You may not have guessed it, but Leonardo Da Vinci, Aristotle, Mahatmah Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Mozart and the good me have something in common. Yes, like these famous people, I’m left-handed and like them, I’ve always been frustrated by the lack of a computer mouse designed specifically for the way we work. Leonardo, Albert and I always had to look with envy at the carefully sculpted, beautifully contoured mice that right-handed people have always had, while we left-handers either had to live with boring, unsculpted mice or suffer crooked hands.

It’s been taking a hell of a long time, but Logitech has finally made an effort to remedy the situation. Maybe that’s because Logitech’s CEO is left-handed himself. So if he made sure I greet him with my left hand.

The MX610 Left-Hand Laser Cordless was first announced at CeBIT in 2006, but it took me so long to actually get one from Logitech. The left mouse is an exact mirror image of the right-hand version of the MX610, which debuted in early 2006, which we never actually got to see, so aside from being left-handed, it’s worth checking out here.

The mouse is a pretty good looking device with a silver, gray and black finish and most exciting for left-handers, it has plenty of sexy curves, something we’ve been starving for when it comes to mouse movements. There are seven buttons on its surface, all of which fall neatly under the reach of the index finger and thumb.

At the heart of the MX610 is a laser rather than an optical LED sensor first introduced by Logitech on the MX1000. This means the mouse doesn’t have the red light that optical mice have at the base, but more importantly the laser is much more sensitive than LEDs, potentially allowing it to work on more surfaces than optical mice. I used it primarily on my mouse pad, but it seemed perfectly happy on my desk’s wood grain. The mouse has a resolution of 800 dpi, which is good, but not as good as the 2,000 dpi that some dedicated gaming mice offer.

The mouse communicates with the small dongle over the crowded 2.4GHz frequency, and some users have complained that the mouse is prone to communication issues as a result. I plugged the dongle straight into my monitor’s USB port, so there was very little distance between the two and actually a line of location. So it’s hardly surprising that I haven’t had any problems like this. If your USB ports are only on the back of the PC and you’re having trouble, a USB extension cable could be the solution. It doesn’t come with one, but there is a PS/2 to USB converter so you can use the mouse without occupying a USB port if you don’t have an spare.

The 2.4 GHz frequency also allows the mouse to receive and send information from the PC – Logitech speaks of a smart mouse. It knows when the PC is on standby or off and can shut itself down, which is very useful for saving energy. This is important as Logitech only claims a three month lifespan and the MX610 runs on regular AA batteries rather than a built in rechargeable battery with stand. So you need a spare set of AA in case the battery runs out. However, you have enough warning to buy a new set if you don’t, as there’s a light on top of the mouse that shows when the power is low and the SetPoint software will let you know as well. If you leave your PC on all the time, you can manually turn off the mouse with a button and power indicator on the bottom of the device.

The mouse can not only detect the state of the PC, but also when you have received an email or a message from a chat client, with the former slowly blinking amber and the latter blue. The lights are also buttons, so you can just press them to bring up the respective application. This functionality is available through Logitech’s SetPoint software, but the downside is that it’s limited to Outlook Express, Outlook and MSN Messenger, or Yahoo Messenger. This was fine with me as I use Outlook and MSN on my work computer and I found it very useful to be able to use the mouse to launch the messenger without having to go to the taskbar. However, I also use Thunderbird for my personal email and it just isn’t supported, which is a shame. If you’re using another chat client like AOL IM or Trillian, this feature doesn’t work either, which is disappointing.

If you don’t want the light flashing on every spam that hits your inbox, you can use SetPoint software to manually filter messages to the messages you want. SetPoint also allows you to map the function of each key to your liking. You can do this on an application basis, so you can customize how the mouse works in your apps, which is a good thing. If you don’t see an installed app in the list, you can add it by selecting Manage programs. What I don’t understand is why the software doesn’t have an option that lets you apply the same settings globally. I wanted to map cut and paste to the side buttons in all apps, but had to go into each program and do it manually – a real chore.

The top two buttons are also set fairly high on the bulbous part of the mouse, requiring you to remove your thumb to reach them, which is a bit awkward. There are volume up/down and mute buttons on the front of the mouse. Being able to control the volume in this way without having to switch to the keyboard is great, although I found I had to reach down a bit to reach the volume up button on the front. The side buttons, which default to forward and back, are conveniently within thumb reach. Of course it all depends on hand size, but in general I found the feel to be good, if not quite as good as the MX Revolution (although of course the limitation with this mouse is that it’s right-handed, so I couldn’t use it ).

Besides the usual scrolling and clicking, the mouse wheel can also be moved from side to side, which is useful for web pages and Excel. I found that it didn’t click as easily as my regular Logitech wired mouse, and I’m working harder to get it to do that. I also had to change the setting in the SetPoint software that defaults the middle button to a zoom function, which I found a bit strange – clicking is much more useful (e.g. wheel-clicking links in Firefox to get a link to start in a new tab).

Of course, many people will wonder how good the mouse was in games. I tested with short sessions in Day of Defeat: Source, Counter-Strike: Source and a bit of Half-Life 2 single player. I found that most of the time I needed some practice, but I was content that the mouse wasn’t really the problem with my lack of success. I still feel that die-hard Twitch gamers are better served with a faster dpi mouse, which means left-handed users are wired. However, if you’re more of a casual gamer, the MX610 is acceptable.

