RSSGizmondo Getting Cool US Reception
By Ed Oswald | Published October 24, 2005, 1:19 PM
If you heard a loud thud over the weekend, it may have been Tiger Telematic's Gizmondo finally launching in the United States. The device, whose sales in the UK -- where it has been available since March -- have been somewhat disappointing, has received a cool response from US reviewers as well.
The handheld Gizmondo retails for $229 USD, and includes a 400MHz processor, a VGA camera, GPS, GPRS, and a 2.2-inch color LCD screen. It has a half-circle shape and comes in a black and silver casing. The operating system is a customized version of Windows CE, the company said.
Initially, 14 games are available for the device within the US.
The Gizmondo will not only be capable of gameplay, but will also be able to be used as a GPS device, a text and picture messaging phone without voice capabilities, and for MP3 and MPEG4 multimedia playback.
"The USA is the most challenging commercial market in the world and it's a significant achievement to be launching across 50 States," Mike Carrender, CEO of Tiger Telematics said. But from the sound of reviews, it looks like the Gizmondo has a long road ahead.
On Friday, following the announcement of the launch, the Associated Press called Gizmondo's games "uniformly terrible." The AP added, "Beyond certain technophiles who require a regular diet of new gadgets, I don't see Gizmondo being much of a player."
Also, problems were reported with multimedia playback, which stuttered, and sound and picture quality were issues for the reviewer.
CNN said the device is almost universally slow, saying it takes close to a minute to boot up versus five seconds for the Nintendo DS, and called the games "sub-par."
Nontheless, Gizmondo says that the device only needs to garner a "small slice of [of the games industry] to be successful."
Guys.
The Gizmondo have had the worst possible launch ever seen, no doubt about that. By let me kill of this discussion right here and now! I HAVE A FULL WORKING COPY OF COLORS!!! :)
I couldn't belive my eyes when i started it up for the first time. Is this what the future looks like for the Gizmondo? Then it's bye bye for all the Nintendos and Sonys of the world...
(I just sold my PSP)
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|Ok i just picked up a GIZ today and went to the
regent street shop in london to get it updated,
the staff was very helpful in going over all the features of my GIZ. I am totaly happy with
the GIZ due to the fact that i just sold my USA
sony psp which i only wanted to watch movies listen to music and occaisionly play a game or two,but was unable to get movies or music loaded on to my psp. One of the main features for me having just moved back to london this past summer is
the satnav feature, I was already set on buying
a tom tom satnav untill GIZMONDO offerd it as
a package. Yes i know the games are not upto
PSP or DS standards but for what all it does
im cool with that...besides XBOX 360 will be
out soon that will satisfy my gaming needs.
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|They released it 2 quick.
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|I've heard Gizmondo have ties with the local mafia. (Uppsala, Sweden.)
http://www2.unt.se/avd/1...=3-AV_ID=442393,00.html
(In swedish.)
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|If you really wanna contribute, link to sites who use the world language ENGLISH - pleeeeaaaaaaseeeee . . .
Or undergo the pain to translate to us dumb folk who don't speak Swedish - please. Otherwise your comment is useless and arouses prejudices.
I wonder how many beta.news visitors acutally speak Swedish . . .
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|Probably more than you think, you ungreatful twit.
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|and this has ... what? to do with Betas? I thought the name of this site was "Beta" news, not propaganda and free advertising forum
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|Oh man - your fine blue eyes . . .
This site is stuffed full of "advertising", as you call it. No matter what people always fight for "their" OS, "their" devices, "their" software favorites and so on.
Actually this site is about "NEWS" - "beta" because these news here are BRANDNEW.
And to give away experiences has nothing to do with advertising. Why the heck are you even reading this? Not to speak of commenting . . .
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|"Dumbed-up?" That is, is this a 21st century version of the Swiss Army Knife? Nice to have, but unquestionably mediocre across all honest-to-goodness uses? Sounds so.
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|Right, lets get the opinion of a UK gamer who has actually got one of these shall we!? The Giz is a good machine and has a lot going for it. It's never going to beat the finical clout of the DS, PSP or even the N-Gage simply because it does not have the money or, as a result, the marketing behind it but it deserves a fairer trial than it is currently getting. I am a console/games collecter and bought a Giz on the strength of its versitility. I own a DS, Advance, Ngage and a PSP so I do not have a bias towards any on device. Here is what I think:
1. Games: It is a worry that the deck did not launch with any triple A games. The games released though should not be seen as representative of the device's abilities. Firstly, many of the games available at the moment have been £9.99 games - budget games - no the £29.99 games that will soon be available. It is odd that they've done it this way around but it appears that Tiger Telematics were beginning to sweat about further delays and have decided to launch the deck without the required games. Some of the up and coming titiles - Colours, Chicane, and a number of FPs do look very good indeed. I especially like the look of the quirky 'Mom can I mow your lawn!
2. MP3: The MP3 player on this is better than the PSPs. It is louder, basier and cheaper in that a standard IGb SD card cost around half of a Memory Stick. Also, the Giz has an inbuilt memory whereas the PSP does not.
3. Videos: There have been reports that the Giz flickers in playback. I haven't had any real problems. OKay, so the qulaity is not as good as a UMD recording on the PSP but it IS as good as the PSPs videos when read from the memory stick. Videos copied to either device suffer from compression and it is not necessarily the Giz's technical problem. I have downloaded a huge number of music videos on to the device straight from my PC collection and my Giz plays them perfectly.
Messaging: the PSP cannot message. The DS has a poor version of it in the Picochat program (although you've got to be in the same area as the one you are taling to)The Giz is a text messager - something that is very big in the UK. Games such as Colours will appearently use this function in-game.
SATNAV: A SATNAV machine for less that £200? The debate should start and stop here. The maps and interface of the SATNAV package is as good as anything currently on the market and a whole lot cheaper. A SATNAV package at this price is fantastic, the fact that it can do everything else as well is a damn good bonus! Again, games such as 'Colours' will apparently use this function in-game.
Photos: Not wide screen like the PSP but still big enough to see the image - much better than the N-gage. Oh yeah, and you can actually TAKE them with the built in camera - can the PSP do that? Then you can send them to your friends' mobiles using the messaging.
I think that is about it! The Giz is exactly what it says on the tin - a Gizmo; there's a whole host of functions, all of which are of good quality. Okay, want top visual, get a PSP, want touch screen, get a DS want a device that can do MP3, video, messaging, photo taking and viewing, SATNAV and play pretty damn good games, get thge GIZ.
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|THANKS A LOT FOR YOUR REVIEW ! ! !
This is just the style that is missing here all over.
So - THANX, man ! ! !
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|nintendo ds all the way
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|Stay away! The games look too old. Save your money and get a Nintendo DS/Gameboy or a Sony PSP instead!!!
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