Archive for April, 2011

Hands-on with the Caanoo handheld videogame system

/ April 29, 2011 / Hardware, Reviews, Technology, Videogames / 1 Comment

I’m a huge retro videogame fan…I play all the new games and consoles but always go back to my childhood games from the 80s. Every time I get a new gadget or computer, usually the first thing I do is see what emulators can run on it. This has also lead to me re-buying the same games over and over again as they become legitimately available for a new device.

This passion for retrogaming even led to me building my own arcade cabinet (on my Westend balcony) so that I could relive these games in all their glory, complete with dual joysticks, 12 pushbuttons and a working coin slot – yes, I made my friends pay to play. The cabinet contained a PC running MAME – the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. This is a cross platform emulator that can run over 5000 arcade classics from the 70s to just a few years ago.

The Arcade

Eventually, I had a living room full of arcade cabinets running pretty much everything. I’ve since scaled back to just one machine but am considering converting it to a mini-MAME cabinet.

Retrocactus Arcade Cabinet

I recently posted about a MAME emulator for jailbroken iPhones. It works quite well for emulating games. Unfortunately, the controls leave a lot to be desired. Touch interfaces just don’t work well with retro games that were played with a joystick, a paddle or a trackball. This is possibly one of the reasons why I really don’t do a lot of gaming on my iOS devices…I’m old school like that.

Then one day, I stumbled across the Caanoo handheld gaming device from Game Park Holdings in Korea. It came out last fall and is the followup to a number of previous devices from GPH that are considered open source alternatives to the Nintendo and Sony handheld gaming devices.

Caanoo handheld

Here was a handheld device that was dedicated to emulating my favorite games and it also had a few other tricks from the modern era that made it a pretty compelling gadget that I ordered almost immediately. I did first check out how well MAME ran on it and there are tons of videos on Youtube demonstrating this.

The main features that interested me were:

  • completely opensource – the device runs on a Linux variant and is apparently very hackable
  • true analog joystick and proper game buttons
  • robust developer community creating all kinds of software and games for it (there is even a true app/game store)
  • a touch screen that works with your fingers or the included stylus
  • stereo sound – although the speakers are located in a strange place
  • vibration – which has varying support in games and has an intensity control to dial it up or down
  • wifi support – not built in but available using a small & inexpensive dongle
  • G Sensor – their version of an accelerometer that can allow the handheld to be used to control the games (tilt for steering controls for example – works quite well even with MAME)
  • uses SD cards (up to 32gb) for storage
  • drag and drop app installs
  • decent battery life (rated for 7 hours, realworld seems to be about 5)
  • TV out support (via a proprietary cable that is not included)
  • a USB port for adding a second player using a USB joystick or gamepad
  • you can rotate the screen for some of the vertical games and the controls are laid out in such a way that it’s actually very playable vertically and comfortable to hold – I couldn’t imagine doing that with a GBA or DS
  • it’s also an open media player (music/movies/ebooks/etc – in just about any format) – not something I really care about or need thanks to my iPad but a nice bonus nonetheless
  • an empty, Caanoo branded 4gb SD card came in the box…despite no mention of it anywhere

It pretty much seems to be the perfect retro gaming handheld at the moment and it is about half the cost of the new Nintendo 3DS.

The back of the unit…note the curious location of the speakers (right were you place your hands):
Caanoo handheld

The animated menu system is pretty basic and boots quickly to help you get to your games quickly:
Caanoo handheld

The emulators – pretty much every console or computer I ever owned (including my beloved Vectrex) and a few I didn’t:
Caanoo handheld

Atari 2600 running Keystone Kapers:
Caanoo handheld

The MAME menu:
Caanoo handheld

MAME running Gauntlet:
Caanoo handheld

A video from the Caanoo’s maker, that highlights the features of the console:

A great starting point for all the emulators for the Caanoo is OpenHandhelds.org where you’ll find a ton of different console, computer and arcade game emulators to download. PDRoms is also another good spot to check out the Caanoo section.

For obvious reasons, you’ll have to look elsewhere for the rom files needed to run the emulators but chances are if you’re interested in retro gaming at all, you’ll know where to look.

A few things I didn’t like about the Caanoo:

  • touchscreen gets very smudgy…I’ve been spoiled by Apple’s protective coatings
  • the only way to charge the unit is using a proprietary USB cable – let’s hope I don’t lose it
  • the power light on the left side is pretty large and unnecessary
  • the app store and product registration requires Windows to work. No official Mac support but you can easily populate the SD card on a Mac with games, emulators and roms and just pop it into the Caanoo with no trouble
  • wifi not built in & requires a dongle that sticks out of the bottom of the unit – not a huge deal since I’d rarely use it but if a friend does pick up one of these, we could play head to head over wifi

Other than those few items, I really have no complaints about the Caanoo. It works better than I imagined at running pretty much every game I’ve thrown at it at near perfect speeds. I’m still impressed that hardware of this caliber and quality is available so inexpensively (~$150) and that the community is as big as it is. I also considered the Dingoo (really? who comes up with these names?) but it’s a bit older and has a little less power than the Caanoo (336mhz vs 533mhz) although it’s nearly half the price ($~80) so it may be an option if you want to check out these kinds of handhelds on the cheap.

I ordered my Caanoo from Think Geek but it’s available online from a number of places including eBay.

Driving to WSSF 2011

/ April 24, 2011 / Photography, Travel / Comments Off

This past weekend, my friends at GM Canada loaned me a red 2011 Camero convertible to drive up to Whistler to attend the Whistler Ski & Snowboard Festival, aka WSSF.

