Entertainmentopia previously had the chance to review the SteelSeries S&S, a hard plastic mouse pad that impressed us with is smooth glide, spacious size, and little touches like a carrying case for those trips to far off LAN parties. For those not looking to spend the monetary equivalent of a full priced PC game, SteelSeries has something for you.

The QcK, essentially a soft pad version of the S&S costs about half the price, but delivers all of the performance you would expect from a SteelSeries product.

Coming rolled up in a box the QcK unrolls into a pad with roughly the same amount of real estate offered by the hard pad big brother. The soft pad features a grip on its underside to keep it firmly in place on your desk, of which it blends in perfectly, and its cloth surface is everything you’d expect. Once again testing the unit with our Logitech G5 mouse, the QcK performed great in World of Warcraft and everyday operations like browsing your desktop. Not once did we need to stop, and readjust the mouse pad’s position on the desk because of pressure and slippage.

The smooth feet of the G5 work well with the cloth surface of the QcK, although we still prefer the hard pad’s superior glide in conjunction with this particular mouse. This doesn’t detract from the craftsmanship or usefulness of the cloth pad, its merely a personal preference after being able to test both pads expensively.

The QcK is an excellent, affordable, and well manufactured mouse pad from one of the leaders in gaming-geared accessories. The ultimate preference of hard vs. soft pads will play out with the end-user, but either way, SteelSeries has put out two very good options for gamers and causal users alike.

In the age of rocking out from the comfort of your own couch, many an armchair rocker have been hindered by their pesky cord stopping them from doing a wicked awesome power slide on the final note of their favorite song. Along comes the wireless controller. Fans Rejoice. Power slides are now performed in mass quantity. But trouble looms on the horizon. The functionality of many of the wireless controllers is questioned. Why is there no notch on the yellow button, and why do the buttons feel so different? Why does it feel so much smaller? Why do I have to keep replacing batteries? Why does it feel like the noted I used to be able to hit suddenly miss? NYKO seemed to have been listening to the cries of the masses, and have responded by introducing the next generation of wireless axe: The FrontMan Wireless Guitar.

Immediately I was impressed by the size and weight of this guitar. It looked and felt very similar to the PS2 guitar that I was so used to. I popped I the batteries and fired up Guitar Hero II to test it out. Syncing the guitar to the controller port counterpart is a breeze; just a quick button press on each and it is good to go. After playing a few songs I was impressed by the responsiveness of the unit, it seemed to be as on time as the wired version, a flaw I have noticed in a few of the other aftermarket guitars out there. The strumming feels good, the whammy bar works just like it should, and the buttons feel just like the factory unit. The best part was being able to orient my hand with the notch on the yellow button. The other wireless guitar I have has no such notch, and I constantly find myself a note off and playing terribly.

With playability checked out, I took a look at the functionality of the guitar. One of the best features of the whole guitar and what may make it a buying point over any other guitar is the fact that the guitar can recharge batteries when plugged into the USB port. One set of batteries can now last as long as the guitar does. The USB cord even powers the guitar if you run out of batteries, which is a very nice plus if you find yourself out of juice.

For aftermarket guitars, it simply does not get better than the NYKO. The capacity to recharge batteries, 2.4 GHz range, excellent playability, and a very competitive price all make up for one sweet guitar. So shred away, ye rockers of yon living room, shred away.

Second Opinion
by: Erich Becker

I agree with everything John has stated in his review. The wireless controller has long been the desire, and scourge of the armchair rocker because if a first party company doesn’t release it, the third parties have never been able to get it exactly right. There’s usually some short coming that holds back a great product from being truly perfect. The FrontMan does have a few problems in my eyes, I found the buttons to be a bit stiffer than the guitar packaged in the original Guitar Hero for the PlayStation2. And for some reason the strum button didn’t feel quite right moving over from the RedOctane guitar, but after getting used to it, and rocking out for hours on end, the NYKO guitar feels natural in your hands.

Nintendo did an excellent job in designing the Wii to be aesthetically pleasing, functional, and change the way we play video games, but even with the company’ long history in the game business one drastic oversight with the Wii console is the use of non-rechargeable AA batteries making even the casual gamer opt for battery runs in the wee hours of the morning.

NYKO has come to the rescue with the Charge Station, a sleek addition to your entertainment center that solves the biggest problem with the Wii. The charge station provides all that the gamer would need to discontinue using standard batteries and replace them with rechargeable ones and a place to make sure they’re topped off after every round of Wii Sports.

