Month: October 2019

back to school hub to see the rest of the product guides as they’re added throughout the month. Be sure to keep checking back — at the end of the month we’ll be giving away a ton of the gear featured in our guides — and hit up the hub page right here! It’s time to balance out that daily grind at school with some well-deserved leisure. Fortunately, many of our choices walk that fine line between work and play — if you’re willing to stump up some more cash beyond a normal laptop, you could get something capable of handling the latest PC titles. Some of our other choices may be a harder sell in the education stakes, but we all need some stress relief, right? And with bigger consoles nearing the end of their life cycles, there’s never been a more wallet-friendly time to get involved. Jump in after the break for our favorite gaming choices. If all your money’s been earmarked for learnin’, then you should certainly enter our sweepstakes. Leave a comment after the break for a chance to win, and visit our giveaway page for all the details. On the cheap Nintendo DSi While we’ve already reached the second generation of 3DS hardware, there has been more good news from Nintendo since last year’s guide. Yes, this time, the camera-toting DSi got a substantial price cut — down to around $100, depending on your color preferences. There’s still a raft of respectable games for the elder statesman of Nintendo handhelds and the DSi was also the first to connect to Nintendo’s online store, with an increasing selection of mini-games and retro titles available for download over WiFi. Key specs: Dual 3.25-inch displays, two cameras, SD card slot, WiFi. Price: $124 on Amazon You might also like… Nyko Power grip for Vita Nyko says its Power Grip will double your handheld play time — a boon for the otherwise precarious battery life of the PS Vita. The extended handles should also make those longer gaming sessions a cinch, though the rig’s unlikely to fit in your pocket anymore. Price: $30 on Amazon XBox 360 two-year subscription bundle Granted, you’ll have to be willing to pay an additional $15 per month for the two-year term, but for a lot of us, that’s a pretty manageable price for the best-selling console in recent history. Rounded out by a Kinect, it’s a very solid package for a $100 entry fee. Price: $100 on MicrosoftStore.com Mid-range Sony PlayStation Vita There’s no handheld with quite as much power as Sony’s latest effort. It’s also been around for a few months now, with several appealing game bundles now making the rounds and Sony’s online game catalog continuing to expand. A capacitive touchscreen and dual analog sticks arguably make it the gamers’ handheld console, while those feeling slightly more flush have the option to pony up a little more cash for the 3G version. Key specs: 5-inch OLED display, dual analog controls, dual touchscreens, WiFi, backwards compatibility with PSP titles online. Price: $250 on Amazon You might also like… Nintendo 3DS XL We’re still a week away from Nintendo’s newest handheld appearing on US soil, but that didn’t stop us putting it through the review wringer ahead of its launch. A bigger screen, more pervasive 3D effect and longer battery life make it a noticeable improvement over the original 3DS. Price: $199 on Nintendo.com PS3 320GB Call of Duty MW 3 bundle Sony’s console doesn’t seem to be shaking things up as much as its Microsoft rival when it comes to pricing, but the latest Modern Warfare bundle now manages to duck under the $300 mark. This nets you a 320GB system, a controller, a copy of MW3 and, naturally, an embedded Blu-ray player. Price: $300 on Amazon Money’s no object Maingear Pulse 11 This 11-inch gaming portable surprised us with a potent showing in benchmarks and real-life use. Not that we should have been all that surprised. The laptop packs an Intel third-generation Ivy Bridge processor alongside an NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M. Given the paucity of 11-inch gaming laptops, the Pulse 11 seems to be a winner if bag space is at a premium. Naturally, all that power will ensure it’s also more than capable of handling those weekly essays and web-based research projects. Key specs: 11.6-inch 1,366 x 768 display, Intel’s Ivy Bridge processor, NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M, 250GB hard drive. Price: $999 on Maingear.com You might also like… Apple iPad (2012) Apple continues to offer a rich selection of gaming wares in its App Store — so many titles, in fact, that its firmly landed itself in gamer territory. If you have the money, then the third-generation model could be worth the extra investment over older flavors, with a super-crisp display and a battery life that’s likely to last ’til the final bell. Price: $499 on Apple.com Alienware M17x For gaming laptops that could dominate your backpack, Alienware’s latest refresh fits the bill. Now customizable with the latest NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M and still compatible with 3D Vision, the M17x is powered by Intel’s new Ivy Bridge processor range, and offers support for PCI Express 3.0 and several hybrid storage drive options. Price: $1,499 on Dell.com Engadget’s Back to School Giveaway Official Rules No Purchase Required to Enter or Win Eligibility: Engadget’s Back to School Giveaway (the “Giveaway”) is open only to individuals who are legal residents of the fifty (50) United States (including the District of Columbia) and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 years of age or older. Employees of Weblogs Inc. LLC, AOL Inc., their advertising or promotion agencies, those involved in the production, development, implementation or handling of Giveaways, any agents acting for, or on behalf of the above entities, their respective parent companies, officers, directors, subsidiaries, affiliates, licensees, service