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BACK ISSUES | JANUARY 2010 | CURRENT ISSUE
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JANUARY 2010
Games & Gizmos
 Android Galaxy
So, the 3rd Android phone has now come to India. Yup... Samsung's new sleek Galaxy I7500 is available for you now. Should you buy it? If you want to be one of the first Android users in India, sure! Or just read this review, look at the snaps alongside and make up your mind! Or not! We gonna tell you anyway! Featuring a large 3.2-inch screen (which incidentally takes up most of the space on the front with enough space left for basic keys), the Samsung Galaxy is a nice, sleek handset that fits easily in your hand. The screen is anti-scratch and all that jazz but in bright light, reading what's on it will need Superman-vision. The Galaxy has a 528MHz CPU with 8GB internal memory and it comes with the same triple desktop as on other Android devices. You can also customize the icons on each of them. And Samsung have also added their TouchWIZ widgets to this so you have a larger choice. The rest of the OS is the same with the same security options and unlock pattern as in the earlier HTC Android (Hero, anyone?) handsets. Oh, you want more apps? So, okay, then! Log on to the Android Market. Nifty, huh?  And this is the geeky touch here... the Android keyboard. Geeky why? Coz you can use it both portrait and landscape modes. Quick typing is a bit of an issue on this but hey you got your entire life waiting, nu? What's the hurry? And forget your piddly phone browser... when it comes to surfing the web, the Galaxy is the Emperor of Ice-cream... too cool by half and twice as sexy. Multi-tab browsing with an accelerometer function enabling both portrait and landscape views. And standard expectations like music playback, video player and the whole paloozah are available here too. But be warned: the Galaxy can't replace your iPod. The camera on this is pretty good - 5 MP with autofocus and LED flash - but it doesn't have any additional image edit settings. The key point: price. How much does the Galaxy cost? Just over Rs. 24000/- but hey a one-year warranty is free! |
 The Saboteur is the last game released by developer Pandemic... they were bought out and shut down by big daddy EA. And on the basis of this game, we think it's not come any bit too soon. So, the good points first: this is a WWII game - that's World War II for those who didn't brush up on their history lessons today. And sorry for the bad joke... being a WWII game isn't good anymore, we agree. And games like this one prove why. The Saboteur casts players as hot headed, Irish driver Sean Devlin, living the life in Paris. When a friend is brutally murdered by the Germans, he embarks on a personal quest to kill every Nazi in France. And since he's the HERO, he must also liberate France from under the thumb of the Germans. So far, so good? No? Too bad coz that was the best. Bad gunplay (in a WWII game, mind you!), terrible aesthetics and a presence of a lot of cooks (the kind who spoil the broth) make this game go wrong in so many ways. So you have a poor-looking mishmash of some good games coming together in this unholy mess. Really sad coz the game had potential! Instead all we get is a waste of a whole lot of bucks for those of us who buy the licensed copies. For everybody else, shame on you! — Reviewed by Vinod Verma |