Included in the package are two battery packs, two replacement covers for the Wii remote, and the charging station. The replacement covers provide a small, square hole on the back for the contacts to be met on the battery without having to remove it from the remote. The rubberized grip included on the replacement covers is an added bonus to an already practical package.

The charge station itself is colored white to match the Wii. The indicator light on the front of each cradle will shine blue when charging and green when the remote has been fully charged. The review unit sent to us came nearly fully charged and took about 30 minutes to reach the full charge. NYKO claims that the batteries can be fully charged in about two hours and provide about 25 hours of playtime without being recharged, although most gamers will seat the remotes in the cradle after every session.

The only drawback to the Wii Charge Station is the way the wrist strap is handled. A small notch is present on the side of each cradle allowing for the strap to rest away from the batteries contacts, while entirely practical, it isn’t the most pleasing sight to see, but this is from an aesthetics point of view and never picking up your Wiimote again and finding it nearly dead is a worthy price to pay.

The Wii Charge Station is an excellent addition for any Wii owner, the practicality of the unit is only exceeded by how well it works. Definitely a must buy for anyone who’s already spent close to $30 on batteries since November.

Generally most people would assume that your mouse pad is a disposable part of your set up, and for most casual users this is most likely true, but for gamers, where split-second timing is everything, a mouse pad could be the difference between a rocket to the head, or narrowly dodging disaster.

SteelSeries has long been known as one of the premiere gaming peripheral manufacturers with mouse pads, gaming headsets, and even co-branded mice and keyboards all aimed at making your gameplay easier, and smoother.

The SteelSeries S&S is a 12.6’x10.6′ hard plastic mouse pad which serves as one of the company’s entry level pads. The surface is suited for all types of mice, and for the purposes of this review a Logitech G5 Laser Mouse was utilized. The rubberized underside of the pad creates a non-slip grip to your desk, and the pad didn’t move once during our testing, including extensive late-night sessions of World of WarCraft and a few select first-person shooters.

Previously using a standard cloth mouse pad you instantly notice an increase in responsiveness due to a decrease in drag from the cloth. The plastic surface coupled with the already smoothly designed feet on the G5 provided quick, reactive movement in all the games and programs tested. In the mouse-intensive World of WarCraft the mouse worked wonderfully allowing you to move your character with general ease. The huge surface area of the pad eliminates the need to pick up your mouse and re-center it after extended playtimes.

We also tested the S&S with the entirely mouse-based Space Quest Collection from Sierra where lightning fast reflexes are not necessarily required, but the extensive surface area is the biggest benefit. Finally, testing was done in Adobe Fireworks creating the graphics used on this site; the precise movement was a noticeable change from the cloth pad and from not using one at all.

The SteelSeries S&S comes with a protective carrying case and self-adhering feet for your current mouse, should it not be out-of-the-box equipped with specially designed feet like the G5. SteelSeries knows how to make products for serious gamers and the S&S puts that pedigree in the limelight, you can’t go wrong with this pad, it’s a must addition to any serious gamer’s setup.

With all the high tech toys computer gamers have these days, laser mice, wireless keyboards, 30” widescreen plasma monitors, sound is the only department left untouched. Most gamers have the standard two speaker and a sub setup that gets them by, but the ones that really want the true to life experience go for the surround headsets. It means more realistic sound for them and less annoyance for everyone else in their house. While some of these headsets can get ridiculously expensive, an entry in the mid price market seems to be stirring up some noise. Enter the Altec Lansing AHS615.

Upon initial inspection on the impossible to open plastic clamshell the headphone come in, I saw good, and I saw bad. The good was the padding around the speakers. Most of the headsets I’ve used become a serious earache after a few hours of wearing. The bad was the goofy looking stick that seems to be attached in the middle of the wire. I could tell that this was going to be bothersome. Boy was I ever right.

When I finally got the headphones out of the box, I was surprised at the setup of the actual unit. There’s no settings for adjustment. It’s on a tensioned joint, when I slid on the headphones the bottom strap stretched to fit comfortable around my head. My other surprise was the separate pivoting of the padding around the speakers. The speaker itself pivots, then the padding itself pivots again. The result is a very comfortable wear that doesn’t put a whole lot of pressure on the ears.

The microphone on the unit is one of the best I’ve seen on a combo set like this. It’s easily adjustable, having both the snaking tube that can be fine tuned around my gargantuan head, but it also pivots so it can be turned up towards the strap when not in use. It performs very well. The noise rejecting microphone meant I could turn up the sensitivity of the voice activation on TeamSpeak and actually be able to use it well, instead of having every clack of the keyboard or distant whining on an annoying sibling setting off the mic and hogging the talkspace.

