Lexmark - X4550 review

A light all-in-one device, albeit one that still demands a reasonable desk footprint, Lexmark's X4550 is heavily targeting those with a wireless network in their home. That's down to one of its box-stated features being the ability to connect wirelessly over wi-fi to your machine.

It's an easy device to get going, with special thanks to Lexmark's continued inclusion of clear and well-explained instructions. It can connect over USB to a PC, but we found that the wi-fi option worked well and we appreciated the convenience of being able to take another wire out of our lives.

Yet for a feature-rich box, the Lexmark is not without its problems, as we'll come to see. Still, from the outside, it hints at an irresistible package: colour inkjet printing, scanning, copying, front-mounted photo card support and a sleek design that's not likely to trouble the aesthetic sensitivities of those who add it to their home.

But if the old cliché is that all-in-one devices are jack of all and master of none, Lexmark is a key witness for the prosecution. While the black printing, for instance, varied between seven and eight good pages a minute, the output - while perfectly acceptable - still left some obvious room for improvement. In colour, the speed drops a lot - we couldn't manage our test page in under a minute - and again, the X4550 offers little substitute for a good, targeted colour inkjet printer. It should also be pointed out that printing over wireless slowed those speeds down further.

The scanner is bog standard, lacking flashy features or much to lift it out of its routine and passable performance. For the home user who just wants to scan in the odd document from time to time, it'll probably suffice, but if a good scanner is on your shopping list, the X4550 is unlikely to satisfy your need.

Where the device does score, though, aside from its general ease of use and convenience, is in its price. Weighing in at £90, you do get standard enough performance from the device, and in an undemanding home environment it's likely to serve you well.

We did have concerns over the duration of the ink cartridges, not least because it's a widely-known fact that printer manufacturers make their real money out of the replacement cartridges. But even so, the Lexmark unit isn't without merits.

However, if your printing and scanning use goes beyond the occasional bit of output, it's probably worth compromising on the wireless support for now - at least until a wider range of alternatives come round the mountain - and spending a bit more.

Gigabyte - GA-X38T-DQ6 review

Let's talk chipsets. Intel introduced its P31/P33/P35 family of Core 2 Duo chipsets six months ago, but it left a gap at the top of the range for an Extreme performance chipset that would replace the venerable 975X Express.

The problem is that 975X supports dual ATi graphics cards in CrossFire but you only have two options for PCI Express. You can assign all 16 lanes to a single graphics card or divide them in two and give eight lanes to each card in CrossFire. That sounds rotten but it doesn't present a bottleneck in the real world as PCI-E has so much bandwidth, however 975X doesn't support the latest 1,333MHz FSB and certainly won't be compatible with Intel's next generation of 45nm CPU. Added to that 975X is twinned with the ICH7 Southbridge, which is looking a bit long in the tooth when it comes to the quantity of USB 2.0 and SATA ports supported.

You might think that P35 is the answer to this particular problem, as it uses the latest ICH9 Southbridge and supports the 1,333MHz FSB, but there's a significant problem here. Although you'll have seen P35 motherboards with dual graphics slots, the 20 lanes of PCI Express are assigned in a fixed pattern with a full 16 lanes going to the primary graphics slot and the remaining four lanes for the PCI-E x1 expansion slots.

If you plug in a second graphics card it shuts down those PCI-E expansion slots, which is unfortunate if you're actually using them, and means that the second graphics card only gets four lanes of PCI-E. That's fine if you're running dual Radeon X1600s but a problem if you have X1900s in CrossFire and a serious headache if you have gone the whole hog and use Radeon HD 2900XT cards.

It's taken a long time, but enter stage left the X38. This new chipset answers all of those problems in one fell swoop as it supports dual graphics slots and each slots gets a full 16 lanes of PCI-E. In addition we're talking about PCI-E 2.0, which has double the bandwidth of the original PCI-E, which will be handy when PCI-E 2.0 graphics cards go on sale. In addition it supports Penryn 45nm processors and a 1,600MHz FSB and of course it has the ICH9 Southbridge.

This Gigabyte GA-X38T-DQ6 makes the most of the new chipset and has four DDR3 memory slots which can accommodate up to 8GB of 1,600MHz DDR3, provided you are running a 1,600MHz FSB, which currently means that you'll have to overclock or the memory speed will be capped at the 1,066MHz or 1,333MHz of your CPU.

We overclocked a QX6850 CPU from a 1,333MHz FSB to 1,520MHz very easily and raised the FSB of a Core 2 Duo E6700 from 1,066MHz to 1,280MHz, so you have plenty of scope to overclock, however we have seen higher performance from P35 and P965 motherboards.

Intel has taken the bold step of introducing some overclocking features with X38. There's support for XMP (Extreme Memory Profile) which works with compatible DDR3 memory that contains SPD settings that boost performance. The other tool is a piece of Intel software called Extreme Tuning Utility, however our review sample didn't come with this software.

In the main the layout of the GA-X38T-DQ6 is very tidy, which is what we've come to expect from P35 boards. Like so many manufacturers, Gigabyte has specified Ferrite Cored Chokes, solid aluminium capacitors and small MOSFETs as well as an extensive passive cooling system that links the Southbridge to the Northbridge and power regulation hardware.

Unfortunately the latches for the memory slots are too close to the top graphics card slot and the graphics retention devices are very awkward to release when you have dual-slot graphics cards. Added to that the primary SATA connectors require you to feed the cables in very close to your graphics card and the eight-pin ATX-12V power connector is tucked in very tightly behind the I/O panel.

We were also unhappy that there isn't a power LED on the board, so you can't be sure whether it's safe to work inside your PC.

