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MSI X460 DX

Posted by admin on January 22nd, 2012

These days it seems that two extremes are proving to be very popular. Those extremes are super big and super small, and the trend seems to carry across several markets. Sure, sometimes we waver back and forth between the two - as is the case with cell phones, which started big, got really small and are now heading back towards big again. But it seems that the two ends of the spectrum are where impressiveness resides, and not really in the middle. Take, for example, the notebook market. Slim, small and sleek looks good and impressive. Big and bulky looks... well, good and impressive. There isn’t too much middle ground, it seems, or at least not much middle ground where great impressions stem from. Maybe it’s just me.

But thanks to components getting smaller, smaller notebooks are no longer glorified word processors. Rather, these diminutive machines are able to pack a lot of punch, while remaining light and easily portable.

The MSI X460 DX is a prime example of that kind of machine. Weighing just two kilograms, this isn’t the kind of portable computer that’s going to give you a good upper body workout just carrying it around. It’s a pretty standard size for a small notebook, yet it’s screen is just a little bigger than most’ measuring 14 inches. The interior of the unit is finished and black brushed metal and durable black plastic, both design elements which extend to the exterior finishes as well. It features a standard notebook keyboard layout (no number pad) comprised of soft touch chicklet style keys. Beneath the keyboard is a slightly left aligned touch pad, which features a solid button for both left and right clicking, rather that two separate ones. An integrated web cam sits above the monitor.

The design is pretty enough, although not particularly revolutionary or awe-inspiring. Under the hood, things look a little better, though. The whole machine is powered by an i5 processor, supported by 4GB of DDR3 RAM. To help the graphics along, the unit sports an Nvidia Gefore GT 540M chipset, supported by a rather generous 2GB of GDDR3 RAM, which is pretty impressive in a machine this size... you may even be able to squeeze some decent gaming out of it. The 500GB hard drive is also a nice size, but always prefer to see more storage space.

In terms of ports, it’s pretty standard; VGA, HDMI, LAN, headphones, an SD card reader and three USB 3.0 ports. In addition, it features Bluetooth and a souped up battery life.

It seems that MSI, as a company, have a good idea about the requirements of their customers.

This notebook serves as a good example to illustrate that point; it might be small and light, and have an elegant look to it, but all that belies a power that is excellent, and performance that is surprising from a small machine like this. It will look at home almost anywhere, with unassuming looks hiding what’s lurking beneath the surface... an extremely capable notebook that will serve people on the go very well indeed.

Verdict:

A great, small notebook

PROS:
• Like
• Powerful
• Good battery life

CONS:
• Looks a little plain

Manufacturer: MSI
Distributor: Pinnacle
Online: www.pinnacle.com

TECH SPECS:
• i5 CPU
• 4GB RAM
• 2GB VRAM
• 500GB HDD
• 3 USB ports
• HDMI output

Asus HD 6950 DirectCU II Graphics Card

Posted by admin on December 27th, 2011

Radeon 6950 chipset isn’t their most powerful graphics option available, but its performance certainly isn’t something to sniff at. Combined with the technology that Asus generally pours into their graphic card products, and you’re in for reliable performance from the Asus HD 6950 DirectCU II card.

Performance needs to be balanced with a few other factors, though. One of them is price, and Asus, for all their excellent quality, tends to be on an uncomfortable side of the scale. The other consideration that comes in – although not often – is the size of the unit. Most graphics cards these days will take up two bays at the back of your PC case. But not this baby. It’s mammoth, a huge card that will swallow up three bays, instead of the normal two. That’s a lot of space, and those who want to make use of more than one card will need to have the right mother-board and case to use this absolutely gargantuan graphics card.

So with it being on the hefty side in a few areas, does it compare in performance? Is it a heavy-hitter when it comes to delivering the goods, too? The answer, quite simply, is yes. Asus routinely manage to make their hardware jump through delicate hoops that others seem unable to achieve, making their performance just that bit more impressive. When compared to other cards carrying this particular chipset, the Asus model is extremely impressive. The 2GB of GDDR5 RAM built in doesn’t hurt, either, and makes it one of the more well-endowed cards in terms of memory.

This is largely because they can push this particular piece of hardware that bit more, thanks to their extremely effective DirectCU cooling technology. Twin fans keep this card cool, combined with generous heat sinks and cooling components that are in direct content with the graphics processor.