Actually, a contoured mouse felt a bit unusual to me, but I quickly got used to it. Although I use mine on the left side of the keyboard, I’ve always kept the left and right click keys around in the normal way. With this mouse, however, I felt comfortable actually toggling it since the index finger is faster for those left clicks.

“‘Verdict”‘

It might not be perfect, but having not had the luxury of using a contoured mouse before, I have to say that I’ve been very happy with the left-handed MX610. Economies of scale inevitably dictate that the left-handed version will be more expensive than the right-hand one, but luckily it only costs a few pounds more. I can happily recommend the MX610 for left-handers, and not just because there is no other way.

I think we all owe the crackdown an apology.

First of all, it was branded as a basic GTA clone, albeit one with interesting cel-shaded graphics. Then it was seen as the kind of lightweight expense that needed bundled access to a Halo 3 beta to ensure it flew off the shelves. Well, it turns out we were wrong on both counts.

The first is just nonsense. Unlike, say, Saint’s Row or Scarface, Crackdown has none of the usual gang banging, pimping, dealing tosh. It’s played in third person, involves cars, and takes place in an urban open-world setting, but that’s where the comparisons end. And while the Halo 3 beta is a definite bonus, Crackdown doesn’t need it to grab our attention. This is a game that can proudly stand on its own two feet.

Maybe one day we can play an open world game without mentioning GTA, just as we don’t necessarily mention Command and Conquer or Doom now when a new RTS or FPS comes out. For now, instead of thinking about GTA, you could consider two more sensible points of comparison. First, last year’s Just Cause, both for its assassinations and the way you get around was part of the fun, and second, 2005’s Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. Why the latter? Because it’s probably the most successful game to include superpowers in an open world, and because those superpowers help make that open world fun. All of this applies to Crackdown.

Confused? Here is the facility. You are a genetically engineered super cop unleashed on a city teetering on the brink of social collapse. Three gangs roam the streets, each claiming a certain part of the city. Eliminate the gang leaders and you can restore peace, but it won’t be easy. To stand any chance of bringing down the three kingpins, you must attack their lieutenants one by one, tracking each one to his or her hideout and making sure you incapacitate them permanently.

And that’s basically it. There’s no storyline, no cutscenes to wade through, and no missions as such, just gameplay. You won’t even know who and where your targets are until an up-close intelligence briefing appears. This means that you are basically free to wipe out the twenty-one key villains in any order and however you want. The catch is that while you can try whoever you want, when you want, your odds won’t always be that good. On your first try, the game’s excellent commentary – a mix of online help and cutting observation – will show you your predicted odds, and the game will cheerfully recommend you come back later if you need to, when you’re better equipped to tackle.

In other games, that might mean heavier weapons or armor, but here it means enhanced abilities. You start out with skills in five categories – Agility, Strength, Driving, Explosives, and Marksmanship – and by attacking the gangs in appropriate ways or collecting specific markers, you’ll collect upgrade orbs that will eventually enhance that power. As the game progresses, you will become better at targeting and locking on to enemies at a distance or on the move. make enormous leaps and scale the sides of the tallest buildings, leaping from ledge to ledge; Pick up blocks, containers and even cars and throw them at attackers and much more. In the beginning you can wade into a group of enemies and bang out their lights, but five hours later you’ll be beating them halfway down the street before their freshly hewn butt hits the pavement.

Not only is that an excuse to show off the game’s Havok-based physics – although it certainly does a fantastic job – it really opens up the whole experience. Once you win the first upgrade for your acrobatics, the whole city turns into one giant platform game. The buildings are not only meant to look impressive and give a sense of massive size, although they certainly do; The entire cityscape has been cleverly designed to challenge your jumping skills. You’ll soon be scanning the rooftops for more Agility Upgrade Orbs, knowing that if you can’t quite make it there, it’s only a matter of time.

In addition, there are many side missions to help you level up, such as: B. Driving challenges and daredevil rooftop races where you dash from point to point with breathtaking abandon. If you thought Just Cause had any thrills left, Crackdown makes it look coy. Cleverly, you might also notice that this all means that the game rewards you for doing what you love to do most. As you wade into the gangster headquarters, throwing grenades and spitting bullets, you’ll soon fill up the upgrade meter in the Marksmanship and Explosives categories and get better at them. If you’d rather acrobaticly find your way back, you’ll earn upgrade points for doing so.

It might not have worked if these ideas weren’t executed so brilliantly, but they are. The controls are smooth, with responsive, quick movement, and melee and aiming capabilities that put other open-world games to shame. In a way, it’s a compliment that driving is probably the least compelling aspect of the game. The handling model is fantastic and there’s an excellent choice of vehicles, but why bother with something as prosaic as driving when you can leap over tall buildings with just a few jumps?

Over time, the game boils down to figuring out the locations of the various bosses and sub-bosses, working out a logical order, and then trying to find a weak point. Along the way, you’ll also snag supply points, which are handy places to drop off weapons, move around instantly, and — most importantly — respawn if large numbers of gang members beat you into submission.