There's a long line of ports and connectors on the I/O panel, which is just as well as there are no brackets in the package, apart from some eSATA adapters which connect to up to four of the eight internal SATA connectors.

In addition to the two legacy PS/2 ports there are coaxial and optical audio connectors, eight USB 2.0 ports, a mini Firewire, six-pin Firewire, dual Gigabit LAN and six audio mini jacks. If that's not enough, and you have appropriate connections on your case, there are headers for four more USB ports and one more Firewire.

Toshiba - Satellite U300-134 review

Having seen the popularity of Apple's very stylish but none-too-light MacBook, other manufacturers have got on the 13.3-inch laptop bandwagon; with, it has to be said, varying degrees of success. Toshiba's foot-hold in this market sector is the Satellite U300 series. Currently there are six models in the U300 family line-up, with our review model, the U300-134, sitting at the mid-way point.

The U300-134 certainly looks the part, with the familiar Satellite glossy blue finish to the lid and the traditional large Toshiba logo in bold, silver lettering. Opening the lid reveals the silver finished keyboard and surround, which is neatly set off by gloss black panels above and below. A blue, LED-backlit Satellite logo sits in the left-hand corner of the bottom panel, matching the backlit system indicators on the other side. Sitting directly above the keyboard are the power button, quick-launch Internet and CD/DVD buttons, and four controls for playing CD/DVDs.

Overall the build quality of the U300-134 is up to the usual high standard we have come to expect from Toshiba, and weighing in at around two kilos it's certainly easy to carry around.

At the heart of the Satellite U300-134 lurks an Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 processor which, clocked at 2.0GHz, has an 800MHz FSB and 2MB of L2 cache. If you want more or indeed less power, you can simply choose a different model in the U300 range: they are available with 1.50GHz (U300-13U), 1.66GHz (U300-14B, U300-133), 1.8GHz (U300-11V) and 2.4GHz (U300-13V) processors.

Our Satellite U300-134 came with what appears to be the standard amount of memory for a notebook these days, namely 2GB of PC2-5300, 667MHz, DDR2 memory. If you want to upgrade then the U300-134 motherboard will support a maximum of 4GB through two SO-SIMM slots.

Performance-wise the U300-134 provides few shocks. PCMark05 produces a score of 4,032, which is about average for this combination of processor and memory, although holding the score down is the graphics performance of the integrated Intel X3100 chipset.

The 13.3-inch widescreen display comes with Toshiba's TruBrite coating to improve the screen's brightness and has a native resolution of 1,280 x 800; perfectly set up for office work and watching films on, but beware of the viewing angles as they aren't the best.

Storage comes in the shape of a 160GB, 5,400rpm hard drive with a SATA interface and there's an 8x Super Multi DVD burner so you can back-up data easily. You also get an Express Card slot and a 6-in-1 card reader supporting SD, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, MMC and xD cards.

The keyboard is a bit of a mixed bag: while it's a decent size and well laid out, the keypad bed has a fair degree of flex to it and the keys themselves feel a little spongy with little feedback to the user. On the other hand the trackpad is good and responsive, as are the two mouse buttons in front of it.

To connect to the outside world there is 802.11a/b/g WiFi, Bluetooth, 10/100Mbps Ethernet and, if all else fails, a 56Kbps modem. The ports for the wired LAN and modem are built into the right-hand side of the chassis along with a single USB port, the optical drive and the Express Card slot.

The other side of the chassis is dominated by a large cooling grill, which leaves just enough room for two more USB slots, two audio ports (with a volume control dial) and a VGA port. Unfortunately this leaves no room for either DVI or S-Video ports, or an HDMI port for that matter.

Battery life for the Satellite U300-134 is pretty good: using it for normal office work with the power setting in the power safe mode, the battery lasted for three hours and forty five minutes. It lasted for a shade under three hours while watching a DVD.

LG - Super Multi Blue review

LG may just have arrived at the party a little too late with its Super Multi Blue combo optical drive. Stepping foot on neither side of the high definition format war, LG adopts the kind of thinking that resolved the petty squabble over competing DVD writing standards once upon a time, and has released drives such as this, that support both Blu-ray and HD DVD.

This particular unit is mostly a ROM drive as opposed to a writer, although for a premium it is possible to get a unit that writes to high definition discs too. But very much in the favour of this device is that it can pretty much read anything. Blu-rays are read at up to 6x, HD DVDs up to 3x, DVDs up to 16x and CDs up to 40x. It can also write to DVDs and CDs.

It comes in a smart retail box with instructions, cables, screws and some Cyberlink software that we'll come to shortly. The drive itself is black and crowded with logos over its front fascia. It's SATA-only, and to install it was simplicity itself; our test PC picked it up immediately.

To get the high definition playback moving, we installed Cyberlink's Hi-Def Suite that also comes with the device. This features PowerProducer for authoring, PowerBackup (self explanatory), Power2Go (an instant burning application) and PowerDVD, the latter of which is primed and ready with high definition support.

It should be noted that, as with DVD drives, by default you can alter the regional coding for Blu-ray discs five times before it permanently becomes locked to one region. Again, we're coming to that shortly.

Firstly then, we tested the drive with a few HD DVDs, and these gave us few problems. Start up times weren't quite at DVD levels, but soon enough we were admiring the crispness of the output. Blu-ray wasn't as straightforward, as the software insisted on running a nigh-on 70MB update - which it uses your Internet connection to download - before our test discs would even work.

Even then, the drive defaulted to the American region A, meaning our British disc wouldn't play and we simply had a warning screen telling us to get the right playback device. A bit of fiddling around PowerDVD activated one of the region changes, but it wasn't clear what you were supposed to do.

