For those of us who like to take our Xbox 360 to our friend’s house or other social gatherings, Madcatz has made a wonderful carrier for the Xbox 360. Finding a way to transport consoles around has always been a challenge. To have the complete security of your $400.00 console, Madcatz has created an amazing transport system that is durable, dependable and moreover incredible.

The Xbox 360 Messenger Bag simply solves all the transport problems you need. The design of the bag is quite simple. It has a main pocket with a primary middle pocket holder for the Xbox 360. At the bottom of the main pocket, there is a padded divider which folds up allowing you to store your AV cables, power pack and power Cord. Once the power cords are stored the divider folds down and acts as a padded floor for your Xbox 360 to rest on. In terms of space, the MadCatz review accessory is simply incredible with the additional seperate holsters to the side which fit an enormous amount of stuff such as 4 entire Xbox 360 games in total.

Once your 360 is situated inside the main pocket, the extra padding in the pocket allows for extra protection for your console. The middle pocket is capable of holding up to 4 360 controllers. The provided one mesh-zipped pocket that are located in front of the middle pocket followed by 2 mesh pockets on each side of the bag are great for storing extra cables you might have.

In terms of simple and effective carrying, the Madcatz Xbox 360 Transport Bag is a must-have for anyone looking to secure their Xbox 360 during travel and international/domestic flights. Just make sure to take it out during customs and security checks while treating it at a laptop. The comfort of the bag auspiciously carries the Xbox 360 so much that it often makes us forgetful we are even carrying anything.

Original Review Content by Contributor: James Pikover

When it comes to music game instruments, there is very little selection in terms of hardware. It’s essentially first party from Harmonix’s Rock Band 1 or 2, any version of the Guitar Hero guitars, and now the Guitar Hero World Tour drums and microphone. With the exception of a few things here and there, such as ION Audio’s Premium Drum Set and Pearl’s Omega Drum Pedal, there is no market for music gaming equipment.

For those of us who have spent too much time and money at game shops buying the latest software and hardware, you’ll recognize Madcatz as a name to stay away from except for very specific situations. In the past, they have been known as that 3rd party peripheral company who makes worse hardware than 1st parties, but with one or two features that made them sell well enough for some of us to buy. Features like a macro button or wireless connectivity (back when wireless wasn’t the standard).

After keeping quiet for a few years, Madcatz is making a comeback in a big way: making music equipment for the likes of Rock Band. They have introduced a very solid lineup of peripherals, and we had the chance to look at their three biggest ones: the Fender Precision Bass, standalone microphone and cymbal expansion kit. The results are surprising.

IStarUSA is known to make great technology: from power supplies, to internal divisions and in this case, the latest Xage-n99-us hard drive docking station. Coming with the works of RoHS compliancy, the latest storage division supports up to 2.5” and 3.5” SATA hard drives up to 1TB, offering for a versatility that we just don’t see too often in terms of storage devices and the way the efficiency of items are brought up.

Specifications & Features:

SATA to USB 2.0/ FireWire 800/ Ethernet even eSATA interfaces

80mm Cooling Fan with Speed Controller

One Year Warranty

Size: 80mm

Speed: 0~1,800 rpm

Noise Level: 23.8 dB(A)

Air Flow: 31.15 CFM

The docking station comes with the USB cable, sexy HDD rubber covers and a power cable with the main mount. As a fully PC, Mac and Linux compatible device, the iStarUSA docking station supports makes sure that it doesn’t come off as cheap, with a blue activity light for a smitten indicator.

The iStarUSA HDD Docking Station boasts 480Mbps of data transfer rates for both 3.5” and 2.5” SATA hard drives in a very sleek design and reels in at about $20-$30 for something to aid in the aggravation of trying to figure out what HDD has what. In a land of external hard drive solutions, iStarUSA manages to make the trend towards a cheaper significance, allowing for ordinary consumers to save time, space, and most importantly money by hotswap.

iStarUSA claims a lot for a device that looks elegant but simple. After testing the device with our fastest RPM Western Digital SATA drive, the iStar USA performed admirably, exceeding expectations for something a bit peculiar, even for us. While total efficiency remained at 85%, the device itself was well worth the cash after all, a great news to those with hard drives as backups or picture storage.

As for noise level, surprisingly the unit itself does not make much noise (21.8 dB) using an oscillator, and the hard drive is the only thing that makes noise while accessing internal RAM. Not bad at all.

Rejoice. iStarUSA’s xAge-N99-US USB 2.0 Hard Drive Docking Station is here.

]]> http://whatifgaming.com/istarusa-hard-drive-docking-station-review-plug-n-go/feed 0 http://whatifgaming.com/tegra-is-a-tigera http://whatifgaming.com/tegra-is-a-tigera#comments Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:57:09 +0000 Usman Ihtsham http://whatifgaming.com/?p=980

Nvidia’s Tegra aims to take the same market segment that treats the company’s reach into a new market that currently has a demand of more than 1 billion processors per year.

So what the heck is it? It’s a computer. Yeah…I know. A computer. The kicker? It’s on a small nanochip. Revolt! Tegra can be formally called a “system-on-a-chip” (SoC) or “computer-on-a-chip” (CoC). Tegra has:

• ARM11 CPU core
• GoForce (renamed into GeForce ULV) GPU
• an image processor (digital camera support)
• a HD video processor (PureVideo for handhelds)
• memory (NAND Flash, Mobile DDR)
• a northbridge (memory controller, display output, HDMI+HDCP, security engine)
• a southbridge (USB OTG, UART, external memory card SPI SDIO, etc).

ATI has been able to create an external GPU. The card, codenamed Lasso, should be introduced to the public at Computex. The press release states that the new tech, while incredibly innovative, won’t be compatible with existing laptops. In fact, the external GPU requires a new high-speed connector to function properly. This pops up the question; will the new USB be challenged? In any case, the prospects of an external GPU should be the holy grail of gaming.