Since the weather was perfect, it seemed fitting to strap the GoPro to the trunk and make a time-lapse of the trip up:

The video starts in Burnaby, through downtown Vancouver where I pick up Kris Krug in Gastown and then over the Lions Gate Bridge and up the Sea to Sky Highway to Whistler.

More videos soon from the Big Air competition!

Hands on with the Blackberry Playbook

/ April 19, 2011 / Hardware, Mobile, Reviews, Technology / Comments Off

This morning I had an opportunity to check out the new tablet on the block, the Blackberry Playbook from Research in Motion.

Blackberry Playbook

Of course, I had to try the camera(s) on the Playbook (shot with the rear camera in low light):
Blackberry Playbook

It has a 3mp front facing camera and a 5mp rear facing camera which seemed pretty decent.

Blackberry Playbook
The Playbook fits easily inside the touchscreen area of my iPad 2.

Blackberry Playbook

What I found surprised me. Here’s my quick takeaways after playing with it for a brief amount of time:

I liked:

  • Form factor – fits nicely in your hand and is about the size of my Kindle 3 in it’s leather case which means it’s perfect for curling up on the couch with
  • rubberized back…something I like immensely over the Apple aluminum backed iPad
  • Multitouch bezels – let’s you swipe from the black bezel areas in order to get to options, switch apps, etc.
  • Multitasking – works as advertised and you can swipe from side to side in the bezel area to switch between apps
  • There is a file system! I was able to log into Flickr and use the uploader to access the breakfast photo I took and post it directly online – something I wish was possible with iOS

What I didn’t like:

  • App World – obviously it’s launch day so there aren’t a ton of apps…this should get better with time if enough people buy the Playbook. I’m still skeptical about the Android integration but we’ll see.
  • Custom connectors for HDMI – I’m sure it’s a space thing but it would have been nice to have a standard port instead of having to buy a dongle (could have been included at least)
  • Blackberry required for native email/contacts/calendar – this is a huge dropped ball…other than webmail, there is currently no native email app unless you pair with your BB. I can’t imagine any non-Blackberry owners getting one anytime soon until they release some native apps to address this (which I’m told is coming soon – but it should have been there on day 1)
  • cheesy neoprene case included in the box

I guess only time will tell if there is a market for the Playbook. It launched at 7am around North America and there wasn’t a single person lined up to buy one (most pre-ordered them I’m told). I also know that my company is giving them a pass, at least this year, which is a little surprising considering the Blackberry centric enterprise I work for.

My thanks to Elliott, Paul and Brittany at Future Shop for the hands on playtime with the Playbook.

Hands on with LG’s Windows Phone 7 smartphones

/ April 6, 2011 / Hardware, Mobile, Reviews / Comments Off

Recently, my friends at LG loaned me a couple of their new smartphones running Microsoft’s latest mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7.

I like Monday morning courier deliveries #windowsphone7

The one on the left, the LG-C900B (aka the LG Quantum) has a slide out keyboard and the one on the right is the LG-E900h (aka LG Optimus 7) which is a full on touchscreen model.

LG Windows Phone 7

As with previous LG smartphones I’ve reviewed, I found the build quality to be excellent and the form factor, especially on the Quantum, to be great in the hand. The Optimus was a little large and it’s edges a little sharp for my liking.

Both smartphones have 5 megapixel cameras with flash, a dedicated camera shutter button and also a bundled app for taking panoramic photos.

I quite liked the built in panorama app that made it really easy to create images like this one by simply holding the cameraphone up and moving it in the direction you want to capture. The app will snap a photo when you are lined up and take care of the stitching automagically:
PoCo Trail panorama

My only complaint about the panorama app is that the resolution is quite low considering the ability of the camera.

The camera itself was pretty decent although even at the highest settings, it still looks a little web cammy to me.

PoCo Trail

I didn’t have a ton of time to really put the phones through their paces but overall I quite liked them. Not unlike the Zune MP3 player, I found the user interface to be fast, responsive and very slick. It felt much more polished than I’ve seen on Android devices and even made me wish my iPhone did some of the same tricks.
LG Windows Phone 7
During the time I had with the phone, I didn’t get to try a lot of the applications in the marketplace but all the usual suspects were there with quite polished versions of Facebook, Twitter and the like. Even Netflix was there and worked very well.

Like Android & iOS devices, using Windows Phone 7 is centered around a core user account from Microsoft. Android uses Google accounts and Apple uses iTunes. The frustrating thing on WP7 was the fact that if you enter your initial account information incorrectly (I had mistyped my Windows Live password) you are basically screwed. There is no way on the phone to delete the account and try again or even correct the mistyped password. You can add additional accounts but the primary one has to be valid and correct for ANYTHING to work properly on the phone.

The only solution was to do a complete factory reset. While I hadn’t been able to setup much on the phone yet, it was still incredible that the only way to resolve the situation of a mistyped password was to reset the phone.

LG Windows Phone 7

Initial pains aside, I still really liked the Windows Phone 7 platform based on my brief experience with it…I think it’s an easier platform for people new to smartphones to use and understand compared to the brutally fragmented Android arena. Microsoft also has the potential to really capitalize on its Xbox integration with these devices although the current implementation was a little weak with only minor connectivity to your Xbox Live account. Using your WP7 smartphone as a controller for your Xbox 360 could be very cool indeed.

LG Windows Phone 7

I’m still not ready to give up my iPhone 4 but I certainly welcome Microsoft and it’s partners like LG to compete on an ever increasingly level playing field. Only time will tell if they can help make things better for all consumers. As I’ve said many times, competition is great to keep Apple in check and we’re finally seeing devices that at least have a chance to compete for market share.