Still, once over those hurdles, the performance of the drive was pleasing and worthwhile. It works best, we suspect, in a system with a more specialised DVD burner as well, but LG's solution is a versatile and well put together package. The problem is that with the demise of HD DVD as a format, it may not be the most logical upgrade to opt for, with a specialised Blu-ray drive likely to prove the more satisfactory long-term investment.

Sapphire - HD3870 review

Nvidia has had an easy time of it lately, with the 8800 series (Ultra, GTX and both versions of the GTS) holding their own admirably against AMD's very late HD2xxx range of cards. And even when the boys in red were about to trumpet a new range of cards, Nvidia managed to out-trump them with the 8800GT.

Both companies were guilty, last time around, of not producing a serious card for the mainstream market, something Nvidia has rectified with the 8800GT and AMD is now rectifying with the new cards based on the RV670 core, the HD3870 reviewed here and the HD3850.

The RV670 core is basically the R600 with added functionality and less bandwidth, but more importantly for AMD's future graphics developments, it is built on a 55nm process which should lead to higher yields at lower costs, and allow faster clock speeds while reducing power requirements.

Despite the smaller die size, the RV670 still manages to pack 666 million transistors into the core, though that's a significant drop from the R600's 720 million. A large chunk of this reduction is from the internal memory ring bus which has been hacked from 1,024 bits down to 512 bits. But to make up for this, the memory speeds on the RV670 run much higher. It retains the 320 stream processors of the R600 and is also fully PCI-E 2.0 compliant, ready for the next generation of motherboards.

Built into the R670 are some of the latest AMD technologies; UVD, PowerPlay and support for the latest DirectX 10.1. UVD (Unified Video Decoder), previously available on the HD2600 and HD2400, is going to be featured across the HD38xx series. The technology handles the decoding of H.264/AVC and VC-1, freeing up the CPU for other duties, and also can record audio along with video via the PCI-E bus through a sound card or integrated motherboard audio. PowerPlay, more normally found on mobile graphics chips, gives a greater range of power saving features for desktop graphics.

Sapphire's HD3870 is built to the reference design, the only difference being the Sapphire sticker on the dual slot cooler - a new series of cards brings a new female character. The fan is a little noisy when the card is first asked to do anything, but it soon quietens down. It has the standard clock speeds for the HD3870; a 775MHz core and memory zipping along at 1.125GHz (2.25GHz effective). The card comes with 512MB of GDDR4 memory giving it an impressive memory bandwidth of 76.8Gbps.

Performance-wise the HD3870 is excellent, given its price point. Tested with 3DMark06 at the default setting of 1,280 by 1,024 it produced a score of 11,800, not that far behind the 512MB HD2900XT (12,220) and leaving the 320MB 8800GTS trailing behind (10,298).

For games it produced an average frame rate score in Half Life 2 of 128.78fps, dropping to a very reasonable 97.06 with 8x Full Screen Anti-Aliasing and 16x Aniscopic filtering. It even performs very well in two of today's most demanding games, Company of Heroes and World in Conflict, giving average frame rate scores of 106.9fps and 43fps respectively when tested at a 1,280 by 1,024 resolution and 4x FSAA.

Bundled with the card are the usual cables; HDTV breakout, TV-Out converter and a 4-pin Molex to 6-pin PCI-E power cable. There's also a DVI/VGA converter, a DVI/HDMI converter that outputs the audio signal along with video, and a Crossfire bridge. There are no games bundled with the card but instead you get some useful applications; 3DMark06 and CyberLink's DVD Suite 5 and PowerDVD 7.

Samsung - CLX-2160N review

Samsung has taken its newly-designed colour laser engine, first seen in the CLP-300, and built it into this highly-compact all-in-one machine. The company has managed to incorporate a full A4 flatbed scanner onto the top of its laser engine, with very little increase in the overall dimensions of the combined unit.

The top surface of the CLX-2160N is the flatbed scanner lid and, in front of this, the lip of the device is rounded off with an inset control panel, offering a two-line by 16-character LCD display and a total of 11 control buttons.

Apart from large coloured ones to start and stop a copy job, there are two buttons dedicated to scanning an image to a memory drive plugged into a USB socket at the front, and to printing an image from the same source. There's also a feature called ID Copy, which scans two separate images and combines them on one sheet of paper, so you can produce an ID badge quickly and simply.

Below the control panel is a pull-down front panel, which reveals the four, coloured toner drums, each of which slots into the front of the machine, like fitting fuel rods into some science fiction power plant (if you're that way inclined). At the bottom of the front face of the printer is a rather conservative, 150-sheet paper tray, which projects forward by about 10cm and has a single-sheet feed built into its top cover.

At the back of the device are sockets for USB 2 and Ethernet connections, both of which come as standard. Samsung provides its mysteriously-named SmarThru control panel to handle the various functions of the CLX-2160N and there's ReadIris Pro 10 OCR software for scanning in text documents.

The main problem with the CLX-2160N is its print quality. While its plain black text is reasonable, if a little thicker than it should be, colour graphics are quite fuzzy and text over colour looks smeared. Trying to reproduce colour photos produces a cartoony effect with a limited range of hues.

The only consumables are the four drums of toner - 2,000 pages for black and 1,000 for each colour - and an imaging unit, which is good for 20,000 pages. Running through the maths produces a cost per page for black text of 2.77p and for colour just over 11p. Neither of these costs is particularly good and the colour cost is high compared with the device's immediate competitors.

Canon - SELPHY CP740 review

The digital age has altered forever the way we take and view photos, not least because of the speed at which the final image can be produced and then passed on to other media. Photojournalists can have their pictures on the front page within minutes and holiday snaps can be swapped with friends only seconds after they're grabbed.

