Netbook review - MSI Wind U115 Hybrid

MSI scored big when it released its initial Wind U100, showing other vendors how good a 10in netbook can be. The U115 Hybrid has a number of new features; however, the most impressive aspect of the U115 is its battery life. My UserBench Battery 2008 benchmark is pretty tough, but here the 5,100mAh Lithium Ion battery delivered an astonishing 6 hours 56 minutes – that leaves every other netbook I’ve tested for dead. Instead of the original Intel 1.6 GHz Atom N270 processor, the U115 features the next-generation 1.6GHz Atom Z530 processor. Surprisingly, application performance was fractionally slower that the Wind U100, but it was usually only by about 2-3% at most. The other new features and the reason for the ‘hybrid’ moniker is the dual built-in storage: an 8GB PQI solid-state drive (SSD) as well as a 160GB hard drive. My test unit was configured with Windows XP SP3 operating system running on the SSD, while the 160GB hard drive was simply bulk storage. The problem is that 8GB doesn’t really give you much room as a C: drive, and sadly, both the My Documents and Program Files folders were set to the C: drive, too. I’d strongly recommend installing your bigger programs to the 160GB drive. Unfortunately, MSI’s Australian arm didn’t know the price of the U115 yet, which made it pretty hard to gauge its real value.

Overall I give the MSI Wind U115 Hybrid a 6/10 – Dual storage needs better configuration, but the seven-hour battery will do me.

Sony PS-LX200USB Turntable

Sony ps lx200usb turntable

Hang on – isn’t vinyl dead? Well, in one sense it might be, but if you’re still holding on to stacks of LPs with no playback solution, then Sony’s latest turntable might be right for you. Not only is it a regular record player, but it’s also USB compatible, meaning that you can easily connect it up to your computer and record your LPs for digital preservation purposes.
Pros: The deck itself is easy to use, with embedded stereo outputs if you just want to playback. The supplied software has an easy-to-walk through wizard that’ll help you import audio, clean it up and then burn it to CD or cut it into MP3 tracks.
Cons: I hit a few instances where the software misidentified tracks, and outside the helpful wizard it’s very tricky getting a handle on precisely what you need to do.
Rating: 4/5 – A great way to easily bring your vinyl back to life.

Kaiser Baas 8in Signature Photo Frame

Digital photo frames can be bought fairly cheaply now, so a unit with a $269 asking price needs to be something special. The Signature Photo Frame features built-in memory, a variety of card readers, and the ability to play back music and video files.

Pros: The screen display was crisp and clear when displaying photo or video, and the variety of ways you can view material – from memory cards, USB drives or via the built-in 256M of memory – is neat.

Cons: The menus are rather dull, and not always intuitive. The built-in speakers – for music and video files – are quite tinny.

Rating: 3/5 – A good photo frame at a premium price.

New Apple iPod Touch and Apple iPod Nano

Apple iPod Touch

Apple Ipod Touch

The new iPod touch comes with more memory and a new curvy one-piece back shell. And for those on a tight budget, Apple has dropped the price on the 8G model from $399 to $329.
You can basically think of it as an iPhone without the phone, so you will still get access to Apple’s app store, and its built-in Wi-Fi wireless networking means you can connect to your wireless network at home and download music, games and other files straight to the touch.
The screen is a large 3.5in and 480 by 320 pixels, which is ideal for movies, although the player comes with no video conversion software for this task. Battery life has improved significantly – up from 24 to 36 hours for audio, and up to six hours for video.
It also has the accelerometer feature – you’ve probably seen the TV ads where someone is playing a car racing game and turning the touch like a steering wheel to change direction.
The touchscreen interface is as simple to use as I’ve seen from a media player, but as a result of the fancy extras, it’s not brilliant value in terms of storage per dollar.
Still, it’s an excellent player for those who have the cash to spare. It gest a 4.5/5 from me.

