A Calling to Budding Writers …

Ever since starting up The Urban Shogun a few years back as just my own personal blog, I’ve come to realise that there is just too much media and information for just one person to cover alone and that work commitments have been taking it’s toll on the amount of content I’ve recently posted. Therefore I’ve decided to call upon you the readership to see if you’d like to try your hand at being a writer for The Urban Shogun.

 

So if you feel that you could contribute and want your content out on the site either on a regular basis or a few articles here and there in your spare time, then feel free to apply. What you write about is up to you as long as it’s relevant to what this site offers and I think would benefit the site’s readers. So anything from Google products, geek movie reviews, game opinions or tech expo coverage would be more than welcome.

 

To apply just get in touch with me on Twitter or my contact form on the right, and when you’ve thought up of an idea, send me a draft of your first article. The more writers on the site the better.

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The Urban Shogun’s Guide To Buying a Laptop

If you’re looking at perhaps treating yourself out to some tech goodness or just looking to update the mammoth of a machine that you’ve been using then look no further. Below is a breakdown of some of the key things you should look out for when purchasing a new laptop including a few recommendations at the bottom. For more advanced users, there are plenty of advanced advice at AnandTech which maybe more up your street. Of late I’ve done a bit of laptop shopping myself as well as advising upon a few people, so either a lot of people have been tempted to change round or perhaps they’re gearing up towards the ever busy Winter holiday period. Either way, here are my two cents on buying a new laptop.

 

Contents

 

Classes of Laptops

Key Features

Extras

Recommendations

 

One of the most important factors when it comes to purchasing a new laptop really depends on who you are as a user. Going on from that, what you use your computer for the most will affect what laptop would best suit you. There are generally three classes of laptops out there on the market being:

 

Classes of Laptops

 

Netbooks

These are the little babies of the computer world. Generally between 8 to 13 inches in size, these are small low powered laptops which primarily are good for checking your email, document writing and browsing the web. The average price of a Netbook now in the UK is around £200 - £400 and the more popular models include the Acer Aspire One as well as the ASUS Eee PC. The main positives of this class is that they’re very light at around 1kg and the battery life last anything from a couple of hours to a whole working day. The negatives are however that they’re underpowered, have a small screen estate and usually comes at the sacrifice of ports and optical drives.

 

Notebooks

The mainstay of the all laptops, these are the middle of the range with the most diverse choice and therefore the most options. What we’re talking about here is anything above a netbook at 13” and below a desktop replacement usually at 16” or 17”. Your average notebook can range from anything from a £300 cheap student laptop to a very good entry level Intel i3 processor at £600 which will be explained further down the page. The range of options are vast but your best bet would be to the Toshiba Satellite Series, Acer Aspire, HP Envy Series and the Dell Inspirons. Most of the these laptops will weigh around 2-3kgs, have a battery that last usually 2-3 hours and are usually separated by a few key extras such as DVD/Blu-ray drives, backlit keyboards and extra USB ports for example.

 

Desktop Replacements

Desktop Replacements or Gaming Laptops however you look at them are the mother of all laptops. As the name suggests, they’re primarily designed to pack the power of a big desktop into the relatively small frame of a laptop however that does come at a cost. Your average gaming laptop ranges anything up from the standard 15.4” to the big 17” beasts. Everything that can be achieved on a desktop PC can be achieved on one of these machines and come in at a price of anything between £600 upwards to money no object laptops at £3,000. Your options include the stylish Sony Vaios, the legendary Dell XPS/Alienware series and of course the much underrated MSi range of gaming laptops. The good thing about these laptops is they pretty much run everything under the sun, the downside is that these machines usually weigh upwards of 4kg and you’ll be lucky if the battery survives more than 2 hours on a single charge not to mention of course being the most expensive of all laptops.