Canon's SELPHY CP range has been designed with this 'instant gratification' principle in mind and the latest two models - the CP750 and the entry-level CP740 reviewed here - have just been released as updated versions of the CP730 and CP720. Both are designed to be 'party printers' that are light, compact, chic and easy to use, whilst still managing to produce high quality, economy-size snaps without having to go through a PC.

The basic CP740 unit weighs a mere 940g and its 179.0 x 127.1 x 63.0mm dimensions are smaller than a tiny loaf of bread. Its Apple-like creamy colour is clearly designed to complement your Mac and iPod and the expanded 2.0-inch LCD screen sits squarely in the middle of the top panel. Surrounding it is a range of buttons that control mode, layout, display and date, as well as an innovative and welcome auto-Red-Eye Correction via simple, self-explanatory icons.

The front panel contains four memory card slots that can deal with virtually any of the current versions of CF, SD, MMC, Memory Stick and xD. In addition, a discreet panel on the front-left hides an extendable USB cable that can be attached to PictBridge-enabled cameras or Canon Direct Print devices.

Unfortunately, the downside of this beautiful looking machine is the clunky method by which the photo tray is inserted in the front: a fair amount of huffing and puffing is needed to slot it in correctly. However, once in place you have five sizes to choose from (Postcard, Wide, L, Credit Card and Mini Stickers) and you can view each image full-screen before you print.

What is impressive is the quality of the finished image. Each print takes four passes to complete and it's fascinating to see the sharpness and clarity gradually emerge (postcards take about a minute), with the final pass adding a high-gloss protective layer that protects from splashes, spills and fingerprints. The CP740 uses 300dpi dye-sublimation printing technology that leaves images virtually grain-free, as each printed dot has up to 256 intensity levels per colour.

If you're feeling a little more flush with money, the more expensive CP750 has extra features like 'My Colors' photo effects (which include Black & White and Sepia), an optional battery pack and IrSimple compatibility for infra-red printing from mobile devices. Both models have improved skin tone reproduction for enhanced flesh tones.

Asus - Eee PC 701 review

The Eee PC has caused quite a stir since it was first announced late last year. Asus has, on paper, come up with something of a Holy Grail. A small format, easy to use, low cost computer that eschews Microsoft Windows is not something you hear about every day. In these days of Ultra Mobile PCs, could it be that the traditional laptop style design will knock the competition for six?

Well, on the face of it this is a really compelling little computer, simply because it looks like a laptop but is dinky and light (225 x 165 x 21-35mm and 920g). It has a proper keyboard, unlike the screen-only Ultra Mobile PCs that are pushing at the door, and it is far less expensive than an Ultra Mobile PC too.

Moreover, the capabilities are persuasive. A built-in camera and SD card reader, Wi-Fi, three USB ports, Ethernet, external monitor port and a huge amount of built-in software that runs to things like word processing, spreadsheeting, presentations, PDF reading, music, photo and video playback. There are links to Internet services like Google docs, Web-mail, Skype and Internet radio too, to name but a few.

The Eee PC doesn't run a familiar operating system, instead being based on a version of Linux. Asus has tried to keep things recognisable, though, and if you've a modicum of computing experience you should get to grips with it quickly.

Certainly if you have used OpenOffice on your PC then you have a head start, as that is the word processor, spreadsheet and presentations manager used here. The built-in applications are divided across four tabbed screens: Work, Learn, Play, Settings, Favorites and Internet.

So far, so good, but here come the ‘buts'.

Storage could be an issue as there was just 4GB of space in our review sample. This storage is solid state - no moving hard drive to crash about - but it isn't exactly vast.

The screen is necessarily small at just 7 inches corner to corner, offering 800 x 480 pixels. If you are used to a bigger screen then viewing documents as you write them might feel like a fiddle. In a similar vein, it can make Web browsing some sites - particularly those that default to a larger character size - rather testing.

The keyboard is tiny, too. If you have large hands it might simply be too small to work with, though we found it as comfortable as others on ultra portable laptops when it came to touch-typing.

The trick with the Eee PC is not to think of it as comparable with an ordinary PC, but to think of it as something different entirely. Do any readers remember Psion's superb netBook or Series 5? That is the kind of territory the Eee PC is in, and as a first attempt it is a pretty good effort.

Epson - Perfection V500 Photo review

All-in-One printer/scanner/copier machines are all the rage at present, especially if you're trying to run a home office or small business on a fairly limited budget. However, the frustration for dedicated amateur and semi-pro photographers is that most multi-function machines manage to do several tasks reasonably well but none of them to a high enough degree of excellence.

For this reason, a dedicated photo scanner or printer will always appeal to the keen snapper who demands high quality reproductions. Epson has been aware of this for some time and its Perfection Photo series has concentrated on meeting this need for those who don't have huge amounts of money but have plenty of enthusiasm.

The main joy about the Perfection V500 Photo is that it caters for a wide range of standard and non-standard formats and it doesn't keep you hanging around before it starts scanning. It's designed to be visually cool in jet black with a silver strip around the middle. Controls are kept to the usual minimum: four one-touch buttons at the front for power and sending to PDF, e-mail and conventional printer, plus a USB 2.0 port at the back to connect to your PC.

The first thing you notice when you unpack the contents is that you have not one but two film holders. The first can contain up to twelve frames of 35mm film and a maximum of four 35mm transparencies, while the second will hold one frame of 6 x 12cm medium format film, a much neglected photographic format. Once inserted in the relevant holder, you align them next to the appropriate indicated letter on the document table and away you go. Using 6,400dpi optical resolution and 3.4 optical density, the results are impressive.

There have been two big improvements from the previous models in this series. The first is the use of ReadyScan LED technology (making it the first Charged-Coupled Device scanner to use white LED as a light source) which delivers faster scanning speeds, allows almost instant start-up (even when the machine has been idle for a while) and is low on power consumption.

