Single-player Career mode provides a branching venue progression

Guitar Controller features - Wireless (includes batteries) Touch sensitive slide bar Increased accuracy with more responsive dual-color fret buttons Jam effortlessly with an elongated strum bar Improved battery life with built-in auto-sleep mode

Drum Controller features - Wireless (batteries included) Five pressure sensitive drum pads (including a high-hat and cymbal) Non-slip moveable foot pedal One-piece collapsible adjustable stand Expandable setup via MIDI hook-up Authentic wood drum sticks

Microphone features - High performance, high clarity microphone Reliable and durable design Includes 15 foot USB cable

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-This console will be reduced in price once again in early September. The new price-tag on these Pro bundles will be $299.99 (Edit: Next information may now give issues, as Amazon has done a bait and swap with their policy and removed their 30-day protection as of the 31st of August. Very low, Amazon, very low. If you bought a system before the change and before the 30 day period of the price drop you may still be able to get your price matched, but it will likely be a headache. See new section at bottom for possible ideas) Do not panic if you bought one at the $349.99 price. Why? Amazon has a price guarantee, meaning for 30 days if the price of any product goes down, you are entitled to cash back to price match the new cost. So in early September check back here when the price goes down so that you can get 50 dollars back.

-The September consoles are when ‘technically’ the new Jaspers should start rolling off the assembly line and into stores. HOWEVER there is a technicality with this. They may have them in the stores warehouses, but won’t put them on the shelves til all of that store’s FALCON units have been sold. This includes all the falcon units from that store’s warehouses. All Falcon units must go first before they start selling Jaspers. Keep an eye on the wattage information to confirm your Jasper units. As the new GPU should reduce the PSU wattage requirements. (currently they all use 175w) Also, look at the manufacture dates. Any console that was manufactured from mid to late Aug. 2008 and on should be Japsers. As you know, they said they would manufacture the Jaspers in August, so that is the manufacture starting points you want to look for.

That is technically all the current information available. Did a lot of research on this, since I’m currently in the market. Hope this helps all of you future buyers, as well as those of you who have already made a purchase.

Edit: According to the member who posted a comment if you ordered before Sept. 1 directly from Amazon and are still within 30 days, you will be able to get your price matched to the current price tag. However ONLY if you ordered directly from Amazon and not another retailer that sold via Amazon. If you don’t fit this category continue reading below.

If you didn’t order directly from Amazon: So Amazon basically pulled a fast one one people, on the 31st of August they discontinued the price guarantee. Gee thanks, Amazon! Way to screw over your customers. You may still be able to convince customer support that because of the fact that you bought when the policy was still active that you should be covered still since they made a guarantee to you at the date of purchase. If after trying to get your money from Amazon you still don’t meet with results, what you can do is return the 360 if you are still within the return period and get another 360 now that the price has gone down. Amazon provides free return shipping on some products so you may not have to pay for that. You wait for your refund, get a new 360 at 50 dollars cheaper and the shipping a 2nd time should still be free since all products over x dollar amount qualify for free super-saver shipping. Just don’t TELL them that is why you are returning it. Say the unit scratches up your disks or something since that is a common problem with some of these older units.

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Instead, I’d like this review to explain what exactly this configuration is (there’s a lot of confusion about that,) and why I think it hits the sweet spot. Basically, there are currently 2 versions of the PS3 on the market now. Ignoring the size of the drive for a second (because you can always swap the drive anyway, and it has no real bearing on the rest of the specs) think of them as Version A (currently available - or not as the case may be - in the PlayStation 3 80 GB Metal Gear Solid 4 Pack) and Version B (this one.)

The first thing that you need to understand is that there are three relevant differences between these two versions besides the included bundle and the price (the MGS one is $499 from amazon, more from third parties.)

Difference #1: Version A (MGS pack) is backward compatible with PS2 games while this one is NOT (they are both backward compatible with PS1 games however.)

Difference #2: Version A has 4 USB ports as well as memory card slots, while this version has only 2 USB ports and NO memory card slots.

Difference #3: AND THIS FOR ME IS BIG: Version A has the older and larger 90nm Cell processor, while this one has the smaller (and some say more reliable) 65nm Cell processor. Power consumption on this unit is lower as well, dropping from 200 Watts to 135 watts. The end result is a machine that runs cooler and, according to all reports as well as my personal experience, much quieter. An extremely relevant factor if you watch movies with it.

For those that have been looking for a while, this is basically the 40GB machine that was offered recently, with a larger hard drive and an upgraded controller - they replaced the basic sixaxis controller with the Dualshock 3 controller (which means it has rumble.)

