Sandler is Count Dracula, a doting if overprotective vampire father who builds the hotel as a refuge so he and daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) can be safe from scary people with their pitchforks and torches. Dracula croons a tender lullaby: “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word, Papa’s going to bite the head off a bird.”

Next to the changing table is a coffin-shaped diaper pail.

Mavis gets a little older, with cute little baby tooth fangs; her caped father makes sure she’s wearing a helmet before he teaches her how to transform into a bat and fly. The hotel is a castle surrounded by a haunted forest and a graveyard populated by the undead. “Human-free since 1898,” the hotel proudly proclaims. And so things stay for over a century.

This Dracula has no need for human blood (“it’s so fatty, and you don’t know where it’s been”). He relies on synthetic. All he wants is to take care of his guests, give his daughter a wonderful 118th birthday party, make sure she never leaves home, and never, ever see a human. But then, just as all of the monsters have arrived for the party, an easygoing bro with an enormous backpack walks in. His name is Jonathan (Samberg), he thinks the monsters are cool, and he likes Mavis’ goth-girl vibe. This is worse than torches and pitchforks. A human who wants to get rid of monsters is one thing but a daughter who might fall in love with one is even scarier. And yes, there’s a wink at “Twilight.”

Of the three animated horror 3-D comedies this summer/fall, “Hotel Transylvania” is the least aesthetically ambitious, the most accessible for younger children, and the closest to the comfortingly silly scares of “Scooby-Doo.” As in this film, “ParaNorman” (in theaters) and “Frankenweenie” (out next week), the focus is on showing us that what we think is scary isn’t very frightening after all.

Of the three, “Hotel” has more all-out comedy, much of it coming from the monster-fied setting and the ghoul-ification of ordinary life. At this hotel, the Do Not Disturb signs hanging from the doorknobs are shrunken heads — very outspoken ones. Mavis likes to eat “scream” cheese, which amusingly rises up from the cracker to let out a squeal as she takes a bite. Guests are greeted by zombie bellman, a Jack Pumpkinhead doorman, and a skeleton mariachi band with sombreros and sarapes. When the Invisible Man (David Spade) attempts to play charades, it’s a hoot.

First-time director Genndy Tartakovsky was a storyboard artist on films like “Iron Man 2,” so he has an exceptional understanding of the mechanics and timing of the action sequences. The 3-D adds a vertiginous thrill to a chase on flying tables and a touch of claustrophobia to a maze of underground corridors. It is telling that both of those highlights involve the most vivid vampire/human relationship, Dracula and Jonathan. Despite a lot of talk about romantic “zing,” the bromance is much more real than the love story. When they leave the castle for that most overused of climax cliches, the race to the airport, the story sags.

Top voice talent includes Kevin James as a sweet-natured Frankenstein and Fran Drescher as his bride, Steve Buscemi and Molly Shannon as the wolf couple with innumerable cubs, and Cee Lo Green as the outgoing Mummy. But the real stars are character designers Carter Goodrich (“Despicable Me”), Greg Kellman (“Madagascar”) and Carlos Grangel (“King Fu Panda”), whose monsters pay affectionate homage to their origins but are so endearing that families may want to pay a visit to have room service deliver an order of scream cheese.

Like almost everything else about American politics and culture, this goes back to the Cold War. Indeed, when Dick Cheney urged us, in the days after 9/11, to join him on the Dark Side of the Force – okay, he didn’t say “the Force,” but he didn’t have to — he was only reasserting a postwar order that had been temporarily thrown into chaos after the fall of the Berlin Wall. A Manichaean and roughly symmetrical worldview, in which your opponent is seen as infinitely evil and infinitely devious, is extremely useful if your goal is subverting constitutional governance and replacing it with a permanent, hidden shadow-state that stands outside electoral politics. Is that overly paranoid? Well, I don’t know. But if I’d told you a few years ago that we would one day see a Democratic president claim the right to sentence any civilian to death, anywhere in the world, on secret evidence and with no pretense of judicial process, that might have sounded pretty crazy too.

Art and culture, including popular entertainment, is often where a society’s doubts about itself can be most freely expressed, and from its very beginnings the spy thriller has often presented espionage as, at best, a morally dubious affair. Even in a prewar classic like Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps,” while the main character’s decency is never in question, the sense that the spy bureaucracy is a semi-competent, half-sinister organism eager to blame its mistakes on others is a main plot driver. Pretty much every movie about a real or de facto agent on the run, who’s been framed for some murder or treachery he didn’t commit, is descended from that one, right up to and including “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” “Salt” and the Bourne series.

Indeed, outside of the Bond franchise and its various imitators, it’s not all that easy to come up with spy movies, even from the height of the Cold War, that present the world of espionage and counterespionage in straightforward or idealistic terms. Certainly John Frankenheimer’s “The Manchurian Candidate,” from 1962, is the most effective piece of Red Scare propaganda ever applied to celluloid. But along with its ultra-conspiratorial view of the dastardly Commies – who have not merely brainwashed and trained an assassin, but implanted a Joe McCarthy-type anti-Communist politician as a triple-secret agent — that film paints a scabrous, misanthropic and satirical portrait of American society as a zone of nutbars and sheeple, barely worth saving from the incoming red tide.

A year after that movie was released, of course, John F. Kennedy was killed, and the official explanation involves a weird guy with ties both to the loony left and the loony right, whose shadowy history included a visit to the Soviet Union. I’ve never felt personally persuaded by the theories that Kennedy was killed by the CIA, or by Soviet and/or Cuban intelligence – for one thing, they can’t both be true, unless you’re going nuclear with your paranoia – but they’ve never gone away. All the unanswered questions surrounding the JFK assassination only strengthened our sense that there was an entire world that lay below the surface of the one we could see, and that nothing about it was salutary.

All the social division of the 1960s around the Vietnam War and America’s role in the world made the spy thriller seem increasingly problematic, and except for the Bond series – which simply ignored all real-life current events – they often sought refuge in the reassuring past of World War II. A virus of existential doubt began to spread through the genre, perhaps beginning with Martin Ritt’s outstanding 1965 adaptation of John le Carré’s “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.” Starring Richard Burton in one of his least showboaty screen performances, as a burned-out British agent sent into East Germany as a fake defector, the film (and the book) are arguably closer in tone to Albert Camus than to Ian Fleming. Even more mundane British spy fare of those years, like the trio of Len Deighton adaptations starring Michael Caine (“The Ipcress File,” “Funeral in Berlin” and “Billion Dollar Brain”), drank deep from the same well of exhaustion and cynicism.

But the year I really want to talk about is 1975, in the PTSD American aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate, when spies and spying were very much in the news. Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, held a series of committee hearings that year that laid bare the extent of questionable or outright illegal conduct by the FBI and CIA, ranging from widespread surveillance of both prominent and ordinary citizens to covert attempts to assassinate foreign leaders and overthrow hostile governments. The Church committee was widely demonized by conservatives at the time, especially after a CIA station chief was killed in Greece, and its work remains controversial in the 21st century. After 9/11, some commentators claiming that these revelations crippled U.S. intelligence gathering over the long term and enabled the creation of al-Qaida. (Funding and arming a bunch of loony-tunes jihadis to kill Russians in Afghanistan had nothing to do with it, I guess.)

That year also saw two major spy movies featuring two of Hollywood’s biggest stars, which established a dichotomy within the genre that endures to this day. On one side we have “Three Days of the Condor,” with Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway, a fast-paced adaptation of a pulpy bestseller directed with style by Sydney Pollack. If the fashions and mannerisms of the movie – those sideburns! – seem positively antique, it holds up pretty well overall. Clearly an heir to “The 39 Steps” and a direct ancestor of both the Bourne films and Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible” series, “Condor” tells a classic man-on-the-run story, as Redford’s bookworm character is forced to unpack a world of double-dealing, insider warfare and government corruption. When confronted with the argument that the CIA plays dirty because it has to, Redford’s character turns New York Times whistle-blower.

But the antidote, for viewers who found “Condor” unbearable liberal pantywaist propaganda, came in the virile mountaineering-espionage adventure “The Eiger Sanction,” starring Clint Eastwood and his impressive mid-’70s hairdo as a retired CIA assassin turned art professor (yes, really) turned frequently shirtless freelance patriot. There are a lot of superficial similarities between the two films, including the general atmosphere of government coverup and post-Vietnam blowback, but the preening machismo of “Eiger” is pretty hard to take, as is the obvious pandering to Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” fan base. It was Clint’s first big Hollywood production as an actor-director, and seemed aimed at building a franchise around his character, a lady-killing, wisecracking Yank cognate to James Bond. But while “Condor” was a pretty big hit, “Eiger” was middling at best, and Eastwood dropped not just the franchise idea but the spy genre, period.

I would be the first to agree that audiences go see spy movies for the thrills and the action scenes, not the politics, and on that level too “Taken 2” (which was directed by Luc Besson flunky Olivier Megaton, and no, that’s not his original last name) is incoherent, relying on a boom-boom-chaka-boom musical score and repeated shots of random structures in Istanbul being destroyed by men in fast cars. A crucial plot element in “Taken 2” involves an American teenage girl roaming around the city chucking out live grenades to mark her progress, rather like Hansel and Gretel with exploding breadcrumbs. As Neeson’s defrocked CIA assassin, Bryan Mills, might say in his overly flat Amurkin accent, it’s Istanbul, Kim — stuff gets blown up every goddamn day. Indeed, the city’s only inhabitants appear to be scary Albanian sex traffickers and their henchmen, ominous-looking Muslim women in full-face hijab and weird old blind guys playing the oud. Everybody’s too busy being threatening to go work in a bank, or buy eggs at the supermarket.

