The Inquirer

LG Blu-Ray writer burns 4x media at 6x speeds

Rob Kerr — Thu, 15 May 2008 11:29:25 GMT

Rob Kerr the Inquirer, Thursday 15 May 2008. 12:09:00

First INQpressions LG GGW H20L

Product: LG GGW H20L Website: Lge.com/GGWH20L System Requirements: Intel Pentium D 3.2GHz or Higher, Windows Vista (x86, x64), Windows XP with SP2, RAM 1GB, HDD 30GB or more, 60GB for Blu-ray Disc Authoring, Serial ATA Price: $399.99, £152.94 - research price, Ebuyer UK A FEW MONTHS back Toshiba officially pulled out of the HD-DVD market - all hail our Sony overlords - we now hear you cry. Prior to that LG had already successfully produced TV set-top boxes capable of playing both High Def media formats, along with optical drives of a similar nature for the PC. We reviewed one of these wonders way back in June of 2007....

Vvikoo card sports full copper jacket 9600GT Turbo

Paul Taylor — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:47:33 GMT

Paul Taylor the Inquirer, Thursday 8 May 2008. 06:02:00

First INQpressions Vvikoo 9600GT Turbo

Product: Vvikoo 9600GT Turbo Website: www.vvikoo.com Price: €200 THIS LAST GENERATION of GPUs - and the general attitude GPU-makers have towards their AIB partners - has definitely put a different spin on the whole graphics card market. AIB partners can essentially have their way with graphics cards with the blessing of the GPU maker. This essentially puts companies like Vvikoo on par with giants like Asus, MSI, XFX or eVGA. Sure tier-one AIB partners get in lorry-loads of chips first, but when it comes to engineering something unique, they are on a level playing field. You can stick three MXM modules on a card and watercool it, but just how viable is that in retail - not to mention aftersales support and warranties? That's why Vvikoo slaps a sensibly solid Zalman VF1000 GPU cooler on its card, overclocks it a bit, puts it in a nice box and calls it the Vvikoo 9600GT Turbo....

Vvikoo cards sports full copper jacket 9600GT Turbo

Paul Taylor — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:28:29 GMT

Paul Taylor the Inquirer, Thursday 8 May 2008. 06:02:00

First INQpressions Vvikoo 9600GT Turbo

Wifi made easy... sort of

Tony Dennis — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:50:16 GMT

Tony Dennis the Inquirer, Tuesday 29 April 2008. 14:28:00

First Inqpressions Devicescape Connect

Publisher: Devicescape Web: www.devicescape.com Price: Free Compatibility: Iphone, Windows Mobile, Nokia N & E Series THE IDEA BEHIND Devicescape Connect is brilliant. Instead of having to memorise handfuls of different SSID's and passwords, with Devicescape Connect you connect automatically as soon as an authorised wireless hotspot is detected. The software - which is free - is really aimed at the latest generation of handsets which support both cellular and Wi-fi capabilities. These include various Nokia handsets; the Apple Iphone and suitable Windows Mobile devices. In addition, the software will run on a regular XP, Vista or Mac notebook and Wi-fi only devices like the Nokia 700 tablet....

Asus pumps up Nvidia's Nforce 790i reference design

Nebojsa Novakovic — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:56:59 GMT

Nebojsa Novakovic , Monday 31 March 2008. 14:47:00

First INQpressions Asus Striker II Extreme mainboard plus twin 9800GX2 in QuadSLI

Product Asus Striker II Extreme mainboard Chipset Nforce 790i Ultra Website www.asus.com JUST OVER A YEAR ago, Asus' Striker Extreme, based on the Nforce 680i - but not the Nvidia reference design, coupled with quad-core Xeon flavour of Core 2, that was our PC benchmark winner here. A combination of decent CPU overclocking plus very high FSB 1667 and in-sync low-latency DDR2-833 CL3 still matches even the newest Penryn-based systems pretty well. It did have occassional stability issues, but the newer BIOSes numbered 1300 and later seem to have solved most headaches. In the meantime, Nvidia slowed down on everything, chipsets included....

TomTom goes premium with the 920T

Rob Kerr — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:56:59 GMT

Rob Kerr , Friday 18 April 2008. 13:36:00

First INQpressions TomTom GO 920T

Product: TomTom GO 920T Website: go920t Price: £349.99, €499, $649.95 TOMTOM announced the GO 920T Satellite Navigation device at Germany's IFA in September. It finally made its way to the stores in the last ticking seconds of 2007 and more recently into our grubby little hands for a review. It's pitched as the successor to the GO 910 model unveiled way back at CeBit 2006. You may remember this hitting mass press attention when some "isolated numbers" were shipped with a virus later that year - perhaps not the best feature for a product that is virtually in control of two tons of metal travelling in excess of 30 miles an hour....

