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Laurence Gunn, Computeractive, Tuesday 9 February 2010 at 17:20:00

Add up to six extra monitors to a PC using a USB connection

Most computers that have a separate graphics card can have two screens connected to them at once, but Village Tronic’s Vibook allows you to connect of up to six extra monitors to a computer.

The Vibook supports PCs that use Vista and Windows 7 as well as Mac computers and some earlier versions of Windows.

It enables the user to add extra monitors (as long as they have VGA or DVI sockets) to the computer, using a USB connection, so if your computer does not have two monitor outputs or you need an extra one, it’s a great idea.

Officially it supports screens with resolutions up to 1600x1200 pixels but it did a good job on our larger test widescreen models, with resolutions of 1920x1080 and 1680x1050.

The device is a smart way to get extra screen space when all of your computer’s monitor connections are in use. It’s capable of extending the desktop display up, down, left or right, or mirroring it from one screen onto many.

It is best plugged into a USB port connected directly to the computer, though it also operated effectively when it was plugged into a USB hub.

It worked perfectly for viewing a large spreadsheet all at once, or displaying multiple applications. Where it falls down is on video (watching films, for instance) and games, because of the limited amount of data that can be transferred using a USB connection.

The ViBook is beautifully crafted. It is smaller than most portable music players and has a 1.5m USB cable that plugs into the PC. The socket on the other side is a DVI connector, which plugs into a monitor.

Adapters are supplied for other DVI sockets and VGA connections, along with a cradle to mount the Vibook discreetly on the back of a monitor using the provided screws or adhesive strips.

An installation CD containing drivers and software, which allows users to configure the multiple displays easily, completes the package.

Village Tronic deliver the product from Italy, so expect delivery times of two or three days.

Review: MSI Wind U135 netbook

Lawrence Latif, V3.co.uk, Monday 8 February 2010 at 12:19:00

A decent netbook incorporating the latest Intel technology in a stylish design

Tablet PCs garnered the majority of headlines in 2010, and Micro Star International (MSI) decided to start the year by launching the U130, U135 and U160, its first models based on Intel's Pine Trail platform.

However, the end of the decade saw people fall out of love with the netbook form factor that had revitalised sales for a number of OEMs and brought others into the public consciousness.

Netbooks were introduced to serve a simple purpose, but were being edged towards machines that could do it all, both in terms of physical characteristics and price. MSI seems to have gone back to basics with the Wind U135, using a redesigned chassis to accommodate the new silicon from Intel.

The Pine Trail platform was Intel's Centrino-like solution for netbooks, moving the memory controller and graphics into the processor package. One of the well-documented problems with the Diamondville platform was the use of the power-hungry 945GC/GSE chipset. The lower power consumption could have been used in two ways: clocking the processor higher or for better battery life. Thankfully, Intel chose the latter and it shows.

MSI chose this year's CES to unveil its first major update to the hugely popular Wind netbook series with the U130, U135 and "high-end" U160. The new chassis not only brought the Pine Trail platform, but added other key features like 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, a quality webcam and a new Chiclet-style keyboard.

Effort has been taken to make the U135 a little less bargain basement with an exterior available in dark colours and even a pinstripe. The attention to detail is quite admirable, with stylish, not garish, touches found when the device is opened up.

The trackpad has a sandblasted look, the single mouse button isn't from Apple's reject bin - it actually has two buttons underneath - and there's even a fancy asterisk light on the power button should you forget that your Wind is running.

Overall, the build quality is good and, while it's undoubtedly plastic, it feels a whole lot tighter than a Macbook, which is not bad for a machine which costs almost 75 per cent less.

Specifications

These Wind models are based on the Atom N450 processor running at 1.66GHz with HyperThreading enabled. The chip can support 64-bit but, as MSI decided to include Windows 7 Starter Edition, you're left with 32-bit. This is coupled to 1GB of DDR2 memory and a 250GB WD Blue Sata disk which showed an average 57MB/s read rate in tests.