 

So those are all the classes for you. Of course there are those tablet PC’s and desktop-all-in ones that you can check out but those I consider more to be novelties. So you know your laptop class now, how do you pick the right laptop with all these complicated specs thrown at you? Below is a breakdown of the main features to look for in your average laptop with of course the netbooks and desktop replacements being accordingly under and over powered versions of these specs.

 

Key Features

 

RAM

The importance of

Random Access Memory or RAM is all too often overlooked. Sometimes all you need to beef up your system in a noticeable way is to up the RAM. On a new laptop the minimum you should be looking for is 3Gb of RAM and with 4Gb being more the standard today. You’ll need a 64-bit processor in order to use anything over 3Gb’s but that I’ll cover in the next part.

 

Processor

The two main brands of processors out there are Intel and AMD. Some people will traditionally stick with one or the other but really there isn’t much of a difference as long as you can compare one to another directly which CPUBenchMark.Net comprehensively does although the list is a little daunting to see at first. For a low end computer you should probably stick with a cheap Core II Duo processor however that technologies quickly going out of fashion. Depending on your price range an entry level Core i3 will set you off at around £500, Core i5 at around £600/£700 and the Core i7 at anything over £800. The AMD equivalents are the AMD Athlon II X4 for the Core i3, AMD Phenom II 955 for the i5 and AMD Phenom II X4 for the Core i7. As the AMD cores are older than those of it’s Intel counterparts, you won’t get as much power from these than the i3, i5 and i7 series. If you want to understand what all the fancy L1/L2/L3 Cache and Front Side Buses etc, you might want to check out this good article in PC World. Also to take advantage of anything above 3Gb of RAM, you’ll need a 64-bit processor. This used to be a problem a few years back with compatibility issues but pretty much most modern programs offer both a 32-bit and 64-bit version of their software.

 

Graphics Card

Unless you simply have no interest in HD video, photoshopping or playing any video games avoid the Integrated Graphics Cards that ship with a lot of modern day laptops like the plague. If you plan on playing anything more than the default games that come on the Windows then a discrete graphics card from Nvidia or ATI is a must have. Look for anything above 512mb of discrete RAM to 2gb for the best gaming performance and personally I’d recommend a 1Gb of discrete memory which should allow you to play pretty much every game out there today. TomsHardware.com gives a very good benchmarking table for comparison for those who want to delve deeper.

 

Hard Drive Capacity

The standard for last year’s computers was 250Gb, now that’s been upped to around 320Gb as standard. As 2011 approaches however, it’s looking increasingly like a 500Gb hard drive has become standard for the industry. When picking out hard drives, you might also want to take a look at the higher speed 7,200 RPM drives compared to the standard 5,400 RPM drives. Further down I’ll address SSD drives that some laptops will have available to them.

 

Screen Size and Resolution

This really is entirely up to you and your preference. Obviously the larger the screen, the heavier it’ll be and the more expensive the laptop so if you want an average sized laptop, you’ll usually find it bringing a 15.4” screen. This year there’ve been a lot more 16” screens which accommodate widescreen modes and so don’t be phased by the resolution being a funny 1366 x 768 as that too is becoming standard. Your higher end graphics cards will support higher resolutions usually up to 1920 x 1200, and why would you need this? Well the higher the resolution, the more things you can pack onto the screen and that includes pixels, giving crisper sharper images. There can be a trade off though as sometimes the screen isn’t large enough to accommodate the high resolutions and you’re found squinting at small text. You’ll also want to look for whether the screen you’re looking at supports HD, and not just 720p but the full 1080p for the best media viewing. Even if you can’t quite dig deep enough into your pockets to fork out on a full HD display, if you have a proper TV that supports HD and a spare £3 then purchase a HD cable and use the TV to view all your HD goodness.

 

Extras

 

3D Laptops

These are a relatively new line in laptops and therefore have quite a hefty price tag. If you’re into 3D gaming or media viewing, I’d recommend a laptop which has NVidia 3D Vision capability. What you get is a display which has a high Hz rate usually around 120Hz compared to the standard 60/70Hz, a pair of NVidia active shutter glasses and a USB-powered IR emitter. You’ll usually find that there’s about a £200 premium on the 3D models over their standard counterparts so it’s really a personal preference of how much you want 3D really.

