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The Zune looks and feels great. It simply feels good in your hand, and it looks great in person.
It’s actually right about the same thickness and weight as the 80GB iPod, though a little bit taller.

When viewing videos or photos, you turn the Zune sideways, and the 20 percent bigger screen size really helps. Video and photos are far more watchable.

That’s not a click wheel at the bottom. I’m sure Apple’s lawyers would have a field day if it were. It’s simply an up/down/left/right controller with a selection button in the center.

This is another non-issue that has somehow exploded online with comments from people who haven’t used one. Microsoft’s battery life specs aren’t as good as Apple’s.

Sound Quality is slightly cleaner than the output from the latest iPods, but you probably wouldn’t notice if you don’t use killer headphones

Just like the headphones that come with every portable media device known to man, the standard Zune earbuds stink.
There’s a headphone jack up top, a lock switch, and a dock connector thing on the bottom -for the included sync cable or dock accessories. All pretty standard stuff. The entire device feels solid and well-made. Frankly, Microsoft did a fantastic job on the industrial design.

Zune’s core layout and navigation are truly excellent. You’ll be up to speed in seconds.

The player supports MP3, AAC, and WMA for audio. That’s unprotected AAC, mind you: If you bought songs on the iTunes Music Store, those won’t work.

Zune has an FM tuner built in — a clear trump over the iPod for those who still want to get their NPR on.

Zune has a nice picture viewer, organized to view your .jpgs by folder or by date. The device itself only supports .jpg format and the PC software automatically converts pictures to 640×480 when it syncs up.

Apple’s new video iPod Nano is wider than the old version, yet the player remains very thin and sleek, with an excellent widescreen display, a beautiful interface, and video.

PROS: Widescreen video. New excellent user interface. Great new graphics. Extremely thin. Good (rated) battery life.

CONS: Cover Flow loses some of its appeal without a touchscreen. Crappy earbuds.

Player Type: Flash MP3 Player
Radio: No
Recording, Voice: No
Recording, Line In: No
Video Recording: No
Music Playback Formats: AAC, AIFF, MP3, WAV
Photo formats: JPEG
Video Formats: MPEG4
Screen Resolution: 320 x 240 pixels
Screen Size: 2 inches
Storage Capacity: 8 GB
Dimensions: 2.75 x 2.06 x 0.26 inches
Weight: 1.74 oz

The Sony DSC-S650 Cybershot has 7.2 megapixel Super HAD CCD and is powered by two standard AA batteries. The alkaline LR6 batteries supplied produce a stamina battery life of 100 shots / 50 mins and are easily obtainable.

The Sony S650 has an internal memory of 24MB and is compatible with Memory Stick Duo, PRO Duo High Speed, PRO-HG D and images are stored as JPEG, AVI. Movies can be shot as 320×240 at 30fps. Pictures can be played back as sideshow (with zoom facility) on the 2″ TFT bright LCD screen that has an approximate field of view of 100%. Pictures can also be rotated and resized.

The Sony DSC-S650 Cybershot has indicators showing battery remaining and disk/memory stick availability and also comes supplied with AV & USB cables, wrist strap and software. The Sony DSC-S650 is PictBridge compatible for direct connection to a printer without using a PC.

  The S700 is a 7.2 megapixel camera with 3x optical zoom and a 2.4 inch LCD.  A stylish metal body makes the camera look and feel like a more expensive one.

Nintendo DS Lite is a much more compactly designed system; at 0.83 by 2.83 by 5.25 inches when closed and weighing in at 7.66 ounces, it’s 39 percent smaller and 21 percent lighter than its predecessor. The rounded corners are more finely tapered, and the top and bottom sides are symmetrical, avoiding the underbite-like look of the original’s oversize bottom half. It’s a much more pocket-friendly system than the original DS. Despite the smaller overall size, though, the trademark twin screens have the same dimensions

The layout of the DS Lite is largely similar to that of the Nintendo DS, with some slight, beneficial changes. The top half of the clamshell still houses the stereo speakers; they’re centered on either side of the upper screen, and despite being smaller than those on the original DS, they’re just as loud. The bottom screen is a little more conducive to touch, but it feels flimsier–almost as if you’ve kept the protective thin-film screen that overlays many LCDs when they ship from the factory. To the left of the touch screen is the D-pad, which is about three-quarters the size of the original but just as efficient. The four face buttons (X, Y, A, and B) are essentially the same but feel a little more pronounced than those of the original DS. No longer half-ovals on top, the start and select buttons are now tiny circles on the bottom. The power button has moved from just above the D-pad to the right side of the system. It’s a welcome change, as the original looked exactly like the select and start buttons and was situated in the same area on the opposite side–which led to the occasional “turn off instead of pause” blunder.

The Nintendo DS Lite is slimmer and much sleeker that the original DS. The device employs innovative dual-screen and microphone-enabled gameplay as well as Wi-Fi multiplayer capabilities, allowing for a growing list of original and fun games that you can’t play on any other system. In addition, the system is backward-compatible with almost every GBA title. All these additions come without increasing the price or decreasing the features of the original DS.

Playing online games via Wi-Fi can be a hassle. The darker models are just as susceptible to scratches and smudges as the Sony PSP and the iPod, and its multimedia potential remains exclusive to Japan.

With a slick new design, brighter screens, and a growing library of fun and innovative games, the Nintendo DS Lite is an impressive improvement over the original DS.

Every Xbox 360 model has a base-level membership called Xbox Live Silver. That offers the ability to create a list of friends, view their gamer cards, and communicate with them outside of a game via voice chat and voice messaging using the headset, or even video chat with the Vision Camera. In order to play multiplayer games, however, you’ll need to upgrade to Xbox Live Gold, which costs $50 a year. While Sony offers similar online multiplayer chat and head-to-head gameplay for free on the PS3, it remains a less polished experience than Xbox Live, which has had several more years to perfect its online capabilities to its current best-in-class state.

