12Ghosts Popup-Killer LE 7.02 is free for non-commercial use, which is a good thing because this is worth having a look at.
One of the more difficult units to navigate whilst installing hardware, ABIT's DigiDice barebones was one of only two submitted systems to feature bay real estate to accommodate more than a single optical drive, the other system being the Soltek Qbic EQ-3401M.
Acer’s tiny new Tablet PC, the TravelMate C111 marries the functionality of their previous convertible tablet with the low-power high-performance functionality of the Intel Centrino.
One of only a handful of non-Intel chipsets we received, AOpen's XCube EZ18 features an NVIDIA nForce2 chipset with support for 266 and 333MHz AMD processors.
Our Labs Winner this month represents what a mini barebones PC should be: it's small yet easily accessible; it's attractive, but has a quality build; and it has all the features you need for a full PC or a media centre.
In this line of work, there's really nothing quite like the all-too-occasional experience of opening a box from Apple, and unveiling the shiny wonders squirreled away inside. In fact, it's the only event that never fails to draw all and sundry AJB staff from throughout the office into the Labs to catch a glimpse of what the tech company with only 3 percent market share worldwide has managed to innovate this time.
BenQ’s little PB2120 may not have made it into our top three projectors, but it’s still quite a decent projector.
ClipMate is kind of like the Windows Clipboard on steroids.
The title says it all, and though I'm wary of anything branded as 'complete', Paul Heltzel's 'Complete Wireless Home Networking' offers both the essential education and the 'walkthrough' for you to start your first home wireless network.
When we last looked at the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (the Platinum Ex, June 2003) we were highly impressed by the soundcard and its many functions, but felt that there was perhaps too much on offer, leaving you with many unwanted, unused and unwarranted inclusions.
This Christmas season, the sweet spot in digital cameras, and the place where the most competition is taking place, is in the 3 megapixel arena.
And it's with this in mind that Creative has launched its first 3.2 megapixel camera - and at the very competitive price of only $399.
The big test for any interactive encyclopaedia is how well it deals with local information.
Microsoft quickly learned that Australian students are not interested in an American view of the world and for the past few editions of its Encarta it has been putting a lot of effort into the Australian content.
A quick glance down at the scores below would immediately indicate to you that we’ve made some sort of error in selecting something that scored below average performance as a Recommended winner, however we’re extremely confident in this.
We’ve tested dozens of applications that claim to be the best way of removing sensitive data from your computer, but let us tell you a trade secret: the best of the bunch is free.
You might think making sense of numeric error codes is no big deal now that we've got the web, but it's not quite that simple yet.
One of the most barren models feature-wise that we looked at (and only dubiously beating the Sony VPL-ES1 and the Sanyo PLC-SW30 which took the bottom honours), the Hitachi CPS210 certainly made up for it when it came time to undergo our strenuous testing regime.
Hewlett Packard's new digital camera takes many steps in the right direction to introduce professional-level features for the consumer photographer, yet suffers from a few, minor flaws that detract from its overall polished design.
When you group a bunch of products together and sort them out with scores, something, somehow, always ends up the average. In the case of the vp6110 this means average across the board.
Whenever PC Authority reviews a data projector, we try it out with DVDs and games, and we test entertainment projectors with PCs just to see how they handle applications other than those they’re specifically designed for.
After conducting our DVD burner labs last month and seeing the emergence of cheap high-speed single format drives such as the Labs winning Ricoh and BenQ models at a mere $299, it's hard to go back to the $499 price tag of the Iomega drive.
The EVO PC is the smallest barebones in the 'shoebox' form factor we tested this month. It weighs in at the ridiculously low 2.2kg with power supply, but without the Pentium 4 heatsink.
The Iwill ZPC is the smallest PC case we've seen to date, measuring a tiny 184mm x 54mm x 263mm. If you're after the ultimate in super compact computing, look no further than this unit.
Readily finding wireless hotspots, usable public wireless hotspots, can be a pain when you've got to power your laptop to see if any are available in the immediate vicinity. Enter the Kensington Wi-Fi Finder, a hand held hotspot detector.
Small form factor PCs have been around for a while, and barebones PCs for even longer. Traditionally a barebones PC is a basic shell, including a case, power supply and motherboard at minimum, and occasionally tooled up with a few extras like RAM.