The specification is very similar to Asus' Eee PC 1005PE except for the higher quality webcam. Intel's N450 does have DirectX 9 support, but drawing the frames by hand would provide a better gaming experience. The 10in 1,024x600 screen first championed by MSI is now pretty much standard across the board, but this particular unit is more acceptable than most.

Brightness and contrast in the U135 are above average for netbook screens, thanks to the LED backlighting. There's also good connectivity with three USB 2 sockets, Ethernet, headphone and microphone jacks, and VGA output. Removable storage comes in the form of an SD Card slot.

Daniel Robinson, V3.co.uk, Friday 5 February 2010 at 17:16:00

The T130 has an impressive display and plenty of grunt for office tasks

Toshiba's Satellite Pro T130 is a slimline business laptop designed for mobile professionals who want a stylish, portable system with a decent battery life at a price that doesn't break the bank. The T130 arguably meets all these needs, the only compromise being its somewhat lacklustre performance.

Announced last year and available now, the Satellite Pro T130 is a compact laptop with a 13.3in wide-screen display based on Intel's 1.4GHz Core 2 Solo ultra low voltage processor, to which Toshiba attributes its longer than average battery life. It ships with Windows 7 Professional as the operating system.

We found the T130 pleasant to use thanks to its large keyboard and impressive screen, with the slight drawback that the screen does not push back very far, so that it tends to face towards your chest if you are sitting with the system on your lap. At 1.76kg, it is also fairly light for its size.

Our review system came with 4GB of DDR3 memory (upgradable to a maximum of 8GB) and a 250GB hard drive. It supports 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but does not have the option of a 3G mobile broadband connection and lacks an optical drive.

Battery life

While Toshiba quotes a battery life of up to 11 hours for this system, in reality it lasted for less than half this time in our tests. Using the Battery Eater Pro benchmark, the T130 ran for four hours and 28 minutes, which is still impressive but far below Toshiba's claims.

Toshiba's choice of a Core 2 Solo processor for the T130 means that its performance is not going to match that of a system with a dual-core processor. The overall Windows Experience Index score for the T130 is not actually too bad at 3.2, with the lowest score coming from the Intel graphics, but it feels somewhat sluggish when opening applications despite having a large 4GB of memory.

In design, the T130 has a wedge shape that slopes from 34mm at the rear to 22mm at the front. Our review unit appeared glossy black from a distance, but up close was revealed to be covered by an eye-twisting chequered pattern both inside and out.

Review: HP LaserJet CP4525 colour printer

Alan Stevens, V3.co.uk, Thursday 4 February 2010 at 10:37:00

An impressive and speedy printer capable of delivering professional colour results

Colour printers usually fall into one of two camps. They're either quick, but of little use for anything other than office documents, or capable of professional quality output, albeit slowly and at a price.

The latest member of the HP Colour LaserJet family, however, bucks that trend, delivering top quality colour prints at speeds to match monochrome printers. It's also much more affordable than a lot of the alternatives, making it attractive to enterprise workgroup and small business buyers alike.

Three models have been released, all based on the same single-pass A4 colour laser engine from Canon and all coupled to an HP controller with an 800MHz processor and up to 1GB of memory. Native resolution is 600dpi, rising to 1,200dpi using HP's ImageREt 3600 enhancement technology, with PostScript, PCL6 and direct PDF printing as standard, plus an integrated HP Jetdirect adapter with a Gigabit Ethernet interface for printing over the local area network.

Prices start at £779+VAT for the base CP4525n model, but it's worth paying a little extra for the CP4525dn we tested, as this comes with a built-in duplexer for double sided printing, hence the 'd' in the name.

Alternatively, for buyers looking for extra capacity, the CP4525xh (£1,899+VAT) comes with three additional 500-sheet paper trays, plus a stand fitted beneath the single 500-sheet tray on the cheaper models. The CP4525xh also has a full 1GB of RAM (the other two have just 512MB) plus an encrypted hard disk to hold downloaded forms and other documents, which would otherwise add £499+VAT to the price.

