Sometimes we receive some slightly older stuff here in TheTechnoclast – thankfully its mostly because we get some of these devices through various means. This time, we got a pretty cool looking iPod dock – if only it wasn’t a little dated. The Logitech AudioStation came out probably around 4-5 years ago now, but it should still support a good amount of iPods and even iPhones/iPod touches. Its got decent sound and specs too – with 80watts of power, AM/FM/aux features (including external antennas), IR remote control and video output from your iDevices. So lets go ahead and unbox this baby, right?

Unfortunately we didn’t have an iPod to test the device out, but we tested the audio from AM/FM for you here. Should give you an idea on what the product is all about. If you’re looking for one of these, they run for about PHP 8-10k if you can find them. Check them out if you’re looking for one of these.

‘Tis the season for new Philippine Facebook fanpages it seems, as there have been a couple of new ones popping out. Of course you know what that means: more chances to win prizes from Fan-Like contests! (Click here for another similar contest from ECS Philippines.) This time, BenQ Philippines is opening up their new Facebook page and asking you to refer your friends to like their page and possibly win a new BenQ RL2450H 24” 1080p Gaming Monitor. Simple enough, though you do need to make the friends you just referred to the contest vote for you in the whole referral popularity contest. We guess the honesty system still works in some parts of the world, so why not here? Details on how to join are after the jump.

To join the BenQ Philippine’s Contest/Raffle/Giveaway thing, all you have to do is accomplish a few simple tasks:

1. Go to the BenQ Philippines Fan Page and hit the like buttanz.
2. On the page, there’s a Facebook Poll question on “Who referred you to this page?” Add your name there.
3. Refer the BenQ page to your friends.
4. Tell them to vote for who referred them in the same question. I guess it also means that if you were referred by someone, you should also vote for them.
5. The bro/sis with the most votes on March 31, 2012 (11AM) wins!

Simple enough, right? Go ahead and get your BqnQ on and see how many people you can get. Though we must admit that the whole honesty system of claiming who-referred-who is probably the weakest point in this whole voting contest – as it is indeed, entirely optional and honesty-system based. We’ll just have to rely on people’s kind hearts, wouldn’t we?

That said, while we’re technically the people who would be referring you guys to this giveaway, we’re not requiring you to vote for us. But if you want to, just click on Alexei Rivera there so we know we’re being loved. Good luck to all!

Symbian Belle, or Nokia Belle in some parts of the world, is finally rolling out to a Symbian^3 device near you. The OS, which Nokia primarily uses for (currently) most of its’ smartphones are finally able to get a second major update since Symbian Anna – the aforementioned Symbian Belle. The update brings with it several performance enhancements and UI changes – including a popular pull-down notification bar, custom widget sizes, as well as stability and new graphical touches. While some devices have already shipped with Symbian/Nokia Belle pe-installed, phones that came in the original Symbian^3 and Symbian Anna flavors are now able to pick up the anticipated update.

Nokia Belle is the second major update to the Symbian^3 OS, which originally shipped with the popular Nokia N8 cameraphone back in 2010. While there were some criticisms around its slightly more dated interface back then, its great to see that Nokia made new strides in updating the UI with its’ Symbian Anna and Belle updates. With Belle, they’ve implemented a new pull-down notification bar for faster access to messages and settings, more homescreens for widgets and shortcuts, and finally some custom widget sizes. In addition you’ll be getting some extra new Microsoft apps included for free in the update, which is always a good thing. You can check out a quick video on what the new Nokia Belle interface looks like in our video below.

To get your Nokia Belle update on, install Nokia Suite on your PC and connect your Symbian device with USB. Click Tools > Software Update and you should be able to get the update for your device. Eligible phones include the Nokia N8, E7, C7, C6-01, X7, E6, and the Nokia 500.

Back in early January I was tapped by a Co-Blogger, Ruth Manimtim-Floresca, to share a few tips on finding the right televisions for investment savvy consumers in the Philippine Market. Ruth, who maintains a few blogs of her own, is also a Contributing Author to large publications including The Manila Bulletin and MoneySense Magazine. My advice on TVs would eventually end up on the January-February 2012 edition of the latter publication. Entitled “The Bottom Line: Buyer’s Guide For TV’s,” the article spans two pages and we share the glory with the famous tech blogger Mr. Abe Olandres of YugaTech fame. Merely having the chance to stand (figuratively) in the presence of these giants (Mr. Olandres and a huge publication like MoneySense) is definitely quite an honor, and we thank Ruth for giving us this opportunity.