The second is the upgraded software. Epson Scan has now reached version 3.2 and incorporates several new features, including Digital ICE Technology which removes dust and scratches from colour film (but alas, not mono), as well as advanced backlight correction and colour correction. The additional supplied software is the standard Epson Creativity Suite plus the well-respected Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 (for PC) and 3 (for Mac) and ABBYY FineReader Sprint 6 Plus 1 to import your scanned text documents into your favourite word processor.

Should you wish to use the scanner for multi-page documents then an automatic document feeder is an optional extra, although it will only hold 30 sheets of A4 and you have to replace the scanner cover to use it. Maybe use the All-in-One for that task then...

Epson - Stylus DX4400 review

With so many all-in-one printers awash on the market at the moment, it's becoming increasingly difficult to find one that stands out markedly from the rabble unless it has some unusual or extra features, or can keep the price down to rock bottom.

With the Stylus DX4400 Epson has clearly gone for the bargain price option, as there's a drab, pedestrian feel to the rest of it. For openers, the navy blue lid matched to the black body is unappealing, although the lightweight 5kg (without cartridges and power lead) makes it highly portable.

The controls are about as basic as they come for a scanner/printer/copier; On and Off buttons plus three more for colour prints, black text and colour text. One new addition is a ‘scanner support unit' which is an annoying bit of plastic that automatically clicks into place when you want to change cartridges and needs two stages to release. What happened to the spring-loaded versions?

If you're hunting for any other useful extras apart from the USB output and power lead, there ain't none. No LCD, no PictBridge, no memory card slots, nada. So ultimately it comes down to performance and the quality of the finished images. Epson claims fast print speeds of up to 25ppm and 89 seconds for a 10 x 15cm (4 x 6-inch) photo at the lowest setting, with the highest at 5,760 x 1,440 optimised dots per inch, which seems now to be the standard for the DX series.

In practice, it's best to go for the higher settings for all functions and make the most of the 600 x 1,200 dpi scanner, as the lower settings give significantly degraded results. If you're willing to wait the 85 seconds it took to produce a mixed colour and monochrome text document, you'll find the quality of the colour and sharpness of the results surprisingly good. The same goes for colour photos, whether scanned, printed or copied, but again you will have to wait for what seems an age.

This is also an exceedingly noisy printer with enough sound effects to populate the Starship Enterprise, so don't house it close to your work area. The four individual print cartridges use the regular Epson DURABrite Ultra Ink which is resistant to water, smudging and fading and relatively cheap to replace at £6.99 each. However, Epson printers have a habit of running through their cartridges pretty rapidly, so the saving may not be as great as it first appears.

If cost is the most important factor for you, then the overall price tag of £59.99 is attractive if you're on a low budget, and the Stylus DX4400 is Energy Star compliant so it will reduce energy wastage. You also receive Epson's excellent Creativity Suite software which will organise your printing needs and help you file everything into neat folders or export photos and documents via e-mail, etc.

HP - Officejet Pro K5400dn review

It's becoming the norm for small offices and home users to buy a printer that's multifunctional, including the usual trio of copying, scanning and printing functions - and if you're lucky it'll send a fax as well. However, the problem with most all-in-one printers is that they'll do all their functions reasonably well, but only one or possibly two exceptionally well.

If you're on a particularly tight budget and the bulk of your output is going to be printing text documents and presentations, with maybe a scattering of photos, and you need to produce a lot quickly, then HP's latest could be ideal for you. It's a printer; nothing more, nothing less.

From the moment you lift it from the box, you realise this is no flimsy, lightweight model. It's unusually broad for a single-function printer (overall it's 495 x 466 x 207mm) and weighs a meaty 9.5kg. A 250-sheet, front-loading input tray juts out from the centre with an extendable output tray above.

A front panel houses four separate HP Vivera ink cartridges and under the lid are two slots for the printheads. Once installed, it's just a matter of installing the software and connecting the USB 2 lead and you're ready for action. There are four simple control buttons on the lid (Cancel, Resume, Power and Configuration Page) plus an indicator for the depletion state of the various cartridges.

What this model has which the standard K5400 model lacks is a duplex unit that snaps into the back of the machine, and a networking facility. For around another £70, the K5400dtn version includes an additional 350-sheet feeder tray that fits underneath the current input tray. On the other hand, both the duplex unit and the extra feeder tray can be purchased separately and added later if you feel the need.

For performance and quality, be prepared to be pleasantly surprised. Whether it's colour prints or plain text documents, this workhorse shoots those sheets out like rockets at a maximum resolution of 4,800 x 1,200 dpi. Documents are printed at quoted speeds of up to 36ppm black and 35ppm colour in draft mode, and 12ppm black and 15ppm colour in normal mode.

Colours are sharp and authentic (although without the vibrancy you'd expect from an exclusively photo printer) and the Vivera inks ensure that your photos in particular remain smudge- and water-resistant and are fast-drying.

Vista ready and Mac compatible, you can be sure that this printer will be instantly accessible and functional without having to download extra plug-ins or patches.

Buffalo Technology - MiniStation PS120U2 review

There are plenty of portable, external hard drives around, so what does Buffalo's new MiniStation offer that its competition doesn't? Its main claim to fame is a technology called TurboUSB, which Buffalo has measured at up to 64 percent faster than a straight USB 2 connection.

These small black- or silver-cased devices contain 3.5-inch, 5,400rpm drives, mounted in shock-resistant chassis, so they should resist a bit of wear and tear, although no specific claims are made for the results of drop tests. Sockets at the back cater for a mini-USB and a 5V power jack. In most cases you won't need this separate power lead, as all the power needed is drawn through the USB cable.

