PS3 Stand including USB Hub

Another PS3 Purchase today. This time from Argos.

Pissed off with having only 2 USB sockets on your PS3 AND you want to have it verticle? Then get down to Argos and for £4.99 you can get this.

And this is it in place….

You gain 3 USB sockets (1 on the front of the PS3, 2 on the front of the Stand and, more importantly, 2 on the back! – 5 in total) and there is a switch on the front which turns on the tacky/cool Blue lighting which glows underneath the PS3.

Total Cost was £4.99 from Argos! Bargain!

Unofficial iPhone/iPod/iPad PS3 Trophy App

iPhone/iTouch/iPad App

Do a search on ‘itrophies’ on the App store and down load it if you want. Current price is £1.19 which is a lot but if trophies and comparing with friends is your cup-of-tea then it could be a worth-while spend for you.

So I picked up an itunes voucher yesterday and downloaded this app.

Pretty cool logo.

Once you’ve logged in (mine is set to auto log in) it gives you a summary of your trophies

You’ll notice a bar at the bottom of the screen. Clicking friends starts with telling you who is online at the moment and what Trophies they have.

Now you actually have 2 options on this screen – ‘Online Status’ (above) or ‘Trophy Leaderboard’. The Trophy Leaderboard allows you to compare at a glance who has the most Trophies.

Congratulations to dj-skidz who has managed a total of just under 600 Trophies and is on level 9 – 3 above his closest rival!

The final option is ‘Games’. This gives you a breakdown of all the games you have trophies for.

This option does have a bonus feature. If you click through to a game it will show you all the trophies you have still got to complete but also you can click through to Youtube and it will try to find video’s showing how to get the trophies. Good for when you are stuck and really need a hand.

This app was the first one which gave all friends/trophy info direct onto an apple device. The bonus of this app was you could easily see which of your friends were on-line without haveing to boot up the PS3 at look at the friend-list. This certainly was of use to me as I could see who was playing COD without having to interupt the missus and her TV watching.

For a long time this was the only App on the marked which offered the kind of functionality which people wanted. But late in 2010 Sony released their own App for free and the developer looks to stop developing the iTrophies app for good. 😦

Playstation Phone Currently Confirmed Specs

Everyone is calling it the Playstation Phone but it does have an official title….

Sony Ericsson Xperian PLAY

I’m thinking that it doesn’t roll off the tongue too well so I’m guessing it might become

PSPhone
psPhone
xPlay – (sounds like an adult toy)
P-Phone
or just
pPhone (pronounced ‘FONE’ just to confuse people!

The spec of the XPlay is starting to appear. For those who hate iPhones then you are in luck as Sony have ditched the Symbian OS that they have used on a number of their previous phones and gone with the Android 2.3 and paired this to a 1Ghz processor. It should come with a 8GB MicroSD card but the slot will take upto a 32GB Card.

The screen will be a 4 inch Multi-touch display, having the interesting resolution of 480 x 854. There is a seperate ‘Adreno’ GPU processor which can apparently offer 60fps of 3d Gaming. To go with this there will be a 5.1 MP Camera which also does Video Recording. The Camera allows geo-tagging, send to web, touch focusing and has an image stabiliser. It does have a flash but I’m unsure what type this is.

On the connectivity side of things you’ll find the godsend of a 3.5mm audio jack (I hated the old SE connectors!) and the usual bluetooth. As an extra you get DLNA which allows you to pull your music/films off shared devices – such as your NAS or home server. It should also allow the device to be recognised by the PS3 as a media server – but only a test will show how good that works!

Helping with the Geo-Tagging and Google Maps/Location services options is aGPS to speed up finding your location. The 4 inch screen makes this a workable satnav solution for the car.

Slide out the gaming control and users get a digital D pad, two analogue touch pads, two shoulder buttons and the four PlayStation icons: circle, cross, square and triangle.

I had the previous Sony Playstation phone (The Aino) and although it had the makings of a great mobile/gaming device, it really was a bit rubbish. I couldn’t get it to connect to the PS3 over 3G, let alone Edge, and even over wireless it couldn’t manage it. The only way I could connect from the Aino to the PS3 was an ad-hoc network connection between the 2 devices which was patchy at the best of times! It did have a cool docking station though.

In the box of the PLAY is;-

Stereo portable handsfree
8GB microSD memory card
Charger
Micro USB cable for charging, synchronisation and file transfer
User documentation

Not forgetting….

The phone itself.