TomTom goes premium with the 920T

Rob Kerr — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:10:21 GMT

Rob Kerr the Inquirer, Friday 18 April 2008. 13:36:00

First INQpressions TomTom GO 920T

Asus pumps up Nvidia's Nforce 790i reference design

Nebojsa Novakovic — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:02:27 GMT

Nebojsa Novakovic the Inquirer, Monday 31 March 2008. 14:47:00

First INQpressions Asus Striker II Extreme mainboard plus twin 9800GX2 in QuadSLI

Netgear Storage Central killed my PCs

Charlie Demerjian — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 11:53:48 GMT

Charlie Demerjian , Monday 17 March 2008. 15:54:00

First Inqpression Run for the hills

VERY RARELY DO we run into a product that is flat out unacceptable much less potentially dangerous, but the Netgear Storage Central SC101 is both. What started out as a day building a small home network for a friend has ended up as three days of pain with many more dead parts than we started out with, including a PC. Let me declare up front that I am no storage or PC novice, I have done everything from writing a TCP/IP stack to designing and implementing enterprise-level storage solutions. Rarely do I need to read a manual on something so simple as a home NAS to find out anything more than the default password....

Netgear Storage Central killed my PCs

Charlie Demerjian — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:46:25 GMT

Charlie Demerjian the Inquirer, Monday 17 March 2008. 15:54:00

First Inqpression Run for the hills

This small, white, light-weight DVD writer hits the mark

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:05:58 GMT

Rob Kerr , Friday 9 November 2007. 19:54:00

First INQpressions LG External Super Multi DVD Rewriter GSA E50N

Product: LG External Super Multi DVD Rewriter GSA E50N Website: www.lg.com/gsae50n System Requirements: Pentium III 1.0Ghz or higher. USB 2.0. 20GB free HDD space. Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Ultimate Edition; XP Home Edition, Professional, Media Center Edition; Windows 2000 Professional Price: £50 - research price WHENEVER A WHITE computer peripheral passes by our desk at The INQ for review, it screams "Apple" to us. Our immediate reaction is to back away very, very slowly and pretend we never saw it. All in a vague hope that it never existed so we can have a sigh a relief that another company hasn't jumped on the Steve Jobs bandwagon....

Enjoy free Skyping on the move with Skypephone

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:05:58 GMT

Tony Dennis , Saturday 17 November 2007. 18:58:00

First INQpressions Inexpensive 3G phone from 3

Product: Skypephone Supplier: 3 Web: Three.co.uk Maker:Amoi Price: Free on contract. Prepay: £49.99 Tech Specs: Skypephone Talktime: 4.5 hours Video talktime: 2.8hours Standby time: 13.3 days Type: Dual-Band (900/1800Hz) plus 3G/W-CDMA and GPRS AS AN excellent means of keeping in contact with all your Skype buddies whilst on the move, the Skypephone from 3 can't currently be beaten. Especially since it is only £49.99 (inc VAT) on prepay. And for that money you get a 3G capable handset plus a pretty decent camera and the maker - Amoi - hasn't even skimped on facilities such as support for Bluetooth and a 256 MB Micro SD....

Vapochill chills Intel QX9770 to a record-shattering 4.5GHz

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:05:58 GMT

Nebojsa Novakovic , Tuesday 27 November 2007. 09:50:00

First INQpressions Intel QX9770, Asetek Vapochill LS

Product Intel QX9770 CPU Web www.intel.com Find at Your local Intel distributor, in a month or so Mainboard Asus Maximus Extreme RAM SuperTalent ProjectX DDR3-1600 Cooler Asetek Vapochill LS WE WERE just about to move on to the second phase of our QX9650 Yorkfield review, when Intel's QX9770 appeared on the doorstep - along with Asetek's Vapochill LS Cryofreezer, with the potential to send a -47 Celsius chill down any CPU's spines. There have been complaints about this CPU's immense power and heat consumption compared to its immediate predecessor. We found this strange, when the clock difference is only six per cent, and the FSB difference is another 25 per cent....

Size does matter after all

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:05:58 GMT

Nebojsa Novakovic , Thursday 29 November 2007. 17:37:00

First INQpressions Coolermaster Hyper 212 big-fan cooler

Product CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Web site coolermaster.com WATER COOLING, Peltier thermoelectrics and even more exotic phase-change freezers are becoming more common. Simple andaffordable, they mostly perform better than the classic fan-based "air cooling" heat sinks. So, is there space any more for air cooling except at the low end? Zalman, Thermaltake and others have been pushing high-end air coolers for a long time. Here is the recent offering from Coolermaster, the Hyper 212. At just over US$40, this attempts to bring some high-end performance into that mainstream pricing range still ruled by generic air cooling stuff. The huge box contains an equally boxy grey heat sink / fan combo, not exactly an unique design compared to ThermalTake V1 Chinese Fan, or Zalman CNPS series fingertip-cutting vertical wheel, both of them made of razor-sharp copper fins and matching heat pipes....