Context matters, and the context for “Taken 2” (a sequel to the 2008 hit in which the same Albanians kidnapped the same teenager, that time in Paris) is a xenophobic, ugly-American worldview inherited from “The Eiger Sanction” and, still more, from James Cameron’s “True Lies,” pretty much the balls-out gold standard for this kind of dumbed-down, pseudo-flag-waving thriller. I say “pseudo” because producer Besson and director Megaton (who also made the ludicrous drug-war thriller “Colombiana,” a movie even stupider than this one but 20 times more enjoyable) are a couple of French dudes, for Christ’s sake, and exactly the kind of French dudes whose exaggerated love for the very worst kinds of American movies has caused them to stick their heads deeply up their own butts.

Stand aside, now, because I’m droppin’ the bomb on Mr. Megaton! Luc Besson is officially being “Taken 2” the woodshed! If these guys believe in anything about this movie, they believe in it entirely as gesture, mannerism and style. They may or may not be smart enough that they’re cackling up their sleeves the whole time; it’s not impossible that “Taken 2” is a meta-American movie, a Godardian spoof of the whole genre, an attempt to see how stupid and insulting a motion picture can be and still be a big hit. (See also: “True Lies.”) They believe that removing the guilt from the spectacle of an implacable American with high-end hardware killing every funny-accent, facial-hair-wearing foreign mofo in sight will pay off. And, yeah, they’re probably right.

You are undead, struggling to fight your way through the realms of Lordran on a quest whose final purpose is anything but clear. Where many games burden you with plot and background lore, Dark Souls lets the places you go tell their own kind of story, one lost in time and shrouded in mystery. The stone ruins at Firelink Shrine, the overrun town known as the Undead Burg, the vast marble halls of Anor Londo–these all speak of a once-prosperous realm rich with history, and rather than spelling it out in detail, Dark Souls lets you wonder about what has dragged this land into its current state of miserable disrepair. Item descriptions and brief conversations with non-player characters occasionally illuminate the smallest aspects of Lordran’s past, and over time, you may piece together a reasonably fleshed-out picture of the crisis that has befallen the land. But you needn’t concern yourself with these details if they don’t interest you. The wondrous realms of Lordran are sure to seduce you whether you care to know their history or not.

Darkroot Garden is so oppressively green that you can almost feel the air get warm and muggy around you. Running along the surreal shores of Ash Lake is like stepping into a dream. Locations like Anor Londo and the duke’s archives fuse faded opulence with grand machinery in a way that’s reminiscent of locations in the classic adventure game Myst, and like the realms of that game, these places have a way of staying in your head even when you’re not playing. Terrific sound design is a huge factor in Dark Souls’ ability to pull you in. Your steps echo convincingly in vast chambers. A heavy suit of armor clangs with every step you take. The strange noises a feared creature makes may send shivers up your spine before you even lay eyes on it.

Dude, what happened to your face?

From almost your earliest steps in this dangerous world, you’re beset by enemies, and you quickly learn to never let your guard down. Even the most common and clumsy enemies you encounter have attacks that can make short work of you if you’re not careful. Melee combat is straightforward; there are no elaborate combos to learn, and Dark Souls certainly doesn’t need them. With the small assortment of attacks, blocks, parries, and evasive maneuvers at your disposal, the combat in Dark Souls becomes a deadly dance in which each of your strikes that hits its target is a small victory and each potentially devastating attack from an enemy that you narrowly evade offers a new lease on life. Just be aware that poorly implemented mouse and keyboard support makes playing the game that way much too unwieldy; the game demands a controller.

Each new area brings with it challenging new enemies, as varied and memorable in their designs as they are in their techniques. Huge knights slumber in a forest, slowly and menacingly getting to their feet when you draw near. In the painted world of Ariamis, foul abominations with repulsive toxic sacs around their heads threaten to poison you when you deliver the killing blow. And you won’t soon forget the first time you’re cursed by the big-eyed basilisks of the depths, as your body becomes covered in a crystalline growth and you freeze in a pained gesture as death takes you.

There’s a wide variety of weapons to acquire and use, with each type offering a different fighting style. (Some swords are for swinging, and others are for thrusting, for example.) There’s also a good assortment of weapon enhancement options. As you progress and collect crafting items, you find that you can have a blacksmith make your weapons more powerful, and eventually imbue them with effects like lightning or fire. Finding a better weapon or making your existing weapon more powerful isn’t just a matter of added convenience; it can be the difference between survival and failure. And if you prefer to keep your distance from foes, bows and a diverse assortment of magic spells can be very effective, though you still need to frequently tangle with enemies in intense, close-quarters battles.

There’s a wonderful sense of history to Dark Souls’ varied, frequently beautiful realms.

The stakes can be high as you venture through Dark Souls, making your determination to survive and persevere that much greater. As you vanquish enemies, you collect souls, which can be spent to level up your character, or to purchase items and services from the few blacksmiths and merchants eking out an existence in certain corners of the world. These souls are a precious commodity indeed, and should you fall in battle (and you will), your souls fall with you. However, all is not immediately lost. If, in your next life, you can make it back to the spot of your previous demise and touch your bloodstain, you regain the souls you had acquired. Perish again without recovering them, however, and they disappear forever. It’s a crushing feeling to die, knowing that it means the permanent loss of a significant number of hard-earned souls, but it’s precisely that danger that makes the struggle to stay alive so exciting.

In each realm of Dark Souls, there are bonfires that offer your only real sanctuary from the constant dangers you face. It’s only at these locations that you can spend souls to level up, and when you perish, you restart from the last bonfire at which you rested. Because they serve as checkpoints on your journey, happening upon one can bring with it a tremendous sense of relief, since you know you won’t need to overcome the dangers you faced to get here again. That feeling of relief is short-lived though, because you must soon press on into the unknown dangers that lie ahead.

The sense of trepidation that comes with forging on into unknown realms of Dark Souls doesn’t subside after you’ve played the game for an hour or 10 or 20. It is a sustained feeling that arises out of the fact that you rarely know what lies around the next corner, or if you do, you haven’t yet managed to overcome the challenges that await you there. That feeling of dread finds tremendous release in those moments when you finally conquer the boss of an area, and in the discoveries of the many shortcuts that link Lordran’s realms in often surprising ways and give you the liberty to bypass long stretches you’ve conquered at least once.

In fact, few games offer a sense of exploration and discovery as rich and rewarding as that of Dark Souls . There is no hand-holding here, no NPC companion or helpful sign telling you which way to go next. Your discoveries are yours alone, and that makes them all the more gratifying. That’s not to say that there is no assistance available for the wandering warrior, though. Players can scrawl messages on the ground that serve as clues or warnings to other players. It’s a wonderful system that serves to remind you, as do the fleeting, ghostly glimpses you occasionally catch of other adventurers fighting their own battles, that although you are solitary, you aren’t alone in your struggles.

Dark Souls is a shared experience in which each player must mostly fight his or her own battles. However, you can call on assistance in moments of need. Players can leave summon signs, and you can summon one or two of these players to your world to help you take on the boss of an area. (You can also leave your own summon sign, offering your assistance to other players.) These connections are fleeting–win or lose against the boss, players are promptly returned to their own worlds–but the impact they have on your journey can be tremendous. Not all connections with other players are benevolent, though. Under certain circumstances, other players can invade your world with the intention of seeking you out and defeating you. It’s terrifying to be deep into a dangerous realm and get the notification that your world has been invaded. It’s just another example of the ways in which Dark Souls keeps you constantly alert and a little afraid.

The battle with Artorias is one of the best and most challenging in the game.

Unfortunately, summoning and invading are somewhat spottier on the PC than they were on consoles. When attempting to summon other players to your world, you may more often than not get a “Summoning Failed” message. Additionally, the PC version is locked by default at a resolution of 1024×720, though a user-created mod is available that resolves this issue. However, the PC version improves on its console counterparts in terms of performance; where the console versions suffer from severe frame rate drops in the area known as Blighttown, the PC version does not.

Most noteworthy in the Prepare to Die Edition is the added content, called Artorias of the Abyss. This content adds new areas that take you back into Lordran’s past and find you going toe-to-toe with figures who loom large in Dark Souls’ lore. Like many things about Dark Souls, the way in which you access Artorias of the Abyss is shrouded in mystery, and unless you investigate the world thoroughly and pay close attention to item descriptions (or just look up the instructions online), you might miss it.

That would be a shame, as the content thoroughly holds its own when added to the existing game. The bright forests of the Royal Wood offer an intriguing glimpse at the Lordran that once was, and the enemies who populate this land are as memorable as the rest of Dark Souls’ fantastic stable of adversaries. Particularly excellent is a battle with the knight Artorias, a fearsome foe even by the standards of Dark Souls’ challenging bosses. His appearance tells its own story; his armor drips with a purple substance that suggests the corruption that has befallen the once-noble knight, while his left arm hangs from him uselessly, a dead thing. He is frighteningly agile and powerful, and vanquishing him is one of the sweetest victories to be had in a game full of rewarding challenges.

Dark Souls is a game of tremendous beauty and unfettered imagination.