providers, prize suppliers any other person or entity associated with the Giveaways (collectively “Giveaway Entities”) and/or the immediate family (spouse, parents, siblings and children) and household members (whether related or not) of each such employee, are not eligible. All U.S., federal, state and local and Canadian federal, provincial, and municipal laws and regulations apply. Void in Quebec, Puerto Rico and where prohibited by law. Sponsor: The Giveaway is sponsored by Weblogs Inc. LLC, 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 (“Sponsor”). Agreement to Official Rules: Participation in the Giveaway constitutes entrant’s full and unconditional agreement to and acceptance of these Official Rules and the decisions of the Sponsor, which are final and binding. Winning a prize is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements set forth herein. Giveaway Period: The Giveaway begins at 12:00 pm ET on August 6, 2012 and ends at 12:00 pm ET on September 7, 2012 (the “Giveaway Period”). The Giveaway Period shall be divided into fifteen (15) separate Entry Periods: Entry Period 1 begins at 12PM ET on August 6, 2012 and ends at 12PM ET on September 7, 2012. Entry Period 2 begins at 1PM ET on August 6, 2012 and ends at 12PM ET on September 7, 2012. Entry Period 3 begins at 12PM ET on August 7, 2012 and ends at 12PM ET on September 7, 2012. Entry Period 4 begins at 12PM ET on August 8, 2012 and ends at 12PM ET on September 7, 2012. Entry Period 5 begins at 12PM ET on August 9, 2012 and ends at 12PM ET on September 7, 2012. Entry Period 6 begins at 12PM ET on August 10, 2012 and ends at 12PM ET on September 7, 2012. Entry Period 7 begins at 12PM ET on August 13, 2012 and ends at 12PM ET on September 7, 2012. Entry Period 8 begins at 12PM ET on August 15, 2012 and ends at 12PM ET on September 7, 2012. Entry Period 9 begins at 12PM ET on August 17, 2012 and ends at 12PM ET on September 7, 2012. Entry Period 10 begins at 12PM ET on August 20, 2012 and ends at 12PM ET on September 7, 2012. Entry Period 11 begins at 12PM ET on August 22, 2012 and ends at 12PM ET on September 7, 2012. Entry Period 12 begins at 12PM ET on August 24, 2012 and ends at 12PM ET on September 7, 2012. Entry Period 13 begins at 12PM ET on August 27, 2012 and ends at 12PM ET on September 7, 2012. Entry Period 14 begins at 12PM ET on August 29, 2012 and ends at 12PM ET on September 7, 2012. Entry Period 15 begins at 12PM ET on August 31, 2012 and ends at 12PM ET on September 7, 2012. Entry: During the Giveaway Period, go to engadget.com/2012/08/06/back-to-school-giveaway and follow the instructions to submit your entry. The use of any agencies or automated software to submit entries will void all entries submitted by that person. Drawing: At the conclusion of the Giveaway Period, Sponsor will select the name of one (1) Grand Prize Winner from each of the fifteen (15) Entry Periods in a random drawing of all eligible entries received during each Entry Period. The odds of being selected as a potential winner depend on the number of eligible entries received during the applicable Entry Period. Potential Winners will be contacted via email and asked to provide their full name, age and mailing address within a specified time period. If a potential winner does not respond within the timeframe stated in the notification email, the Sponsor may select an alternate potential winner in his/her place at random from all entries received during the Entry Period. Non-winning entries from one Entry Period do not carry over into subsequent Entry Periods. Requirements of the Potential Winners: Except where prohibited, the potential winners will be required to complete and return an affidavit of eligibility and liability/publicity release (the “Affidavit/Release”) and IRS W-9 form within seven (7) days of being notified. If a potential winner fails to sign and return the Affidavit/Release and W-9 form within the required time period, an alternate entrant may be selected in his/her place in a random drawing of all entries received. Acceptance of a prize constitutes consent to use winner’s name and likeness for editorial, advertising and publicity purposes without additional compensation, except where prohibited by law. In the event the potential winner of any prize is a Canadian resident, he/she will also be required to correctly answer a time-limited mathematical question to be administered by email, mail or phone to receive the prize. Limit one (1) prize per household. Prizes: Fifteen (15) Grand Prize Winners will each receive a Back to School Prize Pack containing the following items: HP Envy Ultrabook 4, Sony NEX-F3, Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0), Samsung Galaxy S III (AT&T), Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, AiAiAi Capital headphones, Western Digital My Passport (1TB) hard drive, Timbuk2 Commute Messenger laptop bag, Flying Alarm Clock, AOC 16″ USB monitor, Spotify Premium subscription (1 year), Satechi Energy Station, Edifier Tick Tock, Satechi 12-port USB hub, NuForce Cube, Withings WiFi Scale, Powermat 24-hour system, Carbonite Backup (1 year), AViiQ Ready Chips, and Targus Defcon 1 lock. Approximate Retail Value of each Prize Pack is $3,203. Subscriptions are subject to issuer’s terms and conditions. Activation fees and monthly service fees not included with any smartphone/digital devices. No cash or other substitution may be made, except by the Sponsor, who reserves the right to substitute a prize or portion of a prize with another prize of equal or greater value if the prize is not available for any reason as determined by the Sponsor in its sole discretion. Winners are responsible for any taxes and fees associated with receipt or use of a prize. General Conditions: In the event that the operation, security, or