Intel enters Round Two at 45 nanometres

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:05:58 GMT

Nebojsa Novakovic , Friday 30 November 2007. 17:59:00

First INQpressions One QX9770 vs Dual X5482 - The Duel at 3.2 GHz

Products: Intel QX9770 and X5482 processors Website: www.intel.com Find at: your local Intel distributor Price: around US$ 1,400 upward per piece 2-socket board: Supermicro X7DWA 1-socket board: Asus Maximus Extreme AS MENTIONED a few times here, Intel is continuing its high-end domination with the second round of 45 nm Penryn parts, both running at 3.2 GHz off fast FSB1600 - first on biggie workstations, then on the high end PCs. These fancy chips are worth more than their weight in gold right now - keep in mind they do depreciate quite a bit over time, contrary to the precious yellow metal....

Here's a useless wireless headset

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:05:57 GMT

Tony Dennis , Monday 3 December 2007. 11:19:00

First INQpressions Sony Ericsson HBH-DS22o Bluetooth stereo headset

Product: HBH-DS22o Supplier: Sony Ericsson Web: www.sonyericsson.com Price: around £49.98 (inc VAT) Tech Specs: here Battery life: Not specified but reasonable IN THEORY, the HBH-DS220 from Sony Ericsson is a great idea. A Bluetooth stereo headset that enables you to listen wirelessly to your digital music collection. In practice operation is both fiddly and unreliable. Its maker would almost certainly argue that this device is aimed specifically at owners of Sony Ericsson mobile phones. However, if it had been designed properly it should have worked equally well with other makes of handset - especially those from the market leader - Nokia....

Slingers go Solo for more intimate action

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:05:57 GMT

Rob Kerr , Friday 7 December 2007. 14:21:00

First INQpressions Slingbox Solo

Product Slingbox Solo Website Slingmedia.com System Requirements PC: Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, 1.3 GHz processor, 1 RAM - Vista, 512 RAM - XP, 150 MB HDD space, Graphics card (24-bit colour), Sound card (16-bit), Network connectivity. Mac Requirements: PowerPC G4/G5 800 MHz processor, OS X v.10.3.9, 512 RAM, 150 MB HDD, Network connectivity. Cable or DSL Modem. Connections: high definition (HD) component, S-video or composite video source. Price £129.99, $179.99 NOW ENTERING its third generation, Sling Media has created a new entry level Slingbox model named Solo. This adds High Definition to all the usual place-shifting aspects from previous lineage....

Six budget graphics cards fail in DX10 shoot-out

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:05:57 GMT

Theo Valich , Monday 10 December 2007. 15:31:00

Graphical Group Test ATI Radeon HD 3850, HIS IceQ 2600 XT, PowerColor 2600 XT, XFX 8600 GTS, Zotac 8600 GT, 8500 GT, 8400 GS

IF YOU ARE contemplating what to buy for Christmas and have 100-150 USD/EUR to spend, on a graphics card, should you really take the plunge and buy anything less than than a Radeon HD3850 or 8800GT 256MB? We took six graphics cards from this low-end of the spectrum and put them up against the new mainstream king, the ATI Radeon HD 3850. The middle and low market segments of graphics are where the money is made. So, we have an army that buys graphic cards just to play movies and browse the web and sometimes finds the time to play some games....

DDR3 is OK if you can spare an arm and a leg

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:05:57 GMT

Dean Pullen , Monday 24 December 2007. 10:08:00

First INQpressions OCZ PC3-10666 Platinum Edition

Product: OCZ DDR3 PC3-10666 Platinum Edition 2GB (2x1024MB) Kit - OCZ3P13332GK Website: Product details System Requirements: DDR3 memory support Price: Approx. £117.762 per 1GB stick OCZ HAS SUPPLIED the INQ with some of its latest DDR3 memory, which we immediately stuck into our test system to have a play with. The memory runs at 1333MHz/PC3-10666 with latencies rated at 7-7-7-20 (CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS). Though the memory is set to use 1.8V, OCZ supplies a guarantee (EVP - Extended Voltage Protection) that the memory can run up to 1.95V without invalidating your warranty. As usual with OCZ memory, the sticks come with the OCZ branded 'XTC (Xtreme Thermal Convection) heatspreaders', which further ensure the memory more effectively dissipates heat....

