Sony Playstation 3... Still An Amazing Console

The tech world might be buzzing for the Playstation 5 release, but I am still rocking a Playstation 3 and loving it. It is an often overlooked console, sandwiched between the PS2 - the biggest selling console of all time - and the behemoth that is the PS4.

For me the PS3 is the perfect console. Released in 2007 in UK, it was a huge fancy upgrade over its predecessor. I was late to the game, only buying one in 2016, a whopping nine years in to its life.

The bonus of this is price. You can pick one up for around £40 (or less), with games now being dirt cheap and accessories reasonably priced. I have the Slim 160GB version released in 2009, which is around 30% smaller, 30% lighter and uses 30% less power than the original.

Under the hood you have a 3.2Ghz Cell PowerPC processor, NVidia graphics with 256MB VRAM and 256MB main memory. It also packs in a blu-ray drive, internet connection, HDMI and wireless controllers and the introduction of the PS Store.

It featured a new interface called XMB, it was more than just a games machine and its interface reflects this, giving more system management options as well as TV/Video services allowing Netflix, NowTV and various on demand TV services. It can also browse the web and play music.

In terms of graphics, the jump from PS2 to PS3 was phenomenal, partly due to it HD capability. It still amazes me today how detailed later games became, with some games being released for the PS3 as well as the PS4 and games playing just as well on both systems.

It is interesting to see how the games have changed throughout its life span. F.E.A.R, while being an incredible game to play graphically, looks like it was originally designed for the PS2. Launch title Resistance Fall Of Man shows how a game designed for the system should look, but even that looks a little dated compared to its two sequels. Games such as Call Of Duty Advanced Warfare, Crysis 3, Grand Theft Auto 5 and Wolfenstein The New Order (all released 2013/2014) really push the hardware and show just how capable this decade old system is.

Online gaming requires a Playstation Network account - however unlike the PS4, this is a free service. I have played online (although a lot of PS3 game servers have been taken offline) and never once needed to pay for PSN.

Backwards compatibility have always been a key selling tool for Sony (although oddly dropped with the PS4 release). All PS3 consoles can play PS1 games. However the original 20GB and 60GB ‘phat’ versions could also play PS2 games - due to having PS2 hardware chips in them - meaning these versions could play three console games in one. A few later ‘phat’ PS3 models did this via software emulation. My wife recently picked up a 60GB ‘phat’ Playstation 3 and it is great to be able to play those PS2 titles. This PS2 compatibility was lost in Slim and Super Slim models. Compared to my Slim model, the original ‘phat’ is certainly a bigger beast and is a lot noisier. The fans on my wifes kick in a lot, but were prone to overheating and the ‘yellow light of death.’

I am a huge fan of the PS3. It is an excellent console, with amazing HD graphics and games that can be picked up for almost nothing.

Some of my favourite PS3 games are:
Burnout Paradise, Call Of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, Call Of Duty Advanced Warfare, Call Of Duty Black Ops, Call Of Duty Black Ops 2, Call Of Duty Ghosts, Crysis 2, Crysis 3, Dead Or Alive 5, Doom 3 BFG Edition, Duke Nukem Forever, F.E.A.R, Grand Theft Auto 5, Little Big Planet, Mirrors Edge, Resistance Fall Of Man, Resistance 2, Resistance 3, Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed, Sonic Generations, Street Fighter IV, Twisted Metal, Wolfenstein, Wolfenstein The New Order.

I know many will wonder why giants like the Uncharted and Far Cry series aren’t in my list and its because I am not a fan of third person games. I love the full immersion of first person.

I see nothing - except a few newer games - that wants me to upgrade to a PS4. I would lose all my game collection and be faced with expensive games and accessories. When you can purchase a complete PS3 system for the same price as a PS4 controller it makes sense.

Currently I am trying to gather as many official accessories to compliment my PS3, grabbing numerous controllers, the wireless keypad attachment, bluetooth earpiece and Playstation Eye camera. I am on the lookout for the bluetooth blu-ray/media controller, controller charging dock and Move controller.

There are three cycles in a consoles lifespan. First cycle is the new period where everything is fresh, new and expensive. The second cycle comes when its successor is released, prices drop to ridiculously cheap. The third cycle is when it hits retro status and it becomes expensive and a must have again. The PS3 is well in to its second cycle, making it an ideal time to buy one.

I absolutely love my PS3. It has never let me down and even in 2019 Sony released minor system software updates for it, showing it is not all dead and forgotten yet. It is a superb gaming machine with a huge catalogue of fantastic games.

Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at twitter.com/simonroyal

GTA 5... The Worst Discs Ever

You can’t deny that Grand Theft Auto 5 is a phenomenal game. Released in 2013 it is one of the longest games I know of to receive updates. It even spans console generations - being on the PlayStation 3, XBox 360, PlayStation 4, XBox One as well as Microsoft Windows.

Its a huge game. Installing on a console takes a long time and then installing the years of updates takes even longer. The XBox One and PlayStation 4 both total over 40GB.

I have it on three of those platforms and all have had their issues with installing. All my discs are in mint condition, so installation issues cannot be put down to scratches and finger marks.

My PlayStation 3 has caused me the less stress, but a few weeks ago I had a brief time where the disc was unreadable when playing. This fixed itself.

The PlayStation 4 is a constant issue. There are two in my house currently and neither will install past about 8% before it claims the disc is unreadable and may need cleaning. At times it will not even detect the disc in the drive and at least twice I have had to do a force boot eject.

The XBox One version has suffered from similar issues as the PlayStation 4 version. It became stuck in my daughters XBox multiple times, but eventually did install.

The Windows version isn’t without its hitches either, with install problems and quitting during play rife on forums.

Searching the internet, there are multiple tricks to get it working. Some have had luck turning off the internet connection - claiming installing and downloading the updates simultaneously being the issue. Other tricks include turning off mid install or rebuilding your console database.

For me nothing has worked on the PlayStation 4 version. I am stuck with a perfect disc and it not working on multiple consoles. While every other game works perfectly fine.

The only option is to download a digital copy - which of course I would have to pay for again. This is not a road I want to go down.

Rockstar really need to address this multiple system problem.

Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at twitter.com/simonroyal

Mi Band 2 Review & Comparison To Mi Band 3

Xiaomi are set to release the Mi Band 4 shortly and I currently own a Mi Band 3 - so it might seem a little odd to review the Mi Band 2 now, but I am going to anyway.

I have been loving my Mi Band 3 for a few months and recently picked up a Mi Band 2 as a backup band.

The Mi Band 2 is predominately aimed at the fitness market. Its OLED mono display features a touch button for accessing the menu and can show you the time, steps taken and heart rate. As well as this it can tell you if you get a notification or phone call by displaying and icon on screen and vibrating. However, it doesn’t display what the notification says or who is calling you, it merely is a prompt.

All settings and syncing is done via the MiFit app on your phone.

Its 70mAh battery boasts 20 days on a single charge and I got close to that.

The body of the Band pops out of the strap and is charged with the supplied cable. I like this idea as it means straps can be replaced or changed easily.

Really that is all there is to the Mi Band 2. While it is huge step up from the original Mi Band, which didn’t even have a display, it lacks much in the way of functions. It is a basic device, but it doesn’t claim to be anything else.

Move forward to the Mi Band 3 and this adds more functions, while maintaining a similar design and style as its predecessor. The Mi Band adds a full touch screen which can now show more information, display notifications in full as well as caller ID - with the ability to reject calls, sleep monitoring, timer, weather, phone locator and more.

Both bands are great. If you want a pedometer with heart rate monitor and nod every time you get a notification, then the Mi Band 2 is great. If you want something with more features and full notifications then the Mi Band 3 is a better option.

Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at twitter.com/simonroyal

Jumping into the Deepin Desktop Environment

I have seen a lot of reviews and screenshots of a Chinese Debian-based Linux distro which has its own desktop environment, Deepin Linux, which is the name of both the qt-based DE and the distro. Although I was tempted to try it, I still have this nagging suspicion about it, rightly or wrongly, I don't trust the distro.

Anyway, since the desktop environment and apps are open source, you can manually install them on another distro and some distros have Deepin versions or "respins" of them. Manjaro Deepin is one such distro. It's just as easy to install as Ubuntu, even though the installer works a little different. I decided to try it out in Virtualbox before I install it on any hardware.

By default, Deepin uses a Launchpad style launcher, and the panel working as a dock like recent MacOS versions, which I am not keen on.

Fortunately, you can click on an icon in the top right and it switches to a sensible menu like Windows or KDE. Right click on the dock/panel and select mode and choose Efficient Mode and that too becomes more Windows/KDE like, stretching the full width of the display.

Manjaro Deepin is quite good on resources, using just over 500MB after booting, certainly much lighter than Gnome.

You will also notice I have changed to a much more eye-friendly darker theme for everything,  which is easy to do in the Deepin Control Center and also individually on the apps, so you could mix and match if you wanted.

I really like the Deepin Control Center, it pops out from the right hand side. You can quickly scroll up and down it to change theme, display settings, network etc. It works really well as well as looking great. 


