The TR Podcast 101: Scott really hates the Kindle Fire


...and loves Batman: Arkham City
by Jordan Drake — 1:31 AM on December 5, 2011

The Tech Report Podcast Date: December 4, 2011
Time: 1:36:55

Hosted by Jordan Drake

Co-Hosts: Scott Wasson, Geoff Gasior, Cyril Kowaliski

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Show notes
We're officially a three-digit podcast—and happy to be back to vocal tech reporting after a nice Thanksgiving break. We kick off this episode with listener mail and quickly move onto a Christmas list discussion, which is severely lacking in Christmas cheer. Then, Geoff and Cyril explain why we're excited about Asus' Eee Pad Transformer Prime, right before Scott gives a scathing review of the Amazon Kindle Fire. Seriously, he hates this thing.

Moving into the gaming world, we're excited about Infinity Blade II but not amused by the many hoops required to play Batman: Arkham City on the PC. Despite the frustrating gameplay detours, Scott thinks Arkham City is one of the best games of the year and explains why.

In keeping with our new frame-time benchmarking methodology, Cyril discusses some of his findings after running some mid-range GPUs throughout The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. To wrap things up, Scott gives us a quick overview of the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448, and Geoff talks about his two latest storage reviews.

Send in listener mail, and we'll answer on the podcast. - jdrake@techreport.com

Follow us on Twitter - Scott - Jordan - Geoff - Cyril - The Tech Report

Listener mail/tweets:

Improved chipset? (0:00:45) - from JMC:

"Any hint of improved 2011 chipset options? I really, really wanted the SSD caching of the harddrives. (usb3 would be nice also) Wanted 8 cores but will settle for 6. SB-E"

Tech discussion:

    Panel discussion: What's on your Christmas list? - (0:03:55)

    Eee Pad Transformer Prime to be available December 19 - (0:13:54) - Read more

    Scott reviews the Kindle Fire - (0:20:13)

    Infinity Blade II is out! (0:35:06)

    TR web comic: Snakes and ladders - (0:40:38) - Read more

    Scott reviews Arkham City - (0:47:24)

    Today's mid-range GPUs in Skyrim - (0:53:03) - Read more - Screenshot: Oblivion - Screenshot: Skyrim

    GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 splits the difference - (1:06:46) - Read more

    OCZ's Octane 512GB solid-state drive - (1:11:09) - Read more

    Seagate's Momentus XT 750GB hybrid hard drive - (1:21:13) - Read more

That's all, folks! We'll see you on the next episode.TR

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