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December 14, 2007
Dear CNET members,
Happy Friday folks! Wow, this week we received a lot of member advice and suggestions for Rhonda on her dilemma about whether to get her son a Wii or a different console for fear that he may grow out the Wii. Before we get started, I would like to thank all of you who contributed to this topic for keeping it civil and on topic. I know how gaming console discussions can get easily get out of hand, and I really appreciate it. Now let's get to it... To Wii or not to Wii?
After reading through the submissions, I would say that the majority of our members recommend getting a Nintendo Wii. There is no doubt that after you read through the comments made by our members, you'll learn that it's a great system that the whole family can also enjoy. But aside from raves about the Wii, in my humble opinion I do think her son knows what he wants and giving him another console may just be disappointment. I'm not here to give parenting advice, as I'm a fairly new parent myself, but all I can say is that I always buy things for my son, knowing that he will eventually grow out of it. Even as adults, we all grow in and out of interests.
I don't know about you, but when my son stopped playing with his Thomas the Tank Engine trains I was heart-broken--he absolutely loved those trains. But I accepted it and learned not to regret buying him what he wanted and loved at the moment, because the happiness that it brought him during that period of time was worth every cent I spent. (Now he's into "Star Wars," and the cycle begins again...) So for that matter, I think that this goes with along with gaming console decision too, get him what he desires most. And when time comes for the console to settle for some dust collecting, what counts is that he had fun with it during that period of time and that's something he'll always cherish!
With that said this I'm not going to have any submissions to vote on this Q&A, because I think all the recommendations, the explanations of the different consoles, and opinions from all of you were excellent. And anyone reading these replies to Rhonda dilemma would have learned a lot. So I thank all of you for your participation and input. And, Rhonda, I wish you the best of luck in your decision, and if you have a chance swing by and tell us all about it. We'd love to hear how it turned out.
For any of you folks out there who would like to chime in on this topic of discussion please be my guest. Take care folks and have a fantastic weekend!
(Note: Because of the upcoming holidays there will be no Member Q&A next week. However, I will have some thing for you folks to read through the holidays. Thanks!)
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Member Question of the Week
My 12-year-old son has been begging my husband and I for a
Nintendo Wii this entire year. And as part of an agreement
with him, we said we would consider it, only if he received
good grades in school. So far he has been keeping up his end
of the bargain. Christmas is approaching fast and we would
like to buy one of these for him, but when I spoke to my
brother-in-law, he threw me a curve ball saying that he may
quickly grow out of the Wii and should consider buying him a
Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 instead. He says that while the Wii
is fun, the game titles are less mainstream for the
adolescences and more for younger ones and the older
generation. I don't pay much attention to this gaming stuff,
but this is of a concern for us. I know my son wants one, but
is the Wii a right fit for him or should I take my
brother-in-law's advice and consider a PlayStation or Xbox
where it may not be so susceptible to sitting there to
collect dust after a while? What are the differences? I
also have heard many people also say the Wii is fun for all
ages and while that sounds great, the game console would be
for my son. Please help me out in this dilemma.
Submitted by:
Rhonda E.
Submitted by:
The CNET community
 Previous week's Q&AThe votes are in! Below is the answer voted most helpful by our community to last week's question.
I went out shopping the day after Thanksgiving and saw that
many stores had advertised portable GPS devices on sale for
cheap (I really had no idea they were so inexpensive). Since
they were so cheap, I thought about buying one for myself and
my sister, who has no sense of direction. The couple that I
saw advertised were by Magellan and TomTom (strange name, if
you ask me) and they cost a little over $100. Well, when I
went to check them out they were all sold out, of course, so
I looked at other models, and to my surprise most of the
other models cost over $250 dollars and some up to $400. So
what is the difference between the less expensive one and
more expensive ones? Don't GPS devices essentially do the same thing? I
would really like to buy a couple of these as a present to
myself and my sister for Christmas, but I really want to get
the whole picture before buying one. Would I be in a world of
regret if I went with a cheaper model? Do name brands make a
difference? I've heard of Magellan and Garmin, but TomTom
sounds more like a toy. Some pointers would help me greatly!
Happy holidays to you!
--Submitted by:
Mary Jane H.
Mary, here are the differences that I've found in GPS devices, such as text-to-speech, the ability of the device to announce street names. Surprisingly, many GPS devices still only have the ability to announce turns, such as "turn right," "bear left," but not to speak the street name on which you'll be turning. Some people view all voice announcements as just a marketing gimmick, but I find it very useful, especially since my state doesn't permit windshield mounts...
(read more)
Congratulations to the winner!
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Check out next week's question:
Hi! Very simple question to the Vista gurus out there. What can I do to improve the speed of a Vista machine? Seems like my old expired computer with 98SE was faster, but how can this be when I have four times more memory (2 GBs), a huge hard drive of 250 GB, a better video card I think, and a much faster processor. Vista is nice and pretty and all--moving icons, nice colors--but why is it so darn slow? From booting up to shutting down, to open and closing programs, it seems like Windows took one step backward. OK enough of my complaints, because that's not what I'm writing in for. I just wish someone can advise me on some things I can do to speed up Vista without having to add more hardware to my fairly new computer (5 months old). Or is this really a lost hope as to I have just accept what I have and deal with it? Please say it isn't so. Thanks for listening, I hope you can help me. Signed the frustrated one.
--Submitted by:
Darren S.
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