Monthly Archives: June 2004
Sony – SingStar
One of the biggest surprise hits ever on the PlayStation 2 has been the EyeToy. An ingenious marriage of a web-cam and a series of little party games, it’s made Sony some serious cash and sent it hunting down fresh ways to get people interacting with their consoles. That, combined with factors such as the…
NetGear – MP101
The Netgear MP101 is a media streamer and decoder with both wired and wireless Ethernet connections, a remote control, and an LCD display. In other words, it’s a home MP3 player with network connections built in. There are lots of MP3 players on the market, but if you’ve been looking for something to leave plugged…
Rock – Quaddra Ti 3.4
Shall we get the conversation about value for money out the way, right at the start? If you’re in the market for a laptop computer, then you’ll find plenty available on the market for a lot less than Rock’s latest offering. However, if it’s a performance laptop you’re after where price is less of an…
Altec Lansing – VS4121
Appearances, as we should all know by now, can be deceptive. And while the VS4121, 2.1 channel speaker set from Altec Lansing is no slouch in the looks department, in all honesty this reviewer wasn’t expecting the high quality output it generated. Still, life is full of nice surprises. The main reasons for initial doubts…
VMWare – Workstation 4.5
VMWare Workstation is a product designed for developers to set up test environments for all manner of software and network configurations, without needing lots of PCs. Many different operating systems can be installed and run concurrently inside ‘virtual machines’, and you can then run pretty much any x86-based software in a window. The latest release…
Vivendi Universal – Van Helsing
We’ve got some sympathy for Vivendi Universal. Admittedly, for years its been behind some really quite insipid tie-in games to the various movies in the Universal Pictures archive, yet with last year’s Hulk, the company delivered a brief but very entertaining marriage of stealth and action. And pretty much everyone ignored it. This year, with…
Neoware – Capio One and Eon e300
Neoware offers a range of thin client appliances that can be used to run applications hosted on remote Windows servers. Some of these are Linux-based while others are built around Windows CE or XP Embedded (XPE). Regardless of software, all offer management advantages compared to traditional desktop PCs, with no local storage or applications to…
Carrera – C Home EZ65
The simplistic look of the AOpen case on Carrera’s new cube system belies the interesting mix of components inside. The single 5.25-inch drive bay contains an NEC DVD rewriter which records at up to 8x, but it’s a little disappointing that the 3.5-inch bay underneath is not used for a memory card reader or a…
HP – MovieWriter DC4000
At first glance, you could be forgiven for approaching the HP MovieWriter DC4000 with cynicism. It’s billed as a device to transfer your old analogue video and camcorder tapes to DVD and, as such, it would have been nice to find support for both DVD and VHS within the same unit. Not so, for what…
Canon – PowerShot A75
Canon’s PowerShot range never seems to us to be quite as appealing as the Ixus range, yet Canon is committed to it, having updated the old A70 with this newer model, the A75. The first thing of note, if you’ve ever used an Ixus, is that this PowerShot A75 is large and heavy. Both facts…