Any electronic gadget fanatic here ?

[Andy Nguyen]

This is way off-topic but I wouldn't be surprised to see lot of gadget fans among our Quantnet members.

I consider replacing my 7 year old TV by a new LCD. The new setup will be for my new interest: Blu-ray. I've been a fan of HD contents for years and it's time to step up.

I'm researching a while for a new LCD that is 1080p. I'll get PS3 as a Blu-ray player. Content will be either from DirecTV or Cablevision.
I know I can use PS3 as a game machine, blu-ray player, mp3 player, wifi, Linux ready, etc...

Anyone has any current set up that they can share ?

It's all about computer, electronic toys and I never have enough of them. :smt100

 

[Yuriy]

Too bad I'm of no help here I almost don't watch any TV, only rent DVDs. If I watch TV, it is most likely Russian and soccer-related

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Am I the only one here with a compulsive gadgets buying problem ? :-ss
Everytime there is some new cool electronic coming out, I'm itching to get it. My current interest seems to be around Blackberry, HDTV LCD, Blu-ray burner, PS3. On the positive side, I tend to do a really good research on things before I buy so that keeps me on the fence with the ever changing technology.

Any recommendation for a good doctor ? :sos:

 

[Yuriy]

Andy, you might not be the only one maybe others are just not willing to reveal their passion for gadgets. I'm actually starting to get an impression that you have found an extra dimension or your day is not 24 but at least 30 hours long you seem to have time for everything: school, quantnet, gadgets and many other things

Of the four items you listed, I know for sure what the Blackberry is. PS3 most likely stands for PlayStation 3, but I've never played PS or any other game console only games for PC. Speaking of games, I mostly play FIFA series (have them all going up to FIFA 97), NHL (have 98, 00, 02, 04, 06), and various racing games. I've heard about HDTV, but not quite sure about the details of it being better than regular TV. And I have the least clue about blue-ray technology

I have many items on my to-buy list, but not many of them come from the gadgets list

 

[radosr]

hey, guys,

ps2 and fifa07 are a definite wake-up routine every morning.

looking forward to ps3 and fifa08.

why go for a big tv when it's easier to win on a smaller one ...lol

regards

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Rados,
You don't know what you've been missing
You should get the PS3. It is regarded as the best valued game machine right now. With the $100 price cut and free 5 Blu-ray Movies that Sony is doing right now, you can't just pass it up.

Until Sep 30, you get a 5 free Blu-ray movies ($24.99 each). PS3 is backward compatible so you can play your FIFA07 and other PS2 games on it. It is the best Blu-ray player for that price right now. You can use it to upscale your DVD, play your music, connect to internet via Wifi.

The promotion detail is at Blu-ray Savings U.S.A. Edition

I'm getting the 60GB version soon, mostly to play Blu-ray movies but I wouldn't mind playing a couple of FIFA rounds. I gotta pick either Brazil or Argentina

 

[Yuriy]

I never played FIFA on PS, I guess that should be fun I should probably put PS3 on my wishlist maybe at the expence of Roteiro soccer ball and maybe something else, it might cost a fortune

 

[alain]

hey, guys,

ps2 and fifa07 are a definite wake-up routine every morning.

looking forward to ps3 and fifa08.

why go for a big tv when it's easier to win on a smaller one ...lol

regards

I used to Play a lot of FIFA. First FIFA'98 in a PC, then FIFA2002 in a PC when I used to run an Internet Cafe with a friend of mine and then FIFA2003 in the XBOX. I might still have it. The last time I played it was FIFA WorldCup... but that was couple of years ago.

FIFA in XBOX 360 looks like a dream. I have a friend that didn't know what football was (yes Football... not soccer... football because you play with the... "foot" ) until he discovered FIFA. Now, he knows the whole ManU and Arsenal rosters from top to bottom.

 

[alain]

I never played FIFA on PS, I guess that should be fun I should probably put PS3 on my wishlist maybe at the expence of Roteiro soccer ball and maybe something else, it might cost a fortune

The PS3 costs a fortune and then some.... but you shouldn't look at it as a gaming machine. It is a gaming machine AND a blue-ray DVD player. That's the best advantage.

