Zenith 901 converter box has a pretty basic program. Press the guide button and you will get a 'Simple Guide' which shows you what is being shown on a channel currently and which program is coming up next. There are advanced products in the market where the EPGs show you a lot more information like the program data for several hours for the future for a lot of channels. Something is better than nothing but I would like the say that there is some room for improvement. Zenith 901 converter box displays wide screen content comfortably if it is connected to a wide screen TV and it is something that RCA DTA800 cannot do. This device also has analog pass through which means that the device can let an analog signal pass through RF output to a TV which has analog NTSC tuner. Connectivity options on this device are pretty basic. You get two RF style F connectors which have screw threads outside along with a tiny hole inside. One of them is an antenna input which has to be connected to an antenna  [...]

Sony Handycam HDR-CX550V has a big screen and with touch screen interface. I found it quite easy to work around with. The screen can be viewed easily even in direct sunlight which is hard to find in camcorders these days. I have just one complaint – judging manual focus on it or on the EVF was not easy. This problem can be attributed to the fact that the camcorder doesn’t have focus assist so you don’t get to magnify the subject on the screen or on the viewfinder while you use manual focus. There is no peaking control for amplifying the edge displays. The manual, instead, instructs you to focus, zoom in and zoom out. Beneath the screen, there are buttons for NightShot (infrared) and intelligent auto mode. There is also a direct-to-DVD and playback mode. The former can be used with Sony’s DVDirect dock or through the software when you connect it to a computer. You can control the GPS switch and you also get a manual power button along with automatic operation when the EVF is pulled  [...]

This series from Acer is relatively new, the first laptop from this company came out last year and the AS3820T-5246 is the second installment. These notebooks became famous really quickly back then because of the slim chassis, fast hardware inside. The battery life of the laptop too was good. This combination was rare last year but now there are a lot of manufacturers offering similar notebooks and hence it is difficult to say if thae AS3820T-5246 will too enjoy the same success as its predecessor. That said, this notebook will certainly lock horns with other 13 inch thin and light products in the market. Acer Aspire TimelineX AS3820T-5246 has a 13 inch display along with Intel Core i3 chip. The performance is similar to that of other mainstream laptops in this size range. Acer keyboards have always been one of the best ones in the market. The buttons have island layout  [...]

When this machine first came in to my labs, I spent some time just staring at the cabinet. Such sci-fi looks are rare in desktop machines; you have to pay a premium for it but fashion conscious people having plenty of money will have no issues. The Acer Aspire Predator G7750-U222 is powered by an Intel Core i7 900 processor which is really fast. The chip isn’t over clocked out of the box but you can tweak it manually thanks to the liquid cooling system inside. I’m finding it a bit hard to compare the performance of Acer Aspire Predator G7750-U222 with the other gaming machines that I have had in my labs because this is the first desktop to have an Intel Core i7 900 chip. All other ones were based on Intel Core i7 800 like six-core AMD Phenom II X6 1055T or Dell Studio XPS 7100. Falcon Northwest and Velocity Micro desktops come with an overclocked Intel  [...]

Sony PlayStation 3 Slim is nowhere similar to the predecessor in terms of looks. The manufacturer has cut down the fat and the price too has significantly reduced. This console was released in early September this year and is expected to do better than the original PS3 because of some new additions. The gadget now has a textured surface which gives it a casual look. It goes with the overall theme of a gaming product. The earlier model had a shiny piano black finish and Sony has to be thanked for getting rid of it because glossy surfaces attract a lot of finger prints and hence gives it a dirty look. On the top, you just have the logo branding and nothing else. Sony PlayStation 3 Slim now has physical and not the touch sensitive buttons found on the original mode. It now comes with a 120 GB hard drive, and the Blu-ray optical drive is still there for playing high definition games and movies. Apart from that, there are two USB jacks and a Wi-Fi on the front. The hard drive can be upgraded  [...]