In fact, it's hard to think of a situation where you'd need to connect both cables, as you would have to have a PC with two separate USB hubs, where you couldn't draw enough current from either to power the drive from one socket alone.

The USB cable exits from the side of the mini plug and a groove round the MiniStation case enables you to wrap the cable round it and press it into a clip, moulded into the USB plug. It's not the tidiest of solutions, but is more convenient than carrying a cable separately.

Plug the drive into any Windows XP or Vista-based PC and it will be seen as an extra drive automatically, without any driver installation. However, to get the most out of the MiniStation you need to install the TurboUSB driver and enable the technology, which we're guessing is a form of on-the-fly data compression.

We tested transfer speeds for a 1GB mixed basket of files and saw a 65 percent increase in write speed when TurboUSB was turned on. The difference in read speed was much less, at around 8 percent, but both improvements are definitely worth having.

Other software supplied with the drive includes Memeo AutoBackup which, as the name suggests, is an automatic backup utility. It's Wizard-driven and in three steps you simply select the destination for your backups, which files to copy and give the ‘backup plan' a name.

There's also Secure Lock Ware, which acts as a drag ‘n' drop encryption/decryption applet, to secure information on a file-by-file or folder-by-folder basis. If you're thinking of buying the drive to increase the storage space for a laptop, having a quick encryption tool is a bonus.

posts ViewSonic - VX2240w review

There can be few IT markets as crowded as the one in which vendors compete to offer the ideal monitor for your PC. With the coming of HD to TV screens, DVDs and computer games, any screen that leaves this option out might as well be thrown on the scrapheap now, and for the same reason any 4:3 ratio monitors are technological dinosaurs.

ViewSonic has recently released two widescreen HD LCD screens that should more than meet current needs. The 19-inch VX1940w incorporates 36 percent higher resolution than the average 19-inch monitor (claimed to be the first to offer a Super-HD 1,680 x 1,050 high resolution) and the 22-inch VX2240w, reviewed here, is particularly geared towards the serious gamer who likes to feel they are immersed in the action.

Employing a dynamic contrast ratio of up to 4,000:1 and with ViewSonic's ClearMotiv fast response time of up to 2ms allied to 300cd/m brightness, all the conditions are right for high speed first-person shooters, DVDs specialising in CGI, and graphic designers who need that extra degree of precision.

Slim and chic in stylish black and silver with an anti-glare screen surface, the VX2240w has a supplied stand that slots into the base and allows a viewing angle of 170 horizontal and 160 vertical degrees, plus tilt of 20 degrees up and 5 down (but no swivel). It all weighs a mere 5kg, so shouldn't create a noticeable dent in your worktop.

The OSD controls are easily accessible in the centre of the bottom panel and are the usual Power, Key 1, Key 2 and cursor up and down arrows. Round the back are analogue VGA and digital DVI-D ports plus power input and, although an installation CD is supplied, you'll only really need it if Windows Vista is your OS (it still has the annoying ‘double installation' system used with earlier models).

When it came to the testing stage, we played Crysis, the PC shooter with amongst the finest graphics effects currently available. The jungle foliage almost leapt off the screen, facial detail was pin-sharp and explosions were suitably spectacular. Moving to DVDs, action films like Van Helsing and Die Hard 4 showed little evidence of streaking, while blacks appeared solid and colours and contrasts well defined.

Sennheiser - MX 560 review

Sennheiser has built a deserved reputation for designing high-performing ‘phones at reasonable prices, and if you're not willing to spend hundreds of pounds on high-end models from companies like Shure, they should be your first port of call.

The new MX 560 headphones are updates to the company's already extensive range of in-ear models, and are available in a range of five colours, most of which are finished with a rather elegant metallic/pastel effect. Like most of Sennheiser's in-ear range, they're extremely light, to the point where they feel completely hollow, which can cause some issues, as we'll highlight below.

The rest of the design is pretty swish, though; there's a silver panel running down each earpiece for aesthetic value, and they are fashioned into a ‘hook' design to help them fit more comfortably in the ear. This does admittedly make them pretty comfortable to wear, but a combination of the completely circular design (rather than a shape moulded to fit the ear), smooth finish and light weight means that they fall out quite easily, so you'll have to use the foam earpiece covers supplied to really make them usable.

Elsewhere in the box you'll find a leather carry-case and ‘cable winder', which is well advertised on the packaging but almost impossible to find. When you do notice it tucked away inside you'll realise why: this is simply a piece of rubber with two earpiece holders and a hole to feed the cable through, the ‘winder' mechanism being the action of you physically wrapping the cable around a bit of rubber. Since the main cable is rubberised to improve flexibility and durability, it had a tendency to unwind itself and invoke the ‘spaghetti junction' effect, rendering this added bonus almost useless.

That's about it in terms of accessories and design, so we'll move on to the all-important performance to see how the 560s fare in today's ‘bud earphone dominated market. Sennheiser makes a point of headlining its ‘basswind' system for added bass response, a predictable move considering the advantages of the design for handling lower tones.

We were sceptical about the impact this would really have, considering how difficult it is block out ambient noise with these designs, but in fact we were impressed. There's distinct bass here, and while not as punchy as ‘bud designs like Shure's SE420, it's encompassing enough and combines very well with mid and high tones to produce a nicely rounded sound environment.

Minor issues such as a faint but audible hiss during quiet points in songs (which didn't seem to be due to our test media players or tinnitus), along with the fact that audio separation isn't as clear as you'll find with other designs, are not really an issue when you look at the price. The MX 560s retail for £19.99, which, when you throw in the leather carry pouch and (cough) cable winder, means you're getting a hell of a lot for your money.

