Publication History For : Paul Smart
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Despite its squat size I doubt this All In One from Canon will ever pass the lounge police. Perhaps it is the silver grey colour but more likely the black band around the top edge; however as a man what matters to me is quality and performance.
The Canon Pixma MP990 multi-function printer measures 44x39x21cm. There is a small lift up lid 17x8cm that sits towards the front centre of the scanning lid. There are a total of twelve buttons that sit under it (including the ubiquitous five position joystick) and on the reverse of the lid a TFT 9x7cm. The TFT opens to a position around 15degrees beyond vertical to allow reading from a whole range of angles.
This device can check what, how and when causes the astronomical electricity bill. Every modern device tells you somewhere how much power it uses, unfortunately normally few people tend to initially take much notice.
The Owl CM119 consists of two parts, the first magnetically wraps round a wire from your meter this ends in a wireless sender (powered by 3x‘AA’ batteries supplied). The wireless signal is sent the second unit that displays a range of information this can be up to 30metres (ideal conditions) away and this is also powered by 3x‘AA’ batteries (also supplied).
A rather different PC in that all you get is a small box not a lot bigger than a video cassette and a wireless keyboard and mouse. This can even be mounted on the back of a panel or a TV so maybe ideal for the occasional user.
The computer is 20x19x3.5cm, it has shiny black sides with the edges being off white, it will just about stand unsupported but a stand is provided (clips into the base or it can be fitted so that it fits parallel to the back of a TV. The whole unit is slightly tilted back, on the top is a USB port, the back has a multi card port, two 3.5mm jack ports for earphones (or external speakers) and microphone and an eSATA socket.
Not everyone wants - or can afford - an iPod. Here a fairly basic offering that looks rather like a USB stick and second a player for those who cant bear to be parted from your music even when swimming or taking a bath!
Normally items from Brando come with a manual in Chinese and English. Here only the former, I do not read Chinese. However there is enough information on the website (in good English) for anyone to use this item. It is 7.2x1.6x.6cm the top pulls off and it can be inserted into any USB port, behind the connector is a port for you to insert and micro SD or SD(HC) card and on this you can copy any MP3 music of your choice to play.
This is the third and dare I say the most futuristic Dolce Gusto coffee machine I have reviewed. Firstly I must thank espresso club who pointed the existence of this machine to me long before it was made available for sale in the UK.
Leaving the totally different design for the moment the main difference is that a higher pressure is used to brew the coffee. The machine is shaped like a rather squashed ‘0’ with the actual cup placed in the centre of the ‘0’. The dimensions are 32cm tall, 30cm wide and 18cm deep. The back is made of a plastic material which forms the water tank. The unit is silver grey and somewhat as a surprise to me anyway I cannot see the name anywhere on the box or the unit.
It has been a while since I had the chance to look at an Epson unit. In fact I first saw this last summer and it has taken till well into the New Year and a lot of nagging for it to get to me. So a simple question was it worth the wait?
The Epson Stylus PX710W is very compact for an A4 All In One unit at only 43x45x14cm with cables inserted. The only extra space you will need is around 15cm in front when it is printing. It is totally black so it might not meet with approval from the lounge police. Not only is it a standard All In One unit but it can do all sorts of fancy things to images that standard units cannot. There are a total of 20 buttons on a lift up portion of the front 25x6.
Anyone still keen to purchase a Netbook with Windows XP as the operating system could well find this unit one of their last chances. Later this year M&S will launch a different model with Windows 7 installed so dont delay.
The M&S Netbook, the MSNB-2009, measures 25x19x4cm the last figure is the maximum at the back it is just over 2.5cm at the front. The weight is 1.35kilos. Mine was electric blue but I know they also do pink that might appeal to the ladies. This is sold exclusively by M&S but it manufactured and supported by Elonex one of the bigger names in the UK education sector. Looking at the connections, the left side has a volume adjustment knob and one of the tiny 2x.5cm speakers.
