One of the things that has been said about the new Xbox One’s launch earlier this week was that it wasn’t “next gen” enough, that it was just more of the same.

Another charge was that Microsoft was slapping a PC into a nice box and branding it a game console. Both the Xbox One and the rival Sony PS4 unveiled earlier will use AMD x86-based chips similar to PC processors.

All this begs the question, why not get a PC in the living room instead?

This is not to stoke another PC versus game console debate. Yet, if you are after all the full-fledged features that seem to be missing in a console, why not fix up a living room PC instead?

What you get is full control over what runs on it – from TV services such as Netflix to cutting-edge hardware that can be easily upgraded. There’s also the always-evolving graphics effects on PCs, which you can scale up over the years, instead of waiting for the “next gen” to turn up.

Obviously, the downside is cost. Since Microsoft or Sony are not “subsidising” your hardware with a view to your purchase of future games, you pay more upfront. Kinect also doesn’t seem to be a feature developed for Windows games.

Yet, there are a few things going for the living room gaming PC. While CPUs and graphics cards were noisy previously, today even high-end gaming components are relatively quiet.

Speed matters too. Windows 8 plus solid state drives (SSDs) today mean that PCs boot up almost instantly, so there’s no lag to your fragging.

If you’re keen on a living room gaming rig, here’s what a mid-range PC may include:

1. Intel Core i5-3470 + H77-based motherboard + 8GB RAM
You don’t need a super fast CPU or fancy motherboard if your main aim is to fire up games and not to overclock or tweak your PC every day to boost performance.

Intel’s Core i5 has enough juice to keep up with your graphics card, which will do much of the grunt work pumping out the eye candy on screen.

You can go for an affordable H77-based motherboard (good brands are Asus, MSI and Gigabyte) that will support the latest connections like SATA 6Gb/s to hook up your SSDs. Go for an ITX-sized board if you want to fit it in a small, discrete case.

Depending on how much you can stretch your budget, 8GB of memory should be fast enough now. Get more if you can afford, of course.

2. A pretty PC case
Since this PC is not going to sit under your desk, but next to your slim TV, you might want a case that looks the part in the living room.

There are small form factor (SFF) options such as Fractal Design’s Node 304 (top) or Silverstone’s popular Sugo series – the SG08 is nice – as well as desktop designs that look as good as your hi-fi components, such as Silverstone’s GD07 (below).

Whatever you choose, check the specs to see that you have enough space inside to fit a gaming graphics card, which can be pretty big with extra cooling fans.

3. A 240GB SSD 
Once upon a time, PCs were slow to boot up and were the butt of jokes. Today, you can boot up in a few seconds with Windows 8 installed on an SSD.

I’d recommend that you go for 240GB, which will push up the budget a little, but which should keep all your games in place without the need to uninstall them for a while.

Again, you don’t have to gun for the fastest, since you’re not taking part in a contest in PC performance scores. Just go for the cheapest 240GB SSD. This can be had for just under S$250.

Should you buy a hard disk? Sure, if your budget permits, but you can always plug in a portable hard disk stuffed with songs or stream them from your network drive. Plus, there are lots of streaming options available over Netflix or Spotify.

4. A powerful graphics card
At the top-end, PC graphics cards can cost more than S$1,500. You don’t need those, especially if your TV screen is displaying 1,920 x 1,080 pixels or Full HD resolution. A mid-range card should do the job. Sure, if you don’t want to be upgrading so often, you can go for a higher-end one by stretching the budget.

A modest AMD HD7850 card (from just over S$200) should run pretty well, though if you want the full power of PC graphics to display “next gen” game effects, go for the top-end HD7950 (from just over S$400) and HD7970 (just over S$500).

Plug in one of these and you’d get a whole lot of the “next gen” graphics promised on the new consoles (see an opinion here).

5. Windows 8
The Metro interface on Windows 8 often gets in the way on a regular desktop monitor, but the large tiled icons should come in handy when projected on a large screen TV. Sitting far away from the screen, you’d not want to fiddle with tiny Windows icons.

6. Wireless keyboard, mouse and game controller
You’ll need a wireless keyboard and mouse combo, unless you like having a long cable dangling across the living room. From the expensive to the cheap, there are lots of options here.

If you prefer a more console-like experience, you can plug in a game controller too. From Razer’s excellent Sabertooth (it’s wired though) to Microsoft’s original Xbox controller, you can take your pick.

Bottomline
The reality is that the console is becoming more of a PC, not just in terms of the hardware but in the way it is trying to do more things, such as stream media to the living room. At the same time, the PC has never been so friendly to use in the living room, thanks to advancements in the hardware and interface.

