|
|
Reviews Around The Web
|
Choose Web Reviews from this Maker:
|
|
|
|
Monday, June 4, 2007
|
|
|
|
|
I've been a fan of iriver products for a while now. Like many electronics companies they are primarily based overseas. As such, we in the States miss out on a handful of nifty little gadgets that our Asian or European brothers and sisters have in abundance. In fact, iriver showcased a select few non-U.S. market devices at CES '07. I have to admit, I didn't give them much of a glance as I figured we'd never see them again. Not so? Today I'll be playing with the iriver X20, a 4GB media player that runs with the like of the iPod nano and Sansa E200 line of PMPs. But don't expect to find one at your local Best Buy or Circuit City. The X20 is available online from our product sponsor, but is this little bit of gray-market goodness worth exploring?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Although PCI-Express has been around for a while now, there are still plenty of people out there that haven't made the switch yet, and are therefore still using AGP cards. However, there is a problem here as a lot of manufacturers offer very few options for AGP gamers. Fortunately, Sapphire are not a company to let this lot down and have sent us their x1950 Pro AGP to let us see what it can do.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
While most of us wait.....and wait.....and continue to wait for DirectX 10 games to arrive, NVIDIA continues to saturate the market with videocards covering every price range supporting the highly anticipated graphics platform. As AMD/ATI struggle to find their way with their much hyped R600 arriving to little fanfare, NVIDIA has released their mainstream and budget graphics solutions in the form of the 8500GT, 8600GT, and 8600GTS.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The WNR854T is a snap to setup and configure thanks to the bundled wizard, but it's not without its shortcomings. Most noticeably, there is no wall-mount option (which is where you'll get best reception) and the upright case with internal antenna makes positioning difficult. The cords also tug at the very light case. It also lacks configuration for QoS, has support for only one DDNS provider, and port forward/port triggering options are sparsely populated. But for many, these advanced features don't mean much. The back of the router has the usual four-port switch, and the front has a nice array of easy to read indicator lights. Ultiamtely it's speed, security and manageability that counts, and Netgear's WNR854T is the fastest of the draft-N routers we've tested. It also has some great extras, such as a Gigabit switch, but it does disappoint slightly at long range. Nevertheless, if you are thinking of making the move to draft-802.11n, you can't do much better than this top wireless performer.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
There's a wacky story a week, it seems, about some unfortunate soul driving down a railway track, across a muddy field or into a lake thanks to errant GPS instructions. Each time, the journalist pokes fun at the technology as well as the poor fools who relied on it just a little too much. Can't they read maps, they snipe? Don't they know that sat-navs are notoriously unreliable? We all have a laugh.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thecus has a reputation for delivering innovative NAS appliances with its RouStor N5200 garnering a well-deserved Recommended award for its extensive range of features and storage potential. With the N1200 Thecus has focused on home users looking for a repository for their multimedia content and its claim to fame is being the first desktop appliance to support both 3.5in. and 2.5in hard disks.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Motorola's MOTOFONE F3 is about as basic as a handset can get, with voice calls, texts and alarms summing up its feature set. It has a price to match. For example, as I write, Phones4u is selling it on T-Mobile, Orange and Virgin Media pay-as-you-go. Choose the latter and the phone costs a total of £29.95 which includes £10 of airtime.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Clearly, size matters. For surely if Samsung was anything less than the world's largest maker of LCD panels it wouldn't be able to sell a 32in LCD TV as packed with features and quality as the LE-32R87BD for south of £500. Right from the off the price/quality equation just doesn't seem to make sense. The TV's sumptuous high gloss finish, minimal fascia and subtle but telling curves all belong on a premium TV, not one priced at the 'bargain basement' level.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
There's little denying the usefulness of the OCZ Trifecta. At around £30 it may seem expensive for a 2GB memory card, but in truth it's more than worth it for the adaptability and flexibility it gives you. If you've had enough of juggling different SD cards all over the place, this could be the solution for you.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It's pretty much an accepted axiom that if you want a stylish ultra-compact camera, you're going to be limited to a 3x zoom lens. The corollary of course it that if you want a longer zoom range you'll end up with a much more bulky camera. There are a few cameras such as the Ricoh Caplio R6 and Panasonic Lumix TZ3 which provide wider than average zoom range in a relatively compact shape, and there are one or two fairly small 4x or 5x zoom compacts available, such as the Canon IXUS 800 IS or the Sony Cyber-shot T100 (review coming next week), but on the whole it is true that most small cameras tend to have small lenses.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The BT611 may not have alot of bells and whistles, but it does provide a very attractive, compact, and quiet home for your basic mATX system. In addition to these features, the whole thing comes ready to power a modern system thanks to the rather beefy 300W TFX power supply and its dual 12V rails.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I'm a sucker for a good looking case. Heck, I could write an entire article listing all of the cases I've fallen in love with through the years. Yet, I'm fairly picky when it comes to upgrading my cases. A case pretty much has to have it all before I'll put my components in it: good aesthetics, great features and plenty of room. Today, I'm reviewing the Tuniq 3 from Tuniq, a division of Sunbeamtech. With a 'revolutionary' cooling system, ample room and a beautiful brushed aluminum front panel, the Tuniq 3 could very well find a permanent place in my computer room.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
While the Creative ZEN Stone lacks features found on most MP3 players, you will be hard-pressed to find another quality player for $40 bucks.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The new Tomarni PC from the Berlin University arrived Technic3D. Silent High-End Parts and a modified Silverstone TJ-07 Case, see you in the following Review from Technic3D.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LAN parties and events have becoming more and more popular. I remember going to my first LAN event over 5 years ago. I think there were around 10 of us, but it still was great fun. Now LAN events have attendances of over 1000 gamers. The biggest problem I had with going to LAN events was lugging all my gear there. I often ended up breaking something on my case or something inside of it. Well Thermaltake is here to make things easy for you. They have recently released the LanBox case, which is a small form factor (SFF) case that is made just for LAN parties. Let's take a look!
|
|
|
|
|
|