GadgetSpeak Articles
GadgetSpeak has close to 5,000 product reviews and other articles. You can use this page to find others opinions on anything from mobile phones to computers to the latest kitchen appliance
Entry level colour lasers are now little more expensive than some of their mono counterparts. Now five page a minute good quality colour images are possible.
This is very nearly the perfect box shape at 43x43x42cm. It is quite heavy (28 kilos) so would need a very substantial desk to hold it or it could live on the floor. It has a proper tray for paper at the base of the unit, paper is inserted face up and delivered face down out of the top of the unit. In mono it can produce 25 PPM for as long as there is paper in the tray. For colour this is a respectable 5 PPM.
Acer currently produce three cameras and over the last couple of weeks you have heard about the other two. This is the mid range offering and is by far the slimmest.
Following my earlier report on LightScribe, lets take a look at the technology in action.
Love or hate them, electronic documents continue to develop as Adobe shows with its latest version of Acrobat.
Quite a proportion of what Focus republish are Education packages either with a large or small e here I am looking at two packages that are unlikely to appear on most school timetables. The advantage here is that they are useful even long after school is past.
The 'Teaching You' series uses video and pictorial sequences along with other aids to show you 'how to'. Neither of these guides will ever make you an expert but they may just help you along the way. As with any 'Skill' the biggest input comes from yourself and that is simply hard word.
Certainly a lightweight and small printer, however given the small ink cartridge size this portable printer may also need to be used sparingly.
It is 31x17x5cm and weights less than 1.8 kilos. The lid opens to allow about 15 sheets - 30 claimed - of paper to be stored before printing. Even though this is a truly portable printer, it can be run from a battery pack, it can also print full A4 pages. The connections as standard are USB and infra red. It can also print images direct from a camera supporting PictBridge.
This is the unit hinted at in my three recent articles on Windows XP MCE 2005 edition and the large HP Panel. Members have asked about MCE here I give my views.
I have studied what was on offer from a number of vendors and decided that the Evesham E Box was certainly worth a look. You get a grey box that could pass for a DVD or Video Recorder, with certain 'other halfs' saying no to computers in the lounge this may just sneak through. The keyboard and mouse supplied are a wireless set from Microsoft and as such no wires must be a plus.
As camera prices fall, so available mega-pixels increase. Acer has achieved a nice balance with its CR-5130 model.
I have for many years enjoyed Bridge problems often found in daily newspapers, however as far as playing in a club they never seem to meet at times to suit me.
So your friends look at you funny, maybe you need one of the new phones coming to market.
Without - hopefully - giving to much away, this to me is an "object of desire" I first saw a pre production unit last summer and I am told I have looked at the first one in the UK. You can see it for yourself during the next three weeks or so on the Abrocour stand at the Ideal Home Show.
This is a DAB radio, it is also an FM radio and just for good measure it also has a CD and is described as a Micro System equipped with ReVu.
I am a fan of DAB radio and have reviewed several not just from Pure. However this unit is far more. A lot of people decry DAB saying FM is better, I am not going into this argument here but a lot of DAB stations are simply not available on FM. The previous DAB unit I reviewed was the PocketDAB just before Christmas and this is considerably different in size and of course this is mains only.
Its black, compact, capable of 6.3 mega-pixels and manufactured by Acer.
The first edition (2002) had more than a few problems, is the second edition (2005) any more useable, especially now its legal to buy a copy of MCE with OEM hardware.
Most inkjet printers tend to be smaller than their laser cousins. Not so with this Business Inkjet offering from Hewlett Packard. However big does not always mean expensive.
I have studied the offerings and decided on the machine I would like to investigate. Now there needs to be either a monitor, flat panel or TV. Here I have tried all three.
Could your computer forge your handwriting?
After the excitement of finding according to Sitecom there are 17 types of media card the Belkin offering at 15 may seem tame but it does do something the other unit did not.
It is 12x6.5x1.5cm and weights around 150grams with supplied USB lead attached. There is a power adapter supplied but in my tests it was never required. The base has four tiny rubber feet to avoid slippage, both the sides are bare with the back having inputs for the mini USB lead and power adapter as well as outputs for two USB ports. The front has another USB output on the right side with the rest having the connectors over 4.
When your computer struggles to perform as well as it should then maybe it is time for a tune up.
I have been fortunate enough to review the previous two items produced by Rio, the Nitrus and the Karma. The Carbon fits in between their 1.5GB and 20GB capacity at 5GB.
Need to correspond in different languages? Then help could be at hand.
Is it a Camcorder, no. Is it a Digital Camera, no. It is a .WAV recording device, no. It is in fact all three. The Everio comes in two models the GZ-MC200 and the GZ-MC100, here I am looking at the latter, the former is likely to cost £100 more.
For a while most decent digital cameras have taken a stab at being a Camcorder although the quality was usually naff. Then more recently Camcorders struck back and added some still camera abilities, again in the majority of cases not that great. Here the Everio seems to cross the void.
Looking after your computer can bring the advantage of better performance. Check out a product that offers to help.
There are a number of CD/DVD writing packages around but only two can claim to be the major players, Nero and CD Creator, Nero has just got even better.
When I rushed through a review of the PocketDAB 1000 just before Christmas I promised a more in depth look and a report on use of speakers and rechargeable batteries.
Not only is Noxon a palindrome but also a device that you may wish to add to your wireless network.
I reviewed the sibling to this (iP2000) last year, although this came out at the same time the media recommended to work with its CD/DVD printing capabilities has only just arrived.
It is 42x29x17cm and weighs around 6.5kilos. Paper is loaded face forward in a vertical stack at the rear of the unit and this adds around 21cm to the height. Paper is delivered face up from a drop down door that doubles as a tray to catch output and this adds another 21cm to the depth. As always the stated print speeds are not met, I managed 12PPM printing a 200 word document and just on 9PPM printing a 1500 word - spread over four page - item.
While not to be confused with a similar sounding Jedi Star Wars weapon, LightScribe technology does involve the power of a laser.
I first used a DECT phone a few years ago, now when using a corded phone I always seem to need to refer to something that is out of reach.
Convergence is the name of the game that interests Acer as the company announces some new products
Older articles
Main Menu
