Monthly Archives: January 2001
Acer – ScanPrisa 1240UT
This is an interesting device. No, really. Acer has managed to incorporate film scanning alongside traditional 1200dpi flatbed scanning by using a novel approach. Most manufacturers can supply an additional scanner unit that usually plugs into the rear of the scanner and replaces the lid with a bulky film scanner unit. These generally add considerably…
LaCie – FireWire DVD-RAM 5.2GB
It looks as if the new-generation USB specification is going to take forever to reach us, and while every one’s arguing about it, the need for fast external connectivity is getting more important. Rather than waiting, several motherboard manufacturers are now choosing to incorporate a technology that’s been with us for some time. Mac users…
Activision – Wizards & Warriors
As the very basic role-playing-style name suggests, Wizards & Warriors is a step back to the grass roots RPG. In this age of graphically luscious, complex role-playing affairs like the Baldur’s Gate series, or Planescape Torment, Wizards & Warriors pays homage to the older beliefs – the days of Tunnel & Trolls and Keep on…
Adobe – Photoshop 6
With each new release of Photoshop, Adobe manages consistently to deliver image-editing features that seem indispensable as soon as they are used, making graphics professionals everywhere wonder how they ever worked with the last version. Given the precedent for innovation in previous versions, Photoshop 6 has a lot to live up to, but it doesn’t…
Samsung – GT8650XT
The GT8650XT from Samsung has a functional and contemporary design. Suitable for both corporate and personal business users, it comes with a 14.1-inch XGA colour TFT screen, which is protected by a robust magnesium alloy case. It could be argued that the model is trying to be too stylish, with a badge on the back…
Packard Bell – NEC Chroma
Some notebooks are made for travel, and virtually all are made for business, but the iconoclastic Packard Bell Chroma (the company spells it ‘Chrom@’) is intended for neither. Instead, Packard Bell has come up with a computer which is aimed primarily at the home user who doesn’t want a thumping great desktop – or a…
Eizo – FlexScan L771
Up until now, conventional monitors have had the edge over flat panel displays in two crucial areas; size and resolution. For a long time, if your world was flat you fell off its edge at 1024 x 768 resolution, and that was that. Smug CRT owners with the budget and the need could trounce this…
Jasc – Paint Shop Pro 7
If a picture could paint a thousand words, then by a process of inverse logic a room full of monkeys on typewriters tapping away for near eternity could probably knock out the Laughing Cavalier, with a more enigmatic smile than good old Mona’s to boot. Ahh, the wonders of ASCII art… There are no such…
Sony – Mavica MVC-CD1000
For all their usefulness, digital cameras still compare unfavourably with their conventional counterparts in two key areas. First, there’s the lack of capacity for image storage, especially if you are shooting at higher resolutions, and second there’s the impermanence of the record of what you’ve photographed. There’s no roll of negatives to store for future…
3D graphics cards group test
The Geforce 2 is the second generation of Nvidia’s famous GPU, logically enough, and the GTS stands for Giga-Texel Shading, which basically means the card can render over a billion texels (texture cells) per second. That’s fast, very fast. And Creative is one of many companies to produce a card based on the GTS engine….