Monthly Archives: September 2003
Dymark – SMS Press
As the information age unravels at a faster and faster rate in the world and workplace, we find that our little “hamster” wheels are spinning with an ever-quickening pace as we try to keep up with it all. Life can be an overly giddy whirl of buzzwords, power meetings, caffeine and eye strain… undoubtedly the…
Microsoft – Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight
Break out the party hats, poppers (no, not that kind), jelly and ice cream, ‘cos guess what – it’s trusty old Microsoft Flight Sim’s birthday. This year’s version celebrates 20 years of Flight Simulator with several jolly games of pass the frozen toilet discharge and musical airfields. Well, we think they’d make great multiplayer games…
Mustek – BearPaw 2400TA Pro
The philosophy underpinning the Mustek range of BearPaw scanners has been on ease of use, and a degree of aesthetics. In the past, this has led to occasional criticisms that the scanner itself doesn’t compare too strongly with others in the same price bracket, but has still made the BearPaw a good choice for the…
JVC – GR-DVP9 Miniature High-Band Digital Camcorder
Like everything else in the electronic field, camcorders have been gradually shrinking in size. Yet there comes a point where a fine balance has to be struck between convenience and performance and JVC believes that its latest MiniDV has just about cracked it. The Miniature series began in 1996 with the GR-DV1 and was quickly…
CTX – PV722E
Packed with a satisfying bundle of features, CTX’s PV722E is a 17-inch flat panel monitor, and a good one at that. However, it’s the extra feature set that helps move it significantly up the shopping list. Let’s start with the basics, though. The screen itself is a breeze to set up, with welcome connections for…
Serif – PagePlus 8
There are two good reasons why PagePlus has made it as far as this, its eighth incarnation. Reason one; it’s far cheaper than some of its competitors (PageMaker, InDesign, etc.). And secondly, it’s far easier to use. This new edition treads a delicate balance between keeping things as user-friendly as possible while adding some sophisticated…
Mustek – DV2000
There’s not an awful lot in Mustek’s low-cost DV2000 digital camera to send serious photographers heading down to their local shop. But for the more casual user on a tight budget, there’s quite a lot to admire here. Its flexibility is arguably this camera’s strongest appeal. The unit can work in three modes – as…
FujiFilm – Finepix S2 Pro
We don’t usually consider reviewing products that have been available for this long – the Finepix S2 Pro was launched last year – but professional quality digital cameras have a longer life than consumer models and this one is likely to be around for a long time yet before it’s eventually replaced in Fujifilm’s line-up….
Western Digital – Raptor
When introduced at the end of 2002, Serial ATA (SATA) disks helped simplify cabling but did little for performance. But now there’s the Raptor from Western Digital, the first 10,000rpm SATA drive capable of taking full advantage of the bandwidth offered by the Serial ATA interface. Externally there’s very little to distinguish the 1-inch high…
Gigabyte – GA-7NNXP
AMD’s Athlon is starting to lose its position as the cheap yet fast alternative to Pentium 4, but it’s still a very effective processor as long as you combine it with a decent chipset and some fast memory. Until very recently that meant the Nvidia Nforce2 with dual channel DDR, however VIA has recently introduced…