For folks who want a simple and affordable option, the game console remains the obvious choice.

Yet, if you are a hardcore gamer demanding more from your machine, an option exists in living room-friendly PCs that offer infinitely more options, more power if you invest the time and money to build one yourself.

Will you be buying a new console in the coming months? Share with us what you game with.

Call it plastic, safe or even boring. Despite the criticism, Samsung has sold a record 10 million of its flagship Galaxy S4 phones in under a month as it tightened its stranglehold on the smartphone market.

That’s four phones sold a second, according to the Korean electronics giant, which unveiled the figures today surely to the dismay of fellow Android rivals as well as Apple, which has seen demand for its iPhone cool off in recent months.

The number one phone maker, Samsung seems to have accelerated its sales this time round with the 10 million figure reached within weeks of the Galaxy S4′s global launch on April 27. Last year’s Galaxy S III took 50 days while the Galaxy S II took five months and the Galaxy S seven months.

What’s great about the S4?

While it has the hardware to match any rival smartphone out there – its 5-inch screen is a main attraction – it hasn’t impressed many reviewers as much as, say, the HTC One, which many believed had a better camera and more stylish metallic design (read our Galaxy S4 and HTC One tests).

Yet, Samsung has gained its own loyal following, as perhaps Apple had previously with its iPhones. Despite not adding dramatically new features, or even bettering other rival products, each new phone from Samsung seems to have gained the ability to make users splash the cash for an upgrade.

The hardware is probably just a part of the equation for non-geeky buyers. Like many fashion or lifestyle products, the phone is something that people buy simply because they want to have it, either to look cool, to fit in or just because everyone else has it.

When a fad has taken hold, it’s hard to stop.

Those looking to get their hands on the successor to the Asus PadFone 2 will have their wish granted very soon. The much-awaited Padfone Infinity is slated to be out in Singapore on June 1 from M1 and StarHub as well as authorised dealers in time for the upcoming PC Show 2013.

There are a lot of things to like when it comes to the Infinity, a phone that can be slotted into a dock to turn into a tablet. What’s impressive are the gorgeous 5-inch full HD (1920 by 1080 pixels) screen, the use of the standard micro USB cable and 1.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor.

Yet, the unique feature of the Padfone Infinity is the one-piece aerospace-grade aluminium body that measures just 6.3mm thin. The phone itself weighs a light 141g. With the dock, the combined weight is just 532g, which is similar or less than many 10-inch tablets.

The PadFone Infinity also comes with its own Asus apps such as the Asus Story for those looking to organise photos in a virtual photobook and the improved Supernote 3.1, for note taking and drawing.

For those who are avid snappers, the Infinity comes with a 13-megapixel camera armed with an f2.0, five-element lens for increased light capturing capability. The smartphone can output Full HD 1080p video via its micro USB-compatible MyDP port.

The PadFone Infinity will cost S$898 for the 32GB version and S$998 for the 64GB one. To turn the phone into a 10.1-inch tablet, the optional docking station will cost you another S$368.

Nimbuzz may not think much of television commercials at the moment, but it seems to be getting WeChat a fair bit of traction here in Singapore and the region.

A month after the China-based instant messaging app made its debut on local television, showing off its functionality through Taiwanese celebrities Show Luo and Rainie Yang, WeChat is now topping the charts on iTunes, Google Play, and the Windows Phone Store.

At the time of writing, WeChat is the number one most downloaded free app on Windows Phone, the fifth most downloaded on Android, and the sixth most downloaded on iTunes (all on local charts).

In a media statement issued on Wednesday, WeChat reported that it is also dominating downloads in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, and the Philippines. All in all, the app now counts 50 million active users outside of mainland China, which is still its stronghold at close to 195 million active users.

This puts WeChat close to WhatsApp in terms of the number of active users, a significant achievement for the company. Of course, most of WeChat’s users are still concentrated in mainland China while WhatsApp has a more global reach. Meanwhile, other mobile IM apps such as LINE, KakaoTalk, and the above-mentioned Nimbuzz ceaselessly continue to try carving themselves a slice of the pie.

Their meteoric rise shows no signs of abating, and there are still millions of people out there for IM apps to win over from traditional SMS. As these apps gradually begin to offer more and more ways of interacting with your friends and strangers from halfway around the world, they may even chip into the market share of social networking behemoths such as Facebook.

In fact, a recent study by the Pew Research Center found that many teens in the US are starting to feel “waning enthusiasm” for Facebook and are moving to simpler services such as Twitter. Will WeChat and its brethren turn out to be the ultimate cure they flock to?