administration of the Giveaway is impaired in any way for any reason, including, but not limited to fraud, virus, or other technical problem, the Sponsor may, in its sole discretion, either: (a) suspend the Giveaway to address the impairment and then resume the Giveaway in a manner that best conforms to the spirit of these Official Rules; or (b) award the prizes at random from among the eligible entries received up to the time of the impairment. The Sponsor reserves the right in its sole discretion to disqualify any individual it finds to be tampering with the entry process or the operation of the Giveaway or to be acting in violation of these Official Rules or in an unsportsmanlike or disruptive manner. Any attempt by any person to undermine the legitimate operation of the Giveaway may be a violation of criminal and civil law, and, should such an attempt be made, the Sponsor reserves the right to seek damages from any such person to the fullest extent permitted by law. The Sponsor’s failure to enforce any term of these Official Rules shall not constitute a waiver of that provision. In case of a dispute as to the owner of an entry, entry will be deemed to have been submitted by the authorized account holder of the screen name from which the entry is made. The authorized account holder is defined as the natural person who is assigned to an e-mail address by an Internet access provider, online service provider, or other organization responsible for assigning e-mail addresses for the domain associated with the submitted e-mail address. Release and Limitations of Liability: By participating in the Giveaway, entrants agree to release, defend indemnify and hold harmless the Giveaway Entities from and against any claim or cause of action, including without limitation, any third party claim, arising out of participation in the Giveaway or receipt, use or misuse of any prize, including, but not limited to: (a) unauthorized human intervention in the Giveaway; (b) technical errors related to computers, servers, providers, or telephone or network lines; (c) printing errors; (d) lost, late, postage-due, misdirected, or undeliverable mail; (e) errors in the administration of the Giveaway or the processing of entries; or (f) injury or damage to persons or property which may be caused, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, from entrant’s participation in the Giveaway or receipt, use or misuse of any prize. Entrant further agrees that in any cause of action, the Giveaway Entities’ liability will be limited to the cost of entering and participating in the Giveaway, and in no event shall the Giveaway Entities be liable for attorney’s fees. Entrant waives the right to claim any damages whatsoever, including, but not limited to, punitive, consequential, direct, or indirect damages. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE PRIZES AND ALL ELEMENTS THEREOF ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF ANY KIND. SPONSOR DISCLAIMS ALL EXPRESS AND IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND/OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. Some jurisdictions do not allow the disclaimer of implied warranties. In such jurisdictions, some of the foregoing disclaimers may not apply to you insofar as they relate to implied warranties. Disputes: Except where prohibited, entrant agrees that any and all disputes, claims and causes of action arising out of, or connected with, the Giveaway or any prize awarded shall be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action, and exclusively by the appropriate court located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of these Official Rules, entrant’s rights and obligations, or the rights and obligations of the Sponsor in connection with the Giveaway, shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, without giving effect to any choice of law or conflict of law rules (whether of the Commonwealth of Virginia or any other jurisdiction), which would cause the application of the laws of any jurisdiction other than the Commonwealth of Virginia. Giveaway Results: To request the names of the winners, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Engadget Back to School Giveaway Winners, 770 Broadway, Attn: J. Turi, New York, NY 10003. Requests must be received by September 30, 2012. comments

What do a statistician, a tinkerer, a party guy, a time-challenged player, and my better half all have in common? They’re a handful of gamers who have recently been playing RIFT with me, and many of them have come back after a break from the game. It’s pretty much been one coincidence after another that they’ve all come back around the same time, and while we all get along swimmingly, we all have differences in our playstyles that make this group a decent representation of the RIFT demographic on the whole. Would the game hook in everyone? Would the second time be the charm? Hear their impressions in this week’s Enter at Your Own Rift. Mission impossibleOf all the moments in these past few weeks, one sums things up perfectly. I was in game one night and got a chat ping out of the blue from a guildmate. He wanted to catch up with how everyone was doing, and specifically, which people were playing. I mentioned that we had a few pop back into RIFT, and he immediately replied that he had actually been downloading it while we chatted. This particular guildie is someone who’d made a hobby out of his gaming hobby and at one point in his spare time had created a parse program for RIFT that built upon the Advanced Combat Tracker for EverQuest II. But his gaming time had been scaled down quite a bit because of real-life obligations. Time is at a premium, so when he told me he was done patching, it was time to spring to action. Like something out of Mission Impossible, I first had him log in