The little stick on the wire serves a very useful purpose, but at a terrible price. The surround sound on these head phones is simply astonishing. The switch on the stick allowed me to tell the difference a little amped surround can bring. As I logged into World of WarCraft and spun the camera around my character, the noises and sounds of a bustling Orgimmar were more realistic than I’ve ever heard. When I shut off the surround, it returned to the lame boring sound that my regular speakers put out.

The realism of the surround makes this unit worth buying on its own. However,  not only does it require a AAA battery to operate, but it’s on a switch that has absolutely no auto turnoff. One slip up and the battery’s dead and the whole unit is worthless until a replacement battery is found. The stick is also placed at a terrible position on the wire. It’s about 2 and a half inches short. This translates into  having absolutely no place to keep this heavy stupid thing while I’m wearing the headphones. It comes with a little clip that apparently is able to clip onto something, but  even when I’m sitting down there’s not enough length to attach it to a pocket or belt loop. So I’m left with trying to keep this thing on my desk, which is impossible, or trying to clip it to a sleeve, which looks dumb and doesn’t work either. I wish it could have been built into the top strap or into the unit itself somehow.

This unit had the potential of being perfect. It fit well, it has amazing sound, the microphone works wonders, but the surround stick really draws from its attractiveness. Many gamers will become annoyed at trying to find a place for this cumbersome addition. Maybe if I clip it to the top strap somehow. It might look goofy, but at least it’ll be out of the way.

As seen with constant talk of home theater PCs (HTPCs) and dedicated streaming devices like the previously reviewed Slim Devices Squeezebox 3, the innovation extending to the living room is clearly establishing a new battlefield for superiority. Roku enters the ring with their SoundBridge M1000 streaming media player which provides yet another worthy addition to the battle with the ability to play your vast collection without the need for any special software, in most cases.

The cylindrical shaped SoundBridge M1000 provides a means of streaming your music collection, in virtually any format, to the living room via wired or wireless connections. The reviewed unit came with both capabilities, and while the hardwire connection may be the most reliable; the wireless is the most convenient. The wired connection was ready right out of the box either on your home network or a cross-over connection to a PC acting as a media server. The wireless connection, however, was a bit troublesome to get working correctly.

The unit detected a generic local IP after being connected to my desktop and all I needed to do was open iTunes and the unit immediately saw my collection, loaded my playlists, and I was ready to go.

Setting up the wireless took a bit more head scratching as why the device wouldn’t connect to my standard Linksys Wireless Router. For starters the device doesn’t support WPA encryption, but this isn’t a major drawback if you use WEP in combination with MAC address filtering. After adding the MAC address of the unit to my router the device still wouldn’t connect. It took a Google search for previous reviews and information to locate the problem: the device runs on the 802.11b protocol rather than the faster 802.11g. Be as it may, my router was set for G-Only devices and a simple change to allow both b and g devices proved the culprit. A quick glance of the manual and packaging shows it to be “compatible with all wireless-b and wireless-g networks” but never explicitly stating the unit uses the slower protocol.

Since my collection is comprised almost entirely of unprotected AAC files and MP3s there was no compatibility problems. All in all the number of formats accepted is impressive including AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, and WMA (DRM-protected). The last one is particularly impressive and gives a slight leg up to Windows Media services since the device cannot play protected AAC files from the iTunes Music Store. To play your tunes you can use a variety of music servers including Windows Media Connect, iTunes, Rhapsody, Musicmatch Jukebox, and SlimServer which is not supported by Roku but will work.

Testing the unit with iTunes proved to be easy even with a vast collection of music. Booting up the unit (which can only display two lines of text), you’d think it would be hard to sift through thousands of music files but an ingenious navigation system helps to eliminate the monotony of constantly scrolling through items. When a list of items is presented you’re able to push left or right on the provided remote control to cycle through the letters of the alphabet and jumping the scrolling to the particular letter. This allows for quick selections and easy access to even the largest collections of music.

The device itself is small, slightly longer than a DVD case on its side and about the diameter of a can of tennis balls. The display, although smaller than you would expect, provides enough information and the aforementioned scrolling enhancements limit the real estate needed to gain the similar functions of streaming music players with larger screens. The two tone color scheme (silver and black) is pretty standard for most electronic devices in this day and age as is the green colored display.