The Deepin Desktop Environment or DDE includes a whole bunch of its own apps, most notable of which included here are Deepin Music and Deepin Draw.

The file manager is reasonably decent, certainly better than nautilus, though still not quite as full featured as my favourite file manager, Dolphin. I'm a KDE user mainly, so being qt-based it should work well with my favourite KDE apps, the slight issue is by default KDE apps will not be in a dark theme, and K3b and Dolphin looked rather too bright without a dark theme.  I wasn't able to install the right bits of KDE to theme it, without installing all of KDE. I suppose I could logout, switch to KDE, set the theme to Breeze Dark, logout and then log back into Deepin.  The Gtk apps I installed such as  were a mixed bag, some came up dark, others were still bright, like VLC.

Sadly, judging by this post on the Manjaro Forum, I think Manjaro Deepin will probably be dropped by Manjaro devs since there's a lot of bugs, a lot caused by trying to shoehorn a desktop that is meant to run on a regular release based distro onto a rolling release distro. 

So, overall, the Deepin desktop is easy to use, fairly lightweight compared to most full desktops and has a much saner desktop setup than Gnome, but I don't think it will replace KDE as my desktop of choice, particularly as I would have to do a lot of messing about to get it how I want. It might however suit some users. The main issue with Deepin of course is finding the right distro to run it on if you do not want to use the actual Deepin distro. I think I will give Fedora a go with Deepin manually installed. 

Samsung J4+ Review... A Mid Range Offering With A Big Screen

My daughter was in need of a new phone and she insisted on a Samsung and preferred a gold one. So after looking around saw the Samsung J4+. This is a mid-range handset with a premium look, that retails, SIM-free, at around £160 on launch.

Featuring a 6” screen, 2GB RAM, 32GB internal storage and 3300 mAh battery it packs a punch for its price.

As well as that it comes with Android Oreo - and is due to be updated to Pie - a 13 megapixel camera and 5 megapixel front camera which even has a front flash. It has a MicroSD slot and 3.5mm headphone socket, but uses microUSB instead of the newer USB-C.

This phone isn’t going to be up to heavy gaming - but it isn’t marketed for that. The quad-core processor and Adreno 308 GPU is more than enough for everyday use and average games. This is aimed at the social media generation, the communicators, the picture takers and Snapchat fans.

Its large screen obviously makes it a large phone at 161.4mm x 76.9mm, but it doesn’t feel chunky and is only 7.9mm thick. My daughter has the gold version - also available in black, pink or blue. The colour refers to the back and side edges, the front of all of them are black.

The back of it however is a finger print magnet, within minutes of handling the phone it was covered in smudges and marks.

For a mid priced phone the screen is very impressive. 720 x 1480 pixels on a 6" display offers a very crisp view.

The left side has the volume buttons as well as the SIM and MicroSD card tray/slots. The right side has the power button and speaker. Yes, the speaker is on the side. It sounds odd but it makes better sense than on the back (which can be muffled when laid down), but I prefer mine on the front.

The J4+ runs Android Oreo 8.1 overlaid with the Samsung Experience - the newer name for TouchWiz. The system runs fast and there are a lot of fans of the Samsung interface but I prefer stock Android without the cutesy bright interface.

The cameras perform well, the 13 megapixel camera takes great pictures, that only suffer in very low light and the 5 megapixel front camera works excellent for its intended purpose - selfies and video calls.

It has a huge 3300 mAh battery gives it enough power for nearly two days - and it could be pushed more with light use.

Overall, I have - and my daughter has - been impressed with this offering from Samsung. It is a great looking phone and runs super smooth. Anything we have run on it, loads and operates with no lag or feeling sluggish (not that you should expect it to for a new phone).

It is difficult to write a review for phones these days, as they all do the same and in fairness all do it very well. Unless there is a feature not up to standard or a design that isn’t to your liking, then a phone is going to please you.

With that in mind, the Samsung J4+ is a great mid priced handset with a great feature set, decent power, great battery and nothing bad to say about it and if you like the Samsung Experience you will enjoy this phone.

If you are wanting a big phone to keep up with your followers all day and pose for selfies then you will like this phone.

Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at twitter.com/simonroyal

Xiaomi Mi Band 3 Review

I’m a fan of notifications on my wrist, most other features of smart watches and bands are just superfluous to me. I was a big Pebble fan before they went bust, then moved to a Microsoft Band and recently needed another replacement - so I was recommended a Xiaomi Mi Band 3.

The Mi Band is a small device. The body of the device ‘the capsule’ comes out of the strap for charging and changing the strap. I like this idea as a lot of bands have fixed straps meaning when the strap breaks the device is useless.

