Highly Commended
Some products just miss out on our coveted 5x5 smiley award - a product has to be just about perfect in every way to receive that award! That doesn't mean there aren't a lot of very good other gadgets out there!
To recognise those products that missed out on a 5x5 award by just a whisker, we've introduced the 'Highly Commended' status. Products still have to be pretty good to get one of these and out of almost 5,000 reviews on GadgetSpeak (as of February 2016) only around 280 have gained the required marks to be Highly Commended!
Tell me more about the GadgetSpeak Awards!
This sometimes called Mi-Fi - allows you to create a wireless network with up to five devices all using the same mobile signal so if your broadband dies or maybe you live in an area where dial up is your only solution providing you have mobile this could be the answer.
If you run a small business what do you do in a power cut, unless you have a standard BT type phone that will be down, Broadband will be down as your modem requires power, unless you keep your notebook charged you will not even have that. So what do you do, sweep the floor – you certainly can’t Hoover it – as you have no power. This then can keep you going for the - hopefully short - time without power providing you have charge in your notebook or Smartphone.
It is small enough to fit in a pocket and can handle your productivity and entertainment needs but takes a different path to other non-Apple tablets.
The BlackBerry PlayBook is a 7-inch tablet that is decked out totally in black. With a weight of around 425g and dimensions of 130 x 194 x 10mm, the PlayBook could be slid into a pocket when not required or held comfortably in one hand for most tasks. I say “most tasks” because I found it a little uncomfortable to hold when getting my regular fix of Angry Birds. Still as I tend to restrict myself to one session of bird-projecting a day, this is a minor issue.
This is another in a range of decent good sized panels recently seen. This one from Viewsonic offers a not particularly reflective screen and joy of joys someone has produced a panel surround that is not reflective shiny black.
The Viewsonic VX2336S panel measures 55x33x6cm but only 2.5cm thick at the edges. The viewable screen is 50x28.5cm giving the diagonal imperial 23inch measurement. Under the viewable screen are five clearly marked buttons to allow any adjustments you may wish to make, these are on the face and not hidden on the bottom edge where knowing what each does means trial and error.
A lot of these Smart TVs are too big for the average room but Samsung have a 40inch version. This fits remarkably easily into the space my heavier older 32inch offering took. It has so much more than TV to offer.
The Samsung UE40D6530WK television is a thin 40inch TV, it measures 92x54x2cm, it comes with a stand 47.5x25.5cm that raises the TV 8cm from whatever you stand it on. If you prefer you can purchase a wall mounting kit and it is not as heavy as you may think. The initial tune of this Freeview HD unit found 115 channels made up of 75TV, 24Radio and 16Data. It took around four minutes and gave you the option to exclude Analogue where it also found the standard five channels.
Several people have pointed out to me that it has been a long time since anything from Lenovo has been reviewed so here is one of their latest notebooks a very powerful Intel i5 quad core machine with 6GB of RAM.
The Lenovo IdeaPad Z570 measures 37.5x24x3cm the latter at the rear and only 2cm at the front. It weights 2.6kilos. The viewable screen is 34x19.5cm which gives the notional imperial diagonal measurement of 15.6inches. Mine was two shades of grey except around the screen where it is the normal shiny black. The screen is reflective but a lot less than some. The left side starts with Kensington Lock port, then the DC input, VGA out, HDMI out, e-SATA and finally a USB2 port.
Where once tablets were a form of medication, now they take on the role of an entertainment and information delivery device.
When the words “Galaxy” and “Tab” appear in close proximity then you have a clear idea that the subject matter is a Tablet device from Samsung. In this case it is the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 product. The 10.1 part of the unit’s title refers to the size of the WXGA screen that delivers a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels encased within a body that has dimensions of 256.7 x 175.3 x 8.6mm (W x H x D).
PowerShot are the larger of two small Digital Camera ranges offered by Canon. This unit is larger than most and on first glance could be mistaken for a DSLR unit. The main difference is that its lens is not interchangeable.
The Canon PowerShot SX40HS measures 11x11x9cm but the width can increase by another 6cm when fully zoomed, it weights 605grams without neck strap. The right side has a door behind which are HDMI and AV sockets, there is also neck strap anchor point. The left side has only the other neck strap anchor point. The base has solid battery behind a door where any SD card you might use also resides and there is also a tripod screw. The face has the 35x zoom lens (4.3-150.
I first saw this early last autumn at the impressive restaurant at OXO tower. I took some great images from their outside balcony over the Thames and have been impatiently waiting to get my hands on one to give it a thorough review.
My memories were correct this is a super camera. It is a little larger than a digital camera that fits in the pocket but smaller than a DSLR unit. It is 11x5.5x9.5cm and the weight with the supplied 18-55mm lens fitted is 475grams. Even with my initial test photos the quality was superb and when used at various gigs as I always do as part of all round testing the results were stunning.
From their base inGermany, the people at Nero have been busy developing the latest version of the companys multimedia software which is the subject of the review.
The latest version of Nero’s multimedia software is available in Standard and Platinum flavours. This review is based on Nero II Platinum which contains a tool set that allows you to rip, burn, convert, edit, backup and organise your media to suit your individual needs.
