Review

Known for many things, but few of them painterly fairytales about lost princesses, Ubisoft is known for quality games and talented people. These last two have combined to bring something new and striking, though perhaps easily judged or dismissed upon first glance. A powerful experience packaged in something beautiful and unassuming, Child of Light surprised me, and I think it might surprise you too.

Kelly Radner (Rose Byrne) and Mac Radner (Seth Rogen) are starting a family and what better way to start off than to buy a house in a quiet neighbourhood? That is, until a fraternity spearheaded by Teddy (Zac Efron) and Pete (Dave Franco) move in next door and start causing problems for the Radner family. 

New and extremely powerful personal audio systems have arrived at Best Buy.  Now available at the Sony SRS X-5 (pictured at left) and Sony SRS X-7 systems. Both offer you great sounding and powerful audio output options. Which one of these would work best for your needs, however?  Click on to read a review of how both devices work, and which may just suit your needs better.

As you no doubt know, when it comes to trying to pack the performance needed to undertake serious video gaming in a laptop, it comes down to a very tricky balance between speed and portability. Try to shove too much power in a gaming laptop and for all intents and purposes, it ceases to be a portable PC —heavy, bulky and with little battery life. Go too far in the other direction, though, and you end up with something that’s svelte but unable to play games on anything but the lowest settings. I just spent some quality time with a gaming laptop that manages to strike the perfect balance: the Eurocom M3. It’s a compact, lightweight laptop with the power to chew through pixels and polygons while keeping frame rates high. Eurocom says the M3 is the most powerful 13-inch notebook ever made and everything I’ve seen supports that claim.

If there was any doubt that this would be the year that smartwatches and other wearable technology hits the mainstream, look no further than Best Buy, where you’ll find best-sellers like the Pebble smartwatch alongside the latest generation of Samsung’s wearable tech –the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo. Soon some new entries will be joining these: the Cookoo and Cogito. Choice is good and these new models offer a new take on the traditional smartwatch form factor as well as a more affordable option for those who want to take the plunge into wearable technology without a large investment. I just spent a week with a Cookoo smartwatch and you can read my review here.  

  I recently got my hands on the Acer Aspire S7 Ultrabook and was impressed the moment I took it out of the box, and continued to feel that way as I ran it through its paces. It is a beautiful machine with a stunning display, very speedy performance, all in a very thin and light form factor. It is no wonder they call it the “professional edition” as the design of the S7 Ultrabook is very sophisticated. This machine is an able competitor that is worthy of very serious consideration for your next computer.

I was really looking forward to getting my hands on the new Linksys WRT 1900AC wireless router. It’s not just the buzz that’s built up since it wowed attendees at CES 2014 or the black and blue shout to the iconic Linksys WRT54G —the best-selling wireless router of all time. My own wireless network is at a crossroads. As high definition streaming video and a swarm of mobile devices combine with Wi-Fi dead zones to overpower what was once a pretty robust network, I was anxious to find out if the latest generation of Wi-Fi routers could provide the power to make things feel snappy once again. After swapping out my existing router for the Linksys WRT 1900AC review unit, I can say that thanks to the killer performance of this retro-styled rig, Wi-Fi Nirvana is once again within reach.

Hauppauge has time and again created some of the most versatile personal recording devices, and the HD PVR Rocket aims to do that yet again.  This lightweight yet powerful device allows you to do things some of its competition can’t, such as record with push buttons off the device, record to devices without the use of a PC and even plug in a microphone for realtime commentary recording!  Come check out a review of this helpful device after the jump.

“Welcome to the Future” is how Trials Fusion greets you as you begin another chapter of the world’s most beloved trial bike game.  Featuring over 50 levels of hops, jumps and (for the first time) stunts, Trials Fusion attempts to jumpstart the franchise in an all new way for the future.  But how does this stack up with the last couple games?  I turn to a longtime series fan and prominent member of the Trials community for his input as we review Trials Fusion, now available at your local Best Buy and BestBuy.ca

Wi-Fi is the greatest thing since sliced bread —so long as everything is working the way it should. No ethernet cables strung all around the house (I remember those days) and the ability to use a Wi-Fi enabled device anywhere. At least that’s the promise. The reality is many homes have zones where Wi-Fi is dead or very slow. Building materials like concrete, ceramic and metal can block Wi-Fi signals and decorative items like glass mirrors can deflect them. While one approach to improving Wi-Fi coverage for your home or small business is to install a newer, more powerful router, you can often get just as much of an improvement for a lot less money and fuss by installing a range extender. In this review, I look at the latest such device from D-Link, the DAP-1520 Wireless AC Dual Band Range Extender.