and transfer to the server to which we had relocated the guild (luckily he didn’t have a lot in his mailbox to clean out). In about the amount of time it takes to make popcorn, he was on our server, and a few seconds later, he was already invited and in a group. Meanwhile, a couple of guildmates who had recently returned and were up to the mid-levels also mentored down and queued up with us for an instant adventure (we had a few seconds to tell him to just buckle up and follow us). From there, it turned into a night of lots of fighting, leveling, and looting.I chatted with him the next day after the whirlwind tour to get his take on mentoring, IAs, and most importantly, his take on the game. He admitted that it was a pretty frenzied pace from the moment he logged in, but he enjoyed the fact that we weren’t standing around trying to figure out where to go for old quest updates or dig through old journal entries. As he put it, no one was saying, “What kills do you guys need now?” The experience has also been terrific, and he’s been following a “level a day” plan but also doing it on a fairly tight gaming schedule. In short, he’s been able to get a decent amount of experience from doing IAs in quick bursts of an hour or so and has had a lot of fun doing it.That sentiment was echoed by just about everyone in the guild. While my guildies did have old quests in their journals and lots of unfamiliar items in their bags, they could put off housecleaning until later and jump into an IA with some mentored-down friends right away. In addition, it’s been a fairly quick path to level 50, which is on everyone’s to do list since the expansion is due this fall. My husband found that even after he had outleveled the new lower-level IAs, he could mentor down and still get terrific experience from continuing to run them. He did do some questing, but over the week or two it took to get his Rogue to level 50, a big chunk of the experience came from instant adventures.SeamlessOne thing I’ve really enjoyed about the wave of returning players is that everyone’s been able to slide up and down the level ladder and do things together. Usually, when a player comes back after a hiatus, you have to pause what you’re doing in order to play together and help him get up to speed. That’s not the case in RIFT. One day, a few of us mentored down to join a lower-level member and run some random IAs to help him level up, and we were able to get some inscribed and planarite along the way from the daily quest. The next day, a friend in another guild who has played from day one, has several level capped toons, and raids regularly took a few returning players out to Ember Isle to run some onslaughts. We all walked away with loads of planarite, inscribed, and planar attunement experience, which was something we all could use.After just a few weeks, almost everyone who came back is level-capped, and some are now running expert dungeons and raiding. It didn’t feel like a grind to get there, though, and in fact, a couple of them had work, travel, and family trips that kept them offline here and there. It’s not so much that the game is easymode; it’s just that we’re all spending less time standing around looking at quest updates and playing catch up and more time actually doing productive (and fun!) things in game.The wish listSo what sorts of things made them grumble? Inventory came up a lot. Even though bag sort helped organize things a bit, many of my friends returned to bags full of stuff that had lost meaning. As one buddy pointed out, she had loads of the consumables from sealing rifts, as well as piles of various essences, and they added a lot of clutter to her inventory. Someone else added that he had several quest items that were taking up space (although a guildmate showed him how he could place them in a row below his quest journal to free up space in his bags).Another thing that many members wished for was the addition of even more instant adventures. We debated whether having so many would cause the playerbase to thin out too much, but one friend suggested that it would freshen up the “random adventure” category to have more variety. Another said that he’d like to see more mid-level IAs, along with an option for lower-level players to either temporarily mentor up or have a fairly large level range so they could participate even if they were technically too low for the zone. They might not be able to survive alone, but in an army of higher-level players, they could probably survive and participate.Overall, the past few weeks have been pretty active in guild, and what’s really nice to see is that the game changes over the past several months have attracted a variety of player types. One guildie is making a fortune by fishing and crafting feasts and black dye, and low-key activities like these fit perfectly with his busy schedule. Meanwhile, someone else stumbled into a PvP zone event the other day and was instantly hooked. Another guildie is having a great time diving into the data from the SimpleMeter Addon and exploring various soul combinations. (In fact, he was wishing for more roles so he could try a new Ranger soul build). I think he summed things up nicely when he said that there are a lot more choices of things to do in game and there’s also a lot of choice in how you progress and gear up. So far, those who have been playing are happy with their experiences, and there’s plenty to keep everyone entertained while we wait for the expansion!Whether they’re keeping the vigil or defying the gods, Karen Bryan and Justin Olivetti save Telara on a weekly basis. Covering all aspects of life in RIFT, from solo play to guild raids, their column is dedicated to backhanding multidimensional tears so hard that they go crying to their mommas. Email Karen and Justin for questions, comments, and adulation.