 

Touchscreen

Touchscreens on a laptop rarely work, and the few experiences I’ve had with them feel more like an out-dated touchscreen mobile from a year or two back. Often the inbuilt software provided is too sluggish to be used naturally and well, the screens are usually a fingerprint magnet so my recommendation is to hold off on the touchscreen at least for now.

 

Backlit Keyboard

You’d be suprised how much of a difference a few LED lights behind the keyboard can make. Aside from the general cool factor, even in dimly lit rooms, the backlight on a lot of newer laptops really come into their own. On that note, you should be careful to try out a lot of laptop keyboards before putting down on the hefty price tag, sometimes the keyboard can make or break a good laptop.

 

Solid State Drives

The term solid state drive or SSD refers to a hard disk without mechanical parts. The benefit of this is simply a ridiculously fast drive and as there aren’t any mechanical parts, it’s a hell of a lot sturdier and resistant to bumps and knocks, something that can be important in a portable device like a laptop. What’s the catch? Well SSD drives can cost you an arm and a leg and for a small capacity. The standard for SSD drives are the 64Gb and 128Gb drives which although fast, will set you back price wise.

 

USB Ports

Your standard laptop should come with a minimum of 2 USB ports but I usually find that when you add a cooler, external hard drives, wireless mouses and the plethora of other computing peripherals that 4 is quite a good base number for USB ports. You’ll also perhaps find the odd laptop sporting one of the newer USB 3.0 standards or a high speed eSata port on some of the newer laptops which’ll enable high speed data transfer. Useful if you do a lot of photography or chunky music library.

 

Multi Touch Track pads

Multi Touch Track pads are a standard on Apple computers and are very quickly being built into the majority of new Windows computers. Even if your track pad doesn’t support multi touch out of the box, there’s a good chance that you’re using a Synaptic branded track pad in which case a manual install of a few of their newer drivers will give you all the multi touching goodness you can handle.

 

Speakers

Look out for Hardman/Kardon or Bose speakers when purchasing a new laptop. Although not usually a deal breaker, it can often help if you watch a lot of movies or listen to a lot of music. On the other hand if you do end up with tinny speakers then hook up an external subwoofer and some stereo speakers and you’re good to go.

 

As with anything, purchasing a laptop is a matter of personal preference and use. The perfect laptop for somebody might be a nightmare for another to use. So what I’ve listed below are some of what I feel are the better laptops in their class.

 

Recommendations

 

Netbooks

 

Samsung N210	ASUS Eee PC 1201N Seashell

 

Standard Notebooks

 

Toshiba Satellite L650-1FW	Dell Inspiron N5010

 

Gaming Laptops/Desktop Replacements

 

Alienware M17x	SONY Vaio VPCZ13V9E/X

 

Of course these are only a few laptops and there are many many more that you should definitely consider but at least now you have somewhere to start looking.

 

EDIT (25/11/10) – The guys over at Gizmodo have just released their best laptops of 2010. It’s a very good list and something you should definitely take a look at here.

 

Related articles

• A Look at the Lineup of ASUS Laptops (brighthub.com)
• Netbook vs. Laptop - Mobile PC Buying Guide (brighthub.com)
• Netbook suggestions (edugeek.net)
• Top 5 Laptops Gamers Can Buy For Black Friday (cinemablend.com)
• The Total Laptop Computer Buying Guide (brighthub.com)

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First Official Green Lantern Trailer

So today’s a big day for Comic Book fans, the day where we finally get to see The Green Lantern in all of his CGI glory. At first look, it looks quite alright, a similar feeling to how I got when I first saw the Iron Man 2 trailer. Let me know what you think of this DC production scheduled for release June 17, 2011.

