12 Feb 2011

The Best Of Everything (Tech Edition)

A blog post by my good friend Cam in which he mentioned some of his favorite tech, er, things,  inspired me to write what I consider to be the best of everything techie...

Best Phone: HTC Desire HD. See my original post here

Best Phone Operating System: Google's Android. Again here

Best Non-Game App: FaceTime (iPhone 4). Full Skype-like capability on your phone. Even though it's limited at the moment (you can only FaceTime with other iPhone 4 users), it's still a game changer in the world of apps

Best Game App: Angry Birds. The best, most fun and most addictive game out there...so much so, that PS3/360 versions are in the works. Sorry, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 users, you're not at the party!

Best Video Games System: Nintendo Wii. Love the Sony PS3 and the Microsoft XBOX 360 is also very good (but will ALWAYS lose to the PS3 due to lack of built-in Blu-Ray), but for sheer all-round fun that appeals to ALL ages, nothing can yet beat the Wii

Best Video Game: Guitar Hero/Rock Band series. Probably most responsible 
(okay, okay, along with Wii Sports) for the transformation of the Video Games System from kid/nerd-centric time waster to dinner-party-replacing social entertainment must-have for grown ups


Best Laptop: Apple MacBook Air. I don't personally own one and have a VAIO (that is awesome, btw) myself. However, I've used one and for portability (which is what laptops were invented for), aesthetics, ease of use, hardware and software, this can't be beaten

Best Computer Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7. Though it's catching up, in terms of pure functionality, MAC OS X Snow Leopard still doesn't compare to Windows' best. W7 takes the best features of Vista (which, for my money, were ample) and leaves the worst (which were also ample)

Best Media Player: VLC (VideoLAN). If you download movies from places other than "official" channels such as iTunes (which I, of course, would NEVER do), then there is simply no substitute. Able to play literally ANY video or music file, this beats the piss out of both Windows' and Quicktime's Media Players


Best Web Browser: Google Chrome. Mozilla's Firefox was once cutting-edge (such as the ground-breaking tabbed browsing). Now everything it offers is bettered by both Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 (never mind 9!) and Chrome

Best Tablet: iPad...for now. By the end of this year I'm sure I'll be able to properly answer this

Best MP3 Player: None. Seriously, with smartphones now able to do everything the best iPod/Zune can do, who the fuck even HAS an MP3 player anymore?

Best TV: Sony Bravia LEDs. Though I just bought a brand-new 42" LG LCD (which, with it's 200Hz refresh rate, built-in Internet and multitude of connections is the best TV I've ever owned), even I know that nobody makes TVs with the quality, lastability and functionality of Sony...I just couldn't afford one with the specs I wanted! Note: I don't include 3D here, as I believe it's silly

Best Way to Watch Movies/TV: HDD/Internet TV. Seriously, if you still watch DVDs or Blu-Ray Discs, you lose. If your TV doesn't have built-in Internet or USB inputs for direct hard-drive connectivity (shit, at least hook your laptop/PC up to it, via HDMI, of course), well, you're just letting the best in life pass you by...


5 comments:

Cam-Fu said...

Best Phone: Not being in the phone industry, I am at a disadvantage here because I haven't tried a lot of things. I love my HTC HD7, but I still recommend people get the iPhone for now. The image quality can't be beat. Great quality hardware.

Best Phone Operating System: Windows Phone 7 is getting better and better every day, but it still doesn't compare to Android or iOS. Both have their pros and cons, so it's not an easy choice for me. I guess I would go with Android.

Best Non-Game App: No video chatting on WP7 yet, so my favorite non-game app is CardStar. Mostly because it has shrunk my wallet.

Best Game App: I agree with Angry Birds! I cannot wait until Rovio gets off their asses and releases it for WP7. Someone online proved that it could be ported over in two weeks or less, so there's definitely more going on than what meets the eye. I know they were mad at MSft at one time for prematurely announcing a WP7 app, but they really are losing out on some revenue here.

