Quote: "You leap at people the second they say the new Revolution controller doesn't look comfortable, yet you claim this new machine isn't comfortable having never held it? You make quite the hypocrite I must say."
Not particularly. People were saying out-right that the Revolution controller was uncomfortable and horrible, I don't remember many people saying it "LOOKED" (the keyword in what I said) uncomfortable.
Besides while I might not have pick this particular machine up.. I find the GameBoy SP, PSP, Lynx and GameGear extremely uncomfortable, the last 2 in particular are far too heavy for me personally to use for more than a few minutes and that's what this reminds me of.
The Revolution controller on the other hand looks almost exactly like my DVD Remote, which I personally find extremely comfortable to use... and sit there with it in my hand without realising it.
You grip both very differently; and I'm sure there weight of the two is EXTREMELY different. The PSP itself edges on being a little too weighty for my likes. I've found it quite odd how the DS with more mass feels more comfortble and lighter. This said the DS is still quite far from being AS comfortable as the GameBoy Advance.
IMO that is single handedly the most comfortable portable gaming system there is. Just fits the hands nicely.. although I wish it was a bit larger, as do no doubt a few other people.
As far as Battery Packs go. I agree that the Sony PSP and the Apple iPod have horrible battery packs.. you'll find for the first month they'll last a reasonable amount of time (about 10hrs each) but after that they die to closer to 2-3hrs. Quite distressing that they can't be recharged often.
Another big mistake people make with Rechargable packs is they charge them up just enough to play first time, and also recharge them before fully dead. If you don't let Rechargable Batteries / Powerpacks fully charge and fully discharge the first few uses this can cripple the useage you get out of them.
The GameBoy Advance uses AA Batteries, but personally I use a Recharge Pack. You might not get the same 14hrs as you would from Duracell Ultra or such; (closer to 10hrs) but Nintendo's stuff seems to be very resiliant. Even 3rd Party stuff.. no doubt due to Nintendo forcing people to make sure it passes thier Seal of Approval, else you can't sell it.
Personally I find a system where a seal on a product will assure you, that it is a quality product is worth paying over the odds for.
It might be interesting getting one, if I had the free cash.. if only to tinker I probably would. Still it looks quite horrible, and don't think I'd be able to comfortable hold it. While I'm not expecting something of keeping up with the PSP, it would be nice to be able to use this generation technology.
As I said the Imageon and GoForce 3D are specifically designed mobile GPU, that use low-power and provide reasonable performance at lower resolutions.
GoForce3D 4500 for example is capable of similar graphics to the GeForce3 in-terms of performance and shaders. So if you couple that with an 400MHz PowerPC 750FX, and a full SDK. Developers could quite easily create titles of equal standing to stuff like Prince of Persia, and Unreal 2.
We're not talking Halo or Resident Evil 4... but still it wouldn't be that far behind the curve. They have to have created a custom mobo inside it anyways to take dual 200MHz x86. Perhaps not a custom BIOS or Chipset, but then IBM provide a range of Chipsets; and a BIOS is fairly simple (for anyone who can design a mobo that is) to put together.
I'd love to put my hand to making some set peice systems, if I had the money. : sighs : Problem is you need to really order bulk in order to get anything from companies; and well knowing how to create prefab blueprints probably wouldn't hurt either heh