Speed and performance

A robust and well made printer, the CP4525 can be used to print up to 10,000 pages per month at speeds of up to 40 pages per minute (ppm) whether in colour or monochrome. That, of course, is a maximum, and actual throughput will depend on the kind of document involved. Having said that, however, we got pretty close to 40ppm when printing simple Word documents and spreadsheets, with good speeds too when printing more complicated PDFs and photographic images. Equally importantly, the first page put in an appearance in under 10 seconds on all of our tests. HP's patented Instant-on technology ensured that this happened even when the printer was in low-power standby mode, a feat rival vendors struggle to emulate.

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Thursday 4 February 2010 at 09:30:00

Touch-technology at an affordable price

The AE2020 from MSI is an all-in-one computer – instead of having separate units for the screen and processing section, everything is built into one unit.

In this case it's roughly the size of a 20in screen, which is what this computer has, but it's deeper at the back to allow for the processing unit and the stand, as well as a transparent area around the bezel.

It was easy to set up with Windows configuring itself and only the mains power cable to plug in. MSI has supplied a so-so keyboard and a mouse, but it would be possible to control the computer without using either, as it has a touch-sensitive screen – dragging a finger across the screen moves the mouse pointer, and tapping equates to a mouse-click.

Once Windows had loaded we were presented with the option to install a 60-day trial of the Norton security software, with the stern warning that not doing so would leave the computer 'unprotected'. That's true, but it did feel a bit like scaremongering given that there are plenty of free anti-virus programs available, Windows includes its own firewall which offers some protection, and the Norton product will expire after 60 days anyway unless users enter their credit card details. We were then given a menu listing more software to install, with the instruction to tick the ones we wanted – the boxes were already ticked, though, and we couldn't change it. Still, the software was fairly innocuous (it included Microsoft Works for office tasks and the free Adobe Reader software for viewing PDF files).

The touchscreen worked well, although we were glad to have the mouse for more fiddly tasks such as when editing a photo. There's an on-screen keyboard available, which you tap to select letters, but typing with the keyboard, although it wasn't a particularly good model, was still more comfortable.

An Intel Pentium Dual Core T4300 processor lies at the heart of the computer – it's a relatively low-end model by today's standards but together with the computer's 3GB of memory, it's more than capable of dealing with office and internet tasks as well as watching DVDs (there's a DVD drive on one side) and editing photos. It uses the Nvidia Ion graphics chipset, which means it’s perfectly happy to play high-definition video at even the highest resolution.

More demanding tasks such as editing video or playing new games will be tricky and aren't what this computer is designed for. The 320GB hard disk is more than enough for most people, however.

In addition to the DVD drive there's a memory card reader, six USB ports, an eSata connection, standard and optical audio outputs and HDMI and VGA sockets for attaching screens, should the internal one not be enough. It can also connect to wireless networks – although it's not exactly portable this may be useful if you're placing it far away from your home's router.

Touchscreen computers we’ve seen have tended to be either cheap and flimsy or very expensive, so it’s good to see a computer such as this, priced in-between those two ends and with the processing power to match. If you want a decent touch-screen computer which won’t take up too much room, the Wind Top AE2020 is a good choice.

Microsoft Comfort Desktop 5000

Tom Royal, Computeractive, Wednesday 3 February 2010 at 12:30:00

A functional keyboard and mouse set

Every computer user needs a comfortable keyboard and mouse, and it’s often cheaper and simpler to buy the two together in a set.

The Comfort Desktop 5000 pack from Microsoft includes a keyboard from the company’s Comfort Curve range and a matching mouse.

The keyboard doesn’t look particularly nice, especially given the rather high price, but works very well. Its slightly curved design is pleasant to type on, although the UK layout, with the backslash key to the left of Z, results in a ludicrously shrunken left Shift key.

A wrist rest at the bottom of the keyboard has a rubber-like coating that’s surprisingly comfortable when typing, and at the top of the keyboard is a row of huge buttons to launch common functions such as email. These are handy, but the row of function keys has been shrunk to make space for them, so it’s not a good choice for anyone who regularly uses those keys.