Using Super Early Power technology allows to perform better, at cooler temperature, and for longer. Even though this card can handle quite a lot of strain, it does so – for want of a better term – elegantly. Overclocking is fairly simple, too, thanks to bundled proprietary Asus software. As with all Radeons these days, this card also supports Eyefinity, the system that allows up to six monitors to be used to create one big picture. It’s a great idea, but we’re still of the opinion that it’s a little bit of overkill, particularly locally. Either way, the card comes with two DVI ports and four DisplayPort slots, to allow enough monitors to be connected.

There is no doubt that this card is a solid performer. It’s not the absolute top of the range, but it certainly is up there. It offers a good, smooth performance, with even the most demanding games breezing along well as it hums away – surprisingly quietly, at that. But we’re battling with getting past the size of it. It seems… excessive. Sure, to keep it cool at high performance, it probably needs to be this big and, quite frankly, the big size helps it stay cooler. But man, it’s huge. Really. Huge.

Verdict:

It’s a powerful card in a really big package. It will consume a lot of physical space in your PC case.

PROS:

• Good under pressure
• Runs very cool

CONS:

• Huge!

TECH SPECS:

• Radeon 6590 chipset
• Direct CU II
• 2GB GDDR5
• 2 x DVI ports
• 6 x DisplayPorts
• 2 fans

Manufacturer: Asus
Distributor: Asus
Online: www.asus.com

Logitech Z323 Speaker System

Posted by admin on December 12th, 2011

There is something that is important to consider whenever you buy a new piece of hardware or a funky gadget; always be aware of what it actually is. That might sound like a silly statement, but it’s not uncommon for people to spend a lot of hard earned cash on something that isn’t exactly what they want, thanks to misleading statements made by salespeople, spurious claims made on product packaging, or simply a plain misunderstanding of what the product is designed for.

The Logitech Z323 Speaker System is a product that could lead to that kind of situation, but not because of false representation. Rather, the function of this portable speaker set might be misunderstood. See the Z323 is designed to deliver 360 degree sound. But that’s not surround sound, so keep that in mind. With the wealth of headsets and other systems claiming surround sound capabilities, it’s easy to get confused. Rather, what this speaker system offers is ‘smooth sound’. And it does so very well, through carefully considered speaker placement.

The system is comprised of two stereo speakers, as well as a relatively small, yet powerful subwoofer. The subwoofer has a host of connectors built into the back, as well as a bass level control. The speaker itself is mounted in the base of the unit, and fires downward. That may seem a bit strange, but the result is smooth, deep bass.

Miss and highs are taken care of by the two stereo speakers. Each of these features an additional, rear firing speaker, to help create that even distribution of sound waves that helps make this such a fantastic speaker set. And we shouldn’t be surprised by the audio quality; Logitech are no slouches when it comes to delivering top-notch sound, after all. It is very seldom that the performance from one of their speaker systems is not good.

But there are a few other issues with the Z323 that may put some people off. First off, while the speakers aren’t massive, they certainly aren’t the most easily portable. This is largely because of the nest of wires needed to run them. Sure, you can carry them around, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to want to. Realistically, there are more portable solutions… these are best in a permanent desktop setup.

Another something that some many not like is the finish. The satellite speakers have a bright plastic covering which shows up fingers marks quicker than you can say ‘stereo’. With the main power and volume control being mounted into the front of one of them, avoiding touching that glossy finish is difficult. Not the end of the world, but people have not bought products for lesser reasons than that.

When all is said and done, though, the Z323 system delivers exactly what it should; great stereo sound. At 30 watts RSM it isn’t the most powerful speaker system around, but that should be more than enough for most users. Good quality, solid construction and great performance are things that Logitech deliver very often, and the Z323 speaker system is no different.

Verdict:

A great sound option, but not extremely portable.

PROS:

• Good sound
• Versatile

CONS:

• Not very portable

TECH SPECS:

• Stereo speaker system
• 30 Watts RMS
• Multiple connection options
• Integrated headphone jack
• Multiple system Compatibility

Manufacturer: Logitech
Distributor: Logitech
Online: www.logitech.com

MSI R6850 Cyclone IGD5 Power Edition

Posted by admin on December 7th, 2011

Not everyone can afford a really bug spec graphics card, particularly when you consider that these things have a limited shelf life. OK, so the bigger ones have a longer viable life so an, yes, but you get what we’re saying. In this article we take a look at a more affordable Radeon option from MSI that is still very capable and even has a monstrous feature.

