Monthly Archives: December 2007
Avanquest – PCShowBuzz
Online TV has been a ‘must-have application, coming real soon now’ for some years, so it’s easy to be tempted by an application offering over 1,000 TV channels for just £15. PCShowBuzz is indeed an Internet TV player which does its job well enough, but there’s still a fairly major problem with the overall package……
Xider – European Street Racing
Racing around various European cities sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Flooring it down narrow Parisian streets, roaring past all those pavement café tables and upsetting everyone trying to enjoy their morning cup of sludge (we refuse to call a thimble-full of syrupy Espresso a coffee). As we darted between oncoming Citroëns on the approach to…
HP – PhotoSmart A826
HP has a range of photo printers, but nothing that looks or works like the Photosmart A826. It’s bigger than a typical dedicated photo printer; about the size of a fashion rucksack. This is a design feature, as it’s built around two key aspects of the machine: a 177mm touch-screen and a totally enclosed paper…
Microsoft – Gears of War
The reason we’re looking at Gears of War on a PC is, bluntly, that Microsoft has decided PC gaming is important again. Sensing the crossover potential between the Xbox 360 and PC as gaming platforms, replete with Gamer Points and online gaming being traded between the two, Microsoft has backed up its latest gaming love…
Dell – XPS 720 H2C Edition
If you were looking to buy an overclocked, liquid-cooled, fire-breathing gaming system, whose name badge would you expect to see on it? Very few would opt for Dell, but that’s exactly what Dell’s flagship XPS 720 H2C Edition is: a monster of a system, built into a monster of a case, with a monster of…
Nintendo – Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
The Nintendo Wii continues to be a fascinating device. Celebrated for its control system, it’s relatively straightforward games such as Wii Sports and Wii Play that continue to be played and put up for awards, while genuinely strong titles don’t seem to fare so well in the charts. Wii Sports is, granted, a mighty fine…
Acer – Travelmate 6292-301G16MN
Acer’s Travelmate 6292-301G16MN – a nice catchy name, that – is one of the smaller members of Acer’s well loved business notebook range, and is at the upper edge of what you would call an ultraportable laptop, weighing in at 2.6kg (including AC adapter). Although it is clad in the usual corporate dark grey clothes,…
Sling Media – Slingbox Pro
The Slingbox Pro is the latest and most powerful addition to the Sling Media range, part a line of hardware that allows you to stream video and audio to compatible devices. Since the box encodes the data to send across a local network that needs to be connected to the Internet, you’re not restricted in…
Atari – The Witcher
You know you’re playing something special when the introductory scene lasts about five minutes, contains some of the most breathtakingly detailed graphics ever devised and teases you with a powerful and intriguing storyline that’s guaranteed to start your heart racing. The Witcher is that rare phenomenon: a role-play game that is truly innovative, set in…