Now Version A is packaged with Metal Gear Solid. It has an 80GB drive like this one, and the same controller. The big differences are listed above. Until this configuration was released, the larger hard drive and Dualshock controller were 2 of the 4 reasons many people felt the MGS pack was worth the additional $100. Those two factors are now eliminated. The remaining differences are the backward compatibility with PS2 games and the MGS game itself, which can of course be bought separately.

So to sum it up, if you NEED PS2 compatibility, you might want to grab the MGS pack if you can get one - that or keep your old PS2. For new buyers though, and for all of the people that are going to just play PS3 games, as well as avid movie watchers, this particular configuration is fantastic. You get the big drive, the good controller, PLUS the cooler running chip, a quieter machine and a system that uses about 33% less power.

And ok - just to satisfy the basic requirements of a review, I’ll list some other nice stuff: It includes a Blu-ray DVD player (one of those runs almost as much as, or more than, this entire box), the online play is FREE, wireless connectivity is built in (you don’t have to buy an additional piece as with some others), reliability has been quite good (much better than some others), there are some great PS3-only titles, and you can stream media to it from your PC. There’s more, but there are plenty of people outlining it.

As always, do your research and see what’s best for you. Maybe the 360-only titles are must haves for you, or maybe your family fits a Wii. We have a Wii and I love it. But I also love my PS3, and in my opinion this configuration is the one to get (this month anyway.)

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I had bought TomTom Ones for my son-in-law and son-out-law, and they both loved the devices. When it came time to purchase my own GPS, because of my aged eyes, I opted for the XL, which I guess stands for Extra Large. The XL offered lots of customizing options, including route preferences, all of which were easily programmed. The first thing I did was to change the voice from the default voice to the sweet brogue of an Irish woman. She told me to get on the motorway rather than the freeway and that I was coming to a roundabout rather than a traffic circle. Her given name Kathy didn’t sound very Irish, so I called her “Fiona”. I also changed the cursor from a blue arrow to a little red sports car to make it more in keeping with my geezer mobile.

Fiona shows me an oblique map of my route, and tells me when to make turns or change lanes. Of course the real test of a GPS is whether it gets you to where you want to go. I couldn’t find many places around home to test Fiona, although when I couldn’t find a COSCO on Long Island, I told her what I wanted and she led me to the door. On the other hand, she couldn’t find a Starbucks.

I decided that the ultimate test would be a 2000 mile road trip to the Gaspe Peninsula. I trusted Fiona enough that I didn’t bring any maps. For the most part, she was reliable, except on a few occasions where the highway made a big arc around a small town, and then she led me across a chord through the center of town. On the other hand, when the highway would have led me all around the tip of Gaspe, she showed me a shortcut across the Peninsula that saved thirty miles. Occasionally, she seemed to lose a satellite and showed me driving through a field parallel to the highway, but she usually corrected herself within 30 seconds.

Fiona can be programmed for a multi-stop trip, to a specific address, a town center or a point of interest.

Her menus showed that she could be linked by blue-tooth to my mobile phone, presumably for traffic updates, but my phone told me it didn’t support that service. I believe this service is not available in the US, but it would have been nice if the documentation had made that clear.

Fiona’s maps can be updated by computer, and while she came with U.S. and Canada maps, other maps are available. I wish that I had had Fiona when I rented a car in Japan that could only chide me in Japanese.

Now I have 2 problems: my girlfriend is jealous of Fiona; and I have two women giving me instructions when I drive.

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I bought two of these and gave one to my GF in another state. We have used it successfully and it works well enough where I will buy another one to send to my dad. That will tell me how well a novice can set it up from 1,200 miles away.

Good product, well packaged, and arrived as expected through Amazon’s delivery through a third party. Hope this helps you.

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I applaud Canon for developing a small camera with more attention to function rather than to style and minimal size. Many cameras can be found with dimensions smaller than a playing card or credit card but lack even basic controls, much less easy to use buttons. While the A590IS may not fit in the pocket of your jeans, it will fit into a jacket pocket or a moderately sized shirt pocket. Rather than being a flat or rounded rectangle this camera design feels good in your hand and feels secure during use.

