The alaTest Blog

If you’re in the market for your first smartphone, or even upgrading from an old one, you’ll notice that there are a lot of choices on the market these days. Rather than blindly choosing your next smartphone based on a 3 minute test run at your carrier’s store, let alaTest help you decide which platform best suits your needs – Android, iPhone, Windows Phone 7, or BlackBerry. Read the rest of this entry »

We were going over our data for June and noticed a very interesting trend among our most popular products for the month. It turned out that of our 10 most popular items on alaTest, 7 of them were digital cameras. It seems that consumers are getting serious about taking some great photos, perhaps for summer vacations or family get togethers. We decided to take a closer look at our most popular cameras and what makes them so great. Read the rest of this entry »

Smartphones these days do a little bit of everything, but that’s the catch; it’s only a little bit of everything. Many people think that because their smartphone has an 8 megapixel camera and can shoot 1080p HD video (like the HTC Sensation 4G), they have no need for a compact digital camera. Unfortunately, smartphones have small image sensors and lack key features to make them suitable for any serious photography. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite the planned release of the PlayStation Vita right around the corner, game studios appear to be continuing development on some great PlayStation Portable games this year. It’s not yet clear whether the Vita will be able to play your PSP titles, but if you don’t intend to get the Vita as soon as it comes out, or if you’re looking for a few PSP games to tide you over until it does, here’s a list of the best PSP titles so far this year. Read the rest of this entry »

When it comes to handheld gaming, the Nintendo DS is the system of choice, featuring a wide selection of games along with its unique touch screen interface. The recent release of the Nintendo 3DS also brought an interesting new spin on the handheld genre; however, it’s autostereoscopic display seems a bit premature, resulting in what many people agree is an undesirable experience. As a result, the best games, so far, this year do not focus on the 3DS. Read the rest of this entry »

Compared to the other systems, the Wii is off to a pretty slow start this year, in terms of great titles. Where the PC, Xbox, and PS3 all have a handful of excellent 2011 games already out, the Wii’s best titles so far really aren’t anything that spectacular. Still, if you’re looking to buy a few new Wii games this summer, we’ve got a Best-Of list for your consideration. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time to take a look at the best PS3 games 2011 has delivered so far. Sony makes it a point to keep as many titles exclusive to the PS3 as possible. Because these exclusive titles are able to leverage the PS3’s hardware better than cross-platform ports, they are typically quite popular, and a couple made our list. Read the rest of this entry »

Just like yesterday’s PC Gaming status report, today we have one for the Xbox 360. Because the Xbox 360 shares a few popular titles with the PC, we’ll be skipping over those that we’ve already discussed in yesterday’s post; however, the Xbox does provide a better gaming environment for a couple of those titles, which we will cover in a bit more detail. Best Xbox 360 Games of 2011 (So Far)