Although they do other things Ravensburger are best known for jigsaws. Here I am looking at two offerings, the first The Bizarre Bookshop a 1000 piece conundrum and second a 1500 piece map of the World circa 1594.
This premium puzzle has the Ravensburger softclick technology so if the pieces do not seem to fit they certainly are not meant to go with each other. A Landscape offering roughly 70x50cm and its such an intriguing image.
To me I knew the name Duracell for one thing batteries. Here they are launching a range of top quality torches, powered of course by their batteries. However the torches themselves offer something new, not seen before.
Have you noticed that almost all torches bulb or LED have bands of whiteness when shone into a dark area so you either have to move them about or refocus the beam to see what you require, these Duracell offerings give a totally white light, yes I mean white and not a rather washed out nicotine type yellow tinge to the colour. The items I am looking are from the Daylight range and there are a total of nine units of varying size and shape.
Yes this camera has a TFT at the front and the back. Not as daft as it sounds if you either want to catch a shot with the image taker in or if you are trying to keep the attention of a young child their own image works wonders.
The Samsung ST550 digital camera measures 9.8x6x2cm and weights 135grams. Mine was black with a chrome ring around the lens and a thin purple line along the top and left edge with a larger area on the right edge, sounds weird but to my non stylish eye it looks smart. It is a 12.2MP offering with 4.6x optical zoom and is almost totally touchscreen. Looking at the front of the unit you see the 1.5x.4cm flash unit just to the left of centre at the top and the chrome ring around the varioplan 4.
No matter how many rings your cooker has there are always times when you are juggling them to get even a fairly basic meal prepared so that everything is ready to eat at the same time. This could be a solution to the problem.
One such solution requires bamboo containers to be stacked on top of a saucepan, this is something totally different. In fact this requires no rings at all as it starts with the base that is the cooking element and above that other containers as required. It claims to be able to produce a three course meal with no mixing of the juices between courses, certainly something that the bamboo containers cannot do as the steam comes through from bottom to top.
Long Term Cures!
Published in Health and Beauty
on
4 Apr 2010
Certain things make a claim that can be easily verified, others take longer. Certain claims may be initially true others may take time to prove. Then again some may never be proven/disproven even after a long trial period.
Last year I decided that my mattress was not helping my long term back problem and splashed out on a memory foam one. This I consider was probably my best purchase but even though it gives me hours of comfort I still have my back problem. Here I am looking at a pillow made of a similar material but it has a second purpose to play music to allow you alone to listen, so if you share a bed your partner need not be disturbed when your music lulls you to sleep. The pillow is 48x29cm.
This is triangular in shape and ideal for beside the bed, not only DAB, FM but also CD and an Auxilery input. It has two small internal speakers so decent stereo (considering its size) can be achieved from this Pure unit.
The Pure Chronos CD II measures 19cm wide at the front, 7cm wide at the back, 19cm deep and 12cm tall. The front of the unit has two columns of four buttons with a wheel set between the columns. Above this is a four line (green on black) display. Below the columns of buttons are two 3.5mm sockets, headset and Auxiliary In. The top of the unit has two buttons on each of the front corners to control any CD you might play.
This is a small camcorder that has a 64GB of supplied internal memory and 3.3MP stills. 15x optical zoom may not sound huge by some standards but try keeping the camcorder still when you have far greater amounts of zoom.
It weights around 330grams, light enough to sit on your fingers for some time without you needing to spend hours in the gym. It is 11.5x6.5x5cm when the TFT is closed add another 8cm to the 6cm width when it is open. The 270 degree of movement now seems to be standard on most camcorders and it can be very useful when taking images in a crowded area. It is easy to take images even when the unit is above your head as the TFT can still picture what you cannot see directly.
Having recently looked at a Touchscreen notebook, here, I am looking at an All In One screen that has all the normal connections around the edges including the optical drive with the only external items being wireless mouse and keyboard.