Best Video Games System: PlayStation 3. I think it has the best graphics out of the three major consoles. The exclusive games are great. Disc-free Netflix Watch Instantly in 1080p 5.1 HD. The Wii is also good, but now Xbox has Kinect, and it's actually really cool. Really, I have no loyalty here as I would love to own every system, but if I had to pick only one, it would be PS3.

Best Video Game: I fear that the Guitar Hero/Rock Band series is over for the most part. It's sad because you know I liked it just as much as you. Harmonix is really going to have to step up their game and come up with some new, creative way to do music simulation games. Anyway, right now my favorite video game is Uncharted 2. Playing the crap out of it. It's like playing through an action movie. The production value is so high. I barely ever want to play through an entire campaign again once I've beaten it, but I am currently going through Uncharted 2 again on a harder difficulty. That and the online multi-player is amazingly addictive. I can't wait for Uncharted 3!

Cam-Fu said...

Best Laptop: There is so much better laptop hardware out that than the MacBook now. I used to prefer Apple's product, but the PC manufacturers have really caught up and even excelled beyond. The Vaio SR series is great, the Dell Inspiron series has caught up big time, and HP's business model laptops are wonderful. Not only that, but I guarantee all of them are cheaper than a MacBook. I can't decide between the three, but if I had to choose, I would say the Vaio.

Best Computer Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7. Agree with you 100% here. I use both Win7 and OSX 10.6 at work, but I still prefer Windows. If not for just the reason that it can run practically anything, except Apple proprietary software.

Best Media Player: VLC (VideoLAN). Yep. The only thing that compares is Windows Media Player Classic. Have you ever used it? It's still out there on the web, but at one time, Microsoft had this and it could play anything and everything. I find that it still does. lol

Best Web Browser: I like Google Chrome's speed, but their extension/addon options are weaker than Firefox's. Of course Mozilla has had more time to work with developers on perfecting this, so I'm sure Google will catch up. Chrome also has a larger, more open library. It's just a matter of time before I change my mind.

Best Tablet: HP EliteBook 2740p Tablet PC. It's a folding tablet, but I see people using it at work a lot and it's so cool. Runs Windows 7 64-bit full-fledged rather than something like iOS. Intel i7, 8GB RAM, HD graphics. Very expensive compared to the iPad, and bulkier, but awesome.

Best MP3 Player: You're right. This is a silly category, but I would choose the iPod Nano now especially for people who work out or are always on the go. It's so small and has touch screen capability.

Best TV: I don't like the way LEDs look. I don't think it's quite there yet. As much as I hate to say it, plasma still looks better to me than LCD. I've been more than satisfied with my Toshiba Regza LCD, but if I could get anything, I would buy something from the Samsung PNC8000 series.

Best Way to Watch Movies/TV: HDD/Internet TV. Oh, totally. I haven't bought a Blu-ray or DVD in years. Literally.

Great post! This was fun.

BTW, this is split in two posts because Blogger said it was too long. I didn't know there was a limit in comments. Must be something new.

Carlos said...

I totally agree with you on the iPhone 4's screen resolution...best in the market, by far, but it really is the only major advantage the iPhone 4 has over the high-end Android phones like mine (btw, your phone and mine, hardware-wise, are basically the same phone!).

For Angry Birds, all editions are free on Android (of course. You have to pay for it on iPhone...) and hopefully will be free for WP7.

Totally agree with you that as far as tech specs goes, PS3 blows everything out of the water. It's the type of games for the Wii, though, that gives it the edge for me.

You're also right about GH/RB. Did you hear this week that no more GH games will be made due to sluggish sales?! I still think they changed the way (and who) we game.

I love my VAIO so much...but think the MacBook Air is just beautiful and simple. (I'd always need a Windows-based PC, too, btw!).

I think the HP Tablet is just too much like a laptop. The "tablets" I'm talking about are like the iPad/Android tablets that are smaller, cheaper, not as powerful as laptops, but offer the most common tools (internet, office suite, e-reader).

Carlos said...

Just looked up CardStar...pretty effing cool! Goone get it. I already had a Tesco's (UK equivalent to Target) clubcard app on my phone, but this is even better. Good tip!

Cam-Fu said...

One tip on CardStar: A lot of internal scanners won't read the barcodes, but the laser guns work fine.