In the article we break down the choices of televisions to three main categories: LCD, LED & Plasma. Going in more detail, there’s tips there on how to choose the right size, type, resolution, and even durability. Specific information is also given on how to pick the right displays for your usage patterns – like the advantages and disadvantages of LED and plasma screens. Finally, there’s some tips there on which TV to purchase for specific purposes like for previous generations, motion-gaming, or even space saving advice. Ultimately though, we gloss on the importance of having good HD sources for video since HD televisions won’t really help without proper HD content to watch. Either way, to check it all out, you’ll have to grab a copy of MoneySense for Jan to Feb this year.

Other bloggers & industry friends who were featured in the magazine include Jeman Villanueva of OrangeMagazineTV; Ruth Dela Cruz of Ruthilicious; Aileen Siwa of PinoyBeat; and Eric Losloso of Business Mirror. Again, huge thanks to Ruth Floresca for this great opportunity!

What happens when you take the LG Prada 3.0, a slim Gingerbread phone that looks svelte and sleek, and then you decided to make it fat and obnoxious? Well, you get the LG Optimus Vu – a Gingerbread Android phone with a 5” screen, but in a 4:3 ratio screen format. This type of ratio of screen was typical back in the days of thick CRT monitors and televisions, but not very popular in the land of smartphones and portable devices – and we think there’s a reason why. Either way, it’s clamoring for LG’s flagship right now with a dual-core 1.5Ghz processor with various high-end options. At the same time its also obviously going for the Samsung Galaxy Note’s market by including a capacitive stylus in the package. Despite not being such a big fan of Samsung’s large-screen tablet-phone, when you compare the specs and factor in the ridiculous screen ratio and handling difficulty of the LG, you’ve got a pretty simple answer when choosing between the two.

The LG Optimus Vu is the Korean-company’s newest stab at the high-end Android smartphone market which, we admit, is getting really crowded these days. In fact, its so crowded right now that without a specific selling point, its hard to differentiate yourselves from the rest of the pack. Samsung has done its part in developing devices that has had the highest quality HD AMOLED screens coupled with ridiculous amount of processor specs and tech underneath with its 5.3”-screened Galaxy Note. LG seems to want to compete in this category with their Optimus Vu, which comes in with a 5” 1024×768 IPS display in 4:3 format, Dual-Core 1.5Ghz processor, 8MP Camera with LED Flash, 1.3MP front facing camera, and the usual smartphone connectivity options all running Android 2.3 Gingerbread. (An update to Android 4.0 ICS is promised later on.) Finally, support for a stylus will be built in, though it wasn’t noted if it will come in the package or if there will be a slot to hold it in the phone.

LG Optimus Vu (left) and the LG Prada 3.0 (right). Its like the Prada’s twin just got a little extra tubby

But Jesus Christ look how hard that thing is to hold! And it just looks exactly like the Prada 3.0 phone except wider and without the Prada accents! Come on LG. We can’t see any reason at all why you should use a 4:3 ratio screen when everyone, including your televisions have been getting wider and wider. Motorola made the same ugly decision when they released the “square”-screened Motorola Flipout – there’s just no real world use for “square-ish” screens. Videos will look terrible on this since they’ll be letterboxed while watching, wasting at least 20-30% of your screen space. Pictures will mostly be shown letterboxed as well, unless you shoot at 4:3 ratio. You could argue that the 4:3 screen is for your stylus input or ease of use, but people write on wider screens perfectly fine so why even bother? Is it just to be different? Can you imagine yourself holding this pancake phone up right next to your face and not looking like a complete douche?

LG Optimus Vu side by side against the Samsung Galaxy Note (Source: HelloAdam100)

Specs-wise LG comes out with respectable, high-end performing phones. However, if its going to compete with the Galaxy Note its going on an uphill battle. The incredibly popular Note has an HD 1280×800 resolution Super AMOLED screen versus LG’s 1024×768 IPS display – a difference that might as well be night and day favoring the Samsung phone. While processor specs aren’t really that much more different, Sammy’s got the upper hand when it comes to brand recognition and popularity right now, so what is LG getting at?

When it comes down to it, LG’s Optimus Vu is not as offensive as it seems. The specs are definitely up there for a flagship device and certainly the thin design and stylus adds a lot of usefulness to the phone. It doesn’t look like it can directly compete with Samsung’s offering, but will likely want to carve a niche of its own. The handling is definitely a concern here, but isn’t impossible to overcome. The fact that LG xeroxed their Prada design and made it wider isn’t a terrible idea either, since the Prada 3.0 looked and felt pretty awesome. We would have wanted them to lead the charge by having Android 4.0 out of the box, but they’ve opted to go for the relatively aging Gingerbread platform – losing a huge opportunity to beat Samsung to the punch. Either way, its had to knock a phone that comes that close to competing with one of the top devices out there, and that’s what the LG Optimus Vu does.

