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Alienware may have created the ultimate gamer hotel suite
In the past, we've seen hotel rooms and even entire hotels specifically designed for those who prefer the orange glow of de_dust2 to a sandy beach. But Alienware's new gaming suite in Hilton's Panama City location might well be the easiest place yet to let a week of your life completely pass you by. Room 2425 offers guests the chance to avoid the rich culture of the Central American capital and enjoy the company of a monstrous Alienware gaming PC, Oculus Rift VR headset and Xbox One Elite. Move between the racing seat centerpiece and beanbags, foregoing the stunning view of the South Pacific Ocean to instead bask in the warm glow of the room's 65-inch 4K TV.
New in our buyer's guide: The iPhone 6s, Surface Book and much more
Sorry we haven't updated the buyers's guide in a couple months -- we've been too busy pumping out reviews of all the new devices. Now that things have finally started to slow down (fingers crossed), let's take a step back and look at all the awesome stuff we've had a chance to test this fall. For starters, there's a bunch of excellent smartphones that we absolutely need to add to our guide. Namely: the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, the Nexus 6P and 5X, and the Moto X Pure. On the tablet side, we're inducting both the iPad mini 4 and the Surface Pro 4. Microsoft makes another appearance in the laptop section, where we've added the Surface Book, along with Dell's Chromebook 13. Rounding out the list, we threw in a few miscellaneous items, including the new Xbox One Elite Wireless controller, the redesigned Sonos Play:5 wireless speaker and Google's $35 Chromecast Audio.
Xbox One update brings back Xbox 360's universal controller settings
You don't need to drop $150 on the Xbox One Elite controller to get access to one of its most prominent features: remapping the gamepad's buttons. Tucked away inside the Xbox One's new Windows 10-flavored menus is the app for changing what buttons do what on your standard Xbox One controller as well. Perhaps most notably, you can permanently invert the Y-axis (controlled with the right analog stick by default) to make aiming and moving the camera in third-person and first-person games, respectively, more to your liking. That feature is something that the Xbox 360 had at launch with its "game defaults" options that appeared during initial setup for the system. In terms of how the app works from the Elite to the vanilla controller, it's pretty similar aside from not being able to adjust thumbstick and trigger sensitivity. You'll find the new addition under Settings > Ease of Access > Button Mapping.
Xbox One bundle packs 1TB hybrid drive and Elite pad for $499
Microsoft is launching a premium "Elite" controller for the Xbox One next month, so of course it's also readying a new console bundle that includes the pad and a 1TB "Solid State Hybrid Drive" system. From November you'll be able to get the set for $499 -- pre-orders start today in the US and it'll be exclusive to GameStop and Microsoft Stores for the first month. For comparison, the regular 1TB Xbox One bundle costs $399 -- so with the $150 Elite controller thrown in, you're getting at least $50 in savings. If you need a reminder, Microsoft's new gamepad has an extra four bumpers on the back, "hair trigger locks" and the ability to customize the thumbsticks and D-pad with extra swappable parts.