Apple iPod Nano

apple ipod nano

Apple’s popular portable media player has had a facelift and some new features added, including a new lower price.
The 8G version is better value at just $199, but not everything is improved. The nano still delivers 24 hours of battery life for audio, but video playback has dropped from five hours to four.
Apple has gone back to the slender design of older nanos and reorientated the screen from landscape back to portrait. The major new feature is the accelerometer, a component that enables the player to measure movement. It’s also used in the iPod touch and the iPhone and it allows you to use a feature called ‘shake to shuffle’. To get a new song playing, just shake the player and it will choose a song randomly from your playlist.
Another useful feature available for users of Windows Vista or Mac OS X Leopard is a spoken-word interface, allowing the visually impaired to use an iPod by listening to the menu options.
The nano comes with Apple’s standard – but still excellent – in-ear phones, but you need to download the latest version of iTunes to make it work with your Windows XP, Vista or Mac OS X Leopard computer or notebook. I give the nano a 4.5/5.

Palm Pre phone: Binding appearance to functionality

palm-pre

Pre is a proprietary venture from Palm. In the past too, Palm has made some very smart phones. Pre also tries going the same way and it has really made life quite simple for many of its users.

Attractive appearance

The keyboard slides out beautifully. This permits quicker texting. The screen is wide and it’s a delight to watch videos, images and web programs on it. Roll it, whirl it, listen to most hip and soothing music. With Pre, you are the boss. The phone is formatted beautifully and packs functionality with style. Even the menu board is user friendly and gives way to an extremely intuitive interface.

Unified contacts and calendars

Palm Pre brings all your separate calendars together. This means that you will be accessing your Facebook, Google and other calendars in one single frame. For the purpose, it uses Synergy, a Trademarked Solution from Palm. You can also link your various contacts with the Unified Calendar Program. This way, you will be able to reach out to all the information you might need in one go.

Web-network through applications

You have a browser that expeditiously connects you to the outer world. The network connectivity is terrific and lets you check the latest news. This can be done through RSS Feeds which bring you the latest blogs and articles.

Universal Search

This is another proprietary program from Palm. All you have got to do is type. You will get a ready library of Google, Face Book, Wikipedia and other utility venues. With Universal Search, your expected results will keep narrowing down as you keep typing.

Combined message features

It has a single chat-style view which holds all your conversation with any given person together. This program is also attributable to Synergy. Through the contact list, you will be able to find out those contacts that are online. Within a second, you can begin conversing with them.

Wayfinder technology

GPS is the Way Finder tool this mobile uses. It helps you to keep track of your navigation. You also get the facility of Wi-Fi Hotspot among other things.

To sum it up

The gizmo appeals to different sections of people. This is because it has something for everyone. The fun-freaks love the video, music and Wi-Fi facility. Serious people love the fast network access. Corporate love the messaging, contact and calendar features and all of them, just all of them, love the design.

Here is raising a toast to this new beauty from Palm.

Do I need a laser printer or an inkjet printer?

In the early days, the difference between laser printers and inkjet printers were huge which has been gradually lessened these days to a level where it is sometimes complicated to set apart these two. Laser printers were preferred because of its fast and high quality prints but the quality of the inkjet printers have been improved close to the quality of a laser printer at remarkably lower price. You can determine whether a laser printer or an inkjet printer would be suitable for you by following the general rule “the lower the cost of the printer, the more costly is the running expense”. However, this could depend on the quantity of the print you are going to make.

A simple example can make things clear about an inkjet printer. Let’s consider a Canon i320 color bubble jet printer that usually costs around £30 and additional £10 for every time you change the cartridge that can produce around 170 pages. Now, if you print only 7 pages a day, the total number would be 2100 pages over the year, which means you have to spend more than 4 times the price of the printer for a year as maintenance expense. Moreover, as a multifunctional printer, inkjets are not recommended at all when you need large volume print outs like label printing considering the slow print rate, average print quality and encountering frequent cartridge error messages.

A recent study has shown that last year around 1.85 million laser printers were sold, having a substantial growth in comparison with the previous year. A massive number of offices are using laser printers, however, they are not recommended only if you are going to use it as a photo printer or for printing fliers or broachers in huge volume consistently. By using the duplex unit, a brochure or leaflet printer can print back to back which is particularly a useful feature. Besides, adding a paper drawer and assigning different paper trays for different prints can optimize the cost of operation and in turns decrease the printer errors. Moreover, adding an Ethernet with a laser printer will allow users to avail it in a network.

Therefore, before buying a printer, keep all these constraints under consideration to ensure that your invest wouldn’t result a big mess for your business.