Xbox Live is much more integrated throughout the 360 than it was in the old Xbox. At any time, you can punch the Home button on your controller to bring up the Live message center. In theory, you can be playing an offline, single-player game of, say, Enchanted Arms, get an invite from a friend (think instant messaging), then pop out to the Dashboard while you swap discs and dive into F.E.A.R..

The in-game Xbox Live experience hasn’t changed drastically, but then again, the service was already near-impeccable on the Xbox 1. By virtue of the system’s processing power, games should be able to support more players online. Perfect Dark Zero, for example can handle 32 players, more than all but a few Xbox1 games. Test Drive Unlimited transforms the open roads of Hawaii into a gaming lobby, where you can pass by potential opponents on the road. Then there are games that support video chatting, such as the Xbox Live Arcade’s Texas Hold ‘Em. As developers have learned the ins and outs of the 360’s hardware, we’re starting to see more players and less lag in the many online-compatible 360 titles.

Excellent selection of games, including many 360-only exclusives; all games are in native high-definition; user-friendly Dashboard interface; supports wireless controllers and accessories; Xbox Live service offers online multiplayer (with matchmaking and voice chat) and content downloads for most games; backward compatible with many–but not all–original Xbox titles; doubles as a superior digital media hub and Windows Media extender; online Marketplace allows easy purchases of minigames, add-on gaming content, high-def movies, and TV shows.

The Elite fails to correct most of the annoyances of the original 360 version: the noisy DVD drive and cooling fan; a gigantic, oversize power supply; no built-in wireless networking; only three USB ports; a substandard DVD player; support for next-gen HD DVD movies requires a bulky external accessory; online gaming requires a paid subscription to Xbox Live; proprietary wireless format limits third-party accessories.

While it’s neither a must-have upgrade for existing 360 owners nor as feature-packed as the PS3, the Xbox 360 Elite’s combination of top-notch gaming and digital media features make it the current game console of choice.

The Sony PSP is a slick portable gaming system highlighted by an impressive wide-screen display and PS2-like graphics. It also boasts built-in Wi-Fi, a Web browser, and the ability to play music and videos, as well as to store images.
Large screen for viewing pleasure, music, photos, videos, games, WIFI for multiplayer gaming, sending picture to another PSP or surf the web, good sound quality from the built-in speakers

The Sony PSP’s multimedia functionality is underwhelming, especially for video, requiring expensive memory cards. The load times on the UMD games can be excessive.  Watching videos can be expensive(Due to lack of internal memory), videos must be converted into MPEG4 format in order to watch, bulky, easy to leave your fingerprints on the large screen(unless you have a screen protecter

The Sony PSP elevates portable gaming to the next level, but its multimedia functionality falls short of its full potential.

   
For the first time in more than a decade, Nintendo has shipped a console with a pack-in included. The title is Wii Sports and it’s actually a compilation of five games designed from the ground up to make full use of the Big N’s innovative remote. The disc, which ships for free with Wii in America and Europe, includes pick-up-and-play versions of baseball, boxing, bowling, golf and tennis, and learning the basics couldn’t be easier. You just pick up the Wii remote and swing it like a baseball bat to whack the ball out of the park, or gesture an underhanded rolling motion to toss the bowling ball down the lane. These revolutionary controls make the old new again. But Wii Sports is also significant because it is the perfect representation of a new development direction for Nintendo - one focused on simple gameplay controls and uncomplicated, primitive graphics.

Wii Sports is a particularly difficult game to review because it is so different and also because it’s free. We had to ask ourselves, should we cut it some slack because it comes packaged with the system or should we instead weigh the game’s strengths and weaknesses individually? We’ve taken the latter approach. After all, we’re reviewing the game and not the package. Furthermore, the offering is not free for everyone, as Japanese players will attest. There is more to consider, though. For instance, exactly who is this title for? If your intention is to play Wii Sports for an hour per day with friends, you will probably love the title, whose bowling and tennis outings are especially addictive. However, if you’re the hardcore type who wants a deeper sports videogame, you will find Wii Sports’ overall depth sorely lacking. It is our job to consider both potential audiences and make a recommendation based on all the factors.

Wii Sports does have its charm, which is largely made possible through the integration of Mii characters. This is the first title to utilize the Mii avatar system, which basically means that you can import a virtual version of yourself, your friends, or your family members into the game. We wasted no time in designing versions of ourselves and some of our creations looked eerily like us. The concept may seem silly, but there is something to seeing a caricature of yourself running around on the tennis court or getting pummeled in boxing. Simple as these avatars are, they oftentimes succeed in evoking giggles from both players and passersby alike. You could say that they bring character (literally, we suppose) to the otherwise straightforward presentation. We’re already looking forward to future iterations so that we can how ridiculous our virtual representations appear in different sports outings.

Revolutionary controller design offers unique motion-sensitive gameplay options; built-in Wi-Fi delivers free online services and (eventually) gameplay; Virtual Console has major nostalgia appeal; compatible with all GameCube games and controllers; built-in SD slot for storage and photo viewing; includes Wii Sports game; most affordable of all next-gen systems.

Controller eats batteries and takes some time to get used to; lacks the advanced HD graphics and surround sound found on the Xbox 360 and the PS3; requires a wired receiver unit placed near the TV to interface with wireless controllers; can’t play CDs or DVDs.

It lacks the graphical prowess and rich media features of the Xbox 360 and the PS3, but the Nintendo Wii’s combination of unique motion-sensitive controllers and emphasis on fun gameplay make the ultra-affordable console hard to resist.