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Posts Tagged ‘wireless’

Will this new class of slim, trim, relatively affordable portables be the Next Big Thing?

You’d have to actively be avoiding the tech media over the past several months not to have heard about Ultrabooks. Their coming has garnered a boatload of buzz, fueled in no small part by Intel’s $300 million fund to get hardware and software makers behind the cause.

Ultrabooks are Intel’s answer to the spread of ARM-based tablets—a way to capture the hearts and minds of the masses with an x86-based portable device (of the Intel persuasion, natch). To that end, Ultrabooks are required to meet … [Read More...]

One of these things is not like the other

Media streamers like the Western Digital WD TV Live and Netgear NeoTV make just a little less sense than they did a couple of years ago. In those days, they were the perfect alternative to stuffing a home theater PC into your entertainment center. These days, you can get nearly all the same functionality from a new Blu-ray player or a Smart TV.

On the other hand, the latest incarnations of these two products cost less than a new Blu-ray player, and they’re several orders of magnitude cheaper than a new … [Read More...]

The jury is still out on Windows 7 tablets — and, at this point, it looks like it may never come in — but with the Series 7 Slate, Samsung at least gives this difficult niche the old college try.

Our last encounter with a Windows tablet dates back to March’s Viewsonic ViewPad 10, which disastrously attempted to combine Windows and Android in one device, dramatically failing at both. Here, Samsung is at least wise enough to pick … [Read More...]

Microsoft Hardware is announcing today the Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 5000. This is like the “little brother” to the Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 6000 – but without the separate number pad. The Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 5000 is a full-size keyboard and is light-weight with a very slim design. It features the approved design by Microsoft’s resident Ergonomist Dr. Dan Odell. Specifically, the design has a 6-degree curve that allows the keys to stay in a contiguous arc for a more natural wrist posture.

This keyboard is perfect for new ultra-portable PCs like the ASUS ZENBOOK. I’ve been using the ASUS ZENBOOK … [Read More...]

A barely there home-theater PC

PCs make great Blu-ray players, but Acer’s Revo RL100-UR20P is the first Blu-ray-equipped PC we’ve seen that’s thinner and smaller than most purpose-built Blu-ray players. If it played high-definition audio discs such as SACD and DVD-Audio, it would be one of the most powerful Blu-ray players on the market, but this machine isn’t that ambitious.

It is, on the other hand, considerably less expensive than very high-end Blu-ray players that are capable of playing those high-definition audio formats. The Oppo BDP-95, for example, sells for $999 and is almost never discounted.

Acer’s Revo RL100-UR20P is … [Read More...]

At long last, a router to get excited about

It’s easy to become jaded when you review as much cutting-edge hardware as we do. We try not to be curmudgeons, but we do get grumpy when next-gen hardware fails to make a leap in performance—or worse, when it falls behind the gear it’s intended to supplant. So we’re happy to report that benchmarking Netgear’s new WNDR4500 left us grinning from ear to ear. This is the fastest router we’ve ever tested, and it’s packed with new features.

Netgear continues to brand its wireless routers with two different model numbers. The … [Read More...]

Belkin’s N750 DB offers a better-than-average feature set, but the router’s performance is a mixed bag. At most of our test stations, it delivered very good performance from its 5GHz radio but mediocre throughput from its 2.4GHz radio. Belkin arrives at the N750 model number by adding the 300Mb/s theoretical throughput on its 2.4GHz radio to the 450Mb/s theoretical throughput of its 5GHz radio. This is nonsense, of course, because you can’t bond the two together to achieve throughput that even approaches 750Mb/s.

The features include dual USB 2.0 ports to enable network sharing of both a printer and attached … [Read More...]

Creative hedges its bets

Is Creative buying into the notion of the post-PC world? The Sound Blaster Recon3D is a powerful USB audio device based on Creative’s all-new Sound Core3D chip. But you can also connect the Recon3D to an Xbox 360, PS3, or even an Intel-based Mac. Creative tells us the Sound Core3D doesn’t boast the naked power of the company’s previous-generation audio processor, but that it is extremely efficient—it draws all the power it needs from a single USB port.

The Recon3D has an optical S/PDIF input, a 1/8-inch audio output to drive a pair of speakers or … [Read More...]