When you take the R6850 Cyclone IGD5 Power Edition out of the box, you will notice a few things about it right off the bat; it is a bit shorter than many of the options on the market today, and it doesn’t have an external casing. The card is, for want of a better term, naked. But both those observations will play second fiddle to the absolutely huge heat dissipation array that the card sports.

This heat dissipation system is comprised of three main parts; a larger than usual fan, a large number of aluminium fins and dual heat pipes to carry the heat to them. The whole thing is designed for improved air flow, too, and the result is significantly cooler operation. Surprisingly, this set up is also fairly quiet. Under strain there is a bit of noise, but two preset fan speed profiles mean that you can either have it going all blazes when using demanding software, or set it to silent mode for less noise when cooling isn’t as important.

Armed with a Radeon HD 6850 chipset and 1GB of GDDR5 memory, it will handle most tasks asked of it well. And if the user wants a little more, the usual MSI Afterburner software makes over locking easy. This combines with the chipset’s 6+1 Phase Power System, which provides a better power management system and, as a result, better and more reliable overclocking. As with all MSI graphics car these days, this one comes with Military Class II components. Those include tantalum core Hi-Caps, aluminium core solid capacitor and super ferrite chokes.

The end result; increased stability, longer life, better performance under strain, less noise and no chance of explosions. That last one always amuses us, but a component explosion really is no laughing matter. With all that said, this card is still in a price range that doesn’t qualify it as being top of the line. And while it features most of the bells and whistles one would expect from a Radeon chipset these days, they’re not quite as impressive as those of some of its stable-mates. For example, it has Eyefinity functionality, but only supports up to three screens, rather than the five we see with other cards. Outputs come in the form of two DVI ports, as well as one Display port and one HDMI port. If you have little or no reason to go for a top of the line graphics card, this MSI solution should take care of your needs quite nicely.

It is Crossfire compatible, too, so putting a few of these guys together will be a good option, particularly when you consider the effective cooling that each one will have.

Verdict:

A smaller graphics offering with a huge cooling system

PROS:

• Very cool
• Good performance

CONS:

• Only 1GB RAM

TECH SPECS:

• Radeon 6580 HD chipst
• 1GB GDDR5 RAM
• 1 Displayport
• 1 HDMI port
• 2 DVI ports

Manufacturer: MSI
Distributor: Pinnacle
Online: www.pinnacle.com

HP Pavilion DV6

Posted by admin on December 4th, 2011

The laptop market is probably stronger than it has ever been. Miniaturisation of components keeps progressing, and new materials are allowing better parts to be built into smaller housings. It is an exciting time, as we see the overall performance and power of laptop devices increasing to a point where there can rival desktop computers, even displaying gaming capability, which was always a no-no for laptops in the past.

In fact, these days seeing an impressive set of specs in a laptop is not all that unusual. The real powerhouses are still creeping into the market, but they are certainly becoming more common. That the HP Pavilion DV6 as an example. HP have a strong reputation for creating very decent laptops, and this one is no different.

The first impression it makes is a good one. The majority of its casing is made out of brushed steel, a light gun metal in colour. The rest is durable black plastic. On the inside, the metal look continues over the whole lower portion of the device, set into which are a stylish black, chicklet style keyboard and a black, slightly left aligned navigation pad. The 15.6 inch screen is surrounded by a shiny black plastic trim, which also houses an integrated TrueVision webcam. A discrete finger print reader and power button, as we’ll as an Internet shortcut button, round off the looks.

A full array of ports, including four USB ports and an HDMI output, can also be found on the exterior, as well as a DVD optical drive. But the real joy of this capable and stylish laptop lies under the hood. At the core of its performance, which is excellent, lies a i7 2GHz processor, supported by a chunky 6GB of DDR3 RAM. Further performance comes from the new Intel HM65 Express chipset, as well as the on board Radeon graphics chip. The 750GB of hard drive storage is also more than you will find in most laptops, but a terabyte might have been a bit nicer. Also on-board is a Beats Audio system, which delivers excellent sound. It’s still better with a set of headphones, but the sound quality from the built in speakers is better than expected.

In terms of battery life, the performance is not too shabby at all, although no laptop ever has enough power that the user can simply leave their charger at home. And, of course, it comes preloaded with a number of great utilities and tools, designed by HP with their range specifically in mind. The Pavilion DV6 is a little on the heavy side but, with that said, one has to remember that this is a very solidly constructed machine. It is also extremely comfortable to use, with bright clear graphics from the LED screen complimenting the sensible layout. And it’s performance is very, very good. Sure, it’s not the biggest machine we have seen in the form of a laptop, but it certainly is no slouch either.

