Monthly Archives: December 2004
PalmOne – Tungsten T5
PalmOne’s new Tungsten T5 is visually all screen. The screen is vast: 3.7 diagonal inches and 320 x 480 pixels. It dominates the front of the casing. It is clear and bright too, and a strip of icons along its bottom edge (or along the right edge if you flip it into landscape format) offers…
ScanSoft – Dragon Naturally Speaking 8 Professional
The number of speech recognition systems readily available for general use has been dropping over the years, and with IBM saying it’s no longer actively developing ViaVoice, ScanSoft’s Dragon Naturally Speaking is the only real player. It’s a good job the new version, version 8, addresses many niggles that have annoyed users of version 7….
Hi-Grade – EZ-Buddie 3000
For the EZ-Buddie 3000, Hi-Grade has taken a small form factor ECS EZ-Buddie barebones system and added some decent hardware. The resulting system has a good stab at being an all-round media centre PC. Powering the EZ-Buddie 3000 is a 3GHz 800FSB Intel Northwood Pentium 4 which sits in one of ECS’s motherboards using an…
Eizo – FlexScan L768
Eizo is usually considered to be one of the best monitor producers around; if not the Rolls-Royce, then certainly the Jaguar or Lexus. This 19-inch LCD panel, available with a light grey or black surround, has some right to that association. Working from the bottom up, it has a good, spring-mounted pedestal stand on which…
Microsoft – Works Suite 2005
Reviewing Microsoft Works Suite 2005 is, for us, like visiting Harrods in the January sale. We can’t afford 95% of their distinctly overpriced products for the rest of the year, but when they’re benevolent enough to put an offer together, all of a sudden it seems like incredibly good value for money. And make no…
Canon – Pixma iP2000
Despite its low price tag, the four-colour Pixma iP2000 from Canon boasts several features that are normally found on more expensive printers; speed, direct printing support, dual input trays and good graphics printing. But it’s not all good news. The colour cartridge, as in most low cost printers, is a tri-colour affair, so once one…
Konami – Pro Evolution Soccer 4
Almost a decade ago, Sensible World of Soccer was dominating this reviewer’s time. To the detriment of many personal relationships, hour after hour was invested in taking my virtual team to the top, while hunting down the crucial players who could make the difference in my quest. Now I keep SWOS on my machine as…
Sierra Wireless – Voq Professional
It was in February this year that we first got a glance at the Voq, a Windows Smartphone from Sierra Wireless. It was a pre-production device, and it has taken until now, the tail end of the year, for Sierra Wireless to come up with a final unit. Sometimes, it seems, squeezing all the required…
Creative – Jukebox Zen Xtra
The trend for more traditionally computing-related firms to edge towards the home entertainment arena has already seen the likes of Videologic and Apple pretty much switch sides. Creative isn’t going that far, and still has its toe very much in computer hardware, yet with accomplished units such as the neatly evolving Zen Xtra portable music…
InterVideo – DVD Copy 2 Platinum
We might be falling on the side of cynical here, but to us, the key reason people would want to buy a package like this is to copy commercial DVDs (be it for backup or less scrupulous purposes). However, the legalities, or lack thereof, of such practices have forced manufacturers such as InterVideo to introduce…