The included mouse has a symmetrical design, so it’s comfortable for both left- and right-handed users, with two small side buttons and a wheel that can also be used to scroll left and right. It uses Microsoft’s new Bluetrack technology, supposedly allowing it to work on more surfaces than a standard optical mouse – we had no problems on any surface we tried.

All in all, this is a perfectly good desktop set that’s more functional than it is pretty. The recommended price is too high, but it’s sold cheaper online.

Daniel Robinson, V3.co.uk, Wednesday 3 February 2010 at 10:53:00

A sturdy mini laptop with mobile broadband but a steep price tag

Nokia's entry into the Windows laptop market is a radical departure from the firm's phone handset business, but the Booklet 3G is more than just a me-too product, combining a decent build quality with built-in 3G network access and GPS, plus a long battery life.

Announced in August 2009, the Booklet 3G will be available in the UK from February 2010 and can be pre-ordered now. It is effectively a netbook, with its 10.1in display, Intel Atom processor, 1GB memory and Windows 7 as its operating system.

While Nokia is a latecomer to the netbook market, it has made an effort to have the Booklet 3G stand out from the crowd. With its aluminium chassis, the system feels like one of the sturdiest laptops we have ever looked at, and its styling also makes the system pleasing to the eye.

However, unless you are prepared to pay for a 3G data connection as well, the Booklet is just that – a netbook, albeit a very well constructed one with a high price tag.

With Nokia's phone heritage, the inclusion of 3G/HSPA as well as 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi was to be expected, but sadly the Booklet only supports data on its cellular connection and does not provide the ability to make voice calls. Bluetooth is also available.

We evaluated the Booklet with a test 3G SIM provided by Vodafone, and we found that we could get reasonable access for web browsing from most places we tried, although obviously not as fast as when connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Thanks to Windows 7, which features built-in support for mobile broadband, getting connected was simply a matter of popping the SIM into the Booklet before powering it on, after which Vodafone's network appeared in the connection list on the taskbar. With earlier versions of Windows, users needed a software client, usually provided by and specific to the carrier, to manage the mobile broadband connection.

The built-in GPS hardware of the Booklet also only works when the 3G connection is active, and relies on this to download information from Nokia for Assisted GPS position calculations.

In our tests, the Booklet took a long time to establish our exact position, and did not seem capable of doing this at all when we tried it from our central London offices. Nokia does warn that GPS reception may be poor indoors or in built-up areas, but many smartphones with GPS that we have tested have performed much better.

One neat feature is a Windows desktop widget supplied by Nokia that shows your location, and this lets you click through to the web-based Ovi Maps for notable places and route finding, although it does not support turn-by-turn navigation.

Despite the aluminium chassis, the Booklet's weight is in line with many other netbooks, at about 1.25kg. It has styling that could be described as minimalist, with few features to detract from the brushed aluminium casing, save for a glossy coloured lid bearing Nokia's logo, in a choice of black, white and blue colours.

Medion E4355 D

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Tuesday 2 February 2010 at 16:48:00

Bargain desktop computer from Aldi

Medion's E4355 D is a desktop computer, available from Aldi stores from Thursday 4 February.

The computer comes in a 'tower' case, although that name isn't particularly appropriate as this one is fairly squat, not much more than 30cm tall. On the top of the case is the hard disk connector often found on Medion computers, allowing users to attach an external, portable hard disk, which is sold as an optional extra.

You can also do that using one of the eight USB sockets located on the computer. It also has a Firewire socket for connecting some camcorders, although fewer and fewer modern camcorders use this connection (most use USB), and there is a network socket.

It can connect to wireless networks too, which is handy if you're going to be putting it far away from your home's broadband router and you don't want to string network cable all over the place.

The hard disk is a huge 1TB (1,000GB) model, which should be more than enough for all but the biggest collections of music, video and pictures, and there's a DVD writer for watching or creating DVDs and CDs.