Now it has to be said that the actual encounters sometimes lack drama – the bosses are almost always lurking on a rooftop or in a compound surrounded by gang members, and while the AI ​​isn’t bad, it’s hardly the stuff of FEAR, which the game encourages to create your own set pieces. One minute you might be dizzyingly climbing a lighthouse, the next you’re single-handedly storming an island hideout. With bullets and bodies flying everywhere, fuel barrels and grenades exploding in every direction, and you hurtling headlong through the middle, games just don’t get any better.

Of course, not everyone will agree. The look, for example, is firmly against the current trend towards photorealism, although I think the combination of cel shading and applied detail – reminiscent of a dark sci-fi graphic novel – suits the style of overpowering action much better than that Gears of War approach. Some don’t like the lack of structure, find the plot repetitive, or complain that it doesn’t last long enough. Well, maybe this isn’t an epic of GTA proportions, but I can only imagine that those who cracked Crackdown in less than eight hours a) really blew it and b) missed a lot of fun in the process. The action only repeats if you do the same thing on each boss. Take your time exploring your skills and the game will constantly surprise you by catering to almost every whim. This isn’t the kind of game that propels you from climax to climax like a symphony. It’s a game where you improvise, play – just want to have fun.

And in that respect, it’s arguably better than any game I’ve played this year. If you want proof of how well it handles everything, all you have to do is look at how it integrates live games. A smaller game would have built in a lazy collection of deathmatch or capture-the-flag modes, but Crackdown implements a drop-in drop-out co-op mode where you can decide to play your single player game with friends or even leaving strangers open to join or request participation in another player’s game. That kind of generous spirit sums up the game as a whole. It’s like saying, “You’re having fun, why not share it?”. Needless to say, any game with this much auto-throwing, acrobatic, high-explosive action is a must-play with a mate, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the sheer silly joy of blowing things to pieces keeps that playground open at some point .

So let’s give Crackdown a big pity and thank the heavens that it’s out. It’s not deep, particularly deep, or overly revolutionary, but it never fails to entertain in the most wonderful, big-hearted way. That makes it the first must-have 360 ​​game of the year for me.

“‘Verdict”‘

A whirlwind mix of superhero and open-world gameplay, it’s a 360 must-play, even without the Halo 3 Beta invite. cracking stuff.

characteristics

While it’s entirely possible to have surround sound for your PC, the reality is that most people find it far too impractical. Unlike home theaters, desktop PCs generally live where there is room for them, and arranging the various speakers and hiding the cables is a chore.

As a result, many people prefer 2.1 systems, which benefit from being small, affordable, and easy to set up, and many companies produce a range of systems of varying quality. Sony is just one of those companies and has sent us a set of their new 2.1 speakers, the SRS-DZ10s, which are available for a not inconsiderable £85.

At first glance, the SRS-DZ10 look quite unusual; The tubular subwoofer in particular is a unique component. However, as a set they are undeniably stylish with a supremely elegant brushed aluminum finish and satellites that are elegant in their simplicity. The sub’s unusual design is designed so that you can place it horizontally or vertically on your desk, but why you’d want to do that rather than keep it under a desk is beyond me.

From a technical point of view, the set delivers a total of 37 W, with the two satellites delivering 6 W each and the sub delivering 25 W. The set is also magnetically shielded to prevent noise interference and damage to your monitor if you’re still using a CRT.

The satellites measure 63 x 143 x 63mm, while the Sub, with its rather bulky shape, measures 374 x 149 x 183mm. The set also comes with a control center for adjusting volume and bass levels – this device has two input sockets, so you can connect an MP3 player along with a PC or notebook. Finally, there’s a headphone jack on the front of the control center for easy access.

Consisting of two small drivers, the satellites have the typical Sony look and feel of quality products. If you want speakers with a bit of style and panache then the SRS-DZ10s are certainly worth considering, and while the sub is an acquired taste it’s at least: a) hideable and b) eye-catching.

While 2.1 channel speaker sets offer many benefits, there are challenges to overcome. Because you’re separating the high and low range with two different sets of speakers, getting a balanced sound is often a problem. one that the SRS-DZ10 often fails to solve.

That’s not to say they’re poor quality speakers, they aren’t, but they’re not quite as versatile as one would like. For music they are certainly very crisp, especially in the upper range, but at times percussion can sound quite grating and even get annoying at times.

Of course, sharpness and clarity aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but balance is always important and that high-end clarity isn’t matched by a strong mid-range. Turning up the bass does mitigate the problem somewhat, but never balances the sound enough, as the bass is quite harsh at high settings and the midrange tends to be anonymous.

The lack of mids is particularly noticeable when watching films and videos, the voices sound rather distant. The speakers didn’t get along too well with action scenes either, although the high-pitched tone again spoils the overall impression.

The lack of midrange performance is also noticeable when listening to music at low volumes, where once again the percussion dominates to the detriment of everyone else.

Predictably, this problem carries over into games where shots sound very tinny and unconvincing. While these speakers are certainly primarily intended for music, it’s still important to be versatile, especially if you’re paying a moderately sized sum for a 2.1 set.

Luckily there are some positives as the set creates a nice spatial effect that fills spaces well. This makes them a good choice for casual music listening in the living room when connected to a notebook or even an MP3 player. This at least partially makes up for the shortcomings in the balance, and it’s certainly much less noticeable when the sound is given more time to mix.

