Opinion: UPS, Or Why GameStop is Still Around

Had today been a normal day, there would be a tantalizing first peek at the new Halo game from Bungie. Amazon.com, one of the world’s largest retailers, has a fairly good reputation amongst internet resellers for their good prices and prompt delivery. And the case with Halo 3: ODST was no different: $59.99 launch price (pretty standard) with a 10% off coupon that I had brought the price down to a rate that I felt was reasonable enough to spend a few extra dollars for release date delivery. The idea is that Amazon ships it about 5PM the night before launch and it arrives at your door no later than 5PM launch day, so that you can feel cool and get it with the rich gamers. If you don’t, you’ll get all your shipping costs refunded to you. And, it’s about as ironclad of a guarantee as you’ll get from an internet retailer. Except for one small problem: Amazon uses UPS as the shipper for Next Day Air services.

UPS isn’t the greatest, but apparently they just hate me. One of my Newegg orders left California on the wrong plane and headed into Washington before being relayed back to Texas through several destinations, delaying my new PC build by nearly a week. Two weeks ago, I had something shipped from my parents’ home in San Antonio to my dorm in Lubbock, and they could not, for the life of them, figure out how to deliver it properly. It seems as if somebody or some system rewrote my residence hall (Hulen) into an academic building (Holden), which are on separate sides of campus, leading to another long delay while they figured it out. It’s most peculiar because the actual label printed with the shipping address (the one you can print off the internet) had the correct one, but the after-shipment labels added by said shipper put it in the wrong place. Anyhow, two over the last year can be overlooked by myself, mostly because I’m a forgiving person.

Not this time. From this day forth, I shall no longer be choosing to use UPS for any of my shipments. This time, they managed to screw up my Halo 3 ODST delivery. I was one of those who ordered ODST early, and originally paid for simple 2-3 day shipping. When I got access to a 10% off coupon from the ECA deal at SlickDeals, I chose to cancel that order and get release-date shipping, which was entirely negated by the coupon, making it cheaper to get the delivery today than wait to get it. Somehow, UPS managed to be notified of my shipment at 8:31PM yesterday along with probably a zillion other Amazon preorderees and not get it out of Kentucky until 4:41PM today. This after they damn well knew that it was a next day air shipment and knew there would be a lot of them. They might have noticed this because of the large sum of money Amazon deposited into their coffers to do this. Some people have reported that it is because of a mechanical failure on a plane somewheres over the rainbow, but either way UPS is majorly at fault, and I can only hope they fix it somehow. Amazon has already refunded $9 because of a price change; now will UPS? Unlikely.

Which brings me to GameStop. And for that matter, most physical retail stores. As we progress to the digital age, where one no longer needs to go to Best Buy and pay far too much for a DVD or CD, the only thing holding us back is the subpar service of the mailing system. It’s a matter of instant satisfaction. I doubt most people could name one store they actually enjoy going to nowadays that’s not independent. Can’t do it. It’s because they can charge considerably higher for that instant feel good sensation of having the product in your hands that second. GameStop only exists because people are too lazy to list their game on eBay or Amazon Marketplace, wait for it to sell, and ship it. It’s almost guaranteed that more money will be had through independent selling; only the delivery method holds us back. The reverse is also true: going into GameStop is highway robbery, and yet many people will pay the premium just to have it at that very second. Currently, GameStop sells Madden 10 at full MSRP, $59.99, used at $54.99. Currently, both are cheaper (and tax-free for most) on Amazon- $57 for new, and $47 for used. But, the major hassle of waiting and then having a likely shipping issue is clearly worth it to some, and they are the ones who continue to fund the profit machines of GameStop.

tl;dr UPS sucks because they do, and retail only exists because they do suck.

My cataloging of UPS' fail

Twitter catalogs UPS' fail.

Amazon.com Discussion On Why UPS Sucks

Thumbnail from flickr.

Earphones Getting Smarter, Not You

The MH907 Son Ericsson IEM’s are the future of earphones and headphones alike. They almost read your mind! These only work with Sony Ericsson’s at the moment, but I think the trend will catch on and soon all earphones will have these features. Motion sensors are build into these earphones, so that by plugging in both earplugs, your music will start playing. Take one out to answer a call or pause your music.

This is much more practical than digging out your phone or mp3 player to pause and play your music. An answer to our growing laziness!