Also in this new realm is the Battle of Stoicism, an arena for player-vs.-player battles. Here, you can partake in one-on-one, two-on-two, or four-player deathmatch battles with nothing at stake but leaderboard glory. Sadly, a number of issues make the arena a frustrating place. It’s not unusual to have to wait several minutes or more to be matched with an opponent. (This is assuming you’re playing the one-on-one battles, which are much more heavily populated than the other types.) Once you are paired up with a foe and dropped into the arena to see which of you can defeat the other the most times in a three-minute period, you can expect lag to plague your battle, as your opponent hops around the screen without animating properly and you sometimes take damage despite the fact that your opponent didn’t appear to hit you. The arena’s presence doesn’t harm the overall game since it’s entirely optional, but it doesn’t bring much to it, either.

Despite this minor disappointment, Dark Souls remains one of the greatest games of recent years. There’s so much to do and to discover in its beautiful and frightening world. You might encounter and join one of nine covenants, each with its own benefits and agendas. You might find that one NPC has murdered another and that you can invade the killer’s world as a spirit of vengeance. The genius of Dark Souls isn’t just in its environments, or its monsters, its thrilling combat, or the unusual and exciting ways in which players are connected. It’s in the uncompromising way it throws conventional wisdom to the wind, dropping you into its dangerous world without guidance, making you fend for yourself, and teaching you to shrug off defeat time and time again to finally earn victory. That this vast and unforgettable masterpiece is now only $40 makes the decision to play it even easier.

You play as Corvo Attano, former bodyguard to the empress and current death row inmate. The prologue chronicling Corvo’s crime not only inflames your desire for revenge, but also sparks your affection for a vulnerable character. These dual fires foreshadow the choice you have to make each time you encounter an enemy: do you walk the bloody path of brutal vengeance, or take the nonlethal high road and rise above the violence that suffuses the city? Your actions have small, yet tangible consequences throughout your quest, and it’s up to you to decide what kind of retribution you want.

A cadre of conspirators helps you escape imprisonment, and you find out that they are plotting to bring down the very men who wronged you. These characters embody familiar archetypes–the dutiful admiral, the egotistical nobleman, the cheeky servant–but Dishonored is not content with one-dimensional portrayals. An excellent voice cast (which includes a number of notable actors) and stylish character design help bring these people to life. As you listen to them talk (you remain mute throughout), read their journals, eavesdrop on conversations, and learn whispered secrets from an arcane, psychic item you acquire, you come to know the characters and the world they live in. This kind of knowledge is engaging, so even when the main plot follows some well-trodden paths, you’re always interested and eager to press on.

Exploring Dunwall is another one of Dishonored’s great pleasures. The city prospered from the whaling trade in the recent past, but has fallen on hard times since the influx of a deadly plague. Brick walls and wooden beams loom over alleys crawling with rats, while granite facades and metal barricades block off the cobblestoned plazas of the wealthier neighborhoods. Dunwall evokes a British city in the grip of the industrial revolution, but painterly coloring and slightly exaggerated proportions give the place a unique feel. The lovely artistic design shines on the PC, bursting with detail and making Dunwall an immensely appealing place to inhabit.

Of course, there are tangible benefits to exploration as well. Sewers, alleys, apartments, and estates all hide items that restore your health, reinforce your arsenal, teach you secrets, or allow you to gain new supernatural powers. The large areas you must traverse to get to your targets are riddled with out-of-the-way places to explore, and finding them reveals not only hidden goodies, but alternate routes as well.

Figuring out how to move through the environments is an enjoyable pursuit, and one of the first powers you get allows you to teleport a short distance. The quick pop and blurry whoosh of this power provides a nice audiovisual accompaniment to the thrill of defying natural law, and if you choose to supernaturally augment your jumping ability, your range of locomotion is drastically increased. Though you’ll likely have some awkward moments as you try to go places that the game won’t let you, Dishonored’s level design is consistent enough to make such moments easy to avoid once you get the hang of things.

In addition to these superhuman movement abilities, you can choose the power of possession. Slipping into the skin of a rat or the scales of a fish allows you to navigate small tunnels and reach new areas, and when leveled up, you can even possess other humans for a short while. Acquiring and improving your supernatural powers requires runes, though, and there aren’t enough for you to max out every power. There are no bad choices, thankfully, though some clearly favor lethal or nonlethal approaches. Pacifists will appreciate the ability to stop time, for example, while assassins might favor the power that instantly turns corpses to ash.

Powers are equipped in your left hand and are accessed with a radial menu. This menu also contains your pistol and your crossbow, each of which has a few different ammo types. Sleep darts are the only nonlethal munition in the bunch, and they are invaluable to players who try to play the entire game without killing anyone (yes, it’s possible). The rest of your options are decidedly deadly, including grenades and razor-flinging proximity mines.

With such nasty weaponry and formidable powers at your disposal, you have a startling array of ways to deal with hostiles. Simply sneaking by them is often effective, as is creeping up from behind, applying a sleeper hold, and dragging the bodies to a dark corner. Killing can be quiet too. A deadly drop from above makes no noise, and a properly timed windblast can blow an enemy off a high ledge, never to be seen again. If you prefer to see the whites of their eyes, your sword is always in your right hand, ever ready to duel. You are a formidable swordsman, able to block and counterattack against most blows, but clanging swords bring more guards or thugs, and they won’t wait until their allies are out of the way to take a shot at you.

Enemies are prone to fatal dips in intelligence from time to time, but they are generally tenacious and alert enough to put up a decent fight. Once you start experimenting with powers, weapons, and environmental elements, Dishonored’s amazing flexibility shows its stuff. Summon a swarm of rats to devour an enemy, and then possess one of the rats to sneak up behind those foes who come running. Blow enemy projectiles back in their faces, killing them instantly. Freeze time, enter a room with hostiles, drop a live grenade, exit and close the door, and then watch the explosion through the keyhole.

And that’s the end of that.

Sure, you didn’t really have to watch, but taking a playful approach can result in even more supernatural fun. Blow bottles off a shelf from a hidden perch to terrify the maids. Snatch a painting while a guard is looking at it instead of waiting for him to walk away. Throw a corpse off a balcony onto a guard, but freeze time before it hits, so you can watch his reaction when you appear in front of him as he gets clobbered from above. Dishonored has multiple save slots available, and taking advantage of the ability to tear things up and then reload a fresh start encourages you to engage in some absolutely delightful mayhem.

Yet even though it allows you to wipe the recent slate clean, Dishonored still begs to be replayed from the beginning. Unlocking different powers, finishing missions in different ways, striving to be more or less murderous, and seeing a different endgame all offer appealing incentives to give it another go. It’s a rare game that feels so compulsively replayable, but Dishonored is such a game. The compelling abilities, the bold artistic design, the colorful characters, and above all, the freedom of choice–these are the things that mark Dishonored as one of the truly remarkable games of this year.

Samsung’s behemoth Series 7 Gamer is one of a new line of laptops for the Korean electronics giant, clearly an answer to products from the likes of Origin, Alienware, and Asus.

Big-boned and full of high-end components, the Series 7 Gamer comes in only one, $1,899 configuration. The good news is that there’s a lot of meat in this laptop: a quad-core Core i7-3610QM processor, 16GB of RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 675M graphics, a 750GB hard drive, and a 1,920×1,080-pixel-resolution 17-inch display that’s flat-out gorgeous.

(Credit: Sarah Tew)

Yes, it’s heavy (9 pounds). Yes, it’s expensive (nearly $2,000). Yes, it’s a little ugly. However, it’s one of the best-performing laptops we’ve ever seen, at a price that’s not that unreasonable. Samsung’s entry into PC gaming laptops is a success, although it’s a surprisingly bulky and flashy product for a company that’s been making sleek and minimal laptops otherwise.

With its lid closed, the big, black, shiny presence of the Samsung Series 7 Gamer blends in with the “gamer gear” look of so many other competing products. There’s nothing on the surface that screams anything unique.

(Credit: Sarah Tew)

The back lid, with its nearly mirrored coating and tapered lines, recalls the midrange R series of Samsung’s laptops more than the recent Apple-like looks of the Series 7 Chronos, Series 5 Ultra, or Series 9. Incidentally, while this laptop is also technically a “Series 7″ by name, it bears no family resemblance whatsoever to any Series 7 we’ve ever seen before. This might as well have been called a Series 8.

(Credit: Sarah Tew)

The differences extend to the interior: glossy plastic around the bar above the keyboard showcases the speaker grille and several LED-enhanced circles. The left circle provides volume control, the right is a power button, and the middle “Turbo” circle lights up when the Series 7 Gamer is set to Game Mode (Intel Turbo Boost is applied to the quad-core Core i7 processor in this mode). There are also several LED-lit touch controls for toggling audio mute, the Wi-Fi antenna, and keyboard backlighting.

(Credit: Sarah Tew)

To the right of these lit circles is a physical dial knob that emerges from the side, reminiscent of the volume dial on an HP Envy or an old-school home audio system. The knob controls the Series 7 Gamer’s energy/screen modes: a “Green Mode,” “Library Mode” (which seems to automatically mute audio, but not much else), “Balanced Mode,” and “Game Mode,” which optimizes the display’s brightness and contrast and triggers a pretty silly and overdramatic animation and “cyber-effect” that, presumably, is meant to make you feel like your laptop just transformed into a Serious Gaming Machine. It’s one step short of sprouting fake gun turrets from the speakers, but maybe there are some hard-core gamers out there that will enjoy it.