 

Source: Geekosystem

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Call of Duty Black Ops Review: It’s No Modern Warfare 2

Black Ops enters the FPS market with huge expectations being the follow up to the massive 2009 hit Modern Warfare 2. But do Activision have a title that’ll live long in the memory or fade away in time as World at War did. This is the spoiler free TUS review of Black Ops.

 

Switching from controversial developers Infinity Ward, Activision have opted for Treyarch who’ve previously developed such games as Spider-Man 3, Quantum of Solace and NHL 2K3. Already selling well over 7 million copies worldwide and beating the previous record holder Modern Warfare 2, should Black Ops be regarded as an automatic shoe-in success or is there more than meets the eye.

 

Storyline

Black Ops depicts the story of Alex Mason, a member of the Studies and Observation Group (SOG) a highly classified US covert special operations unit. This gritty new atmosphere that’s thrust upon the player is clear from the get go as even the Main Menu functions as a branch of the on going storyline. Black Ops will bring you back and forth from the Jungles of Vietnam to the depths of an icy Russian Gulag. Along with the jumping to and fro of locations is also the jumping back and forth from timelines. This can be quite confusing considering that it can sometimes be incoherent in the way the story pieces together and given the content of the plot, rather than be immersed it can be easy to feel detached and unconnected to the main protagonist.

 

This is I feel one of my biggest gripes with the game, there just isn’t the same connection I felt when playing Modern Warfare 2. Aside from the constant repeating of “Reznov” every other minute, it was a struggle to really care for any of the characters not to mention even remember any of their names. The pains and the struggles the game attempts to put across simply don’t convey properly and compared to MW2 it’s definitely a very linear plot rather than an actual experience. MW2 had an epic storyline and more importantly characters with actual charisma; Roach, Makarov, Soap and of course the icon that is Ghost. Don’t get me wrong, the voice acting of Sam Worthington, Ed Harris and Gary Oldman are just some of the many great voice actors involved that definitely give the characters a realistic edge.

 

Aside from the character flaws, the plot although complex and a little convoluted never really hits a high point. Some people will be pleased with the conclusion of the game, some will be left disappointed. Personally I felt the climax never quite lived up to the hype and the game feels much more like a series of levels rather than a rollercoaster of a story. There aren’t any real wow moments and although there are enjoyable individual scenes, that aren’t many that stand out enough to make you want to play them again.

 

Gameplay

In this edition of Call of Duty, Treyarch have definitely expanded on the gameplay option available to the player and that’s definitely a plus. Piloting the helicopters and boats through Vietnam feels solid and the weapons have a significant sense of power about them. There is a Stealth bomber section which although is a cool idea in theory doesn’t execute well as it’s both too short and lacks polish. In many ways perhaps Treyarch wished to mimic the “Death from Above” level from MW2 where you man the gunner position in an overhead AC-130 as you quite literally rain death from above, however this new level in Black Ops simply doesn’t come close to the level of enjoyment felt in the original.

 

Weapons in Black Ops feel solid if a little dull. It appears that AK-47’s are dominant through every time era and they look and fire pretty much the same wherever you go. Some of the guns however do sound rather pathetic in comparison to the same model weaponry in Medal of Honour (2010) and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (which in my mind sets the standard for superb sounding weapons). Perhaps the way I play first person shooters in the style of double tap to the chest with single shot enabled on an M4 Carbine for example doesn’t suit Black Ops. You’re better off running head long towards the goal spraying ostensibly like a Labrador in heat. The SPAS-12, a familiar shotgun in most video game FPS’, is far and away one of the most entertaining modifications of a weapon when you add “Dragon’s Breath Incendiary” slugs. It never gets tedious to watch you one hit kill shot and incinerate enemies.

 

Black Ops is though what you’d expect from these Call of Duty games in that it’s a very straight forward and absolutely linear game. You get told an objective and you head towards it shooting and powering your way through, there are no puzzles or anything to think about and if that’s what you want from an FPS then great, this is just the sort of game for you. The game holds few surprises so fans of the franchise will undoubtedly enjoy Black Ops much as they’ve enjoyed previous Call of Duty’s.