LG BL20 Makes Us Crave Chocolate

LG chocolate phones have always been eye candy, but not the best phone out there. Announced earlier in August was the BL40, also dubbed the New Chocolate BL40. It really looked like a chocolate bar, with a bizarre design around a massive 4.01 inch capacitative touch screen with 16M colours! Wifi? Check. 5MP camera? Check. 3G? Check. I could go on…

However, not everyone likes a big old chocolate bar. LG resurrects the Chocolate 1 slide-phone form factor with the new LG New Chocolate BL20. This phone runs the same S-Class interface as the BL40. It also has the 5MP camera, and a very sexy red keypad.

There’s an official video of the BL20 right below.

watch?v=m6f49K0tpNo&feature=player_embedded#t=59

ZiiLABS Press Release ZiiLABS Announces Graphics and HD Video Acceleration for Adobe Flash Player, AIR Support

More good news on the Zii front. HD Video acceleration and full Flash support have officially been announced by ZiiLABS. On a more surprising front, AIR support will be coming to the Zii EGG platform. Read more for the entire lowdown.

The Newest Addition to Sh4dow’s Bargain Bin Tech? COWON S9!

The Cowon S9. Words cannot express the utter beauty.

First of all, the General Outlook:

The general outlook of the Cowon S9 is nice and curvy. Coming in Titanium and chrome for the sides, I ultimately decided against chrome due to its tendency to get scratched up within a day of use. i.e. iTouch. *Cough cough*. The back is of that nice velvety plastic/rubber material, which we are beginning to see a lot of in new tech. Screen is very nice, and it is nice and light,but just heavy enough to not feel like a dollar store toy.  I will cover the screen in a bit more detail later. The buttons, conveniently located at the top, (two for volume, two for forward,backwards, and one in the middle for play/pause) are good for when you don’t want to take the damn thing out of your pocket and have to unlock the screen and everything.  Screen cover is scratchproof glass. I’ve tried to prove them wrong. I failed. It’s scratchproof.

GUI:

The GUI is your classic touch screen menu. Gridlike. However, there’s a handy widget mode, and you can use the widget mode as your main menu instead. I personally prefer the main menu. Browsing is nice and simple. You have your classic browsing buttons located at the bottom of your screen. There’s the BACK button, the RETURN TO ROOT (up) button, a FUNCTION button (usually add to playlist) and a DEETE button. right beside the delete button is a “flip” button, which flips your button menu into a zoom bar, good for those people who are not so good at seeing. The Time is located top left, and battery is always shown top right. Volume is also shown in this top bar at all times, so when you turn the player on and go to music, you should have ample warning before having to apply for medical insurance for both ears.

VIDEO:

I love the support of codecs for video. And also with the AMOLED screen, you’re bound to get clearer pictures and more shiny colors. The G-sensor automatically detects which direction your player is tilted in, so if ur watching your video upside down, it’ll rotate for you. buttons at the bottom, just like in browsing mood. There is Skip left, skip right, play/pause, EQ (yes there is EQ for video too) and a “menu” button, which creates its own scene selection menu. That’s only for when its upright. When horizontal, you have a “add to playlist button, the skip and play buttons, fastfoward, andA-B Repeat. Press flip and you have a variety of buttons that i dont understand, i do know that one is to adjust the screen size, one is to lock the G-sensor, and one is for taking a screenshot. I think it also stores playback information on up to 3 videos, so if you close one and go to another, you can go back to the one you were watching earlier and not lose your spot.

AUDIO:

One of the best parts of this player is the JetEffect settings. The sound is absolutely astonishing. With the new Crystal Clear preset EQ, I’m hearing ride cymbals like i’ve never heard them before. (cliche, yes, but nojk) There’s also a variety of settings for custom presets you can fool around with. By setting my EQ, I managed to make my weak-bass Shure E3C’s into Thumping techno cannons. Fun =D. IT also has a lot of different functions in the buttons area, but im too lazy to go over them all. However, what i really want to mention is the Sony Ericson Walkmen-esque flick-wrist-to-switch-songs function. I flick the player, it changes songs. Great fun. Also supports bluetooth headphones.

FLASH PLAYER:

Nothing need be said here. Flash is Flash.

Utilities:

There’s a calculator, a paint function, a typewriter, a G-sensor based evasion game. there’s also a built in recorder, and the player has LINE IN/OUT through the USB port, another dongle you need to buy for that to work. and there’s FM Radio. There’s also a Ebook reader, and photo see-er, for all those that were wondering.

