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Gateway ZX4300-01e: Speedy All-in-One Makes a Few Compromises

Among budget all-In-one desktops (with screen sizes 20 inches and smaller), you’ll find the Gateway ZX4300-01e near the top of the class. This 20-inch, single-touch system-in-a-screen delivers admirable performance for a killer $750 cost (as of June 24, 2010). That’s a fairly standard price for the category, but Gateway made a few cuts to reach it–and some of those subtractions can detract from the ZX4300-01e’s speed-oriented appeal.

Gateway opts for an AMD-based setup in this all-in-one system, stashing a 2.7GHz Athlon II X2 Dual-Core 235e CPU alongside 4GB of DDR3-1333 memory. That isn’t the speediest chip around, but it helped the ZX4300-01e reach a WorldBench 6 score of 97. Compare that with Acer’s 23-inch Aspire Z5600-U1352, a big-screen all-in-one that posted a mark of 98 and costs $200 more.

The ZX4300-01e’s 640GB hard drive provides a fairly average amount of storage for a system in this (continue reading…)

Microsoft is continuing with its interesting one-step-at-a-time Internet Explorer 9 strategy: It released its third “Platform Preview” of the browser Wednesday.

Microsoft is continuing with its interesting one-step-at-a-time Internet Explorer 9 strategy: It’s releasing its third “Platform Preview” of the browser today. This isn’t a full-blown browser–it’s IE9?s new rendering engine, with HTML5 capabilities, hardware-accelerated graphics, and other goodies, plus enough of a front end that developers and browser junkies can get a taste of what’s to come. New features in this update include support for HTML5 video and further overall speed tweaks.

As with the previous previews, Microsoft has a test drive site which lets you download the IE9 preview and check out demos you can run in any browser. They’re all cool examples of the richer, more interactive Web that’s still a work in progress–and the ones involving animation, not surprisingly, tend to run radically faster and smoother in IE9 than in other browsers. They certainly did at a Microsoft event I attended this morning, where a bevy of computers ranging from an underpowered little netbook to a six-core desktop machine ran the Platform Preview.
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Overview
Give your home or office a stylish look with the 47-inch LC47SB57UT 1080p LCD HDTV from Sharp®. The 47-inch Class LC-47SB57UT with full HD 1080p resolution, and an elegant new glossy black design, produces superb picture quality. Featuring high contrast ratio, fast response time and wide viewing angles, it also includes built-in ATSC / QAM / NTSC tuners, 4 HDMI™ inputs, compatible with 1080p signals, a PC input and 2 HD component video inputs. Additionally, its high Brightness element allows you to put your LCD virtually anywhere even near windows, doors or other light sources and the picture is still vivid. Moreover, this LCD provides a sleek piano black cabinet with bottom-mounted speakers. Furthermore, you can easily remove the included table stand for wall mounting applications. Packed with all these features and more, this LCD TV will certainly add taste to your desktop (continue reading…)

Welcome to our full review of automobile physics. Lesson one: Not wearing a seatbelt is unwise.

July 15, 2005 – Destruction and death (of the hilarious variety) are occurrences we’ve always been big fans of and activities we’ve consistently excelled at. In videogames, the basic concepts of destruction and death have only recently been improved upon thanks to the use of advanced physics routines, or godsends, as they are more commonly called.

It’s not hard to imagine why a simple ragdoll or some falling debris could be so cool, either. Punt-kicking the lovingly constructed LEGO palaces of innocent neighborhood children across the street and into parked sedans wouldn’t be near as much fun if they lamely retained their shape and bounced around without a satisfying explosive shatter. It’s all cause and effect! We shoot. He dies. We kick. It breaks. We destroy. They cry. And when we crash…? (continue reading…)

Painkiller is a first-person shooter video game released on April 12, 2004. It was published by DreamCatcher Interactive and developed by Polish game studio People Can Fly. It attempts to replicate the ‘old-school FPS’ gameplay of Doom and Quake. It has 24 levels of seemingly unconnected designs that include medieval castles, factories and lunatic asylums. Five of the levels are ‘boss levels’ with some of the largest FPS bosses to date. The game takes place in Purgatory and Hell. It is notable for using the Havok 2.0 physics engine extensively. The main character, Daniel Garner, is voiced by Cam Clarke.