(Credit: Sarah Tew)

The Series 7 Gamer has a huge, spacious keyboard with adjacent number pad, backlit, and — lo and behold — it’s an old-fashioned tapered-key affair. Nearly no one makes keyboards like this anymore; even Lenovo did away with its old-fashioned ThinkPad keyboards. It looks odd on this Samsung, but the truth is…it’s a great keyboard. Keys have plenty of travel, concave surfaces cup your fingertips perfectly, and a row of function buttons above the number keys doesn’t get in the way. I wonder if this laptop could have been made any slimmer by giving it a shallower keyboard, but the bottom line here is you’ll be comfortable. Even better, the commonly used WASD keys are lit in mellow orange instead of pale blue.

The touch pad beneath has a smooth, matte surface and a flat button-bar below it. A blue LED strip demarcates the button strip from the pad and provides your eye with a focus zone when attending to the screen, as you can see the bar in your peripheral vision. I wish I could say the touch pad’s responsiveness was as good as the keyboard’s, but that’s a standard problem with Windows laptops. Most gamers will use a mouse, anyway.

Game Mode has a little animated icon that launches a dedicated settings panel: background services and antivirus programs can automatically be set to Limited/Silent, and a few other minimal adjustments like touch pad on/off can be toggled. A few preset animations can be selected for the Game Mode transformation. It all pales next to the customizations on an Alienware or the Razer Blade, but the easy-access launcher is somewhat helpful.

What makes a gaming laptop a gaming laptop? A phenomenal screen can’t hurt. The 17.3-inch glossy display on the Series 7 Gamer has 1,920×1,080-pixel resolution and looks positively fantastic, big and bright, with rich colors and excellent wide viewing angles. Blacks are blacker than on most laptops. It all makes for a great viewing experience, whether watching Blu-rays or playing games. The screen’s so good and big that streamed media like Netflix videos are bound to look like pixelated disappointments by comparison.

Stereo speakers and a subwoofer underneath offer up loud, powerful sound for gaming, and even for movie-watching. The audio experience isn’t head and shoulders above the competition, but it earns points for sheer volume. To listen to 5.1- and 7.1-channel audio, you’ll need to plug in surround-sound headphones or connect to an external speaker set or receiver.

Even the 2.0-megapixel Webcam is top-notch. Samsung preinstalls CyberLink YouCam software, but the 1,920×1,080-pixel-resolution camera had more saturated colors and better light sensitivity in my office-based casual testing than I’m used to seeing in a laptop.

(Credit: Sarah Tew)

If you’re paying $1,899 for a laptop, you expect lots of features. This Samsung Series 7 doesn’t disappoint, although it doesn’t deliver anything unexpected. The requisite USB 3.0 ports (2) and video ports (HDMI, VGA and even DisplayPort) are present. There’s onboard Blu-ray. The only thing I wish this laptop had that it doesn’t was a Thunderbolt port, but I don’t know what I would do with it.

The Series 7 Gamer comes in only one configuration, just like Ford’s first Model T. For $1,899, you get two 750GB, 7,200rpm hard drives with 8GB of ExpressCache SSD for frequently used core functions, a generous 16GB of RAM, a quad-core third-gen Core i7-3610QM processor, and Nvidia GeForce GTX 675M graphics. That compares favorably with a system like the recently reviewed Maingear EX-L 15, which included a slightly faster Core i7-3820QM CPU and the same graphics, but less RAM and hard-drive space, for $2,349. The also-recently-reviewed but less expensive Asus G75VW had the same CPU, slightly less powerful Nvidia graphics, and less RAM.

This laptop’s 2.3GHz Intel Core i7-3610QM CPU, a quad-core processor, is part of Intel’s newest, third generation of Ivy Bridge processors. It’s the same processor we’ve already seen in the Lenovo IdeaPad Y480 and Asus G75VW, and, not surprisingly, it performed nearly the same in our tests. Multitasking is blazing fast, and nearly any task you can think of, from video encoding to large software installations, can be handled lightning-quick. This is more computer than anyone really needs, but if you want something even faster, the Origin EON17-S and Maingear EX-L 15 do best it in performance speed.

The graphics, from an Nvidia GeForce GTX 675M, are even better. They match what was included in the Maingear EX-L 15, and performed nearly identically. Street Fighter IV screamed at 161.5 frames per second at native 1,920×1,080-pixel resolution. Metro 2033, a demanding game, ran at 19.3fps at full 1080p with DX 11 and graphics settings at High. Batman: Arkham City ran at 51fps at 1080p with graphics settings at High, and DX11 off. The recently releasedDiablo III flew, at about 80fps based on my time playing. Battlefield 3 played very well at 1080p with graphics settings ramped up, too. In fact, the performance was extremely close to the Origin EON17-S, a far more expensive machine that’s the current top end of 2012 gaming systems.

By the way: keep this laptop plugged in when playing games. Even in Gamer Mode, unplugging the Series 7 Gamer from its power brick resulted in big dips in framerate for most games. To get the most out of this system’s performance (as well as hot air blasting through the back vents that feels like a space heater), stay on AC.

Don’t expect great battery life from a gaming laptop this large. The Samsung Series 7 Gamer eked by with 2 hours and 33 minutes of video playback, but expect that number to shrink way down when playing any type of game. You’ll want to keep that charge brick plugged in, which, incidentally, is gigantic.

(Credit: Sarah Tew)

Samsung includes a standard one-year warranty with the Series 7 Gamer. Samsung’s Website has an easy-to-find phone number (1-800-726-7864) and a variety of live chat support options, plus manual and driver downloads. You can gain an extra three months of warranty support by registering with Samsung.

Gaming laptops often feel like an extinct breed, and are frequently priced and sized to match. The Samsung Series 7 Gamer does nothing to subvert the stereotypes, but delivers an excellently performing, sharp-screened, fully geared-up example of the form at a price that’s exorbitant but not unearned. Simply put: Samsung’s made a big-boned gaming beast, and it’s yours for the taking if you can afford it and fit it on your desk.

Street Fighter IV (in fps)(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Native resolution, 2X AA, V sync off

Origin EON17-S (Ivy Bridge – Intel Core i7-3920XM)

216.6

Maingear EX-L 15

162.4

Samsung NP700G7C-S01US

161.5

Asus G75V

99.5

Lenovo IdeaPad Y480

59.8

Design and Features
Like most enthusiast-grade gaming laptops, the GT70 sports an eye-catching, over-the-top design. Its chassis weighs 8.37 pounds and measures 2.17 by 11.34 by 16.85 inches (HWD), so it’s not exactly the easiest system to tote around. If you do carry it around, however, you’ll likely receive a bevy of complements on the handsome system tucked under your arm, as the GT70′ sports an intricate design, which consists of a plastic body sporting a brushed aluminum lid and palm rest,.

Designed by SteelSeries, the GT70′s tiled keyboard offers a superlative typing experience, with keys that are springier than those of most laptops. The keyboard features full-colored backlighting that, via preloaded software, can be customized in a few different ways, from a dual-color arrangement to a “breathing” light effect wherein the user-selected colors gently pulsate. Touch-sensitive LEDs above the keyboard include a Cooler Boost button to increase the fan speed, toggles for the keyboard backlighting and display, and a Turbo Drive Engine button that purportedly optimizes performance by maxing out the power settings in a vein similar to the “Turbo” setting on the Samsung Series 7 Gamer‘s $1,899.00 at Walmart.comMode Dial. Though most of your attention will undoubtedly be directed towards the lovely keyboard, the touchpad and its accompanying mouse buttons, meanwhile, work smoothly and provide excellent tactile feedback.

Gaming is obviously a visually intensive experience, and the GT70′s matte-finished 17.3-inch 1,920-by-1,080 display delivers with aplomb. During use, it’s hard not to admire the crisp colors and deep, inky blacks. Likewise, video playback looks fantastic, especially when you toss a Blu-ray disc into the GT70′s Blu-ray burner. Yes, you read that correctl—the GT70′s built-in optical drive can also write Blu-ray discs, a singular feature that sets it apart from other systems in its class, like the Alienware M17x R4$2,224.00 at Dell, for instance, which can play Blu-rays but only burn DVDs. Through dual speakers housed in metallic grilles directly beneath the display and a built-in subwoofer, audio is pumped out at fairly loud volumes thanks to an added boost by THX TruStudio Pro software. Though not exactly ground-shaking, the built-in speakers are good for a laptop. That said, though, the GT70 is clearly designed to be hooked up to a surround sound system, as suggested by the multiple gold-plated audio jack ports and built-in amplifier.

The GT70 is loaded with ports. Alongside the Blu-ray burner, the right side houses two USB 2.0 ports. Meanwhile, the left side features the aforementioned gold-plated audio jacks, three USB 3.0 ports, and a 7-in-1 card reader (with SD and Memory Stick compatibility). At the rear of the GT70, you’ll find an eSATA port in between VGA and HDMI-out ports.

As far as storage goes, the GT70 manages to be both capacious and quick, coming equipped with a pair of 128GB solid-state drives (SSD) arranged in a RAID 0 (striped) array alongside a 7,200 RPM 750GB spinning hard drive. Unlike the Alienware M17x, though, there’s a good amount of preloaded software included on the GT70, some of which can be classified as bloatware, and that gamers would immediately uninstall, like 30-day trial versions of Norton Online Backup and the 2012 edition of Trend’s Micro Internet Security suite, as well as 7-day trials of Magix Music Maker and Magix Video Easy SE.