It charges via a special USB cable, taking only two hours from flat to full.

The Mi Band has a 128x80 mono OLED touch screen, which although is quite small has a good resolution for reading small text - however sunlight legibility isn’t fantastic. The screen doesn’t always stay on but the raise-to-wake feature means just lifting your wrist and the screen comes on.

It is controlled via swiping in different directions on the screen and pressing the menu indentation. The menu is easy to use and gives you access to notifications, steps, heart rate, weather, treadmill as well as stop watch, find device, screen settings and factory reset.

All this is linked to your smartphone via bluetooth and the Mi Fit app. This syncs your activity and can show your progress daily, weekly or monthly. The app further controls your profile as well notification settings.

Notifications for me are the main reason for using such a device, and the Mi Band 3 excels at this. They can be read on the small screen easily, and via the menu you can go back and read the last 5 notifications.

The 110mAh battery might not sound huge but depending on use it should reach between 3 and 20 days on a single charge. The mono screen that isn't on all the time helps with battery life. I have managed 4 days on a charge, so I am not sure if I am a heavy user or I have something turned on I don’t need.

Thats the main technical side out of the way. How does it feel? The rubberised strap is very comfortable and the weight of the device often makes you forget you are wearing a band. The strap loops in to one end and is fastened with a snap fix.

The overall build quality feels excellent.

After a few weeks use I have been very impressed. It is close to the simplicity of the original Pebble, but with the added bonus of a touch screen. The Mi Band 3 is an excellent device and at under £30 you cant go wrong with it.

For further reading and another owners review check out Replacing A Pebble 2 With A Xiaomi Mi Band 3.

Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at twitter.com/simonroyal

Cheap Smart/Fitness Bands... ID115 and ID115 HR Plus Review

Once a nerdy trend, smart watches and fitness bands are now the coolest tech out there. As with most technology cheap alternatives work their way in, but are cheap bands any good?

FitBit are a big name in the sports band area however personally I do not rate them in terms of quality and value for money, so when my daughters FitBit Charge lasted only a few months I wasn’t keen on replacing it with another high priced offering.

ID115 Review

For under ten pound I picked up a smart fitness band online. I am not sure who makes it, but it is labelled as an ID115. A small thin band which features a mono low resolution screen, which while isn’t touch capable it does have a touch sensitive button at the bottom of the screen for menu control.

It has removable and replaceable straps (something the likes of FitBit and Microsoft Band didn’t offer), to reveal a built in USB connection for charging. You simply plug the watch into a USB socket - so no need for a cable - It’s tiny 45mAh battery takes an hour to charge and lasts around 3 or 4 days of average use - despite several sellers claiming 10 days.

Function wise it offers a watch face, call/app notifications (although limited to a few selected apps), sports tracker for steps, calories and distance. It also has remote camera function, find my phone and is waterproof.

The band connects to your Android/iOS device via bluetooth and is controlled via the VeryFitPro app which does a good job of syncing and keeping your fitness history as well as tweaking the settings of your band.

I wasn’t expecting much from this cheap band, but both my daughter and I have been thoroughly impressed. After a terrible experience with her FitBit she is loving this.

ID115 HR Plus
I was looking for a new band and after the great experience of the ID115 I wanted something similar. The low res screen of the ID115 was its only niggle, so when I saw the ID115 HR Plus with its bright colour screen I thought I would grab one and at only £6 would be a cheap option.

It has the same functions as the ID115 - call/app notifications, sports tracker for steps, calories and distance but with added heart rate and blood pressure monitors.

Initially I was impressed. The screen was bright and clear and the colourisation made it look great, and once again not a touch screen device, but a touch sensitive button at the bottom of the screen. The menu was similar to the ID115 and also has replaceable straps and charging via the built in USB connection.

The band connects to your Android/iOS device via Bluetooth and is controlled via the Yoho Sports app which is similar to the VeryFitPro but oddly lacks a few options such as remote camera and screen rotation.

However, the joy of this band was short lived. Despite almost doubling the battery to 80mAh, this band would need charging at least twice a day - even though it was advertised as lasting around 5 days.

After just two days this began to really annoy me and the band was returned.

Summary
Cheap bands can be good. There are so many around your mileage may vary. A band for under ten pounds with replaceable straps is a great bonus and depending on your needs they could cover everything you want.

For me the fitness side isn't important, I just like notifications on my wrist. It saves me taking my phone out every time it buzzes so these bands suit my minimal needs.

For their price they are great for kids or people who risk damaging high priced watches/bands.

I was very impressed with the ID115, but not with the ID115 HR Plus.

Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at twitter.com/simonroyal