Story
The game revolves around a young man named Daniel Garner, who is happily married to his wife Catherine. At the start of the game, Daniel is about to take Catherine out for a birthday meal. As they drive towards their destination at high speed, in the pouring rain, Daniel takes his eyes off the road to look at his wife and while his attention is diverted, he ploughs their car into a truck. Both of them are (continue reading…)

Alienware OptX AW2210 21.5-Inch LCD Monitor

Dell’s gamer-friendly Alienware brand is extending its reach to include monitors, and the 21.5-inch widescreen 1080p OptX AW2210 ($300 as of November 11, 2009) serves up a lot to like: solid image quality, accessible and comprehensive built-in menus, and an exterior design that stands out from the generally conservative competition.
On the other hand, $300 is a lot to pay these days for a 21.5-inch monitor, especially when you consider that Dell itself offers LCDs that rival the AW2210 in quality and cost less. The Dell SX2210, for example, has a panel that’s identical to the Alienware 2210′s, but trades in the design and the touch-sensitive menu controls for a Webcam, face-recognition software, (continue reading…)

Prices on solid-state drives are dropping, and operating systems (particularly Windows 7) are beginning to take advantage of the potential higher speeds of SSDs, so it’s a good time to consider slapping one in your computer.

Why Switch?
Though SSDs tend to be faster overall than hard-disk drives, their speed advantage doesn’t hold across the board. Normally an SSD reads data at a much quicker rate than an HDD does (Intel claims that a typical HDD takes 4000 microseconds to access your data, versus the advertised 65 ms of the company’s 160GB X25-M SSD model); but an SSD’s write speeds may be slower than (continue reading…)

Is your PC dragging? Does your broadband network creep along at dial-up speeds? Do Web pages take forever to load on your smartphone? Don’t wait! These fixes will get you back into the fast lane.

Has your PC lost its pep? How about your network connection, your printer, or even your phone? Here’s our guide to giving your gear new life. Follow our tips, and you can fire up your system and your other tech essentials. (continue reading…)

Epson PictureMate Zoom Snapshot Photo Printer

The Epson PictureMate Zoom snapshot photo printer closely resembles its lower-cost cousin, the Epson PictureMate Dash, but it adds a notable feature: an integrated CD burner. This distinctive feature causes the price to balloon, but when you consider the printer’s speed and other attributes, the PictureMate Zoom is a tempting upgrade from other snapshot printers we’ve tested.
The PictureMate Zoom’s design is boxy and efficient. The top lid flips up to reveal the 3.6-inch, tiltable LCD and control panel; it also functions as the input tray. A gentle push opens the front panel (also the output tray) and reveals two media-card slots for most major formats. The PictBridge/USB port in the rear allows printing from a digital camera. The 6.6-pound printer has a handle, (continue reading…)

Epson’s PictureMate Dash may look like a glorified lunch box, but it delivers where it counts. It’s fast and very easy to use; it prints good-looking photos; and best of all, its consumables are well priced.
The boxy unit’s lid protects the LCD and control panel when it’s closed; when it’s open, it acts as the input tray. Push gently on the front panel to make it fall open as the output tray (and reveal the two media slots for most major formats). A PictBridge-compatible USB port is on the back. The control panel consists mostly of a plastic membrane with flat buttons that are marked with icons and clear, plain-English labels. The centrally located navigation buttons are more traditionally mechanical and also clearly marked. The 5-pound printer has a handle for toting to parties. An optional battery costs $50. (continue reading…)

Sony PSP Go Handheld Game Device

Lop the disc drive off Sony’s PlayStation Portable and add a Mylo-inspired slide-screen gamepad, and you get the PSP’s smaller, lighter, more dearly priced cousin–the trendier PSP Go. Sony has hiked the platform’s price tag from $170 to $250, five-sixths the cost of a new PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 Elite, a reprogrammable gaming robot, or dinner at Heston Blumenthal’s exalted restaurant, The Fat Duck. In exchange you get nips and tucks in the weight and size, a modestly retooled grip interface, Bluetooth support, and 16GB of internal flash memory.
Nintendo has whittled down its DS twice since launch, so competitive turnabout is fair play. Sony’s PSP Go is actually the platform’s fourth metamorphosis, lowering the handheld’s weight to 5.6 ounces–16 percent lighter than the PSP Slim and 43 percent lighter than the original PSP-1000. It’s also (continue reading…)

Disciples II: Dark Prophecy is a PC game by Strategy First that was released on January 24, 2002. The game is the sequel to the 1999 game Disciples: Sacred Lands, and has become significantly more successful in terms of both sales and popularity than its predecessor. A limited edition version of the game was released, which included a card game based upon the story and game dynamics of the video game called Disciples II: Blades of War. This game, along with the expansion pack Gallean’s Return, was part of the Strategy First “Fantasy Pack”, which was released with 3 other games: Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood, Dragon Throne: Battle of Red Cliffs, and Prince of Qin.
A sequel named Disciples III: Renaissance, has been announced by Strategy First as currently being in development, (continue reading…)

Samsung Behold II (T-Mobile) Smartphone

The Samsung Behold II ($230 with a two-year T-Mobile contract; price as of 11/12/09) smartphone is the latest device to join T-Mobile’s growing army of Android phones, which includes the T-Mobile G1, the T-Mobile myTouch 3G, and the Motorola Cliq. Though the Behold II has a gorgeous AMOLED display and a superior camera, customers might be turned off by the high price (it is more expensive than the iPhone 3GS and the Motorola Droid) as well as the somewhat cluttered TouchWiz interface.
While the Behold II is supposed to be an update of the Behold, (continue reading…)

