First law of gadget recessionomics: Take something you make, which is great, make it ever so less great, and sell it for ever so less money. That’s how you end up with products like Microsoft’s SideWinder X4 keyboard. The Price $60 MSRP, $46 retail . The Verdict The SideWinder X6 was a marvelous fresh start for Microsoft’s rejuvenated gaming hardware division, designed with a brooding Death Star aesthetic, shit hot jog wheels, and a hot-swappable detachable keyboard that can be hooked up to the left or right side. It’s just $20 pricier MSRP (but retail, $12 ) than the X6, and I’ll tell you straight up, a better deal. The SideWinder X4 is virtually identical at the core—same basic keyboard layout (including the too-long spacebar), chaos-red backlighting, and laptop-esque throw distance for the keys—but it ditches the most lovable aspects of the X6: the jog wheels and the detachable keyboard.

First law of gadget recessionomics: Take something you make, which is great, make it ever so less great, and sell it for ever so less money. That’s how you end up with products like Microsoft’s SideWinder X4 keyboard. The Price $60 MSRP, $46 retail . The Verdict The SideWinder X6 was a marvelous fresh start for Microsoft’s rejuvenated gaming hardware division, designed with a brooding Death Star aesthetic, shit hot jog wheels, and a hot-swappable detachable keyboard that can be hooked up to the left or right side. It’s just $20 pricier MSRP (but retail, $12 ) than the X6, and I’ll tell you straight up, a better deal

Curse the fact (again) I don’t live in Japan! Akihabara News has greased their mitts all over Hanwa’s dongle , which upgrades the audio on your laptop to that of DTS surround sound sensation. After admitting they were—understandably—skeptical about what the dongle would do to a laptop’s audio, the Windows-only peripheral comes with DTS headphones, an installation CD and detachable USB port. Akihabara News says the dongle is “stylish and well-built,” but “you won’t get a sound like that produced by a real tube headphone amp since it’s not a real vacuum tube.” While the dongle may’ve gone down well with the site, the headphones were derided as being “cheap” (though with the whole bundle costing the equivalent of $45 it’s not surprising really), so they used their own headphones instead. After installing the software, you have to set the surround effects for either music or movies, with both formats working well—”the result is far from being bad,” though it’s “more of an amplification of the sound than a surrounding simulation.” It may only be available in Japan so far, but with Akihabara News saying it “may be the best alternative to your laptop built-in audio system,” I can already sense all the Japanese export sites buying up stock. [ Akihabara News ]

Seen back in January at CES, the 17.5mm thick LG X300 netbook’s formally been announced as going on sale this month to our South American, Asian and Middle Eastern friends. It’s worth considering if you’re wanting a Windows 7 netbook. Cast your mind back a few months, and you’ll recall it caused quite a storm due to its slinky size. Its 11.6-inch LCD screen doesn’t have much of a bezel to speak of, and the chiclet tiled keyboard is close to full-size.

Seen back in January at CES, the 17.5mm thick LG X300 netbook’s formally been announced as going on sale this month to our South American, Asian and Middle Eastern friends. It’s worth considering if you’re wanting a Windows 7 netbook. Cast your mind back a few months, and you’ll recall it caused quite a storm due to its slinky size. Its 11.6-inch LCD screen doesn’t have much of a bezel to speak of, and the chiclet tiled keyboard is close to full-size. Check the press release below for the full story on the Dell Adamo -like netbook. (I say Dell Adamo rather than the MacBook Air, due to how square and tray-like it is).

So here’s the good news: Turtle Beach announced a universal version of their gaming-oriented chat headset. In stereo, it mixes your talking with your gaming perfectly, meaning you won’t be shouting at your teammates (unintentionally). Here’s the bad news: Just like the otherwise superb Astro A40s , the Ear Force PX21s require a lot of cordage—namely, a USB plug for chat audio and a line to your stereo RCA outputs. Plus, they cost $80, which, at $20 more than Turtle Beach’s similar Xbox 360 exclusive stereo headset, is putting you into surround sound headset territory.

Habey’s no stranger to the diminutive PC arena , but the latest from the company just might be the one you’ve been scouting. If you’ve been scouting a mini PC that’s dead-silent, that is. The BIS-6620 is described as “an ultra-compact fanless and noiseless PC platform based on the Intel Atom Z510 processor,” measuring just 4.5- x 4.5- x 1.5-inches and offering up GMA 500 graphics, 1080p hardware decoding, a single DDR2 SODIMM memory slot, room for a 1.8-inch (iPod classic-sized), a few USB 2.0 sockets, integrated SD / CF card readers, gigabit Ethernet port, an optional WiFi module and your choice of OS (Windows XP Embedded, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Linux). There’s a fair chance this could double as a simplistic media player in your cramped studio apartment, and at just $299.99 at NewEgg, you won’t be shattering the bank in the process.

The promise of a gaming mousepad is somewhat intangible—”more precise mousing.” But can you really tell if it’s letting you headshot more dudes? Razer’s Vespula, however, offers something you can feel: Two completely different mousing surfaces in one. The Damage Thirtee-five dollars, retail—meaning you’ll probably be able to find it for cheaper. The Verdict An aggressively (m)angled rectangle, Vespula is hard mousepad with two distinct surfaces, one on each side: A “precision” surface, which is textured and bumpy, like the softer side of side of sandpaper, and a speed side, which is smooth, not unlike the glass trackpads on MacBooks. The difference between the two is immediately apparent—when applying the same amount of force to the mouse, it moves half the distance on the precision surface.

It’ll use up one of your valuable USB ports, and is only compatible with Windows, but a Hanwa USB valve tube that gives you the mighty power of DTS surround sound sensation? Where do I sign up? Even if you’re pretty happy with the audio quality on your PC, the AS301DTS dongle GLOWS BLUE WHEN YOU USE IT. I don’t need to say any more, do I? It comes bundled with the DTS Headphone Deck software and AH-516 DTS headphones, and costs the equivalent of $45—only in Japan, natch. [ Umazone via CrunchGear ]

The Radeon HD 5870, as shipped, is a very powerful graphics card—more than most people need, even, and at the very least, enough for anyone. Except, apparently, Asus. Asus’ plans for their newest Republic of Gamers (ROG) Radeon HD 5870-based card cater to a specific breed—the overclock-everything-for-the-sake-of-it PC tweakers, who are dwindling along with their gaming platform—but really, anyone can appreciate them: by default, the card’s GPU is cranked from 850 to 900MHz, and doubles the RAM to RAM to 2GB of DDR5 memory. If that’s not enough, you can dial your frequencies up using included overclocking software, which saves new settings directly to the card. And if you start to notice that delicious, telltale smell of melting silicon, you don’t even have to navigate software to fix things: mashing a physical button on the back of the card reverts it to stock settings.