Samsung folds Apples gold and the greatest console story ever told

 

If you havent read our round-up of the best tablets in the world yet, wed advise you do it now, because were about to spoil the ending.

For the first time in history, weve given the full five stars to a tablet. And no, it wasnt the Argos MyTablet. Of course the recipient was Apples spanking new iPad Air.

As Gareth Beavis explains, its a lovely and very powerful thing, and his review was so persuasive that we promptly spent money we didnt really have on an iPad we really didnt need. Its that good.

Put it this way: when was the last time you read a device review that talked about "joy"?

The iPad Air wasnt the only thing we lusted over this week, though. Were pretty keen on the new Nikon Df too. Angela Nicholson reckons its "superbly retro" while boasting state of the art technology, and while its pricey at £2,649.99 (about US$4,650, AU$4,500) - Nikon used the 99p because £2,650 would have looked expensive, ho ho - the "considerable excitement" appears to be entirely justified.

Camera dealers say that if its as good as it looks, it will "fly off the shelves".

The greatest console story ever told

With the launch of the next generation games consoles mere days away, its time to ask the big question: who won this generations console wars? Was it the PS3? The Xbox 360? Or, um, the Wii? Phil Iwaniuk reckons its the Sony console, and hes certainly convincing.

"Any fool can see PlayStation 3 ends the era victorious," he says. While Microsoft had "an open goal" in the early days, "PlayStation 3 cunningly built a wall of fantastic first-party titles in front of that goal in the six years that followed."

Did the Xbox 360 win the last console war?

Not so fast, says Jon Hicks: the winner has to be the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 is "the most influential console on the market", "king of the hill" and the bestest console ever.

Hugh Langley reckons theyre both wrong. There can only be one winner, and its the Wii. "Did it have the graphical might to stand shoulder to shoulder with the PS3 and Xbox 360? Hell no. Did it have the hardcore library of the GameCube? Nope. Did it have a stupid name? Yeah, we sniggered. And guys, it couldnt even play DVDs."

Wait, everyone! Theres a twist!

The Wii did "something much, much bigger: it got the whole world playing videogames." The Wii wasnt just a souped-up version of an existing console: it was new, and different, and amazing, and it had Super Mario Galaxy. Game over!

Samsung folds

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