Palit - GeForce 9600GT Sonic 512MB review

The last round of high-end graphics card launches saw plenty of cards at the top end, but nothing to speak of in the highly lucrative mainstream market. True, both ATI and Nvidia attempted to redress the situation with the HD2600 and GeForce 8600, but neither really cut the mustard in the mid-range market.

It wasn't until the launch of Nvidia's GeForce 8800GT (G92) that a mainstream card appeared that was worthy of the name, swiftly followed by ATI's HD3870 and HD3850 and a whole range of pricing policies.

Now Nvidia is back with the first of the next generation of graphics cards, the Geforce 9 series, the first of which is the 9600GT. And unlike nearly every other launch of a new desktop graphics core in recent memory, the first example of the new generation isn't some pixel-blasting high-end card but rather a new addition to the mid-range market sector. The reason for this lies in what powers the 9600GT; the G94 core, not some huge, power-hungry chip but the smaller, cut-down sibling of the G92 used by the 8800GT and GTS.

Built on a 65nm process, the G94 has 505 million transistors - some 250 million less than the G92 - and has only 64 stream processors (the 8800GT has 112) but they are clocked higher at 1,625MHz (the same as an 8800GTS). The 512MB of GDDR3 runs via a 256-bit interface and, together with the standard memory clock speed of 900MHz (1,800MHz effective), gives the 9600GT a memory bandwidth of 57.60Gbps.

Palit's Sonic range is the home of the company's overclocked cards and the 9600GT Sonic carries on the family tradition by having a core engine running 50MHz over the reference speed at 700MHz, while the memory clock has been tweaked to run the 512MB of GDDR3 at 1GHz (2GHz effective), which is 100MHz faster than standard.

Palit has done away with the reference cooler and instead used an attractive, gold coloured radial cooler, the height of which makes the card a two-slot design; which is handy once you see the ports on the expansion plate, a very impressive array given the price of the card.

First off there are two stacked Dual Link DVI ports, to the right of which sits an optical S/PDIF port (a cable for which is supplied) while to the left and under the cooling grille sit two surprises. The first of these is an HDMI port while the other port is for a DisplayPort output. Palit's 9600GT is the first card we have seen with this.

Performance-wise the 9600GT Sonic doesn't hang about and, given its price point, it's impressive. Tested with World in Conflict's built-in demo, the card gave an average frame rate score of 57fps at a 1,280 by 1,024 pixel resolution. And when it comes to the modern day slayer of graphics cards, namely Crysis, it holds up quite well, giving a score of 49fps when tested at the same 1,280 by 1,024 resolution.

Gigabyte - GA-X38T-DQ6 review

Let's talk chipsets. Intel introduced its P31/P33/P35 family of Core 2 Duo chipsets six months ago, but it left a gap at the top of the range for an Extreme performance chipset that would replace the venerable 975X Express.

The problem is that 975X supports dual ATi graphics cards in CrossFire but you only have two options for PCI Express. You can assign all 16 lanes to a single graphics card or divide them in two and give eight lanes to each card in CrossFire. That sounds rotten but it doesn't present a bottleneck in the real world as PCI-E has so much bandwidth, however 975X doesn't support the latest 1,333MHz FSB and certainly won't be compatible with Intel's next generation of 45nm CPU. Added to that 975X is twinned with the ICH7 Southbridge, which is looking a bit long in the tooth when it comes to the quantity of USB 2.0 and SATA ports supported.

You might think that P35 is the answer to this particular problem, as it uses the latest ICH9 Southbridge and supports the 1,333MHz FSB, but there's a significant problem here. Although you'll have seen P35 motherboards with dual graphics slots, the 20 lanes of PCI Express are assigned in a fixed pattern with a full 16 lanes going to the primary graphics slot and the remaining four lanes for the PCI-E x1 expansion slots.

If you plug in a second graphics card it shuts down those PCI-E expansion slots, which is unfortunate if you're actually using them, and means that the second graphics card only gets four lanes of PCI-E. That's fine if you're running dual Radeon X1600s but a problem if you have X1900s in CrossFire and a serious headache if you have gone the whole hog and use Radeon HD 2900XT cards.

It's taken a long time, but enter stage left the X38. This new chipset answers all of those problems in one fell swoop as it supports dual graphics slots and each slots gets a full 16 lanes of PCI-E. In addition we're talking about PCI-E 2.0, which has double the bandwidth of the original PCI-E, which will be handy when PCI-E 2.0 graphics cards go on sale. In addition it supports Penryn 45nm processors and a 1,600MHz FSB and of course it has the ICH9 Southbridge.

This Gigabyte GA-X38T-DQ6 makes the most of the new chipset and has four DDR3 memory slots which can accommodate up to 8GB of 1,600MHz DDR3, provided you are running a 1,600MHz FSB, which currently means that you'll have to overclock or the memory speed will be capped at the 1,066MHz or 1,333MHz of your CPU.

We overclocked a QX6850 CPU from a 1,333MHz FSB to 1,520MHz very easily and raised the FSB of a Core 2 Duo E6700 from 1,066MHz to 1,280MHz, so you have plenty of scope to overclock, however we have seen higher performance from P35 and P965 motherboards.

Intel has taken the bold step of introducing some overclocking features with X38. There's support for XMP (Extreme Memory Profile) which works with compatible DDR3 memory that contains SPD settings that boost performance. The other tool is a piece of Intel software called Extreme Tuning Utility, however our review sample didn't come with this software.

In the main the layout of the GA-X38T-DQ6 is very tidy, which is what we've come to expect from P35 boards. Like so many manufacturers, Gigabyte has specified Ferrite Cored Chokes, solid aluminium capacitors and small MOSFETs as well as an extensive passive cooling system that links the Southbridge to the Northbridge and power regulation hardware.

