Monthly Archives: March 2004
Epson – Stylus Photo R800
This eight-colour inkjet photo printer is a direct competitor for Canon’s seven-colour i990. Where Canon adds light cyan, light magenta and red to the standard CMYK quartet, Epson goes for an extra black, a red, a blue and a gloss optimiser. This last is intended to improve the gloss finish of digital photo prints, while…
JVC – Mobile Mini Note PC MP-XP731
JVC’s MP-XP731 follows hard on the heels of the first two second-generation Mobile Mini Note PCs (the MP-XP7230 and the MP-XP5230) and is once more designed to be an essential accessory for the professional on the move who demands a mixture of light weight and fast performance. Still little more than A5 in size, this…
Eidos – Legacy of Kain: Defiance
The Legacy of Kain series has now reached its fifth incarnation; fans of the characters will be waiting to see if various questions about the storyline are finally answered, while newcomers will be scratching their heads wondering where they are. To some degrees both parties will enjoy this latest title, but there are also severe…
Creative – Jukebox Zen Xtra 30GB
At perhaps double the size of a credit card, and half the size of a CD case, Creative’s latest Zen Xtra MP3/WMA player may be some way from being the smallest musical playback device on the market. Yet it’s not that kind of size that’s the key selling point here. Instead, the focus is on…
F-Secure – Internet Security 2004
It’s not like the old days. In much the same way that front doors now need locks, cars now need alarms and the stereotypical university student needs shares in Durex, it’s simply asking for trouble to have a PC online without protection. An example: this scribe recently put a PC together and went online for…
Brother – HL-5100 Series
Remember in your exams when you were told to write on both sides of the paper? In printing terms that’s called duplexing and not only helps cut costs (by halving the amount of paper needed) but also helps preserve the planet. Moreover, it’s increasingly available on affordable desktop lasers, including those in the new HL-5100…
Canon – Bubble Jet i990
This is a printer for the photography enthusiast. Although you can print in black or colour on plain paper, its seven-colour print process – including photo cyan, photo magenta and red – cries out for full-colour, photo-based tasks. Single sheets of A4 paper are fed down from a tray at the back and exit to…
Eidos – Deus Ex: Invisible War
Indecisive people are best off steering way clear of Deus Ex: Invisible War. While at first glance it may appear to be a straightforward, action-packed, first-person blaster in the style of Unreal Tournament or Quake III, there’s considerably more going on under the bonnet here. In fact, if you were to bracket it to a…
AlphaSmart – Dana Wireless
AlphaSmart’s Dana Wireless is an interesting beast. It’s effectively a large PDA, weighing 910g, with an almost full-sized keyboard; all the main keys are normal size, while function keys and cursor keys are a little smaller. It runs the Palm operating system (version 4.1.2) and has a monochrome screen. Yup, no colour, no bright white…
Epson – Stylus Photo RX500
If you are running a small business from home, chances are you would struggle to find space for a printer, scanner and copier, which makes the MFD (Multi-Function Device) a worthwhile investment if you need one or more of these functions. Epson’s new Stylus Photo RX500 takes the MFD a stage further by adding a…