In terms of its processing power, the computer uses the new processor from Intel, the Core i3-530, which is combined with 3GB of memory and an Nvidia Geforce G210 graphics card. The processor is the lowest in Intel's new range but it's no slouch, and while the computer may not be able to play new games in perfect quality, if you turn down the detail levels a bit it should be fine. Also for video editing, likewise an intensive task, the computer should have no trouble.

The computer is supplied with a good keyboard and so-so mouse. A memory card reader is located under a plastic flap on the front panel. Another option extra, as well as the hard disk, is a 20in widescreen monitor, which is a decent Medion-branded model and comes in at an extra £90.

In short, this is an impressive computer at a very impressive price. It's great as a family computer, and offers more processing power for your money than a similarly priced laptop – don't forget that you'll have to add a screen or buy the £80 one.

Do remember that these Aldi deals tend to sell out quickly, so if you have your eye on it, try to get into the store as early as possible to take a look at the computer for yourself before buying.

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeractive, Monday 1 February 2010 at 17:19:00

Effective but complicated network camera

Compro’s IP50W is a network camera – it’s a webcam, but instead of attaching to your computer it attaches instead to your home network router.

That means it can be switched on all the time – cameras such as this are best suited to monitoring a room or a house rather than to chatting over Skype. It looks good, with a black-and-white front and small body. A stand is supplied, as is a kit for mounting it on a wall.

The W in the camera's name indicates that, in addition to connecting to your network using a cable, it can connect to a wireless network too – this option appears once the software discovers the camera, so you have to connect using a cable initially (one is supplied). If you don't need wireless capability a cheaper wired-only IP50 version is available.

Setting it up was easy up to a point – the supplied software found the camera on the network and prompted us to update the firmware to the latest version.

The software can be used to set up email alerts and motion detection so that it will only record when it detects movement, which is handy for watching the house when you’re away. Quality was good, and the software is comprehensive with loads of options and settings.

That’s also the problem, though: it’s not a friendly interface and it’s not clear which buttons are used for which options.

This is a powerful network camera at a good price, but only if you’re fairly technically minded or prepared to put in the time to make it work.

Review: Dell PowerEdge R510 server

Alan Stevens, V3.co.uk, Friday 29 January 2010 at 11:05:00

An affordable and very capable server for small to medium-sized companies

A recent addition to Dell's ever-expanding family of Nehalem (Intel Xeon 5500) servers, the rack mount PowerEdge R510 appears similar at first glance to others in the range. On closer inspection, however, we found a lot to make this flexible mid-range solution stand out from the crowd.

The most obvious system with which to compare the new R510 has to be the PowerEdge R710. Both are 2U rack mount systems with dual processor sockets capable of accommodating the same dual-core or quad-core Xeon 5500 chips. Management options are pretty similar too, and there's much the same amount of room inside both for Raid protected internal storage and plug-in adapters, despite the restricted form factor.

There's a big difference, however, when it comes to memory, with just eight Dimm slots to play with on the R510, giving it a maximum capacity of 64GB. That may seem like a lot, but the R710 can hold a massive 144GB, reflecting its positioning as a high-end box for large enterprise customers. Likewise, the R510 only has two Gigabit Ethernet interfaces compared to four on the R710 and, as such, is clearly aimed at companies with more modest requirements who don't wish to pay for features they don't need.

Another difference became obvious as soon as we took the R510 out of its box. The usual quality engineering was there for sure, but the chassis was also good deal shorter than normal. Admittedly, only by a few inches, but that can make a huge difference in a crowded machine room. It also makes the server a fair bit lighter. Again, not by much, but Dell said that it fits the server for use in mobile applications, particularly by the military, where every gram counts.

Less obvious is the fact that, whereas the R710 comes with lots of bells and whistles already fitted, the R510 is much more of a blank canvas. Redundant power, for example, is only an option on the R510, as is the full iDRAC6 management controller, whereas both are included as standard on the R710. That said, you do get basic remote console support on the R510, plus Dell's innovative Lifecycle Controller, doing away with the need for separate setup CDs. It's not until you actually get to use this in anger that you appreciate how valuable it is. We've liked it from the start, and hope to see other vendors do something similar.