Performance
The combination of a 2.30GHz Intel Core i7-3610QM processor and 4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX, along with 16GB RAM, made the laptop a solid performer in our benchmark tests. While its PCMark 7 score of 4,875 points fell short of the class-leading Origin EON17-S (5,461 points), it nonetheless topped the rest of its class, including the M17x (4,598 points). Despite performing admirably, however, the GT70 didn’t fare as well in our multimedia tests. It completed our Handbrake video encoding test in 1 minute 17 seconds, falling markedly short of the Origin EON17 (1:01) and, to a lesser extent, the Alienware M17x (1:12). Its Cinebench R11.5 score of 6.19, meanwhile, ranked at the bottom of the class and was even outflanked by the substantially cheaper Series 7 Gamer (6.23). Meanwhile, the 3 minutes and 23 seconds it took for the GT70 to complete our Photoshop CS5 test was on par with the Series 7 Gamer (3:23) but was a second slower than the MSI GT70 0NC-011US (3:22) and was significantly outpaced by the Origin EON17 (2:27).

As far as gaming goes, the GT70 unsurprisingly crossed the 30 frames per second (fps) playability barrier without breaking a sweat, but its frame rates were lower than the rest of its class. In our Crysis benchmark tests, its performance (93fps in medium quality at 1,024-by-768 resolution; 36fps in high quality at native resolution) were eclipsed by both the Alienware M17x (98fps and 38fps, respectively) and the Origin EON17 (120fps and 41fps, respectively). On the other hand, though, the GT70′s performance on our Lost Planet 2 benchmark tests (148ps in medium quality at 1,024-by-768 resolution; 63fps in high quality at native resolution) dominated the rest of the pack, save for the Alienware M17x (159fps and 77fps, respectively). Likewise, its entry-level 3DMark11 score of 8,726 points came in second place behind the Alienware M17x (9,023).

Given their emphasis on unbridled performance, gaming laptops aren’t renowned for stellar battery life. Even with lowered expectations, the GT70s’ removable battery yielded underwhelming results. In MobileMark, it lasted 2 hours 16 minutes, falling slightly short of both the Origin EON17 (2:33) and Alienware M17x (2:36) and significantly behind the MSI70 0NC (5:29).

There is plenty to like about the MSI GT70 0NE-276US, like its inspired design, built-in Blu-ray burner, and beautiful display. At the end of the day, however, performance is the only thing that matters about gaming laptops, and the Alienware M17x R4 outguns the GT70 almost entirely across the board while sporting the same price tag, and it remains the system to beat.

In the 17-inch laptop gaming category the Alienware M17x is still the daddy of the bunch, with the likes of the Medion Erazer X7815, the MSI GT70 and the Samsung Series 7 Gamer playing second fiddle. And, at this point, it’s only MSI that has matched Alienware by playing its Ivy Bridge hand.

Looks-wise, the Alienware M17x 2012 version isn’t any different to theAlienware M17x gaming laptop that wowed us last year. It’s a colossal 17.3-inch HD machine, complete with garish lights and a neo-industrial design that wouldn’t look out of place onboard the spacecraft Prometheus. The exciting new additions are all buried deep within the M17x’s brutish chassis.

The most notable of these additions is the inclusion of a third-generation, Ivy Bridge, Intel Core CPU. The model we reviewed packed an i7-3610QM processor; a four-core monster clocked at a nominal 2.3GHz, which can be pumped full of Intel Turbo Boost steroids to achieve a top-speed of 3.3GHz.

There are also new graphic processing options on offer from both Nvidia and AMD and, proving that the third-dimension fad isn’t dead just yet, you can also opt for a Full HD 120Hz 3D display.

This being an Alienware machine, you can choose to configure the setup to match your exact gaming needs. Prices start from £999/$1,099, with our review model costing £1,089 in the UK and $1,274 in the US. You can seriously max out your credit card if you decide to go for the top CPU (i7-3820QM), extra RAM, a larger SSD hard drive and some of the other bits and bobs on offer from Dell’s gaming brand.

We managed to configure one up to over £4,650/$3,514 before we had heart palpitations and had to stop. And that’s without touching accessories or peripherals.

The smallest Alienware model, the 11-inch Alienware M11x, has seemingly been put out to pasture, with the company telling TechRadar that the focus going forward was on 14, 17 and 18-inch machines.

But the Alienware M11x wasn’t really a machine suitable for a serious gaming session. For the purists, 17 inches of screen real-estate is the bare minimum.

Specifications

The combination of the latest generation Intel CPU technology and the latest graphics cards makes the Alienware M17x a colossal gaming machine that is more than capable of smashing through the latest blockbuster titles such asDiablo III, Batman: Arkham City and Sniper Elite V2.

Our review model was packing a quad-core 2.3GHz Intel i7-3610QM processor, which can be topped out at 3.3GHz using Intel’s second-gen Turbo Boost technology.

Combine this with a seriously powerful GPU punch courtesy of an AMD Radeon HD 7970M configuration and you’re looking at a top-end gaming machine more than worthy of its hefty price tag. There’s also Intel HD 4000 graphics as part of the Ivy Bridge package, meaning DirectX 11 support.

You can opt for a beefier CPU should you wish, with two more i7 chips available for selection – with Turbo Boost-assisted speeds of up to 3.7GHz – and you can also go for Nvidia graphics with both the GeForce GTX 675M and the GTX 660M on offer.

The impressive spec sheet doesn’t end there, however. You can select up to 32GB of RAM (our review sample cruised through everything we threw at it, just fine, with 8GB installed), the 17.3-inch display is of the Full HD 1080p variety and there’s a 2.1 megapixel webcam. It also has a slot-loading optical drive on the side; the review model had a DVD combo drive, but you can opt for a Blu-ray reader if you wish.

You might think that all of this rugged power may result in an explosion of noise, fan activity and a heat overload but, as with previous Alienware notebooks, this is not that case, thanks to its large heatsinks and dual rear exhausts that provide dedicated cooling for all threads and cores of both the CPU and GPU.

If you’ve not laid eyes on one of Alienware’s gaming rigs before, prepare your peepers for an assault of colour and gare. The Alienware M17x certainly doesn’t shy away from extravagance with its unique sci-fi-esque casing and its (in)famous AlienFX lighting system that enables you to set the backlight colours for the keys, speaker grills, buttons, ports and logos.

If you want a nice, calming, cool blue effect then you can have it. Equally, if you want your Alienware M17x flashing bright red neon lights at you continuously, like a panicking air traffic control warning system, then that’s an option too. With 512 trillion distinct lighting combinations, we’ll stop with specific examples now.

And you’ll not be found wanting when it comes to connectivity and port-based fun. As well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, you’ve also got access to four USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI 1.4 port, a mini-DisplayPort, Ethernet action, an SD card reader, a VGA socket, optical digital output, separate headphone and microphone jacks, and a dedicated headset output. It leaves no boxes unticked.

Travel-friendly the Alienware M17x is not, however, despite the improved battery life on previous generations of 133 minutes under stress. You’ll not only need a big bag to slide the M17x into, since it measures a chunky 410 x 304 x 44.5mm, you’ll also need a strong back to handle its 4.4kg weight.

As you’d expect with the hardcore engine room, the Alienware M17x had little trouble dealing with any task that we threw its way. HD video was handled with a buttery smoothness, recent games titles caused it no signs of despair, and high-resolution photo editing was done with hardly any fuss.

In terms of raw benchmarking scores, the Alienware M17x recorded some of the highest totals that we’ve seen on a mobile PC.

Most people who decide to splash their hard earned pennies on the Alienware M17x will be doing so with some hardcore gaming sessions in mind. And those buyers won’t be disappointed, since it has no issues with the top settings of graphically demanding titles and you’ll comfortably get 60fps+ if you turn things down just a little.

There’s also a plethora of onboard configuration settings at your disposal, including the AlienAdrenaline feature that enables you to customise your M17x’s software behaviour when certain games are running; AlienTouch, which gives you complete control over the trackpad’s sensitivity and means less annoying accidental movements; and AlienFusion for souping up the performance levels (or indeed, toning them down) at the touch of a button.

Boot times are also quick, thanks to the dual SSD and HDD setup. The machine we tested had a 64GB mSATA SSD to take care of Windows 7 booting, as well as a 500GB HDD for storing your digital life.

You can configure the hard drive setup on your own Alienware pretty much any way that you choose, with an array of RAID and high-speed mSATA caching configurations available.

The audio quality of the Alienware M17x is fantastic, thanks to the Creative Sound Blaster THX 7.1 setup and the stereo speakers designed by audio specialist Klipsch. There are a number of pre-set equalisations installed for you to get the most out of this setup – we particularly liked the Crystalizer mode.

Although of the non-3D variety, the Full HD 17.3-inch display on our review sample impressed us greatly. It’s a bit reflective so is better suited for indoor, darker environments, but then the Alienware M17x isn’t exactly the type of laptop you’d want to take to the park with you anyway.

Viewing angles are great and colours are incredibly vibrant thanks to the 621:1 contrast ratio and 298cd/m2 maximum brightness.

The keyboard keys, whatever colour you choose to have emitted from them, are soft to touch with a comforting rubber-like bounce that makes them not only great for gaming but also for more day-to-day tasks such as browsing the web, tapping out an email or knocking up a quick spreadsheet.

