Nokia X3-02 Touch and Type pays us a visit, here's what the first touch S40 UI looks like
It’s not every day we give a special attention to an S40 handset, but Nokia X3-02 really deserves it. Besides being Nokia’s first touch-enabled phone from the S40 series, X3-02 is perhaps among the most beautiful ones too.
Nokia X3-02 Touch and Type is available in White Silver, Dark Metal, Petrol Blue, Pink and Lilac. We have the White Silver version and it’s been great so far.
Nokia X3-02 offers more than just a touch-enabled S40 UI. The whole software is nicely thumb-optimized and uses bigger fonts. But it doesn’t end there. The S40 firmware ticking inside the X3-02 supports Xvid video playback and the handset even offers USB-on-the-go allowing you to connect a USB flash drive or a Nokia phone and browse their file content.
But enough talking, here is our demo video.
You can expect our in-depth review of Nokia X3-02 Touch and Type soon.
The Room is a puzzle solving game exclusively for the iPad and is unlike anything you’ve seen before. The game has received several accolades already and is on top of several App Store lists around the world.
We decided to give it a try and see for ourselves just how good the game really is.
Title
The Room
Developer
Fireproof Games
Platform
iOS (iPad only)
Release Date
September 2012
Content rating
9+
Size
125MB
Price
$4.99
Gameplay
The Room is a puzzle solving game and a unique one at that. In this game, the puzzles are in the form of several intricately designed boxes that you have to unlock to find the secret within.
The surfaces of these boxes are covered with an amazing number of small puzzles that you have to solve. Finding the answer to one reveals the clue to the next and step by step you solve all of them and eventually open the box and move to the next one.
The design of these boxes and the level of detail poured into them is absolutely amazing. Also, the way some of the clues are hidden, which are actually in plain sight but unless you solve one of the puzzles there is no way for you to know what you’re looking at is part of the next one.
To begin solving a puzzle, you have to click on a point of interest and it zooms into view. The puzzles are usually riddles whose clues are scattered around the box. At times you will find a key hole but to find the key that fits into it you will have to solve the right puzzle. Often the key itself is a mini puzzle, and you have to adjust it into the proper shape to fit the keyhole. Some things can’t be seen by the naked eye, in which case you have to get the help of a lens provided to you, which reveals hidden secrets and markings that usually require rearranging to fit a proper order.
If you get stuck, and I know I did several times, the game has a useful hint system that gently nudges you in the right direction. You get three hints per puzzle, starting from stating the obvious to pretty much telling you exactly what to do. I wish the hint system wasn’t so easy to use or had some sort of penalty because at times it is quite easy to just give up and use a hint instead of racking your brain further.
One the best things about The Room is how brilliantly it is optimized for the iPad’s hardware. There is no joystick and virtual button non-sense here. Tap on an object to zoom in and then interact directly with the objects on the screen. Slide on a ring to open it, turn the key to twist it, press a button operate it, pull a drawer to open it. This direct interaction with the objects help make you feel part of the game rather than just someone operating it from a distance. The game especially makes fantastic use of the gyroscope in certain levels, although mentioning that part would ruin the puzzle.
There is a creepy, haunting theme to the game, with an equally creepy backstory of a man who discovered some strange object with hidden powers. You learn about the story of the game through parchments that you find hidden inside the boxes and it slowly unfolds over the course of the game. It’s not exactly the greatest story ever told but helps set the tone of the game.
Graphics and Sound
One area where the game truly excels in are the visuals, which are unbelievably life-like. The wood on the boxes looks photorealistic, especially if you have the new iPad with the high resolution Retina display. The textures and the level of detail in the carpentry on some of these boxes is amazing and even when zoomed-in everything remains sharp and crystal clear. The lighting is also wonderful and sets the tone very well. And even with these detail-heavy visuals the game runs very smooth.
In terms of sound, the developers have done a good job making the game super creepy. Without the sound the game would have lost half its charm. It’s not about how much sound there is in this game, but rather how less of it there is. There is no background music at all. Sitting there in complete silence in a dark room of an abandoned house solving a riddle using clues left by someone who presumably is dead is quite an experience. The only occasional sounds you’ll hear are that of the machinery at work or the creaking of the house as you solve the puzzles. The best way to enjoy this game is in a dark room with your headphones on.
In terms of creating an atmosphere, both the visuals and the sound do a fantastic job.
