Laptops/PCs/Apple

This is a thin and light Windows 8 notebook that boots very quickly and for me anyway cures the problem of fingermarks around the screen by making the whole thing in silver grey rather than the standard shiny black finish.

Now that virtually all of us have either a smartphone or a tablet computer – or possibly both – we are increasing finding that our fingers are really too large when it comes to accurately keying in all types of text. The STM Tracer DeLuxe Stylus + Pen, provides a useful all round tool for paper as well as those devices which use capacitive sensor technology for input.

It almost crossed my mind that I had been forgotten by Acer with regards to review products when an offer arrived to check out an Aspire model. I was reasonably impressed.

Earlier this year I had a look at a Chromebook from Samsung, here what at first glance looks a fairly similar offering from HP. Could a Chromebook be a real alternative to using a notebook with the Microsoft Windows operating system?

Finally manufacturers seem to be releasing a good range of touch notebooks. As far as my tests are concerned this is the only real reason to ‘upgrade’ to Windows 8. While I have reviewed large panels with touch why would you sit so close as to be able to use it.

The PCTV T2 290e Nanostick supports both ordinary Freeview and Freeview HD. Connected via a USB2 port it is a convenient way of adding TV and PVR facilities to a PC. Being both small and light it is ideal for those with limited space who would like their PC to double up as a TV and as a PVR.

Kingston are a large supplier of memory, here I am looking at a large capacity micro SD card, but first a card reader for a range of cards. A lot of people do not know that certain versions of Windows will not read USB3 card devices.

The most recent notebook I reviewed had Windows 8 – sadly without touch – it also had a Gigabyte motherboard. This is an All in One PC from HP with Windows 8, touch and it has a Gigabyte motherboard and even a TV tuner.

Duplicating a drive is something that can normally only be done by specialist software and certainly not from within Windows. Here a piece of hardware that can duplicate two bare drives or a single bare drive and one connected via eSATA or USB2.

My first flat panel was 1600x1200 and had a 4:3 display. When I moved to 1920x1080 and 16:9 – where I have been since it initially looked strange – now Philips have a 16:10 and at 1920x1080 this is weird but install the software and view at 1920x1200 its good.

A name I know for powerful PCs, here a notebook running Windows 8, it does however not have ‘touch’. So is it a desirable thing to have a fast powerful notebook that runs an operating system that uses a front end that restricts it?

While I saw a prototype unit a couple of years ago at Google, earlier versions of Chromebooks have passed me by. Rather different to a PC notebook and also different from a Google Tablet a Chromebook is a category of its own.

This is another quality panel from a company in Holland who produce excellent panels but as they do not sell them under a well-known name you the user get the benefit without the added price that a known name carries in a premium.

Two companies offering devices to let you extend the range of your router by using Ethernet over your ring main, this means that if you have dodgy conectivity in part of your property it can be solved by using a plug in adapter.

Having recently looked at some 23inch and 27inch flat panels, here is a 22inch (21.5inch) offering that still supports 1920x1080 but is a lighter and cheaper unit, still this seems perfectly usable and if your budget is more limited…

Having looked at a couple of larger Android tablets from Gemini here it’s the turn of one that can fit into a larger pocket. So for those who want something bigger than the screen on a phone but not one as large as a notebook.

Finally months after its release I receive a small touch notebook designed for Windows 8. While the 11inch screen may be a little small for some the touch features work well as you will naturally sit with the screen well within reach.

Over the years I have been asked quite often what e-mail clients can read the Outlook Express files. This now becomes more pressing as Windows XP support ends very soon. Here is one item that reads these and other file formats, and, if you have one or two mail accounts then it’s FREE.

This is another large flat panel, and, what a unit this is. Not only is it big at 27inches but it also can display a lot more that that seen on most other panels as the maximum resolution is 2560x1440 and not the glass ceiling of 1920x1080.

This is a 10inch Android Tablet with a few extras that are unique to Samsung. A lot has been written about a device made by Apple and the apparent similarities this bears to it, as I have no close knowledge of the former I cannot comment.

This is a thin and light notebook – claimed as the thinnest – but as soon as you boot it up you notice it is also very fast so without looking you know that a ten second boot and seven second shutdown means it has an SSD drive.

A slim and light panel from Philips, it is capable of 1920x1080 and the unit has a good range of forward and backward movement available on its base. There is no side to side movement but as its light its easy to move around.

Although the majority of laptops now incorporate a webcam, and they are also widely available for one’s desktop, there are many occasions when it would be useful to employ a camera for other tasks and not just using it to provide images of one’s face for Skype. The HueHD Visualiser is a versatile unit that will handle a whole range of imagery tasks on the desktop in addition to being a useful webcam.

Way back in 2012 I attended a presentation where Thecus were involved, I heard nothing from their better known UK partner but a trickle of press releases emerged from Europe which eventually led to the unit arriving for review.

Another excellent offering in the larger panel field from AOC this can connect via VGA, DGI, HDMI or Display Port the last more commonly found on MAC computers. This is an offering from their professional range.

It wasn’t so long ago that the mention of a tablet would refer to a medication. Now entertainment and browsing are more likely to be related topics.

As many move from the desktop to a touch-enabled tablet, ViewSonic takes us in the opposite direction with a large screen AIO touch screen device.

This is the second such device I have seen that comes with a separate keyboard; the other was the excellent offering from Archos whose only real problem was the price. This seems to be more reasonable in the price department.

Yes finally a HP unit I know its taken 18 months since their last offering but at last they have reverted to their original PR agency and so review items have started to become available to be tested, here a rather nice Ultrabook.

SSD drives are slowly getting bigger, more quickly they are becoming lower priced. So is now the time to get one? Certainly the PC/notebook units I have reviewed that have at least a small SSD drive show a huge increase in booting speed.