The trackpad, which is offset just to the left of centre, also has a smooth rubberised finish, and you’ll not hear a peep from either of its buttons, such is the soft travel that is provided.

Benchmarks

Cinebench: 21,321
3DMark: 23,001
Battery eater: 133 mins

If you’ve been waiting for a next-gen Intel Core gaming machine to land then there’s really no need to hang around any longer. The Alienware M17x is a significant improvement on what was already a brilliant machine.

The Ivy Bridge CPU boosts performance to almost unseen-before benchmark scores, and the latest Nvidia and AMD graphics tech packed in means that you’ll have no hassle when it comes to playing the latest must-have games.

Its bulky frame and ostentatious exterior may make the M17x a specialist laptop but, within the 17-inch gaming notebook market, when it comes to the functions that it specialises in there are few, if any, rivals that come close.

We liked

The Alienware M17x’s gaudy chassis screams high-tech performance, and you won’t be disappointed when you fire it up and get it purring.

It handles HD media and high-end gaming with aplomb, and the build quality is a reassuring reminder of the impressive tech that’s hidden deep within the rugged chassis.

It’s difficult to get lost in a laptop like you can with a big screen TV, but the Alienware M17x manages to completely absorb you using a combo of its lightning-fast, vibrant HD display and the incredibly loud surround sound setup.

We disliked

Although falling into the category of a mobile PC just by virtue of being a laptop, you wouldn’t want to be carrying the Alienware M17x around with you for a long period of time. Tipping the scales at a shade over 4.4kg and measuring almost 5cm at its thickest point, it would be the equivalent of lugging around four Ultrabooks with you, or seven iPads.

Battery life still isn’t great, despite the Ivy Bridge update – although you’re likely to want to be near a mains socket when using the Alienware M17x, anyway.

Final verdict

Despite its chunky frame and weighty anatomy, the Alienware M17x is the perfect gaming machine and also a fantastic desktop replacement, thanks to its impressive HD media features.

The performance is lightning fast, there aren’t many (if any) demanding tasks that seem to bother it and you needn’t worry about longevity, since it’s packing a wealth of cutting-edge, latest generation technology.

While not cheap, its price tag is certainly comparable to its main rivals, such as the Ivy Bridge-packing MSI GT70, and buyers will be investing in one of the best laptop gaming experiences – if not the best – that there is.

What buyers lose with the lack of built-in expandable storage options and the omission of a back camera, they’ll gain in complete OS flexibility in a powerful and cheap tablet.

Design
Yep, the Nexus 7 is yet another black tablet (unless you got one with a white back at Google I/O) in the long line of black tablets. Yet, it does its best to break from the cookie cutter mold of most slates. Chief among those efforts is a rubbery, leathery, grippy back texture, similar to what we saw on the Acer Iconia Tab A510, but with both “Nexus” and “Asus” embossed on it. It may not look like much, but the inclusion of this seemingly small bit of design panache makes the tablet one of the most comfortable I’ve ever held.

Then there’s the bezel. Held in portrait, the right and left side bezels of the tablet are refreshingly thin, while the top and bottom are thicker than what I usually find on 7-inch tablets. While the thicker bezel design can be useful as a place to rest your thumbs while holding the tablet, they are a bit too thick for my taste and make the tablet feel needlessly long.

Holding the very comfy Nexus 7.(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Speaking of holding, the Nexus 7 is noticeably lighter than the Kindle Fire and, thanks to its beveled bottom and painted silver trim, actually looks thinner. Or at least sleeker. There’s definitely some kind of slimming illusion going on, as I wasn’t the only one to think it’s much skinnier than the Kindle Fire. Turns out, it is thinner, but only by 0.04 inch.

Only slightly thinner than the Kindle Fire, the Nexus 7 looks sleeker thanks to its beveled bottom.(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

I usually describe tablet feature placement from a landscape perspective, but given that Google changed the way the Home screen functions, I’ve been forced to adjust. When the Nexus 7 is held in portrait mode and viewed from the front, the 1.2-megapixel front camera sitting in the middle of the top bezel is the lone distinguishable feature. On the right edge toward the top is the power/lock button, closely followed by the volume rocker. Following the right edge down and around to the bottom reveals a headphone jack, with a Micro-USB port in the middle of bottom edge. Right above that, on the back is a horizontally aligned 2-inch-long speaker slit.

That’s it, though. No memory expansion, no HDMI out, and no back camera are included. Their exclusion is likely a cost-saving measure, but also makes the tablet that much more approachable for the tablet layman.

The Nexus 7 will be the first device to ship with the latest incarnation of the Android OS, version 4.1, also known as Jelly Bean. Though Android 4.1 on the Nexus 7 is just as customizable as previous incarnations of the OS, the way it’s presented here feels much more controlled and focused, and while a bit less intimidating to the uninitiated, it also feels a bit constraining.

Part of the reason is the way the home screen now works. Well, it works the same as it does on every other Android tablet, allowing you vast customization options, but now if you turn the tablet to landscape mode the screen won’t rotate. It rotates fine in apps, but as soon as you tap that home button, you’re back in portrait mode. Not the biggest deal in the world, but it does contribute to a slight tinge of claustrophobia when navigating and can be quite annoying. To me, at least. Google may see it as a safety net: if you get scared or confused, just press this home button and return to the comforting bosom of the home screen in the same orientation you remember. Not a bad compromise if Google is indeed going after a mass audience with this tablet.

The dock on the bottom of the home screen is filled mostly with Google services apps like Play, Music, Books, and Magazines. There’s also a folder housing Chrome — the default browser — as well as Google Maps, Google Plus, Gmail, and other services. Directly in the middle of the tray is the apps button. Swiping up from the home button and across the apps button takes you to Google Now, Google’s new predictive personalized helper.

Google Now displays information like the current weather, local bus schedules, and nearby restaurants you may be interested in. While this can be useful on the Nexus 7 if you’re near a Wi-Fi connection, it loses its appeal if you’re already outside, waiting for a bus, and is much more useful on a phone.

Android 4.1′s toolbar and nonrotating home screen make the OS feel very claustrophobic on the Nexus 7.(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

As mentioned, there’s a 1.2-megapixel camera on the front, but there’s no actual camera app included. Unless Google adds one before release, it looks like video conferencing is all the camera will be used for. To which my response is, “Why even include a camera, then?” Google’s response is Google Plus hangouts.

Google Play plays nicely, but not cheaply
In keeping with the “Google’s gunning for the Kindle Fire” theme, Google Play has been updated to include TV shows, purchasable movies, and magazines, finally bringing the store into modern times. After browsing through a few HD and standard-definition TV shows, it appears that Google’s prices for complete seasons match the prices for the same shows on iTunes. However, on the Kindle Fire, prices were routinely much cheaper compared even with the SD versions on Google Play — though those lower prices are offset by the cost of an Amazon Prime membership.

Yay! Purchasable TV shows on Google Play! Now we can all (legally) watch movies on our Android devices!(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Also, a couple of shows on Google Play like “Breaking Bad” and “Justified” currently offer only the latest season, while Amazon Instant offers the complete series; however, the complete series of other shows like “The Walking Dead” and “Parks and Recreation” are available. This is a rights issue more than anything and the catalog should hopefully improve over time.

Movies and TV shows purchased through Google Play will stream by default and you’ll have to manually download them if you want them stored locally. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time, and it’s exciting that Android owners finally have an official, fast, and legal way of getting movies and TV shows on their devices.

Android 4.1 teaches typing
One of the purported new Android 4.1 features is improved precision when typing on the soft keyboard. After taking the Nexus 7 out of the box, I wanted to quickly put this to the test. I usually make lots of mistakes when texting on my iPhone 4 or even when testing typing precision on other tablets, so my typing skills aren’t exactly legendary. However, when signing in to my Google account on the Nexus 7, I was able to type quickly, without making a single mistake.

While I did eventually begin making mistakes (and plenty of them, of course), the majority of the time I felt much more like they were my own errors and not the tablet misinterpreting my taps. It’s obviously not perfect, but it is an improvement over what I’ve experienced on Android tablets before.

Siri-ous voice recognition
There’s also now a Siri-like voice recognition app that allows you to search the Web with your voice. It’s not so much an assistant like Siri — it won’t schedule meetings for you or remind you to call your wife when you leave work — but it will recognize phrases like “Who are the Oakland A’s playing today?” and return the answer via a voice response as well as a crude graphic showing a recent final score. “Where can I get some pizza?” returns a Google Maps listing of restaurants nearby that serve pizza. The current version of Siri on the iPhone 4S could keep up with the food queries, but not so much the sports.

Other queries, like, “Show me pictures of ‘X,’” worked really quickly to deliver an assortment of pictures matching your subject. The same goes for word definitions. Again, while cool, this is another feature that will probably get little use on the tablet and be more at home on phones.

Hardware features
The quad-core Tegra 3 inside the Nexus 7 is the same 1.3GHz chip we’ve seen in most recent Android tablets, including the 12-core GPU. The Nexus 7 also includes 1GB of DDR2 RAM, as opposed to the faster DDR3 RAM the Asus TF300 uses. The Nexus 7 also has 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi support, Bluetooth, a gyroscope, an accelerometer, and GPS. There’s also support for Google’s NFC-based technology, Android Beam.