The new games standard is DirectX 10, but the graphics boards supporting it have been very expensive. Now a new wave of lower-memory nVidia boards is arriving. We tested one such model that delivers great performance. At $350, BFG Technologies’ PCI Express board, the GeForce 8800 GTS OC, is on the pricey side (many others cost $300), but it ships overclocked and carries a lifetime warranty.
The current performance champs may be nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX-based, DirectX 10-ready graphics boards with 768MB of memory, but they’ll set you back at least $600. Even the slightly cheaper GeForce 8800 GTS-based models, equipped with 640MB of memory, start at $400. So it’s welcome news that card makers have introduced a lower-cost GeForce 8800 GTS alternative that carries only 320MB of RAM. (continue reading…)

Big Screen GPS: Magellan RoadMate 1700 Sports 7-inch Display

If you’re looking for a portable GPS navigation device with a mammoth screen, Magellan’s new RoadMate 1700 ($300, as of November 4, 2009) could be just the thing. Measuring 7.5 by 4.2 by 0.6 inches and weighing in at a hefty 10.7 ounces, the 1700 is big enough to pack a gigantic 7-inch screen.
Bigger is not always better, though. In a large vehicle, such as an RV or a truck, the RoadMate 1700 is probably the perfect size, as the distance between the driver and the GPS is greater than in an automobile. In my Camry, though, the 1700 took up too much dashboard space and, depending on the mounting location, (continue reading…)

TomTom XXL 540S GPS Device

These days, 4.3-inch-diasgonal screens are the standard size on dedicated GPS navigation devices; but for some drivers, that size is still too small.In response, most of the top-tier GPS manufacturers, have introduced models with bigger screens–anywhere from 4.7 to 5.2 inches. TomTom’s two offerings, the XXL 540S and the XXL 530S, have 5-inch screens. I recently took the XXL 540S for a test drive.
The XXL 540S ($300, as of November 4, 2009), the $200 TomTom One 140S,and the $250 TomTom XL 340S share a virtually identical feature set. For its part, the $280 XXL 530s lacks a lane guidance feature and maps of Mexico, and has a smaller points-of-interest (POI) database. (continue reading…)

Demon’s Souls is hard. Harder than sailing through Nintendo’s Punch-Out!! cheat-free. Harder than solving a Rubik’s Cube blindfolded. Harder than luring CBS to feature you for ranking “top Guitar Hero III player in the world.” Harder than scoring a fabled 3,333,360 points in Pac-Man…

Okay, maybe not harder than playing a perfect game of Pac-Man.

Still.

Atlus’s action-adventure comes to the PlayStation 3 in the guise of a role-playing game about a guy who storms through gloom-lit milieus gashing, skewering, (continue reading…)

An effective but somewhat slow utility, Microsoft Security Essentials will be a solid contender when it comes out of beta around the end of 2009.

Microsoft has a new free antivirus utility coming to replace its now-defunct OneCare suite. And while it was still in beta as of this writing, Microsoft Security Essentials shows much promise: In our tests it was decent at detecting malware, particularly in proactive tests that simulate the handling of new, unknown malware. It took fourth place in our rankings of free antivirus software. The main drawback of the tool, which will launch by year’s end, seemed to be its slow scan speed.Since Microsoft says (continue reading…)

Photoshop Elements 8 is an appealing but evolutionary upgrade of a well-established photo editing program.

Photoshop Elements is a like a family station wagon with a Formula One racing engine under the hood. It delivers Photoshop’s imaging power to consumers and hobbyist photographers in an easy, accessible tabbed interface. In version 8, Photoshop Elements ($100, $140 with a Photoshop.com Plus membership; prices as of 9/23/09) offers a handful of new photo editing tools that are useful and fun, but its most compelling improvements are in digital asset management.On the Mac, Photoshop Elements comes with a CS4 Bridge tab for sorting and maintaining your image library. On the Windows side, however, is where you’ll find the big news: There, Photoshop Elements’ Organizer tab has several new tools to (continue reading…)

The first DirectX 10 board from ATI competes pretty closely with nVidia cards on today’s games, but the true story will come out when DX10 games start to appear.

AMD’s $449 ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT resides in a product no-man’s-land of sorts. Though the card breaks all kinds of new ground for AMD/ATI, on today’s games it’s merely equal to (and in some cases slower than) cards using the 320MB version of nVidia’s GeForce 8800GTS–a less-expensive chip set that nVidia launched a few months ago.The Radeon HD 2900 XT is the flagship of a new line of ATI boards with top-to-bottom DirectX 10 support, and it’s packed with impressive technology, including a 512-bit memory interface; 320 unified stream processors, which can handle any type of shader you throw at them; (continue reading…)