An Honest Reviews on the BlackBerry Z30, BlackBerry OS 10, and iOS

My Z30 finally arrived after placing my order yesterday. It came with 6 layers of inner packaging. Its like opening a Matryoshka doll, albeit differ in the packaging content :-P

Overall speaking I am very impressed with BBOS 10. Mind you that this is my first time trying out BBOS 10 and I'm already started to love it. Prior to that I already spent one whole week watching various features introduced in BBOS 10, so it is easier for me to make the transition. Believe me not, you wouldn't appreciate the creamy beauty of BBOS 10 until you lay your fingers on actually using it :)

As expected, the immediate things that I did after unboxing it was plugging it into a charger and let it update to 10.2.1.2977 from the stock 10.2.0.xxx. At that point I didn't really explore it nor syncing my data such as contacts to avoid possible issues during the update. Not that it will happen but let's play it safe since I am going to update it sooner or later anyways :-)

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Fatal Frame 3 vs Fatal Frame 4 - A brief comparison

Having play through both Fatal Frame 3: The Tormented (PS2) and Fatal Frame 4: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse (Wii), I got the huge urge to write a quick article about these two amazing horror game that are unique in its own style. This article will mainly discusses about the differences between these two great games as well as improvements in FF4 than its predecessor.

The term 'Ghosts' are referred in both series. Some might refer this as 'Spirit'.
Fatal Frame 3 is abbreviated as FF3 and the same goes for Fatal Frame 4 (FF4)

Differences

Theme / Background Setting

FF3: The central theme behind Fatal Frame 3 is the old japanese kind of shrine and wooden manor. You will find yourself exploring these buildings in your dream.

FF4: Unlike the third series that took place in traditional and typical shrine, this latest series took place in a more modern setting where we are most probably born - Hospital.

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HTPC setup - XBMC vs Plex

When it comes in the scene of HTPC, two software often sprung to our mind: XBMC and Plex.

Before you read on further, let me clarify one thing first. I had been using XBMC (in Windows) for several years now and had just fully started to understand and use Plex (in Mac) several days ago. The following review is based on such experience.

Simply put, comparing XBMC to Plex is like comparing Windows to Mac. I found Plex to be much more user friendly. Yes, you heard it right. I personally think that XBMC is more catered to power user who wants the maximum customization possible whereby Plex is more for user that just wants to get things done as fast as possible and in the neat way if possible.

More after the break.

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Comparisons between Persona 3 (FES) and Persona 4

Looking back at what I had accomplished thus far. I had finished playing Persona 3: FES one week ago and has since started playing P4. After playing P4 for roughly a week now (now on mid September), it had sprung to my mind to mention the changes for this awesome RPG in comparison with P3 or P3:FES, just for the sake of memory refreshment and ways to kill time aside from indulging myself in P4.

Story / Plot
- Moon cycle (Full Moon) in P3 is replaced by weather (Fog) in P4. For each Full Moon in P3, you will fight each Shadow correspond to the twelve major arcana. Not much curiosity involved as you are only expected to fight each shadow by every Full Moon. In P4, when the fog is the heaviest, that is when someone will be killed. Here you are presented with much curiosity as you are trying to figure out who is going to be killed next.

Dungeon Exploration:
- Your party HP and SP are no longer restored to maximum. In P3, every time you return to 1F in Tartarus, all your HP and SP will be restored to their maximum points. I used to exploit this mechanic by returning to 1F after activating the beacon before fighting the floor boss. However, in P4, the only way to restore SP is by using the Fox service (which healed your SP for a price) or SP recovery item.

- Instead of one single dungeon, Tartarus to explore in P3, there are now multiple dungeons to explore in P4, each of which caters to the character traits. The most memorable ones are the retro game dungeon which looks like 3D Dot Games Heroes.

- There are no more floor beacon to activate in the dungeons in P4. This makes sense as the number of floors is small, but seemingly increasing with each new dungeons. The highest floors I reached thus far is not more than 15F. In other words, the only way to return to the entrance now is by using skill ( ), item ( ) or the Glittering butterfly savepoint at the highest floor of each dungeon (before fighting the dungeon boss).

- Before fighting the dungeon final / true boss, there are now an intermediary boss that you will need to fight.

- In P3, you visit Tartarus in every Evening; In P4, you can only gather your party for dungeon exploration during After School.

- While exploring Tartarus with your party, your teammates as well as yourself might get tired after battling a certain number of Shadows. When this happens, the character is more prone to critical attack (hence knock down status), getting more damage from Shadow, lower hitting rate, etc. If prolonged, the character might be getting sick after returning to the reality. You wouldn't want this to happen as it takes much more days for the sickened character to become healthly again. In P4, however, this mechanic had removed altogether. Your character will not have tired/sickness status and you can explore the dungeon for all the time you want.

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Differences Between Laptop and Notebook

Most people often confuse about the terminology used for 'laptop' and 'notebook'. In fact, both terms appears to be interchangably used by almost everyone now, even for the manufactures. For more information about the differences for both terms, visit this interesting post regarding it.

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