For large enterprise customers the R710 also comes with hot-swap disks but this is also is an option on the R510, although you do get much the same choice of serial ATA (Sata), serial attached Scsi (SAS) and solid state drives (SSDs) in both 3.5in and 2.5in formats. Similar Raid controllers and configurations can also be specified. However, make sure you order the correct chassis to begin with, as you can't change your mind later. There is a choice here of four-bay, eight-bay and a newly introduced 12-bay system.

We found the 12-bay chassis particularly intriguing. On the face of it, internal storage shouldn't be an issue as rack servers can always be hooked up to a storage area network (SAN) or other external storage source. But as the R510 is aimed at smaller businesses and branch offices, external storage may be considered too expensive or impractical. In this case, the ability to stuff the server full of disks is a welcome option. The 12 drive bays are all accessible at the front complete with hot-swap mechanisms and the ability to take either 3.5in or 2.5in devices.

Other things we liked about the R510 included its relatively low noise. There was the usual 'whoosh' from the fans on start up but, thereafter, they only cut in fully when needed. Ours also had additional power management options, including the useful ability to monitor and cap power usage, although this is available only on some models.

The fact that the server had to be powered down to swap fans was a little disappointing, but most customers will be prepared to live with the inconvenience at the price being asked for the R510.

Talking of which, we found the R510 listed with a starting price of just over £700 ex VAT on the Dell web site, which we believe is very good value. That said, most customers will want to add extras to take full advantage of the capabilities of Intel's Nehalem processors, and could end up paying a lot more.

Ours, for example, had two quad-core processors plus 8GB of RAM and four SAS drives - a fairly typical configuration and still affordable at £2,720 ex VAT at the time of writing. However, we'd recommend discussing your requirements with Dell, and perhaps downloading the various server sizing tools available on its web site to help you choose exactly what you need and avoid making costly mistakes.

Tom Royal, Computeractive, Thursday 28 January 2010 at 15:20:00

Scan old photo film and slides

Many people have an archive of film photographs stored safely away that they would like to get onto a computer.

Photo prints can be scanned with a standard flatbed scanner, but for those with collections of slides or negative film the process is a little trickier.

The area of a 35mm film exposure is very small so, in order to pull out all the detail it contains, you will need a scanner with high-quality optics to enable it to magnify the small area by a large amount.

Until recently this meant buying an expensive flatbed scanner with a special adapter, or a dedicated film scanner. Recently, however, we have seen a few devices like this one: a simple, low-cost device for digitising film.

Using the Smartphoto could not be simpler. You fit the film to be digitised into a plastic holder – here is one for strips of negatives and one for mounted slides. Then push that into the device and press a button. A few seconds later the photo appears on the computer screen.

Unfortunately the results were very poor. We tested the device using an assortment of standard colour and slide film and found that the Smartphoto tended to produce poor-quality images with inaccurate colours and, more annoyingly, detail lost from lighter areas.

Images from negatives fared slightly better than those from slides, but we were not happy with either, and adjusting the settings made little difference.

If the device was cheap – say £40 – this might be an acceptable trade-off, but for the cost of the Smartphoto you can buy a flatbed scanner capable of far superior results.

For more information on scanning old film and slides see our online feature.

Olympus Mju Tough 6010

Gavin Stoker, Computeractive, Wednesday 27 January 2010 at 17:23:00

Drop it or dunk it – this camera will still work

Disposable film cameras are useful if you want to take pictures in locations where a standard camera might get damaged.

Since throwaway digital cameras are yet to arrive, the Mju Tough 6010 might be the next-best thing.

Its metal casing (in a choice of red, blue or grey) and watertight rubber seals ensure it can withstand a dive to three metres deep, accidental drops from 1.5 metres in height and temperatures as low as -10°C.