But even with that caveat, the SRS-DZ10s are in a difficult position considering what you can get for the same price – or even less. For £50 you get the excellent Logitech Z3s, which are still excellent value for money, and their replacements, the Z4s, are also available for around the same price.

Alternatively, for around the same price, you can pick up the Acoustic Energy Aego M speakers that Benny tested late last year, which featured musical fidelity. As an added bonus, they also offer an option for a third center speaker to create a 3.1 channel setup ideal for watching movies on your PC.

“‘Verdict”‘

Though stylish and eye-catching, the SRS-DZ10s don’t deliver a compelling overall performance. The music playback is mixed with rather weak mids and exaggeratedly powerful highs. They are also not really suitable for films and games. They’ll do a reasonable job for the style-over-substance consumer, but there are plenty of alternatives that offer superior quality and better value for money.

I should imagine there aren’t many digital photographers who don’t run out of space every now and then; The dreaded card full symbol is enough to get anyone muttering a few swear words to themselves. Luckily, Epson has come to the rescue with a handy little storage viewer that fits in just about any camera bag. Now there’s no need to panic when you’re down on those last few megabytes of disk space!

The P-5000 is a versatile, fairly well put together package that goes beyond a simple image viewer. It offers a variety of card formats, video and audio capabilities, and a respectable list of handy features, including a gorgeous HD LCD screen, a fast 80 gigabyte hard drive, a rechargeable Li-On battery for long life, and a high USB High-speed 2.0 connection for comprehensive storage and management functions for PC and Mac operating systems.

Physically, the device is intuitive to use, comfortable to hold as most of the work is done with the right thumb. The two memory card slots are usefully placed on the top for easy access along with the headphone jack. The rest of the connection hardware is under flush-fitting rubber tabs on the left edge. These consist of an A/V output, two high-speed USB2.0 ports, a power supply socket and a reset button. An interesting point is the placement of the speaker. Unfortunately, it’s on the underside and nestles neatly within the confines of a remarkably soundproof rim. If you want to enjoy movies or music, you need your headphones. The 4-inch, 640×480 resolution screen is probably one of the nicest I’ve seen on a device of this size. Using low-temperature polysilicon TFT technology, the quality of this display is superb, colors are warm and well-defined, while grayscale has excellent contrast and sharp, crisp edges.

The range of media supported by the P-5000 is impressive overall, but leaves a little to be desired on the photographic side. It loads JPEG and RAW files with ease (with limitations, see specs), but surprisingly there’s no support for TIFF files, or any other still image format for that matter. Video formats, on the other hand, include most MPEGs, DivX, AVC, Windows Media Video, Motion JPEGs and even the new H.264 format.

On the audio side, there is the standard MP3 and AAC, as well as Windows audio. Memory card support is limited to two slots, one Secure Digital and one Compact Flash. However, in fact, you can use SD/SDHC, Multimedia, Compact Flash and Microdrive formats. Other cards can be used, but only with an appropriate adapter. The only limit is the multimedia card, which is limited to one gigabyte.

To get an accurate picture of the comparable speeds, I ran a series of read/write tests, the results of which are shown here. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed with the result. Granted, there’s not a lot in it as you can see, but if I were to spend anything under £500 on a dedicated machine like this I’d expect at least similar results to what I get from my home PC or laptop. The tests included reading and writing half a gig chunks of data, one with numerous small JPEG files, one with several large video files, and another with an average mix. I didn’t expect a huge difference between the two considering they do the same job in both cases, transferring data to and from a hard drive and a memory card.

However, the data speaks for itself, the P-5000 performed slower in every test, with the exception of the Microdrive, which wrote faster in all three tests. Unless you’re too concerned about access times or don’t have access to a computer these numbers won’t tell you much, after all they’re just for comparison, but since you can’t get a decent laptop for much more than the cost of the P- 5000 it is worth considering.

This brings us straight to general connectivity. The device features two high-speed USB ports that can be used for a variety of tasks. The first, a “host” connection, is used to connect a computer or camera. The second connection, “Device”, is for using a PictBridge printer or an external storage device. Which is odd, because surely the P-5000 IS an external storage device? To use the computer support, you need Windows 2000 Pro, XP Pro, XP Home or Mac OS X (10.2 or higher). The software itself does not come on a CD-ROM as expected, but as an executable file on the unit’s drive. After some tinkering I got the application working. It does what it says on the box, transfers files. It has no notable features, certainly nothing notable.

The control system for the P-5000 is similar to the software, reasonable and functional. It consists of clear, text-based menus that include: My Music, View Rated Files, My Videos, My Photos, Backup Files, Memory Card, USB Devices, and Settings. Most entries are simple folder navigation menus that give you access to files. Videos and still images are all displayed as thumbnails and highlighting and pressing OK displays that image or video. The Memory Card option allows you to back up or browse an inserted card. It would have been nice to have seen a little imagination in the design, but it does the job. Just.

“‘Verdict”‘

There’s no doubt that the P-5000 is a handy, versatile viewer that performs well enough. Its hardware is up-to-date and powerful, uses fast USB 2.0 technology and supports the most common card formats. The heart of the machine, the screen, is beautiful, sixteen million colors in high definition look really good. The video is smooth and crisp, with an excellent choice of formats. Audio is the same, nice and clean with a good frequency response. I would have liked to see more photographic formats, especially TIFF. What really lets the device down in my opinion is the software, both the OS and the PC/Mac software could be so much better. If as much effort had been put into the OS as into the hardware, it would be a whole different beast.