It is impressive looking, and strikes a near perfect balance between style and power.

AT A GLANCE:

With good looks and great specs, this baby is a winner.

PROS:

• Looks great
• Powerful

CONS:

• Heavy

TECH SPECS:

• i7 2GHz CPU
• 6GB DDR3 RAM
• 750GB HDD
• 15.6” screen
• Radeon graphics
• Beats audio

Manufacturer: HP
Distributor: HP
Online: www.hp.com

Brothers Introduces 4 new AIO

Posted by admin on November 29th, 2011

Brother International is one of the leading manufacturers producing the computer peripherals. Brother is producing quality printers and distributing worldwide. You can print high quality photos with the use of the Brother printers.

Brother International has introduced some new printers to the market. MFC-J625dw, MCF-J625dw, MFC-J280 are these printers available in the market. What are the technical features of these four printers?

MFC-J625Dw is one of the best printers and a combination of a scanner and a printer. This will improve the efficiency of your office work. This is includes some of the features like photo printing, the ability of feeding papers up to A4 size, the usage of the ISO/IEC 24734 type inks. Further this printer can perform the double sided printing. The quick photo printing ability is one of the best features available with this printer. Wireless printing is one of the excellent features available in the Brother MFC-J625DW.

Brother International has some more advanced printers. MFC J280 is one of the best printers available with the Brother International. It is coming with a touch LCD screen of 1.9 inches, a wireless interface designed for convenient networking with the computer, and 1200 x 6000 dots per inch printing resolution. This printer is one of the printers certified by the Energy Star as an energy efficient product. The fax machine combined with this printer makes it one of the best office devices.

MFC-J430 is the other printer model introduced by the Brother International. The fax machine combined with the printer, 1.9” LCD display, wireless printing facility are some of the features available with MFC-J430 and make it one of the best models for home and office printing. This model is coming with one year warranty.

MCF-J825DW is another new model introduced by the Brother International. Unlike the previously introduced three models, this one has a 3.3” wide touch screen. This touch screen can be used to access Google docs, Picasa web albums and the facebook. Auto document feeder is the feature which you can use to feed up to 20 sheets, ability to do the color printings fast are some of the excellent features of the Brother printer MCF-J825DW. This Energy Star certifies model is having two years of warranty.

APC ES Best Value Uninterruptible Power Supply for Home Users

Posted by admin on November 26th, 2011

Uninterruptible Power Supplies or the UPS are used by most of the desktop users. Domestic voltages may have certain fluctuations which may be harmful to the internal parts of the computers. Internal of the desktop contains several circuits such as mother boards, RAMs and the VGA cards. Damage to one of these circuits may cost you since you have to replace the whole circuit. Therefore UPS systems ensure the supply of a stable voltage. Further it will protect your work from sudden failure of electricity by providing battery power to your computer.

APC produces its best ES series for the even supply of voltage. APC Company has several models of the UPS s. The APC ES UPS is one of the best Uninterruptible Power Supply which is capable of protecting your system unit, monitors and the accessories from the higher voltages. Further this is capable of protecting the other accessories like fax machines, modems and the printers. The APC ES UPS have several sockets where you can connect many devices to the AC output. The maximum 800 wattage power accessories can be plugged in to some of the models of the APC ES best value UPS. The available wattages are 50 and 100 to 800 W in 100 multiplies. This is one of the best UPS which is coming with software to shutdown your system in case of the power failures. Therefore APC ES UPS models are ideal for the home and office usage.

APC ES UPS has an input of 100 V and output of 100V. Additional to a surge protector, this UPS is coming with a power saving battery back up. Rock and Tower are the two UPS s coming under the APC ES category.

There are some other benefits of the APC ES series. The alarm system coming with the UPS will provide the notifications of the change of the power consumption by the UPS. Further the self test feature will remind you of the battery replacement needs. The hot swappable batteries present in the UPS are capable of providing a constant voltage through out your work with the computer. All the features of the UPS are controlled by a USB cable which is connects the UPS and the system unit of your computer.

Back Track 5- the best Penetration Testing Tool

Posted by admin on October 26th, 2011

Back track 5 is one of the open source operating systems. This operating system is based on the Linux kernel 2.6.39.4 and the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. The back track 5 is one of the Unix type operating systems. Backtrack was released recently with the effort of a team consisting several software engineers. It has become one of the best penetration tools. Auditor security collection and WHAX are the penetrations tools taken as examples when designing the Back track. Penetration tools are used to estimate the current security level when a network or a computer system is attacked by malwares.