AMOLED:

The S9 uses some new in between LED and OLED technology (i think). This makes for blacker blacks, redder reds, crisper greens. whatever. Its nice and i like it. And plus it uses Capacitive Touchscreen technology, which IMO is better than resistive. With these hardware perks, The S9’s battery life is significantly increased to 55 hours of audio playback on a full charge and 11 (may have increased) hours of video playback on a full charge.

At 199 CAD, this was a great buy. I’d take this over the iTupperware any day.

This post has been rather drab, but I haven’t had the practice i sorely need in writing reviews in a long time. SORRY! (sadface) = (

Expect to see a BargainBin Sony Alpha 200 review soon.

Image: http://gizmodo.com/5134111/cowon-s9-review

Creative to Gain $6.1 Million, Guess When Zii Will Be Announced

Thanks to awesome tipster Sim (unknown relation to Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo) , we’ve uncovered quite a lot about what’s forthcoming from Creative in the Zii department. Over on epiZENter, ramakandra relayed from his sources that the ZEN X-Fi2 isn’t meant as a full replacement for the X-Fi itself, but rather a way to reduce parts inventory and testing the waters for the Zii consumer model. Seemed feasible enough at the time, but now Sim has dropped the same commentary on our post about the X-Fi2:

As for the Zen touch screen x-fi2, I think some smart people have guessed correctly why it had to be released. It will make sure we will continue to generate sufficient revenue so as to cut losses and possibly break even this holiday season while we prepare for the Zii updates…

Breaking even over this quarter would amount to quite a turnabout for the Singapore company, who has posted losses for several straight quarters. Helping to feed that ambition is $6.1 million in funding from a divestment in QALA Singapore, a local ISP. I’m certainly not an expert in the world of finance, so correct me in the comment section, but this divestment is like pulling an investment from a company that you had previously funded. Creative originally invested $1.6 million, so the net gain is $4.5 million over time, a very smart investment. Qala needs not fear, however, as they were just bought by MobileOne, a major Singapore cell carrier for $10.3 million US. Clearly, this is meant to clear funding for the Zii launch.

Speaking of the Zii launch, Sim also dropped a link to the recently updated ZiiLABS.com events page, which shows when and where ZiiLABS will be demonstrating products over the next couple of months. Here they are:

IBC 2009

Amsterdam
11th – 15th September 2009

Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2010)

Las Vegas
7th – 10th January, 2010

World Mobile Congress (Mobile World Congress, misnamed by ZiiLABS)

Barcelona, Spain
15th – 18th, February 2010

I’ll be putting my money, if I had any, on CES as the big announcement, as this is a Creative tradition to announce stuff a couple of days prior to the convention, then having a media blitz over the convention days. The company has garnered three “CES Best in Show” awards in the last decade, and they sure would enjoy a fourth. It’s almost more interesting to see the MWC announcement- perhaps a mobile carrier partner will be lined up by then?

ZEN X-Fi2- Touchscreen Update to the X-Fi includes TV out, FLAC support, 3″ Screen

Waited for the touchscreen DAP to be announced? Wait no longer. Creative has announced the X-Fi2, a major update to the ZEN X-Fi. The most important of the new features is the new 3″ touchscreen, which will be a first for a Creative consumer model. The new user input method results in a new revision of the UI, which is evident in several video shots of the player. However, that’s not all that is being updated. There is support for lossless audio in the form of FLAC,  video out via composite video cable, full drag and drop support with both Windows and Mac, and a change to microSD expansion. FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) , for those who are unaware, is an open-source audio codec that allows for superb audio quality by an algorithm that results in no loss of audio quality during compression, see Wikipedia for more. The TV out will come via an accessory cable which will not be packaged with the player at the outset, but will be available immediately in the store. Similar to the top-notch Creative ZEN Vision:M and Vision:W, the player will support video up to 640×480 resolution videos. There’s no confirmation if the player will output at those resolutions, but it’s a good bet. The X-Fi2’s screen is 400×240, an upgrade from the original’s 320×240.

Notably absent from the specification list is the Wi-Fi, which I think is a good move. The X-Fi appealed to audio buyers, and the WiFi was half baked. It’s good to see they focused on the selling points of the player rather than trying to disastrously fix it.

Keep reading for the full specs and videos!