The pocket-sized 12-megapixel, camera has a 3.6x optical zoom lens (equivalent to 28-102mm on a film camera). It powered up in just a couple of seconds and felt solid when gripped in the palm despite weighing just 149g without its rechargeable battery. The shiny surfaces, however, meant that getting a firm hold on the camera’s body was sometimes difficult.

This is a shame, as one constant problem we found was the soft images caused by camera shake. It uses two kinds of image-stabilisation technology but this did not help much.

While it looks the part from the front, a set of disappointingly small, plastic controls accompany the 2.7in screen at the rear.

Luckily, then, for anyone operating the camera with wet fingers or gloves, it also offers something called tap control. Once this has been switched on using a menu option, it’s possible to tap the screen to retrieve or scroll through saved pictures as well as operate other important functions. It was fast and surprisingly responsive, and worked well for us.

Further user-friendliness comes in the shape of a mode that compares scenes with information the camera already knows about and adjusts the settings to suit. All the user then has to do is to point and shoot.

It can record video too: a pre-record mode allows action to be pre-empted, though the resolution is a standard and disappointing 640x480 pixels at 30 frames per second when we would have expected high-definition footage at this price.

In terms of still image quality we were disappointed by the camera’s unpredictable white balance and the noise visible on pictures taken in low-light conditions.

More positively, the camera was fun and easy to use, and image quality is still quite reasonable.

Lawrence Latif, V3.co.uk, Tuesday 26 January 2010 at 16:37:00

Android finally comes of age

Not since Apple's iPhone came out has another mobile device garnered so many column inches, but then not since the original iPhone has a real contender hit the market. The Nexus One doesn't have to beat all comers, but it has to beat the iPhone and, in almost every way, it does just that.

The Nexus One is the first consumer-oriented physical product Google has produced and, as debuts go, the search giant takes the biscuit with fantastic hardware and software. By using HTC's Bravo the hardware in most cases far surpasses that of anything that's out there now, with the exception of HTC's own HD2.

Powered by the same 1GHz Snapdragon processor found in the aforementioned device, there's more than enough grunt to run Android. There's enough system memory too, with 512MB for both Flash and RAM.

This is supplemented by a microSD slot with a 4GB card included. One of the more peculiar points is that Google is only allowing 192MB of the 512MB flash to be used for application storage. Since you can't store applications on the microSD card, it does seem to be a trifle limiting. Google says that this restriction will be lifted once it fixes certain security issues.

Features

Other headline features include what can only be described as a stunning 3.7in Amoled 800 x 480 screen, which is bright enough to play a role in a Jean Michel Jarre concert. Image capture capabilities are good too, with a 5-megapixel auto-focusing camera with LED flash that can capture 720 x 480 video at 20 frames per second.

There's 'real' GPS along with additional cell tower and Wi-Fi positioning and, thanks to a digital compass, it knows in which direction you are travelling, something which is becoming increasingly important for the slew of augmented-reality applications available on iPhone and Android devices.

Users in the US have complained about poor 3G speeds on T-Mobile, but the experience of an iPhone 3G on AT&T is hardly mesmerising either. O2's 3G network seems to be just fine here in central London, and in casual use seems faster on the Nexus than it does on the iPhone. Of course, your mileage will vary depending on whether you get 3G at all. The Nexus does support HSDPA up to 7.2Mbit/s but frankly that figure could just as well be 56Kbit/s thanks to the dismal bandwidth quotas afforded by mobile networks.

Battery

Battery life is surprisingly good thanks to a 1,400 mAH removable unit. With Wi-Fi and 3G radios enabled you can expect to charge every other day with average browsing, push email, listening to music and, of course, phone calls. Even using the processor at full tilt it will take around six hours to drain the unit completely. Considering the speed of the processor, and the resolution and brightness of the screen, that's pretty impressive.