This is a wide screen pivot enabled 1920x1080 display. You have a choice of VGA or DVI connection and for good measure it has a four port USB hub built in. Is this the sort of display to give your office that extra wow?
The screen is 54x32cm; the viewable area is 51x28.7cm giving the notional imperial diagonal measurement of 23inches. It certainly looks nice and a telescopic arm means it could be anywhere between 11 and 26cm above your desk in landscape mode. The depth of the unit is between 6 and 11cm and the fixed circular base that it sits on is 24cm across. The connections are all on the rear under an overhang from the thickest part so nothing connected shows below the screen level.
Many more years ago than I care to admit or can even remember some of them, I came across a piece of software that had been released as unprotected Shareware. The software had been developed by somebody whose main interests were jet planes and developing software which explains why he named his company JASC that software was Paint Shop Pro.
Since those early days, Paint Shop Pro has developed into a well-respected commercial product which now forms part of the Corel family. It has also been a permanent fixture, through numerous versions, on my various systems. As I write this introduction, the current version of this photo and image editing package is installing itself on my work system.
The latest range of Kodak All In One devices, USB and Wireless and software that can do more than the average software package. Here I am looking at the basic All In One offering units cost less than they did and ink is cheaper as tanks are larger.
The Kodak Hero 7.1 All-In-One printer measures 45x41x19cm, all black and rather boxy, certainly not something to please the lounge police but it can be USB or Wireless and of course the latter means it can live out of sight in a cupboard or maybe behind a settee.
I hesitate to use entry level about any camera from Nikon. The Nikon Coolpix L23 is a small digital camera and probably the nearest thing they do to point and shoot however this is still a more than competent piece of camera equipment.
This is the only Nikon unit I know that is powered by two ‘AA’ batteries. It weights 165grams and is 9x6x2.5 cm. The unit was a glorious matt black meaning that even the TFT is matt and therefore does not show finger marks. The only non black bits are the lens surround, the two buttons on the top and a central line all in chrome. This is still a Coolpix camera and it takes excellent images while ‘Easy Auto Mode’ is the default a single button press can change this.
As we approach the final quarter of a year, it means the release of titles bearing next years designation will begin to pick up speed. This is especially true of titles that provide protection against the various malware threats that attempt to take control of our computers.
The latest protective title to come my way is Norton Internet Security 2012 (NIS 2012 from now on). Positioned between the company’s 360 All-in-One Security package and its Antivirus product, NIS 2012 offers to provide protection against a range of malware threats including online identity theft, infected and unsafe websites, phishing, spyware and social network threats.. Installation of NIS 2012 is straightforward and relatively quick. On the test system, a 1.
While a product that I use on a regular basis, this next title does have a feature that annoys me from time to time. That time being when I install a new version.
When faced with a new software product, your first experience of the software will be with its installation routine. While many software packages make this introduction to a title as user-friendly as possible by keeping the user intervention to a minimum, this is not always the case. Sometimes an installation will go out of its way to make things more difficult than they need to be.
It is about that time of the year when software packages begin to appear bearing next years date as part of the title.
The first such offering to find its way into my hands this year is Bitdefender Total Security 2012. As you can probably surmise from the title, this is Bitdefender’s all encompassing protection offering product that includes antivirus, antispyware, backup, firewall, parental control and home network management in its feature set. My review is based on the one year, one PC licence product – a three-user version is also available.
During my visit to the Gadget Show in Birmingham last April I saw one of these on the HP stand. There and then I requested to review this cross between a Netbook and a Notebook, the HP Notebook DM1, that has an extra front end feature to use.
The HP Notebook DM1 measures 29x20x3.5cm at the back and only 1.5cm at the front and it weights 1560grams. Unlike the majority of small units I have reviewed this has an AMD chip and not an Intel one, in use it seems just as good. The Windows Experience gives an overall figure of 3.7 made up of Processor 3.7, Memory 5.5, Graphics 4.2, Gaming Graphics 5.6 and Hard Disc 5.9.
This is a company owned by Hauppauge who were one of the first to produce TV cards in the UK. Of course with more notebooks sold than desktops you need a USB stick and not a PC Card, so is this what we all now need?
I have reviewed a few other USB sticks but always although the aerial connection has been the same performance has been less than sparkling. So would this unit fail to shine or would a manufacturer has got things right. The USB stick/receiver is 8x2x1.5cm with the aerial adapter inserted in the end. The only possible problem is with USB ports stacked on top of each other where you may require an extender lead (supplied) to make all ports available.
Be warned as this next title can grow on you as you build up points to progress through levels and collect the treasures of Montezuma.
As the title of Alawar’s Friday Games “The Treasures of Montezuma 3” indicates, this is the third offering in this Match-3 game series. Following the pattern set in the earlier titles in this series, this game belongs to the Match-3 style of play where you have to exchange two adjacent tiles or tokens in order to create a horizontal of vertical group of three or more of the same colour.
At a recent one evening exhibition to show off new products I saw much of the same that I saw last year however there were a couple of interesting items and this cube is perhaps the star of the show its ingenious.
