Acer Aspire 1703SC
This is not the first 'desknote' that we've reviewed (see Protac DeskNote, June 2002, page 37) but in our estimation the Aspire 1703SC is the first system that truly expounds the virtues of true desknote-ism.
Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional
What makes PDF (Portable Document Format) unique is that it can provide an exact electronic replica of any document from any application on all major platforms, including all text, graphics and fonts. It’s an amazingly flexible format with a myriad of uses ranging from electronic manuals and e-books, through secure document exchange and archiving, to multimedia presentation and high-end commercial print.
ADS TECHNOLOGIES PYRO A/V LINK
Digital video is a rising star, with DV camera sales increasing from year to year and digital software sales to consumers and enthusiasts alike also on the rise. It's a welcome trend, to be sure, but with all such trends there is a widening gap between the digital haves and the have-nots, with no easy way to share video between.
BENQ S2W 5000U
The second cheapest scanner in our labs roundup this month, the S2W 5000U is designed with Web use in mind. As such, it features a 'Scan to Web' (S2W) and PDA (Palm compatible) quick launch function.
CANON CanoScan 3000F
Another scanner to share the same software as the LiDE 20, Canon's 3000F boasts a jumbo sized Z-hinge for scanning of books and large bound documents helping to evenly light image scanning – great for students and perfect in conjunction with the quality results gained from the included OCR scanning software.
Canon CanoScan 9900F
One of the larger form-factor units in this months Labs, Canons 9900F comes with a sexy mag alloy top coating and features a clearly labelled and attractive front control panel for easy single button press access.
Canon LiDE 20
The Canon LiDE 20 strikes a balance between quality and price. The scanner is well designed, with Z-hinges combined and the space-saving ability to stand upright.
ClearLight
We’ve seen products like Silicon Memory’s ClearLight range of portable hard drives before, yet the ClearLight has some of the most solid yet attractive plastic housing we’ve reviewed.
COREL PAINTER 8
Throughout its long and chequered career – first under MetaCreations, then Procreate and now Corel – Painter has always stood out as the artistic and creative computer application bar none. The reason is simple: Painter's unique range of natural media brushes.
D-Link DSL-604+ Wireless ADSL Router
Telstra says it now has more than 300,000 ADSL subscribers and is on target to reach a million by 2005. The problem with home ADSL is that unlike cable, Telstra doesn’t make it easy to network even though it requires an Ethernet connection. Interestingly, the Ethernet requirement for broadband Internet connectivity is also helping to drive the rising popularity of home networks.
Emagen Vitesse P4
If you're looking for a computer geared for gaming, the Vitesse is it. If you think that a Pentium 4C rumbling at 3GHz with a massive 1GB of DDR400 RAM has a nice ring to it, its gamers'-poetry when you add in a RADEON 9800 PRO.
EPSON Perfection 2400 Photo
Supplied with Adobe Photoshop Elements it features direct printing, scanning, email and Web quick launch buttons.
EPSON Perfection 3200 Photo
The Epson Perfection 3200 Photo represents absolute quality scanning for the serious amateur or professional user.
It uses a matrix CCD and micro lens to produce an amazing 3,200dpi optical resolution. Even though it wasn't the highest optical resolution scanner this month, standing behind both the Microtek 4,800dpi scanners, it still produced stunning results without long scanning times, care of USB 2.0 and FireWire.
GIGABYTE RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB
John Gillooly takes a ride with the limousine version of ATI’s luxury card.
HEWLETT PACKARD ScanJet 2300c
Not the most advanced scanner this month, featuring just two front shortcut buttons, the HP scan software is pure simplicity with many advanced options
HEWLETT PACKARD ScanJet 4500c
A 2,400 x 2,400dpi flatbed scanner, features an LCD and one-touch front panel buttons for printing/copying, emailing, burning and sharing images.
HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
Subtitled, 'Steganography And The Art of Covert Communication', Hiding in plain sight is a thoroughly intriguing book about hidden communications. Whereas encryption is an obvious, yet impervious, form of communication, steganography (stego) is more about the communication aspect as it hides data where people may not think to look.
HP LASERJET 2300DTN
The 2300 series, HP's new laser offering for the small to medium-sized workgroup, includes a myriad of significant improvements over the previous 2200 series.
HP Pavilion t134a
Looking sleek and a little smaller than your average midi tower, the t134a sits on top of the Pavilion series. This machine is a powerful home/office PC – not rigged purely for gaming.
InFocus LP650
We've been impressed with InFocus' low-priced video/data projectors in the past (review on the PC Authority Web site), and were keen to see what one of its fully-featured data projectors was capable of.
Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz (800MHz FSB)
Your PC is only as good as your last upgrade, and this is truer than ever with current gaming and software applications milking machines for everything they're worth.
JASC PAINTSHOP PRO 8.0
When you think of photo editing, the chances are you think of Adobe Photoshop. However, the majority of non-professional users don't need Photoshop's high-end power and can't justify its cost. That's where Paint Shop Pro (PSP) comes in. Its low price is definitely its initial attraction, but that has never stopped it aiming high. At times, as with version 6's introduction of vector layers, it has even left Photoshop trailing behind. However, version 7's minor fiddling was a serious letdown and as time passed, it began to look as if PSP had run out of steam. Version 8, though, shows this isn't the case.