 
We give the LG Optimus Vu n* Stars.
Oh wait, this wasn’t a review; we just sort of got carried away there.

The Optimus Vu isn’t yet announced to be coming to the Philippines at all, and has only been announced in Korea. It’s expected to show up in other parts of the world though, so we might see it in our shores soon. Its not a bad phone, despite all our criticisms – but we just don’t understand why even bother with a 4:3 screen. Maybe we’re just dumb and don’t know anything about phones and we’ll stand corrected when we see it for ourselves, or even review it. But until then, yeah.

To see more of this device, check out the video thing below. Then watch the Prada 3.0 trailer just after it and tell us that’s not exactly the same thing except wider.

ECS Motherboards Philippines, one of the well known PC component makers, is raffling off one of their enthusiast motherboards for us desktop consumers in the Philippines. Which means, you’re invited to join this giveaway. (Assuming you’re reading this in the Philippines.) The terms are your typical “Like” the page, Tweet about it, and refer your friends. What’s interesting though is that you can keep doing some of these daily, effectively giving you more entries every day as long as you can keep referring people to it or tweeting about it. Of course, that also means more competition in the form of people you referred, but such is the nature of the beast, right? The prize for this raffle draw is one of their latest offerings in the form of the ECS X79R-AX Black Extreme enthusiast motherboard – a new one that supports Intel’s X79 Sandy Bridge processors with overclocking capabilities.

The ECS X79R-AX motherboard is an Intel Sandy Bridge-E board capable of mounting up to four PCIe Gen 3 x 16 slots allowing for 4-way GPUs in the form of NVIDIA’s SLI or AMD CrossFireX graphics chips. It also supports quad-channel memory going up to 64GB, which is overclockable up to 2500Mhz – almost twice the normal 1333Mhz frequencies. Rounding out the features include WiFi & Bluetooth built-in, eSATA slots, up to 12 SATA ports, and gigabit ethernet ports for fast network and disk access.

Of course, all that information is not much use unless you win it right? (Or you’re buying one.) So go on ahead and click through to the ECS Philippines Fanpage here, or to the raffle app embedded on their Fanpage here. Both links do require at least a Facebook account to begin with though, but that’s not hard to accomplish now isn’t it?

The giveaway is using a well known system called Rafflecopter and allows you to do multiple things to get more tickets into the draw. In this case, tweeting about it and referring your friends will get you extra chances of winning, and you can do these everyday until the end of the eligible timeline – which is until February 26, 2012. You still have about a week to go so there’s plenty of time to get those tickets!

To (sort of) learn more about the ECS X79R-AX, you can check out this video tour just below.

When it comes to gaming keyboards, the mechanical versions are easily the superior kind. Most keyboards (from laptops and desktops) these days are built on a technology called membranes, and it comes with a little rubbery layer to bring your keys back up whenever you strike the keys. Mechanical keyboards are much better in this sense because it employs real mechanical microswitches – these little devices have real moving parts and springs and are much more preferred when it comes to tactile feedback and experience. That’s why gamers prefer these kinds of keyboards for gaming, and that’s why we’re checking one out today. For this unboxing, we’re checking out the CM Storm Quick Fire Rapid mechanical gaming keyboard, and this one is equipped with the high quality Cherry MX microswitches. But lets not go on about it, and play some games in our Unboxing! Hop over the jump for our video.

And there you have it for the CM Storm Quick Fire Rapid keyboard. (That’s a lot of words.) The device is listed at about $80 from international sites, so in the Philippines it will probably end up at around PHP 3-4k when it comes to our shores. For a really comfortable keyboard though, that sounds like a decent bargain.

Does anyone actually still give a flying hoot (pun!) about Angry Birds? Since we really don’t anymore. We stopped caring long before the next bazillionth version and “level update” came out. Why? Because the game got stale – it started to get repetitive fast. Once you’ve figured out the basic premise of slinging your various colored aviary to destroy innocent buildings (and pigs) in various forms and physics, it just got old. It doesn’t help that Rovio hasn’t really innovated at all when it comes to gameplay concepts – its just recycling the same old shenanigans and adding a new coat of paint. But we digress. Rovio is continuing the trend of milking the franchise providing new content to their fans by announcing Angry Birds Space, a “new” game of aviary flinging coming to you this March – but get this, its in SPAAAAAACCCCCEEE!!!!

Angry Birds Space will be coming out in March 22 and will promise some new gameplay concepts (somehow we bet its going to be underwhelming just like Angry Birds Rio) plus some “surprises”. Not much else has been revealed, so that’s all there is. If you’re still, for some reason, excited for playing a slingshot physics game in the colorful world of cute, but pissed off aviary, check your phones and other devices (they’re launching more than just a game) in March to pick it up. Meantime, go ahead and check out their trailer below to learn absolutely nothing about the game.