That top-right corner is the only place Android Beam works on the Nexus 7. Bad Nexus 7!(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

With Android Beam you can send Web pages, maps, and files, but not apps, however. To work, the two compatible devices have to touch back to back, and in the case of the Nexus 7 the device must touch the upper-right corner of the tablet’s back to work. And work it does. Web pages or maps travel fast; however, pictures and larger files obviously take a bit more time to copy over.

Performance
The Nexus 7 sports an IPS screen with a wider viewing angle than the Kindle Fire’s and even wider than you see on some 10-inch Android tablets. The 1,280×800-pixel resolution packed into a 7-inch display gives visuals like text and graphics a sharper look than what I’m typically used to seeing on most 7-inchers.

The screen is responsive to touch and swipe, but possibly could use just a bit more sensitivity calibration, as some of my swipes would only half take.

Riptide GP ran smoothly, and, of course, it includes the Tegra 3 water-splash effects; however, the frame rate does drop when the resolution is cranked to max. Both GTA 3 and Max Payne Mobile looked as good as they do on any tablet, save the Transformer Infinity or iPad.

That said, I feel it’s make or break time for the Tegra 3. It’s been six month since its release, and we’ve still yet to see a killer, exclusive game that takes advantage of its quad-core architecture. Infinity Blade on the iPad is approachable, additive, takes advantage of the iPad’s GPU to produce gorgeous visuals, and above all, it’s fun. For a while at least. Tegra 3 needs its own “Infinity Blade” (actually, several killer apps would be nice) to avoid being anything other than a stopgap.

Tegra 3 needs more native games, developed from the ground up that take advantage of the architecture. Riptide GP is great, but aside from the screen splashy effects, it looks and runs better on the iPad.(Credit: Screenshot: Eric Franklin/CNET)

That said, Tegra 3 has video chops. I got a 1080p movie to play on the tablet, and it looked great, especially with the screen’s high pixel density.

As for battery life, Google says to expect 9 hours while playing HD video. Using the device casually for a day or so, I found that its battery drained at about the same speed as the Kindle Fire’s. Here are our official CNET Labs-tested battery life results. More tablet testing results can be found here.

This shot doesn’t illustrate any particular performance aspect. I just like it.(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

I found Web speeds matched those of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, but on average were faster than the Kindle Fire’s. App download speeds were identical to the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0′s speeds; I downloaded a 218MB version of Deer Hunter Reloaded in 122 seconds. This score was averaged over three iterations with the closed network router about 5 feet away from the tablets.

The speaker slit is located on the bottom back of the tablet. The sound that emanates is fairly loud and full, without much distortion, even at maximum volume. One word of advice: when using the speakers, keep the tablet laid flat on its back. In this position the sound is able to bounce off whatever surface it’s on and reverberate, creating a echo that increases the fullness of the acoustics. Look, I’m no audiophile, but I was impressed considering the size of the tablet.

Final thoughts
The Nexus 7′s screen looks great and feels responsive; the tablet feels well-built and does a good job of demonstrating its power in games and movie performance. The lack of built-in expandable storage or a back camera is a bummer, but it’s understandable given the dirt-low $200 (for 8GB; $250 for 16GB) price.

Google is off to a good start here. The specs are impressive, the Android 4.1 OS feels simplified while retaining its flexibility, and TV shows and purchasable movies are welcome additions to the Google Play store. However, while the Nexus 7 is clearly the best 7-inch tablet available, Kindle Fire owners will still be treated to a better-implemented ecosystem and more video options, especially if they’re Amazon Prime members.

To be an iPad killer, you’d need to gather a universe-size amount of app support. And that would only be your first step. The Nexus 7 isn’t an iPad killer, but it could be the first step on the road to a much more competitive tablet market.

Editor’s note: Thanks to its comfortable design and light weight compared to the Amazon Kindle HD (7-inch), we’ve bumped the Nexus 7′s design score from a 7 to an 8. Its overall rating hasn’t changed.

When I tell you that Apple has doubled the iPad’s screen resolution to an unprecedented 2,048×1,536 pixels, your eyes should water a little. No other screen in your home can compete with this resolution–not your laptop, not your desktop computer, not even your 1080p TV. For a device that fits in your lap and costs as little as $499, a screen like this is an impressive feat.

Speaking of pricing, the going rate for an iPad hasn’t changed since the tablet’s introduction in 2010. The $499 entry-level price buys you 16GB of built-in storage; spending $599 buys you twice the room (32GB); and $699 will bring you up to 64GB. All three models can access the Internet over Wi-Fi and are available in either black or white. If you want the added ability to access the Internet over a 4G or 3G cellular network (Verizon or AT&T), tack on an extra $130.

For the iPad uninitiated looking to save a little money, Apple is keeping around the 2011 iPad 2 (16GB), priced at $399 or $529 for a model with 3G (AT&T or Verizon). It’s a good price, especially considering that the iPad 2 is still leagues better than many of the tablets we’ve seen this year. But if you want the bragging rights and a renewed lease on the cutting edge of tablet technology, the new iPad is the way to go.

Design
Looking at the new iPad, you’d think someone was playing a trick on you. It looks almost exactly like last year’s model. The tablet’s glass and aluminum construction is still 9.5 inches tall and 7.31 inches wide. Thickness is now up slightly at 0.37 inch, weighing in at a beefier 1.44 pounds. You get the same home button on the bottom of the screen, and a volume rocker on the right side along with the mute switch/rotation lock. Up top you have the sleep/wake button and headphone output, and the bottom edge retains the 30-pin port.

*Multifinger gesture support, such as four-finger swipe to toggle apps, or five-finger pinch to close apps.

Apple’s retreat from being one of the thinnest, lightest tablets on the market may leave some room for competitors. Already, we’re seeing tablets like the Toshiba Excite X10 LE, which are thinner than the iPad 2 and just as light. Apple is betting that a best-in-class screen will trump any concerns over the slight uptick in weight and thickness. And if they’re wrong, well, the iPad 2 is still around for those who can’t bear the extra 51 grams.

But the surefire way to tell a new iPad apart from an iPad 2 (aside from counting pixels or breaking out the scale) is to flip them over. No, this isn’t a tablet gender test; what you’re looking for here is the rear camera in the top-left corner. On the new model, the camera is slightly larger, accounting for the improved optics and camera sensor, similar to what’s used in theiPhone 4S (though not identical).

New features
Beyond the vastly improved screen there are a number of other upgrades worth mentioning. The iPad’s processor has been upgraded to what Apple is calling an A5X. Like the A5 processor used in the iPad 2, this CPU remains dual-core. The “X” is there to signify that the graphics processor has been beefed up to quad-core. This seems to be a necessary measure for juggling four times the pixels of the previous model, but regardless, games and graphics perform fluidly.

Against everyone’s expectations, Apple did not include its Siri digital assistant on the new iPad–at least, not entirely. Siri’s voice-to-text dictation capability has migrated to the iPad, but that’s it. If you want to find nearby sushi restaurants, you’re going to have to search for the answer online, like a neanderthal.

Still, the addition of voice dictation is a welcome feature, and it can be handy for composing quick e-mails and bypassing the touch-screen keyboard when searching for information online. Its accuracy leaves a little to be desired, though. Just like autocorrected typing, the iPad’s dictation isn’t infallible.

Last but not least, there’s the iPad’s updated rear camera, which the company calls its iSight camera. It is a huge improvement over the iPad 2′s 0.7-megapixel shooter; this updated shooter is now 5 megapixels. If you’ve spent any time over on Apple’s iPad page, you’ve probably seen the exploded view of Apple’s five-element lens system, which was adopted from the iPhone. However you want to explain it, the photo quality is exceptional for a tablet, and we have the photos to prove it.

I still contend that it’s a bit silly waving a tablet around to capture photos and video, but I understand the counterpoint and I’ll admit that the iPad’s screen makes a better display than any camera, smartphone, or photo frame.

Features we take for granted
Let’s not forget all the features that made the first two iPads unbeatable. If you’ve ever used an iPhone or iPod Touch, the new iPad will feel immediately familiar. Out of the box, you get many of the iPhone’s capabilities, including Apple-designed apps for Web browsing, e-mail, maps, photos, music, video, and YouTube. More apps can be installed using the built-in App Store software or by connecting the iPad to iTunes via your computer using the included cable. If you already own apps purchased for an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can transfer these apps to the iPad, as well.

The original iPad made its debut with iOS 3.2. That OS’ limitations seem prehistoric today. You couldn’t bounce between applications with multitasking. You couldn’t organize applications into folders. And support for document printing and AirPlay streaming of music, videos, and photos didn’t arrive until November 2010.

At launch, the new iPad comes with iOS 5.1 (see our full rundown). Recently added features such as iMessage, Newsstand, Notifications, and Twitter integration are all included, along with support for Apple’s free iCloud online backup service.

One sticking point in the original iPad that Apple hasn’t addressed in the new iPad is Adobe Flash support for Apple’s Safari Web browser. Apple seems dead set against supporting Adobe’s popular tool for presenting video and graphics on the Web, and without it, some corners of the Web are still inaccessible on the iPad.

To Apple’s credit, even the maker of Flash (Adobe) has conceded that HTML5 is a better solution for presenting content on mobile devices going forward. As such, the Web is steadily bending toward greater compatibility with the iPad, and the issue of Flash compatibility seems less contentious than it once was.