You begin to realise how fundamental the overhaul has been as soon as you load the application.
MICROTEK ScanMaker 4900
The Microtek ScanMaker 4900 offers a high resolution of 4,800 x 2,400dpi and decent performance for a fair price.
MICROTEK ScanMaker 6800
Featuring an optical resolution of 4,800 x 2,400dpi, the 6800 is the most expensive scanner in our roundup.
MINOLTA-QMS MAGICOLOR 2300W
Surely, this can't be right – a full-colour laser printer for only $1,800? You'd better believe it,
The catch is that the 2300W is a GDI (graphical device interface) printer, so it doesn't have an internal processor and relies on the host system to do all the legwork in preparing the pages. Furthermore, it's parallel and USB 1.1 only and it can't accept a network card. That aside, the printer offers a fine set of features for the price. There's a 600 x 600dpi resolution with a 1,200 x 600dpi Fine ART mode, along with 4ppm colour and 16ppm mono print speeds.
MITSUBISHI DV1250U
A glance at the plain DV2150U with its optical resolution of 1,200 x 2,400dpi in no way reveals what it IS capable of.
MUSTEK BearPaw 1200CU Plus
Although it’s a 600 x 1,200dpi scanner and only 36-bit colour, this was the only unit in our round-up under a hundred dollars.
NOKIA 9210i COMMUNICATOR WITH TALX
Never judge a book by its cover, they say, and nowhere does this apply better than to the Nokia 9210i Communicator.
PALM ZIRE 71
The Zire 71 isn't a business tool. It's not even a straight forward personal organiser. Palm is targeting the ears of Sony's CLIÉ range, the new PDA boasts not only a headphone jack for MP3 player use, but also a 640 x 480 camera.
The camera is ingeniously hidden behind the metal backplate. To activate, you simply slide down the backplate to reveal the lens, the screen becoming a viewfinder. You can save photos to the memory – 12.7MB before you start loading programs – or to an SD/MMC card that slips into the top-mounted slot.
Performance analysis: Scanners
The labs team this month tackled scanners, and they put 16 through their paces to bring you the good, and the not so good.
Pinnacle PCTV Deluxe TV CARD
Ever since the mid-1990s, a variety of manufacturers have been attempting to find a reliable way to turn your PC into a television – without a huge amount of success.
PowerQuest
Released already in the U.S. and due out here shortly, PowerQuest has announced Version 7 of its Drive Image software.
POWERQUEST DRIVE IMAGE 7.0
Released already in the U.S. and due out here shortly, PowerQuest has announced Version 7 of its Drive Image software. Some significant changes have been made with the latest version including plenty of sensible features for offsite data storage and time and space saving.
REALmagic Xcard
The idea of using your PC as the central control point for your home theatre has been bandied about for some time.
RED HAT LINUX 9
Despite various attempts at Windows Desktop alternatives, Linux is still best suited to servers, for which Red Hat is by far the most popular choice. With this in mind, it came as no surprise when in May 2002 Red Hat split its product line in two: Linux and Enterprise Linux.
RUNNING MS-DOS
Your first thought might be, what has MS-DOS got to do with anything these days, but when you consider the huge existing install-base of Windows 95 and 98 machines, plus the number of problems you can still have with Windows that can be solved with a bit of command line typing, you'd be surprised at what a handy reference this book can be.
THE ANIMATRIX
2003 is going to be remembered as the year of the Matrix glut, with two movies, A multi-platform computer game and DVD releases across the year. Rumours are that there is even another game coming out, although this one may not hit until 2004. For now, in between Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions theatrical releases is the release of the companion DVD, Animatrix.
TOSHIBA E350
Toshiba's PDA strategy is clear: business users should opt for the larger, more flexible e750 (above), while consumers are catered for by the e350. After all, this has all the features most people need in a sleek package that won't break the bank.
TOSHIBA E750 WITH WiFi
The Toshiba e740 (review on the PC Authority Web site) boasted great features such as Type II CF and SD/MMC card slots, and the optional expansion pack which includes a VGA output and USB port, allowing the connection of a keyboard and a projector. The e750 goes two steps further. You can now send 16-bit colour to a projector at a resolution of 800 x 600, and this WiFi version connects wirelessly to a suitably equipped Toshiba projector.
Another WiFi enhancement is support for Voice-over-IP with an enhanced microphone socket so a microphone headset can be used.
Twinhead Efio! 2B18 PTK
The Twinhead Efio! 2B18 PTK gives the impression of a modern, sporty and sleek notebook. It’s powered by a Pentium 4-M processor running at 1.8GHz, and carries 384MB memory and a 40GB hard drive.
UMAX Astra 6700
The 2,400 x 4,800dpi Astra 6700 offers good core functionality without many special features.
UMAX VistaScan Astra 4600
The Astra 4600 offers excellent performance for a low price. In the 1,200dpi class, it outscored all but the Mitsubishi DV1250U – which costs $70 more. It managed high scores in both colour and tonal resolution.
WinZip 9.0 Beta
WinZip has become the most popular archival program used on the Windows platform, and it’s good to see some serious innovation in this revision.
Xenon ATOMIC 675x
It's inside that you find a HyperThreaded Pentium 4 3GHz processor with an 800MHz FSB, plus a gig of DDR400 RAM in dual-channel configuration.