M1 is rolling out a service that makes use of customers’ home or office broadband links to provide a better connection on the cellphone, whether this is to make calls or surf the Web.

Instead of connecting to the nearest base station that may be several kilometres away, these users’ phones hook up wirelessly to a femtocell device installed indoors, next to their broadband modem, and tap on the faster wired connection to reach the cellphone operator.

In essence, this offloads the traffic from the often congested cellphone networks to much faster, and often under-used fixed line networks. 

M1′s service, to be out in the third quarter this year, promises to make things smoother for its 3G users. It estimates the rollout to cost between S$5 million and S$20 million, depending on the eventual scale.

The price for the service is not out yet, according to an M1 spokesperson. Calls made on the service may count towards the allocated minutes on a user’s subscription plan, though data used for Internet surfing should be free, she said.

M1 is not the first with such a rollout in Singapore. StarHub debuted one in 2008 for consumers, while SingTel provides a similar service to its corporate customers.

Both work only with the respective telecom operators’ broadband lines, while M1 claims its service will connect with any broadband service.

Though femtocell technology is not new, there has been interest again of late because of the explosion in mobile data usage, and related problems like network congestion and spectrum crunch.

The big question is how telcos can make such a service attractive to users. Will telcos bundle a femtocell service as part of a broadband package, for example?

After all, by taking traffic off the airwaves, users are doing telcos a big favour as well.

If the deal is not attractive, why should a user be paying for an additional device at home and adding traffic to his own network? Cellphone coverage should in itself be good.

There’s also a simple alternative, though not a perfect substitute. That is to manually to switch over to Wi-Fi at home, which a lot of users already do.

Consumers who constantly worry about losing or damaging their phones or tablets may be pleased to know that they can now purchase insurance for their mobile devices.

An Irish insurance company specialising in mobile devices, Mobilecover, recently started offering such a service in Singapore, providing insurance coverage against damage, loss and theft for smartphones and tablets.

Device owners pay S$5.49 a month for regular phones and S$9.99 for more expensive models such as the Apple iPhone, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note.

Unveiled last week, the mobile insurance also includes benefits such as 24/7 worldwide cover, accessories cover and protection against unauthorised calls.

There’s a caveat to the good news, of course. If you’re a forgetful person who keeps losing his phone, take note: Mobilecover users are only entitled to a maximum of two claims per year, depending on the policies purchased.

A survey carried out by the company with 900 participants from Singapore had found that 52 per cent of adults had lost their phone or had it stolen previously. Eighty-eight per cent of the respondents were willing to pay to insure their mobile phones, claimed Mobilecover.

More information on Mobilecover can be found here.

HP has released an affordable, entry-level Android tablet, the HP Slate 7, which looks set to challenge Google’s Nexus 7 in the 7-inch tablet arena.

The most attractive thing about the HP Slate 7 might just be its price – at a mere S$249, the Slate 7 is S$100 cheaper than the Nexus 7 in Singapore. Pre-order it online at the HP online store and the HP Slate 7 costs only S$199 – that’s substantially cheaper than the Nexus 7, which is priced from S$349.

The HP Slate 7′s hardware, however, is not as stellar as what you’d find on the Nexus 7. There are a number of trade-offs.

The HP tablet features a dual-core 1.6 GHz Cortex A9 processor, compared to the Nexus 7’s 1.2 GHz quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor. It also has less storage capacity – 8GB against the basic Nexus 7′s 16GB.

At the same time, the Slate 7 has a screen that packs in less detail. Its resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels, doesn’t stack up against the Nexus 7, which has a sharper display at 1280 x 800 pixels. Both tablets come with 1GB of RAM.

The Slate 7 does, however, come with a 3.15 MP rear camera and a VGA front camera while the Nexus 7 lacks a rear camera completely.

Whether or not a rear camera is present may not matter to users if they own a smartphone with a decent camera, like the Samsung Galaxy S4, or the HTC One, for example. Who really takes pictures with the rear camera on a tablet, anyway?

The one feature that music lovers might appreciate is the embedded Beats Audio, which promises to deliver richer audio to users. HP also claims that the Slate 7 is the first tablet to offer this feature.

So, is the Slate 7 more value-for-money compared to the Nexus 7? If you’re looking for a simple tablet to reply your e-mails and browse the Internet, HP’s entry-level tablet is pretty attractive.

It may win some fans over with its looks as well. When it is out on June 6, the Slate 7 comes in red or silver, unlike the one-colour Nexus 7 which looks all business.

However, a Nexus 7 may still be the small tablet to own if you can stretch your budget a little. Its hardware could come in handy if you are planning on doing more heavy-duty tasks like playing lots of games, or watching videos and movies.

