High Technology Product Reviews | Trends and News

To the casual observer, there's nothing particularly slim about the new Sony PlayStation 3's ($299.99 direct) sleek black housing—it's only when you compare it with its nearly three-year-old counterpart, the previous-gen PS3, that you see how much smaller it is. The bigger news here, however, is the $100 price drop; the original PS3 retailed for $600 when it launched in 2006, and up until last week, the least-expensive PS3 you could buy was $400—and that was for a console with an 80GB hard drive. A more-reasonable $300 now buys you an incredible gaming device that's more compact, sports a roomier 120GB hard drive, and is one of the best Blu-ray players you can find. In general, the new PlayStation 3 offers a near-identical experience to the previous-generation console, which, incidentally, is still available, but for $100 less. It's also $299.99, but with the larger case and a smaller hard drive (80GB), it's hard to see why anyone would opt for it over the PS3...

The Sony PSP has been a premier mobile gaming platform for the past five years, but it was always a bit large for a portable system. Sony's answer: The PSP go ($249.99 direct), a shrunken-down version of the PSP that eschews the UMD optical drive and game cartridges for 16GB of internal storage, download-only titles, and a new slider design. The screen is bright, the controls are responsive, the storage is sufficient, and Sony's online download store is reliable and robust. The problem is that the PSP go is really only for gamers who are new to the PSP platform, not the faithful who have stuck with Sony for a half-decade. If you fit into the latter group, you're better off sticking with your original, albeit chunkier, PSP-1000, or buying the slightly smaller PSP-3000 ($169.99 direct) if you want to get in on multiplayer games. With the PSP go, Sony is poised to compete with other portable gaming platforms, including the Nintendo DS Lite and Apple's iPod touch—at least...

Sony E Series Walkman (NWZ-E353) MP3 player is very reasonably priced. Not only do you get 4GB of storage, a 2-inch screen, and photo and video support, but for far less than the new Apple iPod nano ($149; 8GB, 2.5 stars), which has a smaller 1.54-inch screen and offers no video support at all. Sony could have stopped there and had a modest-but-cheap product on its hands, and that's what the company did. The Archos 3cam vision ($99; 8GB, 3.5 stars) has a video recorder and Samsung's YP-R0 ($99.99; 8GB, 3.5 stars) has a better user interface and earphones than your average budget player, but the E Series is no-frills device. It's works well, but is a bit boring when compared with other low-price players. Specifications Storage Capacity (as Tested) 4 GB Player Type Flash MP3 Player Radio Yes Music Playback Formats AAC, MP3, WMA, Protected WMA Photo formats JPEG Video Formats WMV Dimensions 3.7 x 1.75 x 0.4 inches Design and Features Sony's E Series NWZ-E...

Motion-control-based gaming entered the mainstream with the introduction of the Nintendo Wii back in 2006. A game console that turned the gaming industry on its ear with its innovative controllers that let gamers interact with games using wrist flips, arm motions—and with the addition of the Wii Balance Board—their whole bodies, the Wii is a smashing success with a huge fan base. Microsoft and Sony, naturally, want to snag some of those fans, and Sony gets there first with its PlayStation Move, an add-on for the Playstation 3 that goes on sale on September 19th, and brings motion controls to Sony gamers. Microsoft's competing Xbox Kinect won't be available until early November. What Exactly is the Motion Control and What Do You Need to Play? The PlayStation Move consists of two parts: Sony's PlayStation Eye camera, and a wireless, Bluetooth-enabled wand that looks a little like the Nintendo Wiimote, except it has an illuminated orb attached to its top. Your investment wi...