Penetration tools are important in different ways. Even if the malicious access to your computer system is less vulnerable, the combination of these lesser vulnerabilities can make the threat worst. Penetration tools are very important since they can detect the threats that can not be detected by the existing threat detecting systems. Further a penetrating tool like Back track can estimate the ability of the attack vectors.

Backtrack is able to access to a variety of security tools. Post scanners and password crackers can be suppressed with the back track 5 penetration test tool. There is a variety of security tools are available in the Back track. RFMON, Nmap, OphCrack, Wireshark, Hydra are some of the security tools present in the Back track. This penetration tool does its task by arranging the security tools in to twelve different categories. Exploitation tools, Reverse engineering, Maintaining access, stress testing, services and forensics are some of these categories.

How to install backtrack in your computer. It can be installed entirely in the hard disk drive or with side by side with the windows. Installing with windows will or the dual booting system will make you easy to compare this operating system with windows. You will be able to enjoy the benefits of both systems by installing the both operating systems in the hard disk. If you use the entire disk space the other operating system present in your computer will be deleted entirely. Once you have ordered a CD and inserted in to your CD ROM you will be able to select any option with the onscreen instructions. Follow these instructions for a successful install.

Kingston KC100 SSD

Posted by admin on October 12th, 2011

KC100 SSD is one of the storage devices introduced by the Kingston. It is one of the beneficial products for most of office workers and the intellectuals who are seeking a convenient and easy storage option. Being a premier in the storage technology, Kingston has introduced this product to the hardware market with best storage features. This is one of the SATA type storage devices. You will find it is easy to manage your data with the Kingston KC100 SSD.

The automatic data encryption is done using two engines embedded to the device. These two engines are running AES-256 and AES-128. Further this device is coming with SandForce’s Duraclass technology. Further this product has excellent features to protect your data. Therefore it is one of the best options for secured handling of your valuable data.

The reading speed of this hard disk is 555 MB a second while it can write data in 510 MB a second. This product is coming with five years of warranty. The form factor of this product is 2.5”. This Hard drive is coming to the market in 120, 240 and 480 GB capacities. The product dimension is 69.5 x 100 x 9.5 mm.

This product is available from 337 $. The 120 GB capacity disk is the one which is coming for this price. The price of the 240 $ disk is 650 $. The 480 GB disk is sold to 1250 $.

The sustained random 4K read and write of this storage device is 20000/60000 IOPs for 120 GB model, 40000/60000 for the 240 GB model and 60000/45000 for the 480 GB model. The maximum random 4K read and write is 90000/70000 for the 120 GB model, 95000/60000 for the 240 GB model and 77000/45000 for the 480 GB model. The interfaces that can be used for this device are SATA Rev 2.0, SATA Rev 3.0 and the SATA Rev 1.

Acer Incorporates Widi in Aspire 5755

Posted by admin on October 2nd, 2011

Acer is a well known computer manufacturer dealing with the notebooks, Laptops and the net books. Most of the computer users would love to use the Acer products. Acer has released several laptop and the notebook computers to the market.

Aspire 5755 is one of the notebook computers released to the market by Acer. It comes with both black and grey appearance and having an appealing look. There are several facilities incorporated to this Acer notebook. VGA port and the LAN port are some of the best features coming with the Aspire 5755. The notebook is coming with a DVD writer on the right hand side of the notebook. Further this is coming with a 2.1 GHz speed processor. The processor coming with this Laptop is the Intel core i3-2310 processor. The screen type is a 15.6 inches of LED screen. Bluetooth 2.1, a web cam of 1.3 Megapixels is some of the best features available with the Aspire 5755. This notebook is having a battery which would run more than 2 and half hours. You can install any operating system; however the laptop coming to the market is having Windows 7 operating system.

You can enjoy the most of the beneficial features of Acer with these new advanced features. Widi or the Wireless Display is one of the best technologies introduced by Intel. It will make your Laptop an extended display. This widi facility uses the Ultra wide band connected to an HDTV. So with this Widi incorporated to the Aspire 5755 will make it possible to view the movies in some of the larger displays. This Widi technology ensures you to watch movies with any wire device connection to the Laptop. So purchasing an Acer Aspire will make your Laptop to be operated as an excellent home theatre system.