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Where would you be without a USB stick? Seriously, if you don’t have one, you must be some kind of insane lunatic still blown away by the invention of the digital watch. There’s simply no easier way to carry important files around, and with flash memory being so cheap, there’s little excuse not to have one.

Because of this cheapness, USB drives cost 100 cents, and normally we wouldn’t bat an eyelid when a USB flash drive lands on our desks. But in this case we were intrigued because this 1GB drive from Kingston boasted “Enhanced for Windows ReadyBoost”.

So what is ReadyBoost you ask? It acts as an extension of Vista’s SuperFetch feature, which loads frequently used files and programs into system memory so that they load significantly faster than if they loaded directly from the hard drive. As a result, Vista is much better at taking advantage of large memory configurations greater than 2GB, and power users will surely reap the benefits.

ReadyBoost does almost the same thing as SuperFetch, albeit with some limitations because while flash memory offers excellent access times, it’s still much slower than a hard drive for transferring larger files.

Still, there are some benefits, and ReadyBoost uses compatible flash memory to cache system files and the system paging file to provide some sort of performance boost.

Note that you cannot use old flash memory for ReadyBoost. To avoid performance degradation, you must use flash memory that meets certain minimum requirements. If you are using a USB flash drive, it must be USB 2.0, while each memory must support 3.5 MB/s for 4 KB random reads and 2.5 MB/s for 512 KB random writes.

This applies to any flash memory you use, and you can also use memory cards like Secure Digital and Compact Flash. Each storage drive must also have at least 64MB of free space, and you can use up to 4GB of flash memory for ReadyBoost.

The USB flash drive Kingston sent us is 1GB, and the company claims it exceeds data transfer requirements. Aside from the ReadyBoost certification, it’s a very typical and completely unremarkable flash drive. It looks just like any you’ve seen or used in the past, and it’s not rugged enough to survive being run over by a car or some nonsense like that. It’s just some plastic; nothing to get too excited about.

Setting up ReadyBoost is an extremely simple case of inserting a compatible storage device into a Vista PC and then, when prompted, selecting the option to use it for ReadyBoost. By going to the device’s Properties dialog box, you can select the amount of memory you want to allocate to ReadyBoost, allowing you to choose to keep some memory for storage if you wish.

To test the validity of ReadyBoost and see if Kingston ReadyFlash would improve performance, we first ran PCMark’s HDD tests on a notebook running Vista. Since notebooks are generally less powerful and more difficult to upgrade, they are the most likely candidates that could benefit from ReadyBoost, making this a real test.

The notebook in question was the Asus U1F recently reviewed by Riyad, which has an Intel Dual Core U2400 clocked at 1.06 GHz, 1 GB of system memory and a 60 GB hard drive. Riyad noted in his review that he found it quite sluggish on Vista and suggested that potential buyers should specify 2GB of RAM when purchasing. Does ReadyBoost have an effect?

First, the PC Mark tests suggest that this is certainly the case. We ran the hard drive tests again without ReadyBoost and got a score of 2310, and subsequent tests showed significant improvements when the USB device was plugged in and scheduled for caching.

With the full 1GB used, the score was 3106, which is 796 more than the score without ReadyBoost. Further testing returned results of 3017 at 880MB, Windows’ suggested memory usage, and 2680 and 2600 when using 512MB and 256MB, respectively.

Although PC Mark tests are more of an indicator of performance, these numbers suggest that there is certainly a significant amount of additional performance to be gained when using ReadyBoost. In addition, the notebook was noticeably faster in general use when loading programs. That’s not to say it was a revolutionary improvement, but it was noticeable enough to be worth checking out.

As another indicator, we decided to run a quick and easy test on our gaming machine, which is equipped with a slightly more powerful AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 Dual Core 2.63 GHz CPU and 2 GB Corsair Pro Series RAM.

We measured how long it took to load a game file from Oblivion and compared the times when using 1GB of ReadyBoost cache to none at all. After running the test multiple times, we found that ReadyBoost reduced load time by just under 15 seconds on average, an impressive return on a £13 investment.

Over time, you’ll surely notice this kind of difference, and we’d love to see if ReadyBoost has a similar impact on in-game loading, although that’s a little harder to test.

“‘Verdict”‘

It appears that ReadyBoost does indeed work, and the Kingston 1GB DataTraveler ReadyFlash drive is an excellent and dirt-cheap way to boost Vista performance. Ideally we’d like it to be smaller, as we already know Kingston can make much smaller USB flash drives, but other than that it does a good job.

It’s been over a year, but Freecom has finally added wireless capabilities to its neat little desktop NAS appliance, the FSG-3 Storage Gateway. We first looked at the Storage Gateway in 2005 and were very impressed with the range of features on offer. The wireless model offers essentially the same features, but now includes an 802.11g wireless access point.

The gateway uses a standard ATA drive with four models available ranging from 160GB to 500GB. It offers shared network storage via CIFS/SMB or FTP, so Linux or Macintosh systems must access it via one of those protocols as it doesn’t support NFS or AFP. Four USB 2.0 ports are available and can be used to connect other external storage devices or printers for sharing. Unfortunately, Gigabit Ethernet isn’t on the menu, as the gateway still only offers four switched Fast Ethernet ports, one of which is dedicated to WAN tasks.