It’s not pretty, but it’s gaming ready

Cybernet has been building all-in-one touch-screen PCs for hospital and medical use for years. Given the ambitious specs of the company’s new iOne-H5—a 2.93GHz Core i7-870, 8GB of memory, and ATI’s Mobility Radeon HD 5730 GPU—we found ourselves wondering if this long-term expertise would translate into an awesome consumer system.

The truth is that performance is pretty much the only hope Cybernet has of winning over would-be buyers. In a category that emphasizes glossy plastic curves and minimalist bezels, the iOne stands in such stark contrast to systems like HP’s TouchSmart 610 and … [Read More...]

A good wireless speaker tied to an okay networked audio ecosystem 

iHome manufactures dozens of Apple-oriented audio devices, ranging from headphones to speaker docks. The AirPlay-capable iW1 wireless speaker is by far the company’s most advanced product, but its $300 price tag pits it against some tough competition, including the Sonos Play:3. 

Most people will stream music to the iW1 over their Wi-Fi network using Apple’s AirPlay technology, or by docking an iOS device using the provided USB cable. But you can connect any audio source to the speaker using a 1/8-inch cable. AirPlay is a very good media-streaming solution—as … [Read More...]

We took a look at the Ooma Telo recently, and found that this almost free VoIP service was a great solution for penny pinchers. Ooma’s Telo bay station connects to your home network and offers nearly unlimited calls, and all you have to pay is a few bucks in taxes. Today, Ooma has announced the system is getting a refresh with a new wireless adapter and free Bluetooth capability.

Ooma previously required a direct ethernet connection to operate, though the handset itself was cordless. This was our primary gripe with the device; the wired set up was a bit of … [Read More...]

Inventing excuses after losing, dying, or in general just playing like crap is a time-honored tradition among gamers. We’ve heard them all — teammates who don’t pull their own weight, cheaters, tons of lag, screen glare, and worst of all, faulty or unresponsive controllers.

So here’s the bad news: Razer’s Onza TE will make covering up your ineptitude with hardware-based justifications even less tenable. But don’t panic. The good news is you might not have to make as many.

At just $10 more than Microsoft’s standard-issue wired controllers (and the same price as the wireless versions), the Onza TE is … [Read More...]

As an artist, I’ve always wanted some sort of one-to-one input when working in Photoshop or zBrush. I’ve used several of the traditional input tablets, but I’ve never been fully satisfied. I still ended up drawing on paper and scanning the results. It’s just more natural.

Input tablets have been constantly improving in the decades they’ve been around. But the technology remains imperfect. The pressure-sensitive pad sits on the desk, separate from the screen, which takes away some of that natural feel you get from drawing with a pen, especially when trying to add tiny details to your work.

So … [Read More...]

We weren’t impressed with the last Linksys-branded router that passed through Maximum Lab North. The dual-band Linksys E3000 (in reality, a rebadged Linksys WRT610N) delivered humdrum performance and lacked a number of important features we expect to find in a high-end router. The E4200 fares better, but we’re still scratching our heads over some of Linksys’s decisions.

The first thing you’ll notice about the E4200 is its minimalist industrial design. Plug in its inline power supply (no wall wart!) and you’ll find that it’s almost devoid of front-panel idiot lights: There are no LEDs to indicate an Internet connection, which … [Read More...]

Is it possible to convert a standard home office into a surround sound home theater with minimal fuss?

I have an average-size spare bedroom that mostly functions as a home office and gaming room, and has been used primarily by me. Given the cramped quarters of San Francisco apartments, I set out to make the room less me-centric and more family-friendly by transforming this home office into a home office theater. The goal was to create a room suitable for three things: normal PC computing, big-screen surround sound movie viewing with no reconfiguration needed, and big-screen gaming. Ancillary goals were … [Read More...]

Last month, we told you about an upcoming Wi-Fi mouse from the world’s leading PC vendor HP. Well, the company quietly stripped the wireless rodent of its upcoming tag on Friday. Available now for $50, HP Wi-Fi Mobile Mouse is the first of its kind. HP is making a big deal about the fact that you do not need to reserve a USB port for an external receiver, as the Wi-Fi Mobile Mouse does not require one. Actually, it is a big deal that it connects directly “using your computer’s built-in Wi-Fi receiver,” especially if you don’t like the sight … [Read More...]