Unfortunately the latches for the memory slots are too close to the top graphics card slot and the graphics retention devices are very awkward to release when you have dual-slot graphics cards. Added to that the primary SATA connectors require you to feed the cables in very close to your graphics card and the eight-pin ATX-12V power connector is tucked in very tightly behind the I/O panel.

We were also unhappy that there isn't a power LED on the board, so you can't be sure whether it's safe to work inside your PC.

There's a long line of ports and connectors on the I/O panel, which is just as well as there are no brackets in the package, apart from some eSATA adapters which connect to up to four of the eight internal SATA connectors.

In addition to the two legacy PS/2 ports there are coaxial and optical audio connectors, eight USB 2.0 ports, a mini Firewire, six-pin Firewire, dual Gigabit LAN and six audio mini jacks. If that's not enough, and you have appropriate connections on your case, there are headers for four more USB ports and one more Firewire.

Samsung - X22 review

Samsung has been steadily building up its range of laptops, from the diminutive Q45 up to a selection of 15.4-inch desktop replacements. One of the latest arrivals to the line-up is the X22 (NP-X22T000/SUK), a model with a 14.1-inch screen that's primarily aimed at the business user.

If you didn't know which part of the market the X22 was being aimed at, just one look at it will put you right, as its austere graphite grey finish (which has a strange, slightly rough feel to it) gives the game away. Somehow the design doesn't put us off, but there is a surprise when you open the lid, as you are met by a brushed aluminium finish which helps increase the feeling of really well made notebook.

Powering the X22 we reviewed was one of Intel's Core 2 Duo T7250 processors which, clocked at 2GHz with 2MB of L2 cache and an 800MHz FSB, will enable the X22 to make light work of everyday office applications. Backing up the CPU is Intel's PM965 / ICH8M chipset combination and 1GB of PC2-5300 DDR2 memory, clocked at 667MHz; that's fine for the pre-installed Windows XP Pro, but the laptop supports up to 4GB of memory should you want to go further.

Yes, this version of the X22 comes with good old Windows XP installed (you can hear the cheers from here) but if you must have Vista, other X22 versions come with it.

The graphics are powered by an ATI Mobility Radeon HD2400 chipset with 128MB of dedicated memory, so you won't be doing much games-playing on the X22, but no surprises there.

Output from the HD2400 powers a 14.1-inch screen which has a couple of niggles about it. Firstly, the disappointing resolution of 1,280 by 800 pixels, and then the glossy coating, which really does reflect light. That's, not what you want in an office environment, and it's a shame because, apart from that, the screen is rather good with decent colour definition and clarity. A 1.3-megapixel camera is installed in the top bezel of the screen.

Built into the left-hand side of the chassis are two stacked USB ports, a LAN port, a VGA port and an HDMI port, all useful additions to a business notebook. There is also a PC Card slot under which is a 5-in-1 card reader. The right-hand side is dominated by the optical drive but there is room for another USB port, two audio ports and the modem socket. In addition to the wired Ethernet and modem you also get 802.11a/b/g/Draft-N wireless networking and Bluetooth.

For storage there is a 160GB, 5,400rpm hard drive and an 8x LightScribe DVD burner to allow you to back-up data quickly and effortlessly.

The keyboard is a fine example of the breed, with keys that are nice and responsive with little if any flex to the backing plate. The whole thing is a joy to use, as is the touchpad which is smooth and responsive without being overly sensitive.

Samsung has compromised battery life against portability with the X22. It weighs in at a tad over 2.2kg, which is pretty impressive for a laptop of this size, but to get down to that weight the designers have used a pretty meagre four-cell, 2,600mAh battery.

This does the X22 no favours when it's off the mains, managing just a shade under two and a half hours when tested. It might make three hours in real life conditions with all the power-saving settings turned on, but that's a tall order.

Kodak - EasyShare 5500 review

This is the EasyShare 5300 all-in-one's bigger sibling, intended for small and home office (SOHO) use. It has two advantages over the simpler machine, which account for it costing nearly twice as much. It comes with a 35-sheet Auto Document Feeder (ADF) and a clip-on duplexer, which turns the paper over so you can print on both sides of the paper in one task.

Both machines share a common ancestry, with the same print and scanning engines, paper trays and similar control panels. Slightly surprisingly, the colour LCD display on the EasyShare 5500 is smaller than on the lower-priced machine, but for a device aimed at businesses, this is probably reasonable. The accompanying control panel is easy to use, with illuminated function keys and a square of navigation buttons.

The device can take A4 plain paper and 15 x 10cm photo blanks, with the photo paper held in a sliding tray that's pushed into the front of the machine when you want to switch media. There are two memory card slots, which between them take all the common types, and a pair of USB sockets for connecting PictBridge cameras or optional WiFi or Bluetooth adapters.

The ADF makes scanning of multiple pages much more straightforward, but the usefulness of the duplexer is marred by the length of time it takes to produce double-sided pages. A single-sided, five-page text document takes just under one and a quarter minutes to print - around four pages per minute - while a 20-side, duplex document takes over six and a half minutes - just three sides per minute.

Another oddity of duplex print on the EasyShare 5500 is the loss of some of the page headers. It appears duplex pages have a bigger unprintable margin at the top of a page than single-sided ones. This would be reasonable, if it were mentioned in the documentation or flagged in the printer driver.

Print quality is good, with photo prints being particularly vibrant and clear, though colour on plain paper looks a bit insipid. Colour copies are more accurate than from some of the machine's rivals, though.

The headline running cost figure of 7p per print, which Kodak makes much of, is achievable if you buy the Photo Value Pack, which uses a thin but still serviceable photo paper. A simple black text page on plain paper will cost you just under 3p, which is at the high-end for an all-in-one at this price.