The Packard Bell oneTwo measures 42x52x5cm on the built in stand that is 15x24cm at the base so the amount of desk space required is 52x15cm. The viewable screen area is 43.5x25cm giving the diagonal viewable screen measurement of 20 inches. There is a webcam built into the top of the screen surround. The left side has two USB ports near the bottom. The base has nothing apart from a couple of vents, while the front has a very hard to see on/off switch on the left edge.
25,000 Sudoku
Published in Software
on
28 Mar 2010
With almost every newspaper having Sudoku games for you to do why have a PC program devoted to them? Well you could say the same for Crosswords or perhaps even Bridge. If you enjoy Sudoku then the 25,000 games here should allow you to be in ecstasy.
Somewhat different from the previous two Freesat units I have looked at from Humax and Panasonic. The first things I noticed are that it has no visible clock on the front and also no obvious means of knowing how far into a program you are.
The Grundig Satellite Recorder I'm reviewing measures 29x25x6cm and black in colour. The only noticeable controls are three buttons and the ubiquitous five position joystick. On the left of the front is an LED (red on standby, blue when on) and another on the right that shows red when recording.
This is the larger version of the Kindle (reviewed around six weeks ago) A lot of the features are the same and should you already have some Kindle books you can view them on either unit, the main advantage more words per page.
The larger Kindle DX measures 26.5x18x.6cm and weights 460grams. The viewable screen area is 20x14cm. Below the screen is a 35 key alpha numeric keyboard spread over four lines. Great for making electronic notes in whatever you are reading. The top edge has the on/off slider as well as a 3.5mm earbud jack. The right side has a volume control rock. The base has a pair of small but effective speakers for those who prefer their special books read to them as well as the USB/Mains lead entry point.
Seeing when your toast is done to the colour you desire is nice, having a toaster with cool sides is important especially if you have young children. The Magimix does both of these as well as allowing you to toast things others do not.
Close to a year ago I reviewed a toaster from Tefal that also had a fitting on the end to poach – or boil – eggs. Here this is more traditional – in that it only toasts – but the conventional two slices in parallel is gone replaced by the ability to place two full sized pieces of bread side by side in the only slot, but it will also do far thicker things like bagels and crumpets even traditional muffins and even refresh French sticks I tried them all.
Two more items from those clever USB people in Hong Kong. The first a Star Trek type webcam that allows you to fix the position unlike those built into the screen. Second a device to tell you when you have received email.
A pull along cleaner with two major differences, first the suction tube really stretches and second it can run for up to twenty minutes on its inbuilt battery. So if the lead is just long enough to get to that place there are two ways to access it.
With a battery built the Miele S4812 hybrid vacuum cleaner is naturally a little bit heavier than other products but with a 6.5metre flex and the very stretchy tubing it will not need to be picked up that much. It is 45x24x20cm (these are maximum figures as the unit is curved), the base unit weights around 8Kg without the tube.
While this in no way is the same as Adobe Photoshop, a very specialist tool for editing and enhancing files, this product does the basics and can improve an image from terrible to Okay or from Okay to quite reasonable.
Photoshop Elements 8 from Adobe comes on a DVD and I found that it took 8 minutes to install on a reasonably fast Vista system and it took 1.5GB of hard disc space. It insists on a reboot before you can start to use it. The system requirements on the outside of the box are a 2GHz or faster processor, Windows XP (SP2) or later, 1GB RAM and 2GB of hard disc space. DirectX 9 a monitor with at least 1024x768 resolution and 16bit or better.
Some small notebooks and almost all Netbooks come without optical media. I certainly still have a PC that only has a CD drive and a more recent one with a DVD reader (no ability to write) so this unit can be useful to many
Plug it in to a USB port and it should be recognised almost immediately and you can then immediately use it to transfer programs and files to the PC. It comes with a CD-ROM including Nero 8 SE. To install this insert the ROM in the drive. It comes up with two options Install Nero 8 SE or an install for Linux. The install is not the fastest. I attached it to an XP system and to a Vista one.
