Day: March 25, 2014

G’day M8 (HTC One 2014 1st Takes)

Sitting here next to my keyboard is HTC’s brand new flagship phone, the One…wait, I thought, they already had a One, um..

Yeah, HTC didn’t get too fancy with the nomenclature, like calling it the One-2, or the One-A, or what have you, but just left it the same.  In fact they left a lot the same, the same awesome build quality, the same awesome boom sound speakers, same single piece aluminium, same ultra pixel camera.  But unlike the name, they did improve upon what made the original One great.

At first glance, you will be struggling to see that it’s an all new phone, but upon closer inspection, you will notice it just that much bigger, and that much rounder, which actually makes it a lot nicer to hold.  the rounded edges on the M8 makes it feel more at home in my hand, but at the same time, it feels like it will slip off, unlike the previous model, where the corners made it feel grippy.

I was afraid that with Beats and HTC parting ways, boom sound will be less ‘boomy’, but they improved on what should be a standard on all handheld devices.  I played a song one after another, and the M8’s boom sound speakers were more powerful, and sounded a tad more punchier.  I will have to do some more listening though, as Beats provided audio enhancements with headphones attached as well.

Now let’s move on the the camera.  The front facer, is now a 5 MP sensor, and should do nicely to all those that are addicted to selfies (self included).  The rear camera though, still remains a 4 UltraPixel, but with an added ‘depth’ sensor, which allows for post shot fun.  From the little I have played with it, it looks more like a gimmicky type thing, but w/ the API being out on the Google Play store, I am really excited as to what other developers can do with it.

To round out the phone, the extra bit of width actually made it easier for me to type and hold the phone a bit.  Sense 6.0 is slick, but I have not yet been able to dive deep and check out what’s new under the hood. Battery life has said to have improved some 40%, so I am hoping that it’s true. I still have to spend more time with this device, so look forward to my Half Assed Review.

I will be cutting and uploading some footage shortly, so look forward to that also. For now, enjoy some comparison shots between the M7 (old One), and the M8 (new One).

 

 

A Quicky Of Me Playing MGS: Peace Walker

Here’s me doing a really REALLY quick bootleg capture of Peace Walker. I miss knocking on walls as misdirection to fool these guards. Also, the CQC in PW is one of the post intuitive systems in any MGS thus far, predating Ground Zeroes. PW is easily one of the best MGS games to have been made. I have over 100+hrs accrued since it’s release in 2010 and I STILL haven’t finished it 100%! Here’s a YouTube user’s clip of Consecutive CQC. For me it’s a smoother seqience, transitioning from one soldier to the next.

The Consecutive CQC in GZ is cool but seems too quick-cut and shaky-cam. Not a complaint by any means, just a mere observation. I’ll put up a quicky of Portable Ops next time to show you the mechanics and how it is essentially MGS3 for PSP.

MGSV:GZ – There’s An App For That

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Continuing my usage of the Ground Zeroes app I decided to give iDroid mode a second go. As it turns out, the app will only sync if my console (in this case my PS3) is on WiFi, which it is due to the router being in the bedroom while my Slim sits in the living room. Syncage (is that a word?) is as easy as a few quick taps on the screen which takes me to my own personal iDroid HUD. What you’d see in-game is exactly what you get in-app.

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