhone 5: Fastest Selling iPhone Ever

The iPhone 5 is now the fastest selling iPhone in Apple History, selling 2 million units on the pre-order and 5 million units within the first 3 days of product launch.

We can safely assume that most of those purchasers were Apple Fanboys because sane people would wait for product reviews before buying an expensive smartphone. That being said, hats off to Apple for establishing an incredibly strong brand name that makes them sell 2 million units before even launching the product.

Though it is common knowledge most electronics are higher priced in Kuwait than they are in the States, one still must do some research before making a purchase. Since there is no actual Apple store in Kuwait, iCity is NOT the apple store, I did some research for the prices of the Black 16GB iPhone 5.

Price List:

• Alghanim’s Xcite: 229 KD
• Eureka : 297 KD
• Souq.com: 212 KD
• Hawalli's unathorized Retailers : 210 KD
• Viva: 199 KD + Package contract
• Amazon.com: 205 KD

Differences between iPhone 4s and iPhone 5:

Whille most people instantly upgraded the iPhone 5 without even considering this important question, is it worth it? The iPhone 5 has a longer battery life of browsing and standby feature, but not on actual phonecalls. The iPhone 5 has a 4 inch Diagonal Retina Display while the 4s has a 3.5 inch. Like all newer Apple products, the iPhone 5 is slimmer and lighter. The iPhone 5 runs on an A6 chip and the 4s runs on an A5 chip, making the iPhone 5 a faster processor.   

Apple's Official Comparision

In the above image you can see the difference in dimensions.

iPhone 5 Problems 

With Every Product there are bound to be glitches, but people are saying that Apple may have rushed to releasing the iPhone 5 and looked over too many of those glitches. The first batch of people to purchase the device sure had a mouthful to say. To start off, Apple switched from Google Maps to Apple Maps and users are describing it as "horrendous" because cities are obviously mislabeled and the app offers no transit directions. Users are saying the battery life is awful and you can lose 40% within an hour, but some people say its up to usage rate. Since Apple switched to aluminum casing in the iPhone 5, the phone scratches very easily. Another problem is that the device doesnt catch nearby WiFi signals as easily as the previous iPhones. So as yourself, is it worth the upgrade ?

Huffingpost's iPhone Problems

Feel free to post your questions in the comments below or contact me at MB.AlBanwan@gmail.com