In terms of browser features, the iPad’s Safari browser matches what you’ll find from the best competing tablets. With Google’s recent improvements to Android’s Chrome Web browser in Android 4.0, Apple now has some tough competition.

But in terms of the subjective Web-browsing experience, Apple’s Retina Display gives the new iPad a decisive victory. Because text is rendered with such razor-sharp clarity, everything from Facebook to The New York Times take on a printlike quality that is easier on the eyes than what any laptop or tablet offers.

To 4G or not to 4G?
For those who just get a little itchy at the idea of not being connected to the Internet, Apple offers a version of the iPad with an integrated 4G cellular data connection, priced at a $130 premium over models that only offer Wi-Fi.

The jury seems split on whether the added cost of a cellular data capability is money well spent, or an unnecessary expense. Ultimately, if you can afford it, do it. Aside from the 10 grams it adds to the iPad’s overall weight, there are no drawbacks to owning an iPad 4G model other than the data plan it requires. Yet, unlike so many 4G tablets on the market, Apple’s requires no contracts; the data plans you purchase month to month can be ratcheted up and down as you please.

Another advantage of iPad with 4G is the added capability of assisted GPS (A-GPS), allowing users to accurately pinpoint their locations on a map and take advantage of navigation and location-aware apps. The Wi-Fi-only models of the iPad can use rudimentary Wi-Fi hot-spot triangulation techniques to guess locations, but are much less accurate and consistent.

The 4G version of the iPad also includes a 4G hot-spot capability, allowing other Wi-Fi devices (laptops, tablets, portable media players) to take advantage of the cellular data. At launch, only Verizon’s iPad 4G supported this hot-spot feature, but AT&T may eventually offer the service, as well. Our tested download and upload speeds using the iPad as a 4G hot spot found a slight, but negligible drop in data performance.

If you have no plans to regularly use the iPad outside of your home, you’d do just as well to save some money and stick with a Wi-Fi model. But if you do take the plunge, the 4G download performance on either network should knock your socks off, provided that you live in an area that supports it. For more, see our separate CNET How To on choosing the right carrier for the iPad, as well as a side-by-side comparison of each carrier’s 4G LTE service.

iPad as e-reader
As far as e-book content goes, the iPad has you covered. Every major e-book retailer (and quite a few specialized stores) offer an iPad app, including Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Kobo, Google Books, Stanza, and Apple’s own iBooks.

Mainstream magazines, including The New Yorker, Wired, and Vanity Fair, all have iPad-specific editions. Even specialty publications, such as comic books, test prep, and sheet music, have found their way onto the iPad.

But when you compare the experience of reading on the iPad with its paper-based ancestor or dedicated e-ink readers, the iPad still falls short. It’s beefy at 1.44 pounds (a Kindle Touchweighs under half a pound), and in spite of the Retina Display’s exquisitely rendered text, glare is still an issue–especially outdoors. Also, a product like the Nook Simple Touch promises up to two months of reading without a recharge, whereas the iPad will only get you 10 hours.

In spite of all these criticisms, the iPad has already proven itself a success as an e-reader. There are certainly cheaper options out there, but none with the breadth of features and e-book shopping options offered by the iPad.

iPad for gaming
If you don’t have a game installed on your iPad, I feel sorry for you. Whether it’s a simple round of Scrabble or an intense romp through Grand Theft Auto 3, the iPad’s combination of Retina Display and quad-core graphics processor add up to a dramatic improvement for gaming.

Even your old games will look and perform better on the new iPad. It’s not like the old days when games designed for the original iPhone had to be stretched and deformed to fill the iPad’s screen. Games that look great on the iPad 2, such as Cut the Rope, Infinity Blade, and Fruit Ninja, look as though they’ve had a haze cleared from the screen. I’m sure there’s some resolution scaling involved, but there were no visible artifacts that we could pick out. Everything just looks smooth and crisp.

And for titles that have been optimized for the new iPad’s screen and graphics processor, plan your sick day now. Games like Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy and Mass Effect 3 Infiltrator look as though they were beamed over from your Xbox 360.

You still lack the physical controls of a traditional console, though, and for serious gamers, there’s still a case to be made for portable gaming systems like the PS Vita and Nintendo 3DS.

Gamers should also be aware that as the iPad’s games increase in sophistication and resolution, and so might their file size. Epic’s Infinity Blade 2 is 791MB, and two of Gameloft’s Modern Combat titles break the gigabyte barrier. A 16GB iPad doesn’t hold what it used to.

App sizes pre- and post-Retina update

Performance
Don’t be fooled by the new iPad’s spec sheet. The bumps in processing power and RAM are balanced out by the demands of the Retina Display and processing the types of high-resolution content you’ll be feeding it. The experience of poking around the music player or composing an e-mail are seemingly no swifter than on the iPad 2.

Fortunately, we never found the iPad 2 lacking in system performance power. There were things it simply couldn’t do, such as play 1080p video files, but it seldom sputtered or hung while browsing the Web or loading apps.

The new iPad’s maximum brightness is slightly higher than the iPad 2′s, but it can’t match the Android 4.0-based Asus Transformer Prime in Super IPS mode. The Prime’s Super IPS mode’s high brightness is useful when using the tablet in direct sunlight. At the other end of the spectrum, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1′s PLS-based display delivers a lower maximum black level.

While the new iPad’s screen is gorgeous, it still can’t technically match the luminance extremes of these two popular Android tablets. But thanks to the visual impact of the new iPad’s high-resolution display, it’s an easy detail to look past. If you do crank up the iPad’s brightness, be prepared to take a hit on battery life.

With the new iPad, 1080p video files will play just fine, and are ironically upscaled to the screen’s native resolution. These video files take a huge bite out of the iPad’s capacity, though, with a movie like “Hugo” coming in at 3.99GB. If you’re going to store a lot of HD media, spring for the extra capacity.

The same caveat goes for the iPad’s new rear camera, which offers a dramatically improved 5-megapixel still camera and 1080p video-recording quality. A test photo and sample video can be seen below. In both cases (but especially for video) these high-quality files will eat up space over time, so don’t skimp on capacity if you plan on using the camera often.

(Credit: CNET Asia)

Here’s a test shot taken with the iPad’s rear camera. 

The 4G data speeds on the Verizon model of the new iPad were as swift as we’d expect. As someone who’s more accustomed to using the iPad at home or work, I have to admit that it was pretty liberating to have Wi-Fi-like speeds while out and about. Even more liberating was the fact that the iPad’s data plans require no contracts and can be canceled or reactivated any time.

It’s also worth noting that use of 4G and/or graphically intensive games does tend to make the back of the new iPad fairly warm. After stress testing the new iPad exhaustively while measuring its temperature, we can confidently say that the slight uptick in heat compared to the iPad 2 is not a safety concern. On a cold day, maybe the extra warmth could actually come in handy.

Apple’s rated battery for the new iPad remains at a 10-hour mark that still befuddles the competition. With 4G active, this number slips down to a still admirable 9 hours.

Here are the official CNET Labs-tested battery life results. Check here on specific information on testing the new iPad’s battery and here for battery life results for all tablets.

Accessories
Fortunately, Apple hasn’t done anything to monkey around with the iPad’s universal dock connection. Generally speaking, if you could plug it into the first two iPads, it should work with the new one as well. This goes for charging cables, video adapters (such as Apple’s HDMI-compatible Digital AV Adapter), Apple’s Camera Connection kit, or any in-car adapter cables. Apple has released an updated version of its HDMI Digital AV Adapter that is optimized for the new iPad, but the older adapter will still work.

If you’d prefer to beam content wirelessly from your iPad to your TV, the little hockey-puck-size$99 Apple TV is the way to go. Aside from working as a great standalone media streamer for iTunes downloads, Netflix, and others, you can also use it to push media from your iPad to your TV (a feature Apple calls AirPlay).

For the minimalists, Apple’s Smart Cover remains the go-to solution for protecting your iPad’s screen. It uses a unique hinged cover that comes in two materials–leather ($59) and polyurethane ($39)–and multiple colors. It attaches magnetically to the left or right edge of the iPad 2 using two aluminum hinges embedded with impressively strong rare-earth magnets.

As accessories go, the Smart Cover is nifty–not so much for the protection it offers, but for the convenient stand it provides when rolled up. If, on the other hand, you are seriously concerned about protecting your investment, keeping the iPad in a traditional wraparound case is still the best way to go.

Who should buy it?
If you’ve waited this long to buy your first iPad, congratulations! Buy with confidence that this is the best iPad yet. That said, the price of a new iPad has you cringing, there are a number of more affordable iPad alternatives out there.

For existing iPad owners, I would liken this to the time you upgraded your TV to a high-definition model. All things being equal, if this is something you’re going to look at every day, you may as well invest in the remarkably better screen.

Will the iPad’s screen be matched or bested by a better or cheaper product in the near future? Possibly. But even if an Android tablet manufacturer throws one out there, the general dearth of tablet-optimized Android apps to run on it will take some time to overcome.

For a more in-depth take on this question, see “Here’s who should buy the new iPad.”

Final thoughts
When the original iPad bounded out of the starting gate, it took a huge lead before its competitors figured out what was going on. With the iPad 2, Apple lapped the competition once more by setting design expectations that were nearly impossible to match. The third iPad employs a similar tactic, dramatically raising our collective expectations of tablet screen quality. Placed next to the competition, the superior product is literally plain to see.

Senior Editor Eric Franklin contributed to this review.