Ultimate Playstation Trivia Book. Vol. 4

We’ve gathered together over one thousand of the juiciest facts, figures and shocks from the world of playstation to educate your brain and tickle your funny bone. Topic 301-403.

301. Snake’s moustache in MGS4 is based on Hollywood Western actor Lee Van Cleef’s.

302. When Harmonix was developing the Rock Band Network (which lets bands put their music into games across the series) it was codenamed Rock Band: Nickelback because the studio assumed no one would care if they saw it and it wouldn’t be leaked.

303. At one point, Tekken was going to have an extra character called Sake. He’d be a fish whose only response would be to fall on the floor and flop about.

Asus Zenbook UX303LA

A sleek and powerful ultra-portable laptop

The MacBook Air is one of our favourite laptops for some very simple reasons -it’s stylish, lightweight, sturdy, has excellent battery life, a quality screen and a very comfortable touchpad and keyboard. It’s a simple formula that makers of Windows laptops have struggled to achieve - until now. The Asus Zenbook UX303LA is the first Windows ultra-portable laptop we’ve seen that matches Apple’s flagship MacBook Air.

The UX303LA has a classy, sturdy metal build. Despite this metal construction, it’s very light at just 1.4kg, rising to 1.7kg with its charger. Combined with its lengthy battery life of just under 13 and a half hours, it’s ideal for working while on the move.

Imagination Technologies MIPS Creator CI20

A speedy rival to Raspberry Pi

Single-board computers are remarkably popular at the moment, spearheaded by the success of the Raspberry Pi. They’re used by hobbyists to control everything from Morse-code transmitters to robots, but are also fully functioning PCs that can be used for browsing the web, watching videos and programming.

Imagination Technologies is best known for developing the PowerVR graphics chip used by a number of tablet manufacturers, including Apple and Samsung. Imagination’s new £50 CI20 single-board computer has a PowerVR SGX540 graphics chip, which broadly performs on a par with the Broadcom VideoCore IV found in the Raspberry Pi. Like the Pi, therefore, the CI20 has no trouble playing 1080p videos.

Bush MyTablet 8 Inch

A Windows 8.1 tablet with Office for just £100

Bush is a company best known for cheap and cheerful white goods, such as washing machines and fridges, so we weren’t expecting much from its £100 Windows 8.1 tablet. We were therefore pleasantly surprised by the MyTablet 8 Inch. It may have an unimaginative name, but this little tablet has a lot going for it.

We expected the plastic casing to be cheap and flimsy, but the plain silver-andblack construction is rigid and sturdy. However, the narrow borders on the left- and right-hand edges of the screen means, when you hold the tablet vertically, getting a firm grasp without accidentally touching an onscreen control is difficult.

Sony Xperia Z3 Compact

Sony’s small but powerful Android phone

Smartphones are now bigger than ever, with 5 to 6-inch screens increasingly common. This is great if a large screen is your priority, but for anyone with small hands these huge phones are tricky to hold and use – especially with one hand over long periods of time. This makes the Xperia Z3 Compact especially welcome.

Not to be confused with the 8in Z3 Tablet Compact, the Z3 Compact has a 4.6in screen. This is obviously larger than the 4.3in screen of its predecessor the Z1 Compact but the difference is pretty negligible. And while it’s significantly wider than the 4in iPhone 5s, it’s comfortable to handle – especially when compared with phones that are marginally larger but much more unwieldy, such as the 4.7in iPhone 6.