To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure about the MSI S20 Slidebook when I first saw it. Slide-out Windows 8 machines, like those from Sony and Toshiba before it, haven’t done really well, mainly because of the limitations that often come with such a design.

Can MSI make a difference with this portable tablet cum laptop?

The Taiwanese motherboard maker has got some hits and misses, to be sure. Fortunately, the sliding function, I’m happy to say, is pretty usable for an everyday workhorse.

I like it that the 11.6-inch screen slides out to reveal the full-sized 83-key keyboard much easier than on the Sony Vaio Duo 11, for example. The screen also tilts at an angle, which you can adjust until you’re happy with your view. That’s a big plus for gaining user acceptance.

What about the usually small typing space for such sliders? This is where the S20 may feel a little unusual for folks who are used to resting their palms on a regular laptop. You’ll have to place your hands on a table.

If you’re firing away an e-mail on the train, that’s not an issue – in fact, sliders are great for that – but if you’re in the office, I’d advise you to plug in a regular keyboard.

The one thing you’ll need to know is that the S20 comes without a trackpad or track ball. That means you’re dependent on the touch screen to move things around in Windows, especially in desktop mode. You can use an external mouse, of course, but for some folks who prefer to have everything in, that’s tough to accept.

For me, those are not an absolute deal breaker. On the plus side, you get a nice keyboard with the keys nicely spaced out. They are also deep enough so you don’t feel your fingers are banging metal when you type away, unlike on many portable keyboards these days.

Until now, I haven’t even mentioned the S20′s aesthetics. I’d say this is again something that you’d either love or hate. The white plastic frame at the front is complemented by a sleek aluminium finish at the back. It’s reminiscent of some Japanese gadgets of a few years ago, a thing that can polarise opinion.

I’m personally cool with it. I prefer Sony and Toshiba for their look, but the MSI’s slide-out design seems to be smoother to use.

What of the computing engine underneath the case? The S20 is similar to many ultrabooks, with an Intel Core i5-3337U chip, 4GB RAM and an 128GB solid state drive.

This translates to an almost instant-on bootup of the Windows 8 Pro included on the machine, and is close to matching what you’d expect from an Android or Apple tablet, for example. That full-fledged Intel hardware also means you can run just about all your Windows programs, unlike with Android or iOS.

What I really like is the Full HD (1,920 x 1,080 resolution) screen. It’s sharp for text and documents, and when you fire up movies on it, you get to see all the detail in fine quality.

The S20 also has a full array of ports, from a mini HDMI port to a gigabit ethernet port, which you’d expect from a regular laptop. There are also two USB 3.0 ports for hooking up fast external drives and a full-sized SDcard slot to pop in a memory card from your camera.

Despite all that packed in, the machine weighs a rather portable 1.16kg. That’s slightly lighter than some ultrabooks, albeit ones with larger screens. Yet, it’s heavier than the average 10-inch tablet that’s under 700g.

That half-empty or half-full feeling perhaps sums up some of the “convertible” Windows 8 designs so far. You can either view them as the best of both worlds with their touch screens and full Windows 8 computing power, or neither here nor there, with trade-offs involved in both portability and usability.

The S20 doesn’t change that argument for users who have already made up their minds.

If you are keen on a convertible, then MSI’s S$1,599 offering is worth a look because its main feature – the sliding function – works generally well. However, if you are more for a traditional laptop, then an affordable ultrabook may be what you’re looking for.

Don’t you just hate it when you climb to the peak of Mount Everest and find yourself unable to engage in mobile banking activities?

Yes, the financial world keeps moving and pays no heed to your momentous achievement of scaling the highest mountain on Earth. If you foresee yourself getting into a tangle like this, you may at least rest easy knowing that two mountaineers are currently on their way up to the peak of Mount Everest just to prove that it’s possible.

Sponsored by Standard Chartered Bank, Horacio Galanti and Horacio Cunietti will attempt to trade stocks and transfer funds at the peak through the bank’s Breeze mobile banking apps.

The two Horacios have already managed to do it once at the Everest Base Camp, where they successfully transferred money and placed an order on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange 5,364m above sea level.

Now, the final challenge remains: to push the boundaries of mobile banking by doing the same at the top of the world, 8,848 metres above sea level.

But why? What’s the point of doing this at all?

“Because we can,” said May Meere, Standard Chartered Bank’s head of external communications, at a local media event last week, echoing historic English mountaineer George Mallory’s famous retort to a similar question. When asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, Mallory replied, “Because it’s there.”