Last autumn I was sent two new items from Serif. First their DTP item PagePlus that has been around for as long if not longer than most other that sell for considerably more. Second a package of British Clip Art.
Anything that gets to version 14 - however it is written – must be doing something right. I am not a big user of DTP products but this is certainly easy to use. My first page took only a few minutes to create from scratch and once printed I was more than happy with the look of it. As it says on the DVD case ‘All In One’ – normally reserved for a multi function printer unit – but here it means all your tools in a single package.
Somewhat smaller and a great deal lighter important when you need to move it about than the MFC-9320CN that I reviewed recently. This looks nice and while of course this is just a printer for a lot of people that is what they want.
Using the normal forget the first and the last page test always used with inkjet printers I am somewhat puzzled by the 16PPM claim for this unit. I got over 19PPM for the nonsensical 200 word test document used. The first thing you have to allow for is time to first page out and this – even when warm – is close to 15 seconds. This means that although the time for multiple copies of a single page are very good a single copy is less than 4PPM.
This is the first phone I have reviewed using the Microsoft 6.5 operating system launched in the autumn of last year. It is not only almost entirely touch but also has the slide and drop movements to allow you to reposition items.
Three things worry me about reviewing ‘test’ units, first will they be exactly the same as the ones available to purchase, second will the operating system/performance change and third no user manual. Here at least I could download the manual. It is 10x5x1cm and weights just on 100grams. It has a black face surround with chrome effect edges the black has a brushed metal finish. The top of the phone has 3.5mm earbud socket.
When I requested this it was the only Blu-ray recorder for use with a TV, as far as I know it still is. However it also has dual Freesat receivers built in as well as a hard disc and it is even possible to transfer items via SCART from another PVR.
My first task was to get items from my PVR onto the hard disc of the Panasonic unit (real time) and then transfer them (real time) to a Blu-ray disc. The second part allows several items to be transferred at a time so I used to move six to eight hours of recordings in a single day while working elsewhere. You can even do it while watching something else on the TV. The unit is long and thin at 42x30x5cm.
Panasonic announced two new innovative DSLR cameras at Focus On Imaging today (the show runs until Wednesday 10th March at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) Birmingham. Also on show were the developments with Blu-ray and 3D technology; however this was first launched in Munich and was covered by Michael Fereday in his recent pieces.
The G2 and G10 will be on sale in June, a number of other units were also launched at the show but not in scope of this item. I was allowed to take a G2 around the show for an hour; hardly the best test but on first study of the images I took it seems to be a decent unit. These were taken using the Intelligent Auto setting as trying to work out how to do what on a brand new camera in a busy show is certainly ‘shall we say less than’ easy.
This is by no means a new program but it is still available from the link at the end and also possibly from their dealers. Bridge is a game I enjoy however I would be the first to admit I am lousy at counting cards, so if this is you as well then this could help.
Downsides first it will not work with 64bit Windows. If you have Vista then the help module will not work out of the DVD case it comes in. Next I found that the installer hangs so I suggest you run Setup.exe from the provided CD-ROM. You might think it is not worth the trouble but having tried several Bridge games I find this the easiest to use (once it’s installed). I installed on both an XP and a Vista system, it takes three minutes (from running setup.exe) and 17MB of hard disk space.
A British assembled Full HD 32 inch TV with direct access to iPlayer and You Tube either via Ethernet or Wireless with no computer required. It can also act as a media server. Sadly it has so far refused to make the tea.
While this works fine as just a standard analogue/digital TV it is far more than that and providing you do not have a low usage allowance for your Broadband it is a far nicer way to watch the previous weeks BBC TV offerings than on a PC. It has a far smaller footprint than a lot of other 32inch offerings I have reviewed. It is 79x50x10cm and add in the 4cm that the stand raises it above whatever you sit it on. The stand itself is oval with maximum measurements of 50x25cm.
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