Wake me when somebody produces an all-in-one without cheap plastic chrome or piano black bezel.

This thing is ugly.

It's definitely a demand correction brought on by Sony backing off their too-high price point. If anyone from earlier PS3 marketing teams was actually left at Sony, heads would be rolling.

The mismanagement of the PS3 is nearly criminal.

(Yes, I'm looking at you too, 3.0 firmware update.)

That clock speed increase hasn't been confirmed by anyone, and until I see framerate comparisons of the two systems, I'm inclined to believe there's no difference in gameplay.

Also, I'd be very interested to see a comparison of Slim's Blu-ray video processing versus the older gen PS3's. Many of their early CD and DVD products had features and performance stripped from them to reduce cost--buying the newer model was usually a downgrade. It's the Sony nerf.

Of course Engadget won't even bother to look at that when how much power the PS3 sips is so monumentally important.

Slimmer? Yes. Cheaper? Yes.

Better? Not even close. Unless you have a real hard on about power consumption.

The PS3 Slim looks cheap, and it's a detuned model of the early PS3's in every way that matters. Engadget's review was way off the mark.

CPU counterfeiting is huge over there. Are you sure they're the genuine article?

Nothing brings an engadget editor more joy than the opportunity to bash an Apple product.

Except perhaps Palm Pre stories, unloved MP3 players nobody buys and Swarovski crystals.

My point is that you're offered much more flexibility to add/change install software on the iPhone than you are on nearly every other phone. Have you ever used one? There are more applications available in the app store for that phone than you could ever possibly need, many of them for free, and most for less than 5 bucks. You don't get that level of customization on any other phone, period.

As an old UNIX/Linux admin, I cringe every time somebody says that open-platform/open-source is the best thing for everybody. Really? Try supporting it for a while. I used to be on the penguin bandwagon too. I even bought Red Hat stock post-IPO. Well, It's well over a decade later, Linux still hasn't taken over the world, and my Red Hat stock is still worth less than what I bought it for. Why? Because the open-source community can't agree on anything.

Windows is a closed architecture, OS X is closed architecture, and most of the successful UNIX builds in use in business are more or less closed as well. There's a reason for that. At some point, the product needs to be supported by somebody. Some central figure needs to know, for the good of his technical support staff and his company's bottom line, that his product hasn't been compromised. He needs to know that the product he designed and guaranteed to work properly yesterday is the same one he'll be working on tomorrow. He restricts access to the nuts and bolts of the systems he sells because he can't trust his livelihood to a mob of individuals on the internet who never agree on anything, and whose intentions aren't clear.

This is why OSX, which is Apple controlled, but a derivative of a derivative of open-source UNIX, is stable and selling. And why Windows hasn't completely given itself over to hackers and viruses. More proof? OpenGL is and open source 3D API, nobody uses it for gaming. DirectX is a Microsoft controlled 3D API, and everybody does.

So it is with the iPhone. Yes, Apple is trying to make a buck. But they also don't want to deal with all the stupid things a user wants to do with their phone. You want to jailbreak it, fine. Just don't come crying to us when you somehow delete the /usr directory and brick the phone.

Really, I'd void your warranty too. And if you did that on a company cell phone that I had to support at work, I'd replace it with a disposable Nokia.

As for the battery, I think you're grasping at straws to make your point. Nobody really bases a buying decision on the presence or lack of a removable battery.

Yeah, it's 2009. The Zune has gone from being unloved brown brick, to just being unloved. Where do you live? Redmond?

Are you kidding? The iPhone was inferior because it couldn't record video? Who cares when over 1 billion apps have been downloaded for the thing. How many of those do you think will run on your typical cell phone? It's the OS you pay for, not the phone or video. Some people really don't get it.

As for your comment about BSOD's on Macs....that's a good one. Macs on OSX don't BSOD (obviously). Anything/everything on Windows does. That's a Microsoft problem. Try a real operating system and recompute.

MacOS is probably more customizable than Windoze if you know how, and if not, there are plenty of apps out there to help you do it. Whoever 'told' you that garbage was mistaken.

As for the iPhone, of course it's locked down. Can you tweak the OS in a Motorola, LG, Samsung, or Nokia? No. You get a handful of themes, ringtones, and some crappy java games. That's hardly open-platform customization.

Android may give you more freedom to corrupt your cell phone with garbage, but they're playing catch up. Apple deserves some credit for getting the ball rolling in the first place.