I'm an XBOX guy... waiting for HALO 3 :D... although I haven't played HALO/HALO2 in more than a year

 

[alain]

Am I the only one here with a compulsive gadgets buying problem ? :-ss
Everytime there is some new cool electronic coming out, I'm itching to get it. My current interest seems to be around Blackberry, HDTV LCD, Blu-ray burner, PS3. On the positive side, I tend to do a really good research on things before I buy so that keeps me on the fence with the ever changing technology.

Any recommendation for a good doctor ? :sos:

There is huge debate between HDTV Plasma, LCD, DLP, etc... I have a small LCD and it looks very good but it was the first generation of LCD TVs (circa 2002/2003). I think Plasma is still the king for HDTV ... and most of the problems of earlier plasmas are gone now. DLP are also great but you can't hang them from a wall.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

There are so many different technologies out there so we definitely gotta do research before buying anything.

I have nailed down my shopping list:
* Philips 42" LCD 1080P model 42PFL7432D
* PS3 60GB
* Build a new PC that can play/burn/decode Blu-ray and act as a media center (Dual 2 Core CPU that I will overclock to 3.2GHz, Nvidia 8600 GTS video card, Asus mobo, 500 GB hard drive, etc)

Next, I need to shop around while figuring out a way to pay for these

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I'm actually starting to get an impression that you have found an extra dimension or your day is not 24 but at least 30 hours long you seem to have time for everything: school, quantnet, gadgets and many other things

I have lot of different hobbies and all have been going on for a couple of years now so Quantnet is definitely not what consumes 24 hours a day of my life.
I can introduce you to some of my hobbies - most of them are just guys/technology things :smt024

 

[Yuriy]

The PS3 costs a fortune and then some.... but you shouldn't look at it as a gaming machine. It is a gaming machine AND a blue-ray DVD player. That's the best advantage.

I'm an XBOX guy... waiting for HALO 3 :D... although I haven't played HALO/HALO2 in more than a year

Alain, why do you prefer XBOX? Is it better in any way? They all the same to me

 

[Yuriy]

I have lot of different hobbies and all have been going on for a couple of years now so Quantnet is definitely not what consumes 24 hours a day of my life.
I can introduce you to some of my hobbies - most of them are just guys/technology things :smt024

Andy, maybe we have one or two hobbies in common
One of my biggest hobbies is (as Alain pointed out the correct name) football. I haven't played in a while, but like to watch it.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Yuriy,
I believe people pick the game system based on the availability of the games they like. XBOX is cheaper, available before PS3, has way more games than PS3, so on and on...

I used to be a huge fan of soccer prior to my arrival to NYC. I used to stay up to 4,5am in the morning to watch English, Italy premier live games, Euro, World cup, etc....I watched the 94 world cup during my college entrance exams then ...#-o

That ended when i came here but I picked up other hobbies (more expensive ones) like basketball, baseball, football and anything computer-related.

Here are some of my hobbies

• Audio/video: I signed up on AVS forum (avsforum.com) since 03 and been reading it for several years. I'm into HTPC, High def stuff these days.
• Handheld device moding, hacking: howardforum
• Thinkpad power user: forum.thinkpads.com
• Ubuntu: ubuntuforums.com
• Blu-ray: blu-ray.com
• Forum admin, mod: TAZ, VB.org, etc
• Building, modding and overclocking computers

Those are the communities that I have an account with. I don't count QN and many others that I read daily. I read anything and everything that I'm interested in.

I wish there are 30 hours a days :smt024

 

[Yuriy]

Andy, well, I wish I could watch some of those English, Italian, Spanish soccer games unfortunately they are all hidden in some cable channels that I need to subscribe to or are not even shown in the US. Time is always an issue, I can only watch at most one game per week, so it may not be worth subscribing but I do have a subscription to a Russian TV station that shows my team games (at least). And, of course, I watch all world cup games (there was a U-20 world cup a few weeks ago).
I have yet to figure out the rules of baseball and football (US version), so far I don't understand these games so watching them makes no sense.