 

Bugs. Bugs. Bugs. All games have bugs and Black Ops is no exception. I definitely came across a number of bugs from the obvious clipping issues, AI standing around frozen while you pop them off from close range and doors preventing enemies from spawning into the game whilst the muzzles of their AK’s clip through the door like some virtual glory hole. Although these certainly aren’t the hyped game breakers that other bloggers might insist they are, they do show a lack of polish on the game which can only be a negative thing.

 

Other minor qualms I had with the game involved when you sprint. Other video games such Kane and Lynch 2 as well as Modern Warfare 2, hold a strong sense of realism when you’re moving from place to place. The sprinting in Black Ops feels more like you’re playing the multiplayer side of the game and unless I’m not mistaken unless you’re superhuman, nobody runs that fast up stairs and through entire levels of the game. A minor irritation but an irritation nonetheless.

 

Presentation

Black Ops looks good. Not amazing but it does look good. Treyarch haven’t changed the formula very much from Modern Warfare 2 and some people will say this is a good thing whilst some would say that it needs a little uplift from last year. I didn’t find anything wrong with it per se but I did come across many performance issues. Even in quiet moments of the game, there’d be significant lag where there shouldn’t have been and tuning the graphics levels down did little to help the issue. Doing a simple search revealed that this has been quite a widespread problem with a number of players so perhaps a future patch from Treyarch should fix it.

 

The soundtrack for Black Ops is strong, a little less dramatic than Modern Warfare 2 but is suited to what’s going on in the story. Directed by composer Sean Murray, and featuring a full 80-piece symphony orchestra, the soundtrack features the appropriate “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones during Vietnam which appropriately sets the scene.

 

Conclusion

Call of Duty Black Ops has it’s flaws and gripes but it’s a good game and a decent addition to the franchise. Many people will be hugely impressed with the direction Call of Duty have gone in and certainly a trawl through the big game review sites will show that they’ve given Black Ops the full five star rating. Rather than just add to the praise that other reviewers have given it, I’ve focused more on the flaws of the game than the positive aspects. I’m not sure what it is, whether the lack of focus in the storyline or the lack of polish in the presentation but there’s something lacking in this edition of Call of Duty. It’s still however a very good game and all fans of the series should give it a chance if they can.

 

TUS Rating: 88%

Related articles

• Review: Call of Duty: Black Ops Redefines Modern Warfare [Video] (kotaku.com)
• Review: Call of Duty: Black Ops Redefines Modern Warfare [Video] (kotaku.com)
• Video Game Review | Call of Duty: Black Ops: Suddenly the Cold War Is a Cool Event (nytimes.com)
• So you hate Black Ops (asilee.com)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops Generates $360 Million in 24 Hours (devicemag.com)
• Analyst: Call of Duty Players Don't Know Jack About Infinity Ward (escapistmagazine.com)
• Review: Call of Duty: Black Ops hits the mark (theglobeandmail.com)
• Call of Duty:Black Ops creators look for battlefield promotion (herocomplex.latimes.com)

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Star Wars John Williams Acapella Tribute Medley

A pretty awesome tribute to the works of John Williams. Can you guess which songs they come from?

 

Source: YouTube

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Robert “The F**k” Downey Jr’s Short Film on Confidence

There has been a wave of Hollywood A-list actors offering up their services to small indie short films in recent years such as the likes of Keira Knightley, Colin Firth and Richard E Grant to name but a few. “The Route” directed by Stephen Frears and starring only the charismatic Robert Downey Jr is an interesting blend of the emotive as well as the intriguing. I can guarantee that the astonishingly well written plot will have you smiling by the end.

 

 

 

Let me know what you think in the comments section below or me directly.

Source: OneCoolThingADay.com

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