Operating system

As Apple has shown, it isn't the hardware that makes the phone. So, while it's all there, Google has to provide the wow factor that the iPhone OS did back in 2007. The Nexus One is the first handset to ship with Android 2.1, or Eclair. It's clear that Android is maturing into something that has the finesse of the iPhone OS along with the raw capabilities of Windows Mobile. Thankfully, stability wise it's firmly aligned with the Apple devices, but with glitzy features such as active wallpapers and a far more customisable home screen, the full implementation of the Eclair OS has more glam than the iPhone.

Thanks to widgets that can be used for browsing information, or single click access to any particular feature, such as putting the phone on silent, the multiple home screens become your main port of call. As part of the visual feast you can replace bog standard static wallpapers with ones that have moving objects and react to your screen presses. It's all quite impressive even for a 30-month iPhone user, but where it all comes together is in the speed of transitions, opening applications and switching between applications when notifications occur. Granted, much has improved with the iPhone 3GS, but the Nexus One really pulls out the stops thanks in large part to its processor.

Lindy Adjustable Notebook Cooler

Laurence Gunn, Computeractive, Tuesday 26 January 2010 at 10:30:00

Extra cooling for netbooks and laptops

Lindy’s Adjustable Notebook Cooler is a portable adjustable stand with an internal fan that helps the internal cooling of portable computers.

It can cope with anything from a 7in netbook to a 15.4in laptop. It tucks away discreetly under a laptop to provide powered ventilation and can also make typing more comfortable.

The 2,300rpm fan was quiet in operation and inaudible when there was minor background noise. Our test computer, a 15in Advent laptop, was noticeably cooler than usual after half an hour of use, though the device’s single-fan design, combined with its necessary close proximity to the computer's base, meant that the area cooled was limited: it remained fairly hot in areas where the fan was not directly underneath.

Adjusting its size to suit different laptops is a matter of pulling the left and right sides apart.

The cooler doesn’t take batteries – it’s powered by a connection to the computer’s USB port, a pity when USB ports can be at a premium on a laptop, though our laptop’s battery lasted nearly as long as usual.

The Lindy Adjustable Notebook Cooler is a useful addition to a laptop bag and, at £15, it’s good value.

Gavin Stoker, Computeractive, Monday 25 January 2010 at 17:25:00

Canon’s first waterproof snapper makes a splash

The Powershot D10 is not the most stylish of digital cameras. In fact it looks ugly, with a distinctly snout-like lens. But the extra padding ensures it is practical.

Able to withstand both a tumble on the ski slopes and dip in the hot tub afterwards, the 12-megapixel camera is waterproof to an impressive depth of 10m, shockproofed to withstand a drop from 1.22m and freeze proof to -10°C.

There is a premium to pay for such indestructibility – it costs £319.

At the back there are chunky buttons to match the camera’s meaty proportions, the kind you can operate with woollen gloves on. The 2.5in rear screen that can be used for both composing and reviewing shots sits beneath its own 2mm-thick protective shield, but felt small by today’s standards, as did the 3x optical zoom lens, even if it does come with built-in image stabilisation to combat the blur from camera shake. There is no optical viewfinder.

Those who don’t want to fiddle with settings will like the D10’s Smart Auto technology that recognises common scenes from 18 choices and adjusts the settings accordingly, while image stabilisation and motion detection help deliver sharper shots than could be achieved without. The handholding ensures that operation is practically child’s play, and results were quick and consistent.

Video is recorded at a resolution of 640x480 pixels – not even close to the high-definition video that’s possible from other cameras at this price. That said, it does shoot at 30 frames per second which ensured smooth playback. White balance was consistent but when we left it on its default settings the colours were a little washed out. Images started to smudge a little when the camera was used in low-light conditions.

Despite those the D10 is a safe option for those looking to take pictures in unfriendly environments without worry. However, strip away its protective casing and you get a rather modest snapshot camera.

For the fashion-conscious wanting to look good on the piste, a dedicated accessories kit is available for the D10 that includes three coloured interchangeable faceplates and toughened shoulder- and neck-straps.

But since there’s already a premium on the price, most people will be better off with more practical alternative (see our review of the Pentax Optio WS80 by clicking here).