I saw your earlier posting about ubuntu release few months ago, but haven't tried it yet. The only thing I tried was Windows Vista that came with my Dell, and I did not like it Vista crashed my IE7 and did not want to recover it. Maybe one day I'll install a second OS (I used to have 2 on my PC), and that might be ubuntu.

It might be the time for me to go and check some of the forums/sites you mentioned. Of all cool gadgets out there, I probably have just one -- my desktop PC. I keep upgrading it every once in a while, mostly due to the fact that things crash I recently got myself a new CPU and motherboard because the older one refused to start and before that I had to get a new videocard and the box because the old one burned

 

[Andy Nguyen]

On the soccer front, I hope Beckham can help get more attention to the MLS like Mia did to the women soccer movement.

And you know that Adieu Freddie, the wonderkid who is captain of the US team in the U-20 World cup last month just signed with Benfica, some club in Portugese.

Now back to gadget:
Which mobo and CPU you ordered ?

I have some parts I'm adding to my newegg's wishlist right now. I plan to build myself a new desktop that can play Blu-ray and other HDTV contents for years to come.

 

[Yuriy]

Beckham will definitely bring some attention, but I'm not sure if he will be able to show good skills. Anyway, I don't think LA Galaxy signed him up to improve their soccer numbers, like wins and goals, but rather to improve their figures on the balance sheet

I don't remember the exact CPU numbers since I don't have my desktop in the desert, but it should be one of the latest. Before that, I had 3.0GHz, so this one is at least 3.2GHz (Intel). Motherboard, however, is not the top of the line. I still have lots of old stuff on my computer that I don't want to throw away, like IDE hard-drive, RAM and AGP Videocard. I learned that modern motherboards might not support IDE hard-drives and older RAMs, so I had to buy a motherboard that supported IDE and SATA drives, older RAM and 8x AGP Videocard My Videocard is not that bad, its ATI 256MB (don't remember numbers). And I'm definitely not throwing that away yet.
So I'm waiting for all of that to collapse one day and I will upgrade to something more modern.

 

[VladimirBunicu]

Here are some of my hobbies...

• Thinkpad power user: forum.thinkpads.com

Andy,
I really need some advice from an authorized Thinkpad power user , as I plan to buy a T61 soon. Is it true what they say about the quality problems with Lenovo Thinkpads (since it's not IBM anymore)? If the problem exists, any ideas for alternatives?

Talking about football (oops, soccer), there are guys who play at Baruch gym sometimes. Any players on quantnet?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

What quality problem ?
I have a T60 (model 2623D6U) which I have it on 24/7 for over a year and I couldn't be any happier. I didn't follow the T61 thread on the TP forum there so I don't know the specific concerns that you have.

Let me put it this way.
The last Thinkpad model that is truly in IBM name is T42. Lenovo bought the division after that. Since then, people are very skeptical of the quality build everytime a new model comes out. They worry that now Lenovo bought it, the quality build will go down.

The discussion keeps going on as they roll out T43, T60, T61. I had a T23, T42 and now T60 and I don't think T60 is any less well built than T42. And my T60 still has the Thinkpad and IBM logo on it. From what i read, people are very happy with T43, T60 models. They just hate that Lenovo bought their beloved IBM brand.

People also need to realize that Thinkpad T series is the top of the line of the Thinkpad series and the same IBM team has been behind the design of every T model ever since. Lenovo still use that same team for new T60,T61 model. And they are wise to keep the same Thinkpad/IBM logo on the notebook. T series is the bread and butter for them so it's not in their interest to make any stupid mistakes.

For lower quality laptops, they have a separate lines with Lenovo name on it but the Thinkpad T series would stay the same.

In short, I have full confidence on the build of T61. Go for it, and never look back.
As for alternatives, I don't know any that I can endore at this moment. Anything but Dell. If you can afford it, go for the T series.
Do you notice all the banks use Thinkpad T series as work machines for their employees ? Lot of our students have T thinkpads at work.

I have successfully convinced at least 3 people in the MFE program to get the same model as mine. I hope you and Christian will be my 4th and 5th converts :D

In any case, buy the 14.1" with SXGA+ (1400x1050) model. Don't go for the lower reso model.