Tagline: When nature turns evil, true terror awaits

Plot: A grieving couple retreats to their cabin in the woods, hoping to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse

In short: There’s a powerful movie in there, but you’ll need a strong constitution to make it through

The preamble: My cult and contentious reviews’ system. Designed as a time saver to highlight the potential deal breakers in an offering before you commit to buy or read lengthy reviews on your favourites sites/magazines. For a more detailed description please read: THE RULES

Antichrist

Just the Bad Points Review: Antichrist

• Explicit sex scenes (depending on your perspective)
• Extreme violence and self mutilation
• Scenes of (faked) animal suffering
• Intense emotional confrontation
• Child loss
• Focus on the nature of depression & relationship collapse

Here we go again. The Apple ‘iPhone 3GS’ is now on sale and it is already shaping up to be even more controversial than both its predecessors. On the hardware side it brings a slightly improved camera (3 megapixels with autofocus, compared to 2MP fixed focus), video recording, marginally better battery life and up to 3x faster performance. It sounds good, but more importantly what’s NOT to like…?

Flaws still present from before:

The T-Mobile G1 has been left on its own as the sole Google Android handset for seven long months, but now it finally has some company and competition in form of the ‘Magic’. Like the G1, the Magic is made by Taiwanese manufacturing giant HTC but has been sold to different networks around the globe. On the surface, the HTC Magic is a far more sophisticated handset than the G1 and is an easy sell, so most importantly what’s not to like…

The preamble: My cult and contentious reviews’ system. Designed as a time saver to highlight the potential deal breakers in a product before you commit to reading lengthy reviews on your favourites sites and/or magazines. For a more detailed description please read: the Rules

HTC Magic Android Smartphone

Just the Bad Points Review: HTC Magic Android Smartphone

• 3.2in capacitive touchscreen is large, but physically smaller than the HTC Touch HD & iPhone
• The screen’s 320 x 480 resolution matches the iPhone but is less than some VGA (480 x 640) Windows Mobile smartphones
• No physical Qwerty keyboard or number pad
• 3.2 megapixel camera is mediocre and lacks autofocus
• Native storage is minimal at 512MB though there is a microSD expansion slot
• No multi-touch support exists in Android at present
• No 3.5mm headphone jack means an adaptor must be used for third party earphones
• No DivX/AVI video support
• No support for lossless music
• Android requires users to have a Gmail account (though enforced, in itself not a bad thing)

Here’s something new…

Let’s face it, in your average review what most readers aren’t looking for is praise or description. We know the majority of products these days do the basics just fine and if we want a specification list we can get that off the manufacturer’s site – it doesn’t require 1,000 words.

In short, we’re all on the look out for the Bad Points, the deal breakers, that single missing or poorly implemented feature that can on occasion be like finding a needle in a haystack. It is the issue which says for you individually this product requires no further investigation and can be dismissed.

Here’s an easy example. Considering its midrange positioning, the BlackBerry Curve 8900 is the best smartphone I’ve seen from RIM to date. Build quality, screen, keyboard, software, pricing, it’s all superb and therefore omitted.

Instead the deal breaker is its lack of 3G – something many cannot do without yet will get 700/800 words into a review just to discover. Let’s cut through this – a blog isn’t paid by the word and we’re all busy people.

So without further ado here is GordonKelly.com’s first ‘Just the Bad Points’ review:

BlackBerry Curve 8900 – Just the Bad Points

• No 3G Connectivity

Got it?

Yep, it’s dead easy. Now the issue won’t always be this simple to spot, often it can be something you’d only notice from physically using the device. So this should also allow me to bring you word on the latest and hottest products FAST, after all it’s Only the Bad Points – the points that matter. Enjoy!

Feedback most welcome.