Performance and picture quality was another pleasant surprise at this price point. Picture noise is not noticeable until ISO 400 and degrades rapidly at ISO 800 and above. Translated to laymen’s terms, this means your shots will be crystal clear unless you specifically set the ISO to a high number for non-flash, low-light shots. Image stabilization is excellent throughout the three settings (off is also selectable). There are three auto-focus modes plus off including face detect which will automatically detect up to 9 faces in a shot and adjust the camera settings automatically so that faces are correctly exposed in your shot. Unless one of your subjects is moving fast, the camera detects the movement and adjusts according. The 4X optical zoom is a rarity in this price range with most not exceeding 3X. Combined with the 4X digital zoom you have a camera that is capable of mild wide angle to moderate telephoto. Color rendition is excellent and I have read a number of technical reviews that place it as nearly perfect. One of your many shooting options is “vivid” which increases contrast and heightens the colors in your shot. The camera’s ability to shoot movies with sound is better than expected. However Canon did reduce the performance from the A590’s predecessor to only 20 fps in 640×480. To get 30 fps you must drop down to the 320×240 size. Unlike my old digital, you can continue to shoot in movie mode until your memory card is full, not in shorter segments. Redeye reduction is accomplished with two methods which can be combined or shut off entirely, a redeye light and digital correction. Unfortunately, no camera manufacturer I am away of offers something that will work with pets so their eyes will often come out glowing green or gold in a flash shot.

Canon’s decision to power the A590IS with AA batteries was sound. Avoiding a proprietary battery aided them in keeping the cost low. Replacement of a proprietary battery can cost upwards of $40. I would recommend purchasing a set of 2500 mAh NiMH rechargeable batteries and a good charger if you use your camera a lot. If you find your batteries dying and unable to plug in your charger, you can always pick up a set of AA batteries nearly anywhere. Battery life with the A590IS is reportedly one of the best with up to 450 shots. But if you are like I am and use all the bells and whistles as well as flash, expect battery life to be much lower, typical with any camera.

As with anything, there are always some cons. Writing to the memory card is a bit slow, especially in continuous shooting mode although still respectable for a camera in this class. I found that it did improve when I upgraded to a faster SD card (class 6+). As with all of Canon’s A-series PowerShot cameras, flash recycle time leaves something to be desired approaching 5 seconds. Unless you are someone who wants to take rapid-fire shots using a flash, performance is acceptable. The LCD view screen is pretty low resolution and displays a lot of noise. Much to my relief the actual shots turn out much better than what you see on the view screen. When in movie mode with sound, I found that using the zoom or other buttons translates into an audible sound during playback.

In summary, I suppose it is possible to find a budget camera that will exceed the A590IS in one or two categories but the Canon has good, solid, balanced performance in all areas. I’d much prefer solid performance over stellar performance in one or two areas and below average performance everywhere else. It is by no means a high-performance SLR, but at $149 I can buy 10 of these before approaching what I paid for my SLR 10 years ago and I don’t need to drag along 2 camera bags to take good quality shots. If I’d paid over $500 for the A590IS I’d probably rate it at 4 stars, but at $149 it earns a solid 5 stars for performance, features, and quality with the Pro’s far outweighing the Con’s.

A note about using SDHC (high capacity) memory cards. The a590IS comes with a regular 32mb SD card but can utilize the SDHC format. Make sure your computer (or other device) can utilize the SDHC format before buying a SDHC card as the format is not the same as an SD card. The SDHC is idential in size and shape to the SD card which has led to some confusion. However, all is not lost. There are plenty of very inexpensive card readers out there that can read the SDHC format and upload to your computer or other device. SCHC cards are most often found in 4gb, 8gb, and 16gb capacities.

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I am really pleased with this loafer. Very nice leather and the price was excellent. I was very pleased that a “wide” width was offered. I will now search for any Franco Sarto shoe, whether it be a loafer, heel, etc. Nice quality and reasonable price.

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I’ve always really liked Rocket Dog shoes. They are usually reasonably priced with a playful look and a really cool name! I have several pair and wear them all of the time. Why not 5 stars? Simply because, they don’t have the best (or any) arch support, although they are comfy. Buying them online can also be tricky. Sometimes you can’t see the detail on the shoe with an online photograph. Other than that, I’d say get a pair!

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great helmet for an excellent price

I was pleasantly surprised with this helmet considering it was $30.00. Its lightweight, breathes well and fits like a glove (love the head harness system). I initially purchased it because I am a female with a small build (and a small head) and the reviews stated that the helmet ran a bit on the smaller side. Its really lightweight, could be a pro or a con. That being said it seems durable, although hopefully I will never have a real test of that.

Pro:
*Cost
*Good Air flow
*Fits well
* Looks cool

Cons:
* Could use a sun shade
* adjustment knob is a little hard to turn, but you shouldn’t have to adjust it that ofter.

Bottom line - I highly recommend it!

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