Evaluating barebones systems is quite different from performance-based testing using benchmarks. As such, we opted to do a feature-based roundup, covering all aspects of the hardware, including but not limited to: build quality, ease of install, and included feature sets.
Many people fantasise about owning a plasma screen because of the massive image sizes and are getting excited because the prices are rapidly dropping, but in the projector world the prices have already dropped so far that for under a few grand you can now buy something that projects an image larger than four plasma screens. Compare that to the price of a plasma screen and see which way the scales tip.
There's a wealth of information available for Linux virgins, or Lingins, to help them install the operating system and get it up and running.
If you're space conscious or limited when it comes to your PC set up then no doubt you've already looked at the TFT display option at some point. We've got three new TFT offerings from three companies in the Labs this month, which should give you a good idea of the state of play of the TFT market at the moment.
While not the most stunning of projectors when displaying either video or data, the Mitsubishi SL2U is certainly a more than capable projector for both the boardroom and the lounge room.
As a business projector, the EP-731 is quite good. While resting just below average in our tests, it showed some strength in data projection, as well as a reasonably high score for DVD playback.
One of the few projectors to edge up to the $5,000 cut-off mark for this Labs, the Panasonic PT-AE300E proved to be bit of a powerhouse in our test suite.
The second Panasonic submitted, the PT-LC76E rated higher than its sister model -- with even better performance for both office and home real world tests - and came only second to the Hitachi CPS210 overall.
Chance or coincidence? AMD releases the Athlon 64, specifically targeted at the consumer performance market, and only days later Intel announces a secret processor aimed squarely at the same MHz-hungry community: the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition (P4EE).
Philips’ bCool projector was very much that - cool. Only the Proxima DP1000X was smaller, but the bCool definitely tackled miniaturisation with more panache.
The Plus U4-112 suffered from some persistent problems when we tested it, including some noticeable moire and thick banding that showed with highly detailed test patterns.
The Proxima DP1000X was so small, that it’s hard to imagine much of an image coming out of it, yet it threw out a decent 1,024 x 768, 6.8m image from up to 10m away.
Although the mobile marketplace has been changing in the face of Centrino and the slow but gradual tablet PC adoption rate, large form factored (greater than single spindle) notebooks are still the order of the day.
The QDI 5968L is another system decked out in clear Perspex and solid silver panels. Side panels allow for easy access, although the large handle mounted on the top of the chassis does nothing but inhibit peripheral installation and replacement.
Looking more like a corporate slimline desktop than a barebones system, this unit features a Mini ITX motherboard while the large form allows for good component layout. Minimal overlap between the motherboard and optical drives allows for free working space even around the CPU and RAM.
Sanyo’s PLC-SW30 is the only projector in this round-up to break the $2,000 barrier, and we’re happy to say it’s not a bad unit at all.
Synonymous with the barebones market, Shuttle has carved a niche by providing enthusiasts exactly what they crave, but in mini form factored systems.
Shuttle is a bit of a pioneer in the world of barebones PCs, and is one of few manufacturers to have a range of systems on offer and not just a couple of basic units. Its also the only one in this roundup to offer a barebones based around the new Athlon 64.
The XPC SS51G is the cheapest of the Shuttle offerings this month. Again, the ease of hardware installation makes this product fantastically user friendly, given the ability to just pop out the optical storage bay, insert your drive and floppy and whack it back in. No mess, no fuss.
The Qbic's front panel is covered in an attractive, although not totally flattering, mirrored surface that conceals all the drives and inputs.
Sony’s VPL-ES1 scores were below-average in every regard, even though in our tests it proved to be a quite capable unit.
Hey ladies, hands up if you are tired of lugging your fashionable handbag as well as an ugly laptop around the city - not to mention finding one that matches your shoes! Well the new Diva bag from STM is here to answer your stylish prayers.
The TPL-S10 comes from Toshiba’s ultra-portable stable of projectors, and while not quite as small as say, the Proxima DP1000X, it still managed to fit a fair amount of goodness into a easily manageable size.
With the prevalence of Net connections and all the good things a connected society brings such as community, the ability to share ideas and the openness of information, comes the flipside of digital life -- hackers, spyware, viruses and spam.
With the slow Australian take-off of the Centrino platform, higher spec, slightly larger form factored units are making their way into the marketplace. Intel's Pentium-M processors are ramping up in speed, now available in 1.7GHz values and still impressing.