Internet access can be provided to all users simply by connecting an ADSL or cable modem, and the gateway offers firewall protection. Four connection modes are available, supporting PPPoE and PPTP along with dynamic and fixed IP addresses. Using dynamic addressing, we plugged in a simple intelligent ActionTec ADSL modem and had internet access in seconds. In addition to the USB variant, the gateway also offers an eSATA connection for connecting external hard drives via a high-speed connection with 3 Gbit/s.

When we looked at the default gateway, eSATA devices were very few and far between, but things have improved since then. Freecom offers its own Hard Drive Pro models with eSATA interfaces, and Seagate also has a range of external drives. The gateway must be powered off before adding an eSATA drive, which must also be preformatted as FAT32 if you want read and write access. A great idea, but if you’re sharing an eSATA drive over the network, any speed benefits are lost as the Fast Ethernet switch just chokes off its performance potential. In fact, Seagate’s drives are primarily aimed at connecting directly to a PC, as they come with a PCI eSATA card (see our Seagate eSATA drive review).

Installing the appliance doesn’t take long, as the included FSG wizard finds the gateway on the network for you. The web management interface has been redesigned and, while still somewhat basic, offers easy access to all features. Shared folders are easy to set up and security options have been improved as you can create users and groups and set whether they have read-only or read/write access. Storage usage can be controlled by assigning quotas in MB or GB to selected users.

Performance over CIFS has improved over its predecessor with a 690MB video file written to the gateway from a Supermicro 3.2GHz Pentium D system on the LAN in 130 seconds at an average of 5.3MB/s , not improved. As expected, read performance was slightly better when copying the file from the gateway at a speed of 6.5 MB/s. These speeds are roughly equivalent to most single-drive desktop NAS devices using Fast Ethernet ports. Wireless file copy performance was uninspiring when the same test file was copied from a Fujitsu Siemens LifeBook equipped with a Proxim 802.11g wireless PC card in 356 seconds at an average of 15.5 Mbps.

A big bonus of the Gateway is the sheer variety of features to play with. It offers an email server that allows you to set up your own internal email addresses without the need for an ISP. The FetchMail utility can be used to fetch email from an external server and assign it to selected local accounts on the gateway. The main point to note is that the appliance uses DDNS and as noted in the manual you may find that many mail servers consider email from these types of addresses as spam. You don’t get much help setting it up, but the appliance uses the TwonkyVision MediaServer v3.1 to distribute multimedia content to UPnP devices.

The bundled Acronis True Image software allows you to back up disk images to the appliance, although this is the OEM version that only allows imaging and restoring entire disks. For around £20 you can upgrade to the full version, which adds features like scheduled and incremental backups. The appliance runs MySQL so it can manage a database, while the Apache web server can serve your own web pages to the internet over HTTPS. The same applies to FTP services, while port forwarding can be used to open access from the Internet to specific PCs. Wireless security extends to WEP and WPA/WPA2 encryption, and an access control list uses client MAC addresses to block or allow access to specific systems.

“‘Verdict”‘

A compact NAS device that offers a full range of features at a reasonable price. Performance is on par with similar devices in this price range and security has been improved over the previous model, although documentation could be a little more helpful for many services.

Quotas can be applied to local user accounts to control storage usage.

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Security has been improved to allow the application of read and read/write permissions.

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The appliance had no problems identifying USB storage devices and printers during the test.

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With the integrated mail server, you can retrieve emails from an external server and forward them to gateway user accounts.

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Noise levels are unremarkable, but don’t go for “hot and quiet” if you value your hard drive.

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We might not like the way Motorola is naming its phones here at TrustedReviews, or the way it’s been caught up in some kind of design rut lately with its wannabe, flat-keyboard, size-zero look seems.

But the company doesn’t seem to be showing much sign of either of those conventions being retired just yet, and here we are on the cards with two new RAZR phones. One of them is the MOTORAZR Maxx, the other is the current test cell phone, the MOTORAZR V3xx.

We’ve never reviewed a RAZR incarnation before – unless you count Riyad’s glimpse of one in passing as he reviewed BT Fusion, so hold on to your hat while I take the plunge.

Like many Motorola phones, the MOTORAZR V3xx isn’t at the top of the tech specs – except for one thing. It supports HSDPA with speeds up to 3.6 Mbit/s. It’s the first handset in 3 to support HSDPA at this speed and if you buy it you’ll be well ahead of the curve. However, you might as well spend your money on a chocolate teapot. After checking with the marketing folks at Three, I was told that this HSDPA speed is “hopefully” coming out in the first half of this year, but there are no firm commitments there. Of course, using the old 3G standard, the phone will keep roaring when there is a signal.

In terms of design, the MOTORAZR V3xx will not surprise anyone familiar with the RAZR concept. This is a flip phone that’s slightly taller (102.9mm) and wider (53mm) in closed mode than seems reasonable. It just feels a bit big to hold comfortably. It’s not exactly thin at 14.9mm and at 107g it surpasses the magical 100g barrier.

For an extremely thin alternative, take a look at Samsung’s SGH-D830 (just don’t try to open it with one hand – ed.).

