Blogs

One of the highlights of CES for me so far has been the Panasonic demo of 3D high-definition TV on Blu-ray Disc. Yes, I know what you're thinking: we've seen all this before, with those silly red and green cardboard glasses people used to wear in the...

Giving his CES 2009 keynote speech, Sony CEO Howard Stringer today spoke about the battles Sony faces in 2009. He stressed that through innovation and going green, the company would fare well in the year ahead and offer the ultimate entertainment experience....

It's been a manic 24 hours here at CES, with press conferences virtually every hour and the entire whathifi.com team running from A to B like mad things to bring you up-to-the-minute news. It started with LG at 8am yesterday (fortunately jet lag meant...

After a 10 hour flight we've just touched down in Las Vegas, and while it's the middle of the night back in the UK, we're busy gearing up for the opening of the biggest consumer electronics show on the planet here in Nevada. The Las Vegas Convention Centre...

It’s been a cracking year for gamers, with titles like Grand Theft Auto and Metal Gear Solid making it to their fourth instalments, new titles like LittleBigPlanet and Dead Space bringing new characters and stories into play, and a sprint finish to the...

Ok, so it’s not often you get to go to BBC’s Television House and see the return of one of the country’s most-loved TV shows but that’s exactly what we did recently. What are we talking about? The return of Top of The Pops , of course! It’s back for one...

There's been a quiet revolution over the last decade. When DVD came along (offering not just fine picture quality but full multichannel soundtracks), a brand new market sprung into existence: multichannel amps, 5.1 speaker packages, you name it. Surround...

After a week of gritty flamethrower-wielding war-crimes in Call of Duty: World at War it’s been quite a relief to get to grips with some light, fantasy content in the form of Hellboy II: The Golden Army on Blu-ray and Star Wars Clone Wars: Lightsaber...

Given that we’re one of the few sites that refrained from making early predictions that Call of Duty: World at War would stink, it would be very easy to pretend that the thought had never crossed our minds and consequently look an awful lot more composed...

We receive some strange press releases, but even by usual standards the one about the beaming of Keanu Reeves' new movie into space is going some. It seems that this Friday the new version of The Day The Earth Stood Still is going to be broadcast into...

Argos is the first UK retailer to offer a sub-£100 Blu-ray player, with a special offer on its Bush DS-BD01 model which is on sale for £97.86 until the end of today (December 9th). We bought one at the weekend, and have been running it in our test rooms...

Having apparently learned nothing from 10+ years of DVD compatibility issues (anyone remember The Matrix DVD debacle?), we’re now starting to see some new Blu-ray discs that won’t spin in every player. Or, rather, they’ll spin, but meaninglessly, while...

Just got back from Korea, after two weeks spent with the country's largest consumer electronics companies - sorry, Daewoo - and it's time to take stock of what we've learned, and what to expect for next year. First, and most important, point is that both...

As you may already have read , I've been pretty impressed with the testing facilities in Samsung's main R&D labs here at Suwon, south of Seoul. But being impressed turned to dropped jaws when we were introduced to the company's deep testing stuff....

During our recent trip to Sony Japan, we were shown all manner of wonderful gadgets and the kit that you'll be buying next year. Taking a toilet break between presentations to manage our excitement, we stumbled across the Walkman Room at Sony HQ in Tokyo...

It was so nearly the factory visit that never was, although expectation was high as I grabbed this quick picture through the bus window before we entered Samsung's Cheonan plant, two hours south of Seoul on a buckaroo expressway. As the gates opened for...

Took a bit of a nose around Samsung's history gallery, at the entrance to which is both a bust of company founder Byung-chull Lee and a video screen showing interviews with him. He started in business with a small store in 1938, and developed that into...

You may remember I told you yesterday about the huge research and development complex at Samsung's Suwon HQ here in Seoul. Well, the picture above shows the massive research and development tower I was talking about, and where we've been spending quite...

The main R&D tower here at Samsung's complex here in Suwon, some 65km south of Seoul, rises 38 floors, dominating the skyline for miles around. 9000 people work in this gargantuan bulding, out of a total of almost 23,000 on this site. That means it...

After a year in which we’ve been inundated with superhero movies, all of which have been, to a greater or lesser extent, better than expected, we finally come to Hancock . On paper, it has the edge over all its rivals - it isn’t hampered by an original...

One facsinatng thing about my day spent in Seoul's Yongsan Electronics market was the huge amount of vinyl on sale. I found this massive store full of secondhand discs, with the staff busy unpacking boxes and pricing up more stock to fill the empty bins...

It's a given that anyone visiting Japan on their first consumer electronics press trip will mention two things: one is Blade Runner , the other is the Akihabara, Tokyo's 'electric town', which they're likely to say is unlike anywhere else in the world....

Well, the LG UK press trip is over, and by now the rest of the group should be back home after their 12-hour-plus flight. I’m still in Seoul, for reasons I’ll explain in a moment. For now, what’s striking about this city is that everyone’s watching TV....

One thing you learn about press trips is that they run to strict schedules, so when we left one of LG's facilities half an hour early, we covered a ten minute bus journey from Seoul National University to the R&D centre in about 40minutes, the bus...

We're still deep in the development belly of Sony Tokyo, and have had a hands-on play with a couple of new products that you'll all be interested in... First up is the BDV IT1000 home theatre system with Blu-ray (pictured above) - originally previewed...