Looking at the phone made me think that Nokia must have worked really hard on the phone in order to make it look attractive. Nokia 7205 Intrigue is different from other phones. It doesn’t have the standard candy bar design; the device has a flap interface. The external display is quite unique, it takes full advantage of the real estate that is available here. One thing I didn’t like about the body is that it is very glossy and hence attracts a lot of fingerprints. If you are a hygiene freak or if you love to keep your gadgets clean, I will recommend keeping a cleaning cloth close. The phone looks really ugly with all the fingerprints and smudges on it. Nokia 7205 Intrigue looks really pretty. Open it and see it from the sides, it will look like a thin plastic sheet. There is a silver rim around the phone which contrasts very well with the black theme of the phone. It adds to the phone’s aesthetic appeal. Internal display of the phone is really bright and colorful,  [...]

There were rumors of an Android Netbook coming and it has finally arrived in the form of Toshiba AC100. This ‘smartbook’ is powered by Android 2.1 OS and it is released only in the UK. No signs of US release yet. The AC100 will compete with standard Netbooks as it has got similar specs. The screen size is 10.1 inches small and it weighs 1.9 pounds which means it is targeted at frequent travelers. The display size is small but it is still good for viewing Webpages or working on word processors. Toshiba AC100 Android smartbook has a 1 GHz Tegra 250 SoC processor which is quite slow but will get basic tasks done. Our standard Netbook admonitions apply, you should use the AC 100 just for working on word documents and Web surfing. Anything above that will bring the smartbook down to its heels. We haven’t got the AC 100 in our labs for testing yet and we are interested to see how the Android OS fares on a laptop platform. The AC100 will have a 32GB  [...]

Most of the computer monitors out in the market today used TN panels and apart from this, there are IPS panels in the market which have far superior picture quality. But IPS screens are not popular in the market because they are priced very high and hence they are used only by professionals. LG is bringing four new IPS panels in the market. They are called IPS231P, IPS226V, IPS236V, and IPS2062T and their screen sizes are 23 inches, 21.5 inches, 23 inches and 20 inches respectively. The three bigger ones have a full HD 1080p or 1,920x1,080 pixels resolution and comes with six ms reponse time. The brightness is 250 nits and dynamic contrast ratio (DCR) is 5,000,000:1. The four computer monitors have 178 degrees viewing angle. The pricing of these models is not known. We tried to contact to LG about this but they refused to comment. How these panels do in the market needs to be seen. People are coy over purchasing these monitors right now because the  [...]

I have been following technology for a long time now and it is really intruging to see the number of accessories that have come up for the iPod and iPhone. I get tons of them in my labs for review. Most of them are portable speakers and the sound quality is not really good because they have size limitations. I got the Logitech S715i in my labs for review and it has the best sound quality I have ever seen in such a set. The price too is quite affordable at $149. This set has raised the bar for such speakers. The design of the Logitech S715i looks really cool, it is two inches thick and 15 inches wide. The device has a bigger footprint as compared to other portable speakers but is still quite portable. You can easily fit it in to a laptop bag. On the front, there are buttons for power and volume. Between these buttons, there is the iPod dock for plugging in your iPhone or iTouch. On the back, there are two jacks for a power adapter and headphones. On the back, there are two passive  [...]

University of Washington engineers are working on a tool which can easily transmit the American Sign Language through the cellular networks in the US. Eve Riskin, who is the professor of electrical engineering in UW said that they are right now just studying how deaf people use cell phone in the US. They communicate through sign language on video phones. MobileASL optimises the compressed video signals for communicating through sign language. It also can deliver intelligible sign language at a speed of 30 kbps. Motion detection technology is employed in order to check if the mobile phone user has signed in or not. This makes sure the battery life is longer. If the sign language is transmitted efficiently, the project would be affordable. Networks that are slower will be more reliable and the battery life will be big even for the devices which give good video quality. Riskin further said that it is really important to do a thorough field study before the technology is offered in the market.