You connect to your stereo with either the provided RCA-to-mini cable or the optional SPDIF digital or optical SPDIF digital cables. The plugs are clustered, along with the AC adapter input, on the rear of the unit on the left side with the wired Ethernet connection residing on the opposite end. Also located on the back are two screw holes for use with the optional mounting unit which is not included in the standard package.

Finally, the M1000 includes a basic web interface which allows you to see the current music track that is playing, control your music with basic controls (next track, previous track, play, pause, etc.) as well as adjust volume and preset internet radio stations. Surprisingly you cannot create playlists and queues with this interface which is slightly disappointing, even if it does interface directly with media programs that allow this.

While the Roku SoundBridge M1000 doesn’t offer the larger display of its larger sibling product, the innovative scrolling ability makes it easy to locate and play music. The out-of-the-box wired connection availability is impressive and since iTunes is a standard program on many PCs the lack of dedicated software is an impressive addition to allow novices to get the device working correctly. The wireless connection experienced can be chocked up to just a manual omission rather than a problem with the unit because installation when incredibly smooth after the problem was discovered.

The SoundBridge M1000 offers the right amount of features for its relatively low list price of $199.99 for the wireless compatible version and offers anyone the ability to extend their music collection to all corners of their home. The M1000 comes highly recommended as a very compact and impressive streaming music device sure to please everyone from techie to newbie.

In an age where the living room is fast becoming an all digital hub and music and movies are more apt to be released via direct distribution rather than physical media consumers have only a few choices when attempting to bring these formats into the living room. Previously you had the ability to create a “media PC” capable of viewing and recording TV shows, playing streaming music, and watching DVDs, but this is both a costly endeavor and can be bulky if not constructed and cooled correctly. But there is hope in the form of Slim Devices Squeezebox V3, an audio-dedicated streaming device that brings all your audio files into the living room is a small, sleek package.

The device, slightly smaller than a DVD case on its side and about three times a thick comes in two varieties, wired LAN and wireless, and two colors black and white, and is the easiest and cheapest way to play your iTunes or favorite internet radio station throughout the house. Featuring standard outputs for composite audio, digital coax, digital optical, and headphones, the ultra portable device is easy to carry from room to room, or add to your burgeoning media center.

Initial setup of the provided software went well the first time, but not perfect. After downloading the server software and installing it, it simply wouldn’t start up. One stop to the support forums indicated that this is a problem on some initial installations and a simple reinstall booted up the web-based server (compatible with both IE and Firefox) and the wireless connection to my Squeezebox. The server software has the ability to read your entire iTunes library (sans DRM-protected files) including cover art and playlists, this is an added bonus as files never hard to find.

While not large by any means, the server software does take up about 60MB of memory while running, which doesn’t put a damper in any system running 1GB or more of RAM, or dedicated to only streaming your music. On the CPU cycle side, while running and streaming music the program only used between 02-05% which is comparable, if not slightly lower than Apple’s iTunes or Nullsoft’s Winamp.

The Squeezebox itself was easy to install, even on my protected wireless network. Through half-a-dozen set up steps you’ll enter the type of encryption, the key needed, and the IP address of the computer running the server software. Auto-detection of the Squeezebox on the server side then allows you to begin constructing a custom playlist, using one you’ve already created, or choose from a vast selection of internet radio stations. Even if your favorite station isn’t included, you need to only enter the URL or IP of the stream and the software begins playing almost immediately.

Offering a favorites option gives you one touch access (from the Squeezebox via the provided remote) to build a list of your favorite tunes. Finding music to add to that list is easy as well allowing you to search via artist, album, year, or even cover art.

The styling of the product is in line with the new wave of slick, silver devices focusing on creating a versatile conversation piece. While playing, music information is displayed via a two row display, with the bottom row about twice the height of the top. The background works as a graphic equalizer display and can be customized from a number of different options, as can the display allowing you to choose the tags on the music file (such as artist, track number, etc.) that you want to see.

Adding to an already complete package is the remote which allows all of us to embrace our American heritage of sitting on the couch and manipulating things with one finger. The remote provides access to nearly all the Squeezebox’s functions without having to get up and bother with the server software. Even the little things like alarm clock settings which wake you up to a specified song bring a smile to your face when you think of the possibilities.

There’s such a plethora of options associated with the Squeezebox it’s nearly impossible to go through them all in a timely, entertaining manner. Let it be know that those looking to bring their digital music collection into the living room without the budget or technical know how of building a media PC, the Squeezebox offers a user-friendly, beautiful looking alternative that is a must purchase for anyone looking to stay on top of the technological curve.

This little streaming box that could is a definite recommendation for anyone.