Verdict
The Room has been a very unique experience for me. The puzzles are genuinely brilliant and the way they are presented is even more brilliant. It’s one of those games which, once you pick it up, you can’t put down unless you finish it.
Unfortunately, you will finish it very soon. It took me about four hours to go through all the puzzles in the game and in the end I was left wishing for more. However, you’re told in the end that there will be more levels in the future.
Still, despite its very limited nature, The Room is an adventure that must be experienced by anyone with an iPad. Few games generate the curiosity and amusement that this game does and are so hard to put down.
Rating: 4/5 Pros: Amazingly designed, intricate puzzles; simple, intuitive controls; beautiful, photorealistic visuals; haunting story and sound Cons: Gets over very quickly
Note: If you’re going to purchase the game, and you should, I recommend not watching too much of the video below.
A day in the life of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 flies by in twelve minutes on video
Someone over at the AndroidHD blog must be seriously in love with their Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. So much so that they spend a whole day playing with the new droid tablet and edited the whole thing into a 12 minute long ad (an unofficial one, that is).
The video takes the Tab 10.1 everywhere – from home, on the train, in the car, on a boat, or to see the Eiffel Tower back home…
Several photos are taken with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 during the making of the video and you can check them out over at the AndroidHD blog. Unfortunately, they’ve been downsized.
You’ll also spot a large number of Android dolls – the mark of a true droid geek, I suppose.
Anyway, here’s the video – all 12 minutes of it.
Much better than that short hands-on video, right?
A better look at two of the new Angry birds - Ice Bird and Lazer Bird
Rovio is gearing up to launch the next major version of their absurdly popular Angry Birds game and they’re stepping up the promotion – yesterday we saw a custom helmet for F1 driver Heikki Kovalainen and today brings more F1 promotion and two new birds.
Heikki’s compatriot Kimi Raikonen will wear a patch (seen above) featuring a new angry bird on his race suit. The bird was chosen to match Kimi’s nickname “Iceman” and is called (surprise!) Ice bird. It will freeze the area it hits, making it fragile and easy to destroy with the next bird (here’s the gameplay trailer, where the new birds appear shortly).
The other new bird is called Lazer Bird and comes with an official video showing off its abilities. It’s very similar to the well-known yellow bird.
Angry Birds Space will launch next Thursday, March 22. The Samsung Galaxy Note will feature exclusive content (Samsung and Rovio are doing lots of cross-promotion).
Lenovo S800 with transparent color screen shows up at a Chinese fashion show
Transparent displays are a cool idea that didn’t catch on. The Lenovo S800 packs a major improvement over the previous phone with a transparent screen – namely, colors.
Lenovo S800 phone with a transparent color screen
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), it showed up at a Chinese fashion show and was handled only by the models, the reporters weren’t allowed to play with it…
Very little is known about the Lenovo S800 right now – but the unit at the fashion show was an actual working model, not just a mockup. Lenovo is claiming that it’s the world’s first phone with a transparent color screen.
Only the models of the fashion show were allowed to use it, so we have no technical details
That’s easy as the only other phone with a see-through screen is the Sony Ericsson XPERIA Pureness and it had a tiny grayscale screen. The Lenovo S800 bests it with a bigger looking screen that can display colors. It doesn’t seem to have a camera though (the Pureness didn’t either, probably because a grayscale viewfinder would be no good).
How much colors is another question – I could only see pink in the photos. We’ll have to wait for another leak or an official announcement for more details (if the Lenovo S800 even makes it to production).
But is the addition of color capabilities to the screen enough for you? The Pureness is not exactly a hot-seller (though it had more flaws that just the display, which might have played a role).
1.2 GHz Samsung Galaxy S II benchmarked, shows mind-blowing speed
Okay we can’t say we are stunned since the 1GHz Galaxy S II was already blazing fast, but 1.2GHz version benchmark results are still pretty impressive. Obviously Samsung has not only managed to crank the clock speed up a notch, but they have also improved their drivers as the tested unit is 25% faster than the one we had at the office.
Apparently in their current states the Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II is about twice as good as the HTC Sensation (or Pyramid if you will) on Smartbench, where it got 3732 in productivity and 2431 in gaming and it even manages to beat it at Quadrant with the astounding 3053 points. And that’s despite the framerate cap, which doesn’t allow the Galaxy S II to reveal its full potential.
Of course that has quite a lot more to do with the Sensation drivers being far from finished then the Galaxy S II being really that much faster. Still it’s yet another confirmation that if you want flawless performance the new Samsung flagship will be more than capable of delivering it.
