I’m not fixated on size, I swear. It just happens to be a theme in the January issue. It’s not like we planned it. Well, except for the huge Reliability and Service Awards. And the external hard drives test, and the Windows 7 preview, and the nine-page review of CS4....
20,000 people filled in our Reliability and Survey Awards, now in their third year, and well over 100,000 votes were cast among the 16 categories included. We’re confident that these represent the largest consumer technology survey in Australia. You’ll find it an indispensible guide to the good, the bad and the ugly of products and services.
Also huge is our external hard drives test, which covers 15 models, both portable and desktop. External hard drives keep getting cheaper and cheaper – we just received a massive 1.5TB drive to test in the labs for next issue (unplanned enormity!). External storage is great for backup, and thanks to gadgets like the WDTV featured in this issue, it’s also great for multimedia libraries.
To keep with the theme, Windows 7 is the next big thing in the OS world, and a pre-beta is finally here. We got a private viewing of some of its features from Windows Evangelist Tim Sneath. We’ll show you why it’s going to be worth waiting for in the pages of this issue. If you can’t wait, we’ve got a stack of tips for turning your current OS into something more 7-like.
The nice folks at Dell let us steal away their Precision Workstation M6400 for a brief look over and test, and we’re heartily impressed. It’s a massive Quad Core laptop with DDR3 and a Quadro graphics card – only in the pages of this issue!
We’ve got Australia’s biggest guide to Adobe Creative Suite 4. If you’re a designer or web developer, this nine page review is a one-stop shop of information about Adobe’s flagship product.
• Paragon Partition Manager SE
• Ashampoo Photo Commander 6
• O & O Disk Image Express
• Alpinesoft VinylStudio LE
• LEGO Batman Demo
Our massive guide to Adobe's huge overhaul of the Creative Suite, including reviews of Photoshop CS4, Illustrator, InDesign and Dreamweaver.
Adobe builds on its print strengths to take its rich design mission online. And it has made a success of it, too.
A period of transition as Adobe deals with its Macromedia inheritance and the changing nature of the web.
A shift of focus to advanced CSS and JavaScript handling, but Dreamweaver is beginning to look old-fashioned
The new interface plus PDF and AIR export sees Fireworks CS4 fully integrated into the Creative Suite.
A new focus on animation, better video support and deeper integration, but not the core authoring package it once was.
Still heavy going, but a raft of improvements means it’s the most comprehensive drawing package on the market.
Advanced long document functionality and screen-based publishing via Flash contribute to another Quark-bashing.
Adobe significantly strengthens its print, web and production workflows – and the integration between them
An excellent release that reworks Photoshop’s core colour-correction capabilities, making them even more powerful
Fast, full of features and with mobile broadband support, but just a little too expensive
Quick, packed with interfaces, but just a little too expensive.
Strong on data security measures, this drive is a stand-out.
If you don’t care about weight, this is what a laptop should be
Is your PC’s hard disk getting cramped? Invest in an external hard disk and never again worry about running out of room.
Far Cry 2 is an ugly game, simply because it all too accurately portrays a modern world conflict in a war-torn African nation.
Light on features, but it’s tiny and ferociously quick.
Rugged and durable, but overall it’s a bit pricey
Garmin’s Nuvi 265W offers a clean navigating experience with a host of useful features and suffers only a handful of small issues.
A great desktop drive but you can get this capacity and similar performance for less
Intel’s new range of desktop processors has been a long time coming, but at last it’s arrived - and it leaves all others in the dust
Stylish, quick and cheap but not Particularly small.
Thin, but short on features and not particularly cheap either.
It may lack eSATA, but this is a fast and cheap terabyte drive.
Clean lines undermined by poor performance and a high price.
Quick, cheap and light: the best 3.5in drive in the group.
Great design, but average performance lets it down.
Stylish and versatile, its only drawback is the mammoth price
Sony’s Z-Series is an ultraportable to aspire to, even if there are a couple of areas where it could improve.
This Investigator reports how one man spent six weeks fighting "tooth and nail" with People Telecom over a contract he claimed was extended by 12 months without his permission.
Tough, quick and a good choice if you need a little extra protection.
A well-featured package with some unusual tricks that falls just short of a first-rate performance.
Relatively quick and cheap, but not quite up there with the best
Western Digital MyBook Home Edition
Fine performance and features make this a worthy winner.