Hiper case gets stuffed

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:05:57 GMT

Theo Valich , Wednesday 2 January 2008. 14:12:00

First INQpressions Hiper Anubis aluminium case

Product Anubis Manfuacturer Hiper Group Web hipergroup.com Price: £104, $220 THE HIPER Anubis PC mid-size tower case is built out of aluminium alloy 6063 T5, which the Hiper guys claim is a world first. The box still comes in at 10.7 kilos in weight (23.5 pounds), which is not a small mass for an aluminium case. However, there is no flexing to be seen anywhere, the case looks really tough. There is only one 120mm fan inside, and is positioned on top of the case. You can fit additional two 120mm fans, both positioned in conventional locations (traditional slot behind a CPU cooler and one in hard drive cage)....

Great phones, shame there's only Windows on them

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:05:57 GMT

Nebojsa Novakovic , Monday 14 January 2008. 18:27:00

First INQpressions E-Ten Glofiish X600, X800

Products X800 and X600 PDA phones Website www.glofiish.com MOST TAIWANESE mobile phone firms tend to use their mobile PC prowess to create hardware-rich PDA++ phone devices. In many cases, these border on being ultra-mobile PCs. Here we have a look at two such recent units from E-Ten: Glofiish (yeah, double "i" supposedly to attract curiosity) X600 and X800. Looks Both GPS-enabled units share similar PDA-like size of 113x60x16mm, 147grammes, for the X800, and slightly more sleek 107x58x15 mm at 136g for the X600. Both use Samsung SC3 2442 processor wih 64MB free RAM - 400MHz in X600, and 500MHz in the X800....

Intel 45nm Xeon 3360 on MSI X48 Platinum tested

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:05:57 GMT

Nebojsa Novakovic , Friday 25 January 2008. 16:27:00

First INQpressions FSB pumped up to the max

BESIDE THE uber-geek QX9650 and QX9770 parts, Intel has also gradually released the first XeonUP processors in the 45nm process. Similar to their desktop counterparts, but with supposedly tougher binning and selection criteria, these server-grade 775-pin CPUs still fit into any desktop mobo supporting the Penryn generation. Here we havethe very first in the series - Xeon 3360, a CPU with an odd 8.5x fractional clock multiplier, resulting in a 2.83GHz CPU at FSB1333 default settings. Probably the first such test on the Web at this moment. Now, as we all know, these Penryns can go far higher, and, if our experience with the 65 nm generation was anything to go by, the FSB benefits should show up, too....

The first AMD dual-GPU, the HD3870X2 arrives

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:05:57 GMT

Nebojsa Novakovic , Monday 28 January 2008. 17:14:00

Asus delivers better-than-reference right on launch day

USUALLY, ON launch day, most if not all graphics cards of a new type are just rebadged reference units made either Nvidia or AMD. This time, with the HD3870X2 series, Asus went ahead of the pack with a custom 'improved' flavour right at the start. Here you see two Asus dual-GPU EAH3870X2 cards, linked by a Crossfire cable. Look at some unique points: First, they sit on a now-bared, supercooling-ready, Asus Z7S-WS board, which we exclusively unveiled to the world earlier this month. The dual-CPU, 8-core overclockable Xeon board is in its newest BIOS rev capable of supporting dual FSB2000 and therefore 4+ GHz twin quad-core Xeons....

Dual-CPU desktop comes of age

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:05:57 GMT

Nebojsa Novakovic , Monday 4 February 2008. 14:04:00

First INQpressions Intel Skulltrail

Product Intel D5400XS "SkullTrail" mainboard, est US$ 650 per unit Intel QX9775 quad-core processor, est US$ 1499 per unit Website www.intel.com AMD WAS the first to push the idea of dual-socket high-end PCs using optimised flavours of its workstation/server platforms, with the 4x4 QuadFather units late in 2006. An answer to Intel's quad-core rollout then, 4x4 - two times dual-core setup based on an Asus SLI mobo - was never seen much in public, with the limited units available only in selected markets, and even then hard to get. It did achieve stunning memory benchmarks out of its total four DDR2-800 channels, too....

Micron takes on Nanya in quad-channel FBD 800 battle

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:05:57 GMT

Nebojsa Novakovic , Friday 8 February 2008. 16:51:00

Exclusive INQpressions Skulltrail memory comparison

AS WE SAW earlier in the week here, Intel's D5400XS "Skulltrail" is possibly the most powerful - as in row computing and I/O - desktop board for this spring at least. Except for one big complaint - FB-DIMM memory. Yeah, FBD-800 modules, especially those cooler, low-power 1.5 volt units, aren't that easy to find yet. We noticed many web sites benchmarked Skulltrail using just two of these - whatever others tell you, there is a BIG benefit from running this (and any other dual-Xeon Seaburg) mobo with all four channels populated. The benefit is sizable enough to change the board's suitability for high-FPS gaming or other memory-intensive apps quite a few notches up....