Often the opening sentence says it all however I doubt anyone has the faintest idea of what this cube does from what is written above, however if you stop reading now I can guarantee it will be you who will be the loser. This is a truly innovative Internet radio. The First of its kind that I have seen. Simple in operation, it does one thing, its brilliant. It is a 10cm cube available in many colours. The only connections are on the back a mini USB to charge it. A 3.
As a fan of match-3 games I always look forward to the next title in the Jewel Quest series. This time the game covers locations such as the American West andEngland.
Each time I come across a new title in the popular Jewel Quest series, I am convinced that the developers will not have been able to come up with some new features to enhance the basic jewel swapping concept. Each time I have been proved wrong as new board designs, types of game play, bonuses and well-constructed storylines have been implemented into various titles. The latest Jewel Quest offering to take up residence on my hard drive is Jewel Quest 5 The Sleepless Star.
Not so long ago I took a look at the Livescribe smartpen. This was the Pulse model and I was impressed with its functionality. Now Livescribe has produced a new model which goes by the title of Echo.
If you are unfamiliar with this type of device I should explain that a smartpen, at its basic level, saves a digital copy of any notes you make and then allows you to transfer them to a computer for editing purposes so that they can be integrated into other work. In the case of the original Pulse you could also record the audio from a conversation or presentation while you were taking notes. This audio recording would be digitally linked to the transcript of your notes.
Often not being the first to market is a plus as is the case here. The Flip has long been the best pocket camcorder around; many have tried to copy or improve. Here with the best bits from several is this offering from GE.
GE have been in the small –pocket size- digital camera market for a few years now, last year they brought out a DSLR like unit that was a good bit larger. Here they go smaller with a pocket camcorder that has bags of features. It is 10x5.5x1.8cm and weights 146grams. It is stated to take full HD movies (1920x1080) but importantly it can take lesser sizes. It is stated to be shockproof with a 1.
A new netbook from Asus comes with two "firsts". One was to do with Asus while the other was a first for me.
As part of its Seashell range of products, Asus has released the Eee1015PEM. Available in a choice of white or black (the review model), this netbook is the first Asus model to feature Intel’s dual-core Atom processor within its slim line casing. With dimension of 262 x 178 x 23.6mm (W x D x H) in its closed state and weighing 1.27kg (6-cell battery included), this netbook should not inconvenience the user too much in its role as a travelling companion.
To me this name makes it sound large and it certainly isnt, in fact I am fairly sure its the smallest DAB, FM and iPod dock unit that I have seen, it is of course a tower shape but only very little, however the sound it gives is not small.
The maximum height of the Magicbox Tower is only 16.5cm tall (1.5cm less at the front) 8cm wide and 6.5cm deep, these figures do not include any iPod or iPhone that gets inserted 2cm below the top. The unit I reviewed was metallic red apart from the front and top that was black. I see that purple, blue and all black are also available. The front edge of the top has volume – and + buttons with a snooze control between them.
This is a small neat Netbook with the faster Intel 1.66GHz processor and Windows Starter edition. Ideal for travelling as with the larger battery you could get a days use. While colour is not important to me this cream and grey offering is nice.
The Packard Bell Dot SE Netbook is 25.5x18.5x2cm and it weights just 1125grams in the provided slipcase, as stated mine was cream with silver grey surround to the keyboard, the keyboard itself was cream with black lettering, this means no visible fingermarks, the viewable screen is 22.5x12.5cm giving the diagonal 10.1inch imperial measurement.
While multi-function devices tend to be based on an inkjet printer, this is not always the case. For example the Brother DCP 7055 is a multi-function device that provides print, scan and copy features based around a laser technology for providing hard copy.
Decked out in a fairly standard computer grey, the DCP 7055 expands from a base measurement of 375 x 365mm out to 405 x 398.5mm at the top. Brother has fitted a paper tray, laser printer and an A4 flatbed scanner into the unit’s height of 268mm. Although larger, especially with regards to the height aspect, than an inkjet multi-function device, the increase is not too excessive. Setting up the DCP 7055 is relatively straightforward.
The numbers of people producing speech software are reducing and Dragon is the main player in the PC part of the market, they are now part of Nuance. So what advantages does version 11 have to make you rush out to purchase?
First the bit that may confuse, the various versions now have new names, what was Standard is now called Home, what was Preferred is now Premium (the one I am looking at) and then there is Professional and Legal. While I am not a heavy user of speech software I have used it in some form or other for around ten years. The main difference now is that ‘training’ is not essential to get reasonable results.
With smartphones, mobile music devices and other electronic gadgets it can sometimes be difficult to find all the power points necessary for recharging purposes. One solution could be to use a universal desktop charger.
Several months ago I was introduced to a product from Inoitulos, a Spanish technology consultancy. This product was the . The “i3” part of the product’s title indicates that it was capable of charging up to three different devices simultaneously. Now the company has come up with an enhanced version of the product. This new version provides the means for powering four devices at the same time.
Give your fingers a rest and instead use your voice to communicate with your computer by using the latest software from Nuance.
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