iPad 2 Hits Britain's Stores this month!

Around about 2 hours ago and several thousand thousand Miles away. Steve Jobs took the podium, in a surprise move after he stood down from Apple (hopefully temporarily) on medical grounds. The reason he thought he had to be their "We have been working on this product for a while and I just didn't want to miss today." Good on you Steve (or should it Mr Jobs???) and can I take this opportunity to wish you a speedy recovery.

The product he was talking about is of course the iPad2. For those that have been living in a hole for a year, iPad was released last year and has single handedly (does an iPad have hands?) kick started the long stalled tablet market. Earlier this year at the CES in Las Vegas many companies were releasing their iPad killers, but as we said "while everyone fights for a piece of the iPad market, what clever little gadget are Apple technicians working on". Well we get our first answer (of many we hope) here.

On first glance the iPad 2 has raised the bar once more. They have managed to shave 33% of the thickness, which is good going as iPad wasn't really that thick to start. It boosts the new A5 processor which will make the iPad 2 twice as fast, with graphics processing more than 8 times faster. It also comes with a camera which allows for iPad users to use the facetime, and for those who are just a little bit shallow it will now come in white as well as black. The only disappointment is that it still comes with a maximum of 64GB storage, and as yet no hint of the rumoured mini sd expansion slot.

So when is it available? It will hit UK stores on 25th March. When will it be available on spree4? Well that would be telling.....

What Hi Fi Review of Sonos S5

What Hi Fi have reviewed the Sonos S5 and given it 5 stars.

"..perfectly pitched, stylistically and technologically – a premium-feeling proposition that we described as being 'as close to hi-fi as wi-fi gets'."

"..the S5 is the perfect way to begin or extend your Sonos system."

We at Spree4 couldn't agree more, the Sonos system is incredible. So easy to setup and so easy to expand. It really does set your music free.

We also can't help the nerd in us wanting to go the whole hog and get an iPad to use as a controller.

iPad controller!!!

PS3s Banned in Britain.

In a rather bizarre turn of events LG have successfully won a ten day import ban on Playstation 3s. LG accuse Sony of patent infraction with regards to blueray playback, and Judges in the Hague have agreed to this temporary ban on PS3 imports into Europe. LG are also seeking a similar ban in the states to.

This latest patent row joins a long list of big names arguing over patent infractions. Nokia vs Apple, Oracle vs Google over the use of java to build android. Normally these sorts of things are just part of licensing negotiations. Simply a tactic to gain an increased margin for the patent holders or as results of buy outs from companies with stricter interpretations of agreements, but this escalation to actual import bans is worrying. As big businesses play hard ball and armies of lawyers look over complex licensing agreements, it only seems to be the consumer that will suffer. In the case of Sony and LG it seems even worse for the consumer as this is just the latest in a long line of tit for tat patent suits.

Reports already show that Sony has little intention on budging on their side of the dispute and LG are eager to extend the ban past 10 days. Is it long before we see shortages of PS3s? Only time will tell.

Definite belated congratulations to h0rs3y and terrilou who managed to buy PS3s for less than a tenner.