PS3 Controller Docking Station / Charger

I keep my PS3 in a cupboard so having to charge my controllers was really getting on my wick. Open the cupboard door, find one of the usb leads, unplug one of the 2 USB devices already plugged in and hope the controller doesn’t fall off or get crushed when the hoover/ironing board get put back in it!

While in Gamestation I saw a cool looking docking station thing. What I didn’t realise is that it has some little led lights which show how the charging is going. I’ve got it connected to a USB to standard 3 pin plug adapter so the controllers now charge without the PS3 being on. It sits next to my gaming screen and if ever I leave the controllers lying about, the lovely wife now has somewhere to put them which isn’t hidden in a draw/in a box/on top of a bookcase.

The only real problem I have is that I have 3 controllers and the charger only does 2 at time….so 1 controller is kept away in a cupboard. It works with both the standard sixaxis and the dual shock and it also has 2 USB sockets on the side which I use 1 for the Official Bluetooth Headset and the other has an iPhone charger in to keep my iPhone4 charged while gaming.

Side on photo of PS3 controller Docking station

2 controllers and headset on to Charge in docking station

PS3 Hard Drive Upgrade

Every PS3 owner will probably need to update their Hard Drive. There are some simple rules you need to follow;-

2.5inch
SATA
5400/7200rpm spin
9.5mm high. Some HD’s are 12.5mm and these one wont fit.

Originally, people upgraded from the 60GB to 320GB drives but now there is a 640GB drive you can buy for less than £50 delivered! What a Brucie Bargain…

A link to the drive can be found here -> Samsung M7 640GB 2.5 inch SATA II 8MB Cache, 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive OEM – Sony Playstation PS3 Compatible

You can buy a cheaper 500GB drive here – >

Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB Sata 8MB Cache 2.5 Inch Internal Hard Drive OEM – Sony Playstation PS3 Compatible

And an even cheaper 320GB drive here – >

Western Digital Scorpio Blue 320GB SATA 8MB Cache 2.5 inch Internal Hard Drive OEM – Sony Playstation PS3 Compatible

Recommended Headsets for the PS3

The GioTeck EX-01 Wireless Headset seems to be the most common headset, highly rated by users on VZi. Available in Game for about £23, can be found online for about £17.

A lot of mobile phone headsets will work but you need to know the code to match it to the PS3. The code comes with the headset normally 0000 or 1234 etc.
Ideally you want one with a USB charge cable. For about £6 you can get a budget one sent from Hong Kong via Ebay
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-BLUETOOTH-…item3ca8e75def
Other users may say you are quiet because the mic is far away from your mouth.

If you can find Socom PS2 game with the wired USB mic (normally under £10 on Ebay) then it is a simple plug and play. Downside is you need to be within about 2/3 metres of the PS3.

Top of the range wired headset is the Turtle Beach P21. £69.99
Available from Game. These are wired but allow you to adjust the chat volume and game volume separately.

You can also use the mic that is built into the Eyetoy but it picks up the game and chat sounds so echoes for all other users which can be annoying and will result in you being muted so they can’t hear what your saying anyway!

Finally the cheapskate way to re-create the P21 for late night gaming!
Get a wired PC headet which has a minijack headphone and a minijack mic lead. From about £10.
Then get a USB soundcard like this
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/USB-Sound-Card…item19b97c2835
You will probably also need a headphone extension cable which are about £5 from Maplin.
Then plug the mic into the adapter which goes into the PS3 usb slot. Plug the headphone into the TV headphone socket using the extension cable.
You will have to tell the PS3 that the chat is to go via the TV. The down side is that you can’t adjust the levels independently so during massive gunfights the team mates voices are masked by explosions!
The other issue is that because you are wearing heaphones to try and be quiet you end up talking and laughing louder because you can’t hear your own voice, then you wake up your wife and get told off for being up in the early hours…again

Thanks to halfpint fighter for the above

Also – you can get the official PS3 wireless headset for £25 or you can buy it with a bundle with the game SOCOM for £25 and then trade in the game to save a little bit of cash.

The official PS3 bluetooth headset comes with a cool docking station (and a really short lead!) and the benefit of the official headset is that you can see you battery life and status (mute/etc) on the screen – something ‘unofficial’ headsets can’t do.

You can buy it from Amazon Here –  Sony Wireless Headset (PS3)

Posted on Volkszone –

http://www.volkszone.com/VZi/showpost.php?p=6462573&postcount=13