Review LaCie was among the first hard disk manufacturers to produce high capacity, multimedia storage devices designed for media playback. These hard drives, equipped with A/V interfacing, enabled you to take your digital music and video files away from your computer and play them on a decent hi-fi and a full-size TV screen. With its new LaCinema Black range, LaCie has gone a step further and produced a full-scale set-top box.
Screen idol? LaCie’s LaCinema Black MAX
There are three models in the Black range, starting at around £280 for the Black PLAY, which is essentially a straightforward media server. However, we decided to test the top-of-the-range Black MAX, which costs a hefty £420 with 500GB hard disk or £505 with 1TB. That’s expensive, but the Black MAX does make an ambitious attempt to combine a network media server and a set-top DVR in a single unit.
The glossy black box measures around 9in wide and deep and a little under 2in high. It’s larger than an ordinary hard disk, but still only about half the size of our Sky+ box. A quick look around the back reveals a good selection of input and output options, including a digital TV tuner. However, at this price you might have expected two separate tuners, so that you could record one programme while watching another. Read the rest of this entry »
Review In a Printing market awash with colour products, here comes HP with an A4 black-and-white business laser. But far from seeming dull, the LaserJet P3015d serves to remind us of how good HP lasers are – and how much better they can be than much of the flashier competition.
Compact in its plain casing, but not particularly small at 316x400x448mm, this 15.9kg printer is well-built and designed to withstand plenty of use. It might look boring but the absence of detail and irregular mouldings should make it easier to find a home for in a cramped office. Thankfully, HP also designed the case to incorporate a pair of cut-ins on either side of the base to make the printer safer to pick up and carry.
The ‘d’ in the product name indicates that this model supports automatic double-sided (duplex) Printing. A 500-sheet paper cassette slots into the front of the unit at the base. The entire cassette fits flush with the main body of the printer: nothing sticks out the back. A paper level indicator at the front warns you when to add more stock.
The front of the case, above the paper cassette, folds down to form a multipurpose input tray with a capacity of 100 sheets. Inevitably, this tray needs to be extended with a combination of hinged and telescopic flaps, which are, altogether, more fragile than the rest of the machine. Read the rest of this entry »
Review Smartphones we are familiar with. Watches too. But combining the two is quite rare. Sure, there are sports watches that can collect information about training sessions and share it with a computer. Those with longer memories will recall things like Casio’s data bank watches with their weeny keyboards, and there was the Palm OS watch from US timepiece specialist Fossil. Yet, LG’s GD910 Watch phone is certainly the most sophisticated offering we’ve seen in the wristwear department.
Indeed, this is definitely more phone than watch. With its touchscreen, Bluetooth, HSDPA, 80MB of internal memory and a Camera for two way video calls, it certainly gives a good initial impression. The real questions are: is it usable, and would anyone really want to spend £500 on one?
Before we get to the detail of features, it is worth taking a look at the design. First thing of note: this is one big watch with a 1.4in screen. There’s a fair amount of unused space around its edges, so that the front fascia of the watch measures 39mm wide and 49mm tall. It’s also 13.8mm thick – quite a chunk to have on a wrist. Moreover, our GD910 weighed in at 90g. If you are used to wearing something svelte, you’re certainly going to notice it bulk and weight.
The general look is impressive. Build quality is good, the strap is robust faux leather with a sliding adjuster, so you can ensure a snug fit. The right, side-mounted Call, Back/Clear and End/main power buttons are well made and solid. Sure, you might scratch the screen, but in general the watch, er, phone, er, watch phone feels like it will take some knocks. Read the rest of this entry »
Review Packard Bell may not a name you immediately associate with the latest word in netbooks, but now that it’s part of Acer, all that may be about to change. Acer has big plans for the Packard Bell brand: it intends to develop PB into the very acme of trendy tech desirability. Apparently.
Packard Bell’s dot m/a: rarely, a netbook based on AMD chippery
PB’s netbook range will eventually include three machines: the 10.1in dot s, which uses the Atom N280 chip and Windows XP; the Atom Z520-powered, Vista-running 11.6in dot m; and the dot m/a, which is a little out of the ordinary because it’s a netbook powered by an AMD processor.
To be exact, it uses a 1.2GHz Athlon L110 with an 800MHz HyperTransport bus and 512KB of L2 cache. Graphics come courtesy of the AMD ATI Radeon Xpress X1270 graphics core built into AMD’s 690G chipset. You also get 2GB of DDR 2 memory as standard and Vista Home Premium.
Despite housing an 11.6in screen, the dot m/a is still a reasonably compact and sleek affair, measuring 288 x 199 x 25.4mm and weighing 1.25kg with the standard three-cell battery pack or 1.38kg with a six-cell unit. Those dimensions are the same as Acer’s Aspire One 751 for a good reason: the two machines share the same chassis and case. Read the rest of this entry »
iPhone App Review Apple bundles a decent Dictionary application with Mac OS X, so it’s surprising that it doesn’t do the same with the iPhone. You may only need to consult a dictionary once in a while, but it’s nice to have one handy. Putting it on a smartphone means you can always have it with you. Apple should have included one
Advanced English Dictionary: encyclopaedia elements
It didn’t, and so a number of third-party developers have attempted to fill the gap. Some are derived from well-known dictionary publishers: Oxford, Collins, Chambers and so on. Others come from unbranded sources. As the Advanced English Dictionary (AED) app shows, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re inferior to their famous-name rivals.
They’re certainly cheaper. AED is currently available for a mere 59p, though publisher jDictionary Mobile says this is a special “90 per cent off” promotional price. Even at £5.90 it’s good value given that you can pay up to £20 for a branded alternative. Read the rest of this entry »