The bank claims that not every mobile banking app can handle being used on Mount Everest, but we all know what matters is the hardware. The two climbers will be bringing with them a variety of smartphones and tablets, including the BlackBerry Z10 and the iPhone, and a solar-powered charging pack to juice them up. This is on top of the standard fare of walkie-talkies and Iridium satellite phones that all climbers attempting Everest carry.

(Photo credit: Standard Chartered Bank)

Galanti and Cunietti will also help clear the trash on their way down, adding an element of environmentalism to the expedition.

No doubt, the entire expedition can be dismissed as a marketing gimmick by Standard Chartered Bank. The human spirit behind it, however, shouldn’t be. The team will be encountering extreme conditions on their journey, including ice, snow, moving glaciers, hurricane force winds and temperatures that dip to -30 degrees Celcius, all in pursuit of one of the defining characteristics of our species: to do things never before done by anyone else.

If you’re interested in following their journey, head over to the Breeze blog for more.

If money is no issue, then Lenovo’s X1 Carbon Touch (above) is an ideal slim and light companion for all your work trips. But if you can’t bear to part with S$2,999 for the expensive laptop, there are affordable – yet fast – ultrabooks that make for great machines on the go.

Prices in recent months have fallen to the point that solid state drive (SSDs) are standard in machines around the S$1,500 mark. And we’re not talking about those with a small SSD complemented by a hard disk. Included in the price is often a full-fledged 128GB SSD.

Why should SSDs be the first thing to look out for in a new machine? That’s because they provide the most obvious boost in speeds as well as lower battery consumption.

Here are four ultrabooks worth checking out.

Dell XPS 13
The first ultrabook you have to check out is Dell’s XPS 13. Like its rivals, it is very slim (6mm at the thinnest point) and is extremely light (1.36kg). What differentiates it from the pack is its price – it’s going for as low as S$1,299.

There’s little compromise here in an Intel Core i5 chip, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD and a 13.3-inch screen boasting a 720p resolution. The aluminium design is top-notch as well. If there’s one laptop where we’d easily recommend, it’s this Dell XPS 13, which clearly punches well above its weight – or price.

If you can stretch your budget a bit more, an additional $300 gets you a very nice Full HD (1080p) screen and 8GB RAM. That will be S$1,599 well-spent. More details here.

Samsung Series 7 Ultra
Like Samsung’s top-end Series 9 Ultra, the Series 7 Ultra is a svelte model from South Korea that catches the eye easily. Yet it costs less than its more illustrious sibling.

The 13.3-inch model comes with a Core i5 chip, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD and a nice Full HD, 1080p screen. Its keys are also very nice to type on, with a tactile response unlike many really thin keyboards.

The finish, as you’d expect from Samsung, is beautiful. The version without a touch-screen costs S$1,599, which is the same as a souped up Dell XPS 13, except that the Dell offering has 8GB built in too. For its superior finish, however, the Series 7 Ultra is well worth checking out.

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch
The original ultra-thin machine that got everyone crazy about thin and light laptops, the MacBook Air 13-inch looks extremely beautiful and accomplished. The Core i5 chip, 4GB RAM and 128GB built in means this is a fast machine like the rest here.

Only thing that it loses out on is perhaps its price. Costing S$1,588, it’s not the cheapest here. Yet, it’s 13.3-inch screen offers a relatively modest 1,440 x 900 resolution, which is less sharp than the Full HD screens (1080p or 1,920 x 1,080 resolution) you can get for about the same price with Dell or Samsung. More details here.

HP SpectreXT Ultrabook
HP’s all-metal design is attractive and feels “precious” when you first get hold of it. The 1.39kg weight also means it is really light to lug around for long trips.

The S$1,499 machine may not be the thinnest at 14.5mm, but it is still a very slim machine. With a Core i5 chip, 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD, its performance shouldn’t fall behind its rivals here either.

What HP should have included for this price is a Full HD screen. As things stand, HP seems to believe that its 1,366 x 768 resolution screen should do the job, even though the machine is priced very closely to options from Samsung and Dell that have sharper screens. More details here.

Trade-offs
Sure, there are cheaper notebooks, perhaps ones that use a hard disk complemented by a small SSD (usually about 24GB). Or perhaps you can opt for a tablet hybrid like Microsoft’s Surface RT or Surface Pro.

Yet, this combination of fully SSD-enabled machines with Windows 8 and a full-fledged Intel CPU costing around the S$1,500 is probably the sweet spot now if you’re looking for a fast, sleek and portable machine to carry around.

They are also easily expandable, say, with a screen and keyboard at home or an external hard disk for storing multimedia files. For a workhorse on the road, these four ultrabooks here are great companions to have.

Buying a laptop soon? Share with us what’s the best bang for buck machine now.