Its been a while since we last saw anything about a movie called “Chronicle” – about a few months at least. Back in October, we put up the trailer and the teaser text from 20th Century Fox on Viral.PH about a movie centered around three high-school guys who happen to have chanced upon some rather psychokinetic or mystical powers. Back then, the release mentioned that the movie would open in March 2012 so we weren’t expecting it to be out in theatres so soon. However, Chronicle is definitely showing now and we think it’s a pretty good movie to catch – unless you’re specifically looking for a dark horror movie or something along the lines of a paranormal thing.

He can make a pretty hefty commission on garbage disposal there…

“Chronicle” is shot in the “found footage” format, a style of movie wherein the show is seen from video recordings of cameras and other devices in the story – lending it a more realistic and gritty feel. Much of the movie revolves around the dynamics between the three main characters – the filmographer Andrew (Dane DeHaan); his cousin Matt (Alex Russell); and their new best-friend-by-chance Class Presidentiable Steve (Michael B. Jordan). The film is based around the personal video recordings (and some added from other devices) of our typical social-outcast Andrew, who begins a new hobby of recording his life. After Matt brings him to a party where he finds himself outcast, Steve calls him out to a field to get something unusual on film. Long story short, the camera breaks but the three high-school guys pick up some unusual psychokinetic powers.

We find the three a bit later, new camera in hand, building up their newly learned skills – and herein lies the conflict. Andrew, due to immense social and domestic pressures, begins to show less compassion for people around him – even including Matt and Steve. The question then surfaces: Can these three high school guys, a social misfit among them, be able to control and maintain secrecy – not to mention the legality of their newfound powers? And if not, what happens to these guys? Well, that’s for you to check out at your nearest local theater.

What Chronicle ends up to be is a great, if predictable enough, sci-fi (if you can call it that) movie in 84 minutes. It doesn’t end up explaining what caused the characters’ powers to begin with, but ultimately doesn’t need to. There were some genuine moments of enjoyment during the early parts of the show, and the awkward nature of the camera and Andrew’s social-inabilities are well delivered. The CG effects were pretty well made and lend itself to the style of the cinematography. Near the climax it starts to get kinda patchy and over-the-top, but you could have gleaned that much from the trailers. Either way, it’s a fresh take on that Spiderman mantra of, “With great blah blah blah, blah blah blah.” Sorry, its just too cliché to write. Final thought: go watch it.

Check out the new trailer here below for more teasering-ing!

At a media event held last month, Tattoo @ Home – Globe Telecom’s brand of household-based internet service provider – took the opportunity to introduce us to their newest WiMax, DSL & Fiber Optic plans. Admittedly though, more emphasis was given to their newest celebrity endorser – the Ford Supermodel of the World 2010 winner Danica Magpantay. Ms. Magpantay is daughter to Lala Flores, who is also another (former) Supermodel of the World – bagging the prestigious award back in 1990 for the Philippines. The argument levied here is that parents would want the best for their children, just like mother Lala Flores want the best for her daughter Danica. And to wish for the best would mean to give them the greatest value for money high-speed broadband internet – giving their offspring the best possible launching pad for stardom. We guess the argument worked pretty well for Alodia Gosiengfiao, so we guess it works here as well.

 
Click for full res

Interestingly, Tattoo @ Home offers three different ways to hop on to the wide world of the intertubes – it offers the traditional line-based DSL subscription, a much newer WiMax 4G wireless internet service, and finally a service called GPON (Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network). While GPON sounds like a Japanese toy you get from a vending machine, it’s probably most comparable to a T1 dedicated connection given that it is technically an optical internet line. If you’re interested though, a 50MBps connection starts at around PHP 14,999. DSL and WiMax are a lot more reasonable for most homes and they hover around the PHP 800-3,000 mark (512kbps-5Mbps) with optional phone lines. In selected areas DSL can also go up to 15Mbps though it does cost PHP 6,300/month.

A feature unique to Globe’s Tattoo @ Home service is their Speed Boost “add-on”, which gives you another 1Mbps of bandwidth in either Day, Night, or “Insomniac” hours of the day. These range from PHP 250-100 depending on the plan you’re currently subscribed on and at what time of the day you’ll be using the temporary upgrade. Finally, there’s also the capability to customize plans according to the users’ needs via their Plan Builder here.

Additionally, if you’re here because you’re a Danica Magpantay fan, we’ll just add in some more pictures down below. You can also check out her TV ad for Globe Tattoo @ Home embedded down there too.