Like many other Motorola phones, the Flip doesn’t extend the full height of the bezel – there’s a 15mm plus full handset-thick lip along the bottom front edge. The front bezel and rear case are mostly black with some flashes of silver around the edges and where the clapper meets the lip.

In the front case sits a small CSTN screen with 65,000 colors, 19 mm wide and 16 mm high, displaying 96 x 80 pixels. It looks a little lost in the vastness of the outer shell, and both it and its large frame picked up more fingerprints than a US immigration officer. The rest of the front outer case is mostly glossy and has managed without trying to look dirty.

Open and we move from black with a silver border to silver with a black border. This is where the two plus points of the large clamshells come to the fore: both the main screen and the number pad are relatively large.

The main screen is a TFT and manages 262,000 colors in 320 x 240 pixels and fits in an area I measured at 55mm corner to corner, 34mm wide and 45mm high. It’s clear, sharp and bright – impressive and with the best screens I’ve seen on a handset.

I have to admit that I never really like the flat RAZR number pad, no matter how many times I see and use it. I like the tactile feel of real buttons. Still, I have to say in its favor that significant advances have been made since Motorola’s earliest flat number pads.

The buttons, in particular, are all large, they’re separated by slightly raised lines, and the numbers and other elements glow blue in dim conditions (of course it has to be blue), making them relatively easy to use.

As an HSDPA handset, the MOTORAZR V3xx is capable of video calling and for this purpose a small VGA camera is embedded in the hinge area between the screen and the keyboard. While the super-fast HSDPA is something of a tie, as I’ve mentioned, the MOTORAZR V3xx is a shade behind the times in every other respect.

The main camera has a resolution of up to 1.3 megapixels, which is far below today’s megapixel average. Its lens sits on the front flap so it faces outward when you open the phone, while when you close the phone it faces you. You can use the front screen to snap shots of yourself, but without a side button to activate the camera, you’ll have to launch it with the flip open. At the very least, this is a one-step process, as the camera software responds to a soft menu button.

The lens didn’t like being too close to its subject, and even slight movement of the handset during recording resulted in blurry images. Photographing everything that moved was a real challenge. It took many, many tries to get the test shot of the cat, and even then his face is a little blurry – people with shaky hands should take note.

There is a music player on board that can handle the file formats MP3, AAC and WMA. It produced reasonable sound quality from the device speaker and really impressive music quality through a headset. There’s 50MB of built-in memory and a microSD card slot under the battery to add more song storage.

As far as sound quality goes, I could easily listen to music with this phone, but as a portable music player, there are two issues: the MOTORAZR V3xx has a mini-USB headphone jack, meaning it’s difficult to use your own wired headphones, and the battery life is appalling. I played just over four hours of continuous music from a microSD card. Four hours 11 minutes to be exact. That’s pretty bad, and it might prove difficult to get through a daily commute and lunch break on a single charge.

Other applications include a web browser (the excellent Opera browser), calendar, calculator, alarm clock, voice recorder, email, MMS, SMS and IM support.

“‘Verdict”‘

The MOTORAZR V3xx feels a bit like “more of the same” and its only saving grace from that moniker is 3.6Mbps HSDPA support. However, I’m not sure if that will be enough to earn a place in the collection of the best handsets. The camera and battery life in particular are serious disappointments.

How we test phones

We put every cell phone we test through its paces. We use industry standard tests to properly compare features and we use the phone as our main device during the review period. We will always tell you what we find and we never accept money to rate a product.

Learn more about how we test in our Ethics Policy.

Used as our main phone during the period

Verified against respected industry benchmarks and real-world tests

Always has a SIM card installed

Tested with phone calls, games and popular apps

points in detail

• Ease of use 7

• value 7

• functions 7

Last week I reviewed the Fujifilm FinePix A700, a camera so basic I had a hard time finding enough to write about it. This week I have another one that’s even easier, if anything. I’d better try another DSLR soon or I’ll forget how to use a real camera.

The Nikon CoolPix L5 was launched in the UK in September last year alongside the slightly more sophisticated L6 as the top end of the lifestyle-oriented L-series of Nikon’s CoolPix L-series of simple pocket compacts. It has an exterior design that bears a superficial resemblance to the budget 4-megapixel CoolPix L4, but the resemblance is no more than superficial. The L5 offers the benefits of a 7.2-megapixel sensor, a 5x optical zoom lens, Nikon optical VR image stabilization and the current must-have gimmick, face recognition technology. It’s also a lot more expensive than the L4, currently available for around £152. Compared to other similarly-specified point-and-shoot big-zoom compact cameras like the Kodak EasyShare C875 (£140), Olympus FE-240 (£170), Ricoh Caplio R5 (£200) and Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX07 (£220 £), the L5 is quite cheap.

Although the CoolPix L5 has a few technological tricks up its sleeve, it’s a very easy-to-use camera designed for those who don’t want any frills, where all they have to do to take a picture is aim at it and push a button. Measuring 97 x 61 x 45mm and weighing around 220g including standard alkaline batteries, it’s quite large and surprisingly heavy for a compact camera, especially given the rather chunky 6.3 – 31.4mm (38 – 190mm Equiv.) lens and the fact that it is powered by two AA cells. The lens doesn’t retract all the way into the camera body, giving the camera an awkward shape to fit comfortably in your pocket. The extra size means it’s a fairly easy-to-hold camera, with well-spaced controls and plenty of gripping space front and back, but the slippery glossy finish and lack of a real hand grip mean you’ll have to keep a firm grip.

While the case itself is mostly plastic, it’s strong and well constructed, and that glossy finish helps resist smudges and scratches. The controls are solidly mounted and the battery door has a locking latch so it won’t open in your pocket. That’s a good thing, too, since the batteries don’t have an independent latch and can easily fall out when you open them to change the memory card.

The LCD monitor is clear and bright, with an effective anti-glare coating, so it can be used in bright sunlight if you can find any. However, it’s not particularly sharp at just 115,000 pixels and has a fairly low refresh rate, so it can appear slow and jerky as you move the camera to follow the action.

The overall performance is not impressive. The camera takes a slow four seconds to boot up to the point where it’s ready to shoot and over 3 seconds to shut down again as the lens retracts quite slowly. The AF system is about average, taking around a second to lock on in most lighting conditions, although the lack of an AF illuminator limits its usefulness in low light.

In burst mode, it can take about one picture every second and a half, which isn’t too bad for a budget camera, and it can maintain that rate until the memory card is full. At maximum resolution and image quality, the L5 produces JPEG files averaging around 2.2MB, which is very small for a 7MP camera, but means a 1GB SD card will do around 282 images, or 11 minutes 36 seconds of video material is sufficient for the highest quality setting.

The built-in flash is nice and powerful, with a maximum range of 5.5m wide-angle and excellent frame coverage, but it takes a long time to charge between shots, often over eight seconds.

As I mentioned before, the L5 is very short on features. It doesn’t have a manual ISO setting, just an automatic adjustment with a maximum of ISO 400. Unfortunately, the maximum setting is very noisy, and as there’s no way to stop the camera from selecting it, it means some low-light photos are very poor quality.

Of course, there are no manual exposure settings, but the L5 has 15 scene program settings including all the standards such as portrait, landscape, sports, night scene, beach/snow, dusk/dawn, sunset and more. There are no surprises, but there are enough choices to handle most shooting situations.

Color customization is also limited to the basic defaults, with a vibrant high-saturation mode, sepia, monochrome, and the blue-toned cyanotype option. White balance and flash modes also cover all the usual bases as detailed in the feature table on page 4. There is a manual preset option for white balance.

The only two special features are the VR image stabilization (Vibration Reduction) and the face recognition system. I have to say I wasn’t particularly impressed with the VR. Most optical or CCD Shift IS systems offer about 2 stops of extra stability when shooting at low shutter speeds, but I found the VR system to be very inconsistent and shots that were just a stop below the recommended minimum speed in hand were held, were often blurred. It doesn’t appear to be as effective as similar systems used by Canon or Panasonic.

Face ID, as I mentioned earlier, is more of a gimmick than a really useful feature. While the Nikon system is as good as any, it only recognizes faces looking directly at the camera, and even then, things like large sunglasses, wide-brimmed hats, and strong sidelights can confuse it. It’s really only useful for basic portraiture, and even then it doesn’t make much difference to standard AF and metering systems. It’s certainly very clever technology, but certainly not worth paying extra for.

Finally, moving to image quality, and this is where the L5 falls badly. As I mentioned earlier, even the maximum quality setting produces very small and heavily compressed image files, severely limiting image quality. In addition, the lens is not one of Nikon’s best, as it produces very noticeable barrel distortion at wide angle with very poor edge and corner sharpness. While color rendition and exposure were generally accurate, the level of fine detail was much lower than most 6MP compact cameras I’ve tested. One has to wonder what exactly is the point of putting a powerful 7.2 megapixel sensor in a camera crippled by poor noise reduction, high compression and an inferior lens.

“‘Verdict”‘

The Nikon CoolPix L5 is something of a mixed bag. It offers a decent zoom range and resolution, ease of use and ease of use, but its slow performance, clunky appearance, and poor image quality are major drawbacks. There are better cameras for not much more money.

“There are no ISO test shots for this test because the CoolPix L5 doesn’t have manual ISO control. Some of these images can be downloaded in full size. Click on the images as directed.”

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With a wide-angle end equivalent to 38mm, the L5 isn’t great for panoramic landscapes, but it does have panoramic stitching capability.

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The telephoto end of the 5x optical zoom range is 190mm, which is pretty handy for capturing distant detail but falls short of superzoom standards.

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Color reproduction and exposure are good in normal lighting conditions.

“Here, the full-size image has been scaled down for bandwidth reasons, and a crop of the original full-resolution image has been placed underneath so you can appreciate the overall quality.”

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Here is a shot of the front of Exeter Cathedral, my favorite shot for detail comparison. Below is a full-resolution crop of the center of this image.

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Compare the level of detail in this shot to similar images I’ve taken with other cameras to see how the L5 performs. For this shot, the camera’s light meter selected 79 ISO. I’ve seen better detail from six-megapixel compact cameras, largely due to the L5’s high compression JPEG files.

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Although it’s only equivalent to 38mm, the wide-angle end of the zoom range creates significant barrel distortion.

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This image is cropped from the top right corner of the previous shot. As you can see, the corner sharpness is very poor.

characteristics