Before the holiday I’ve got a large review for you. Last week I reviewed the Droid from Verizon Wireless, this week I’ve got one of their netbooks to review. It’s the HP Mini 311 and it’s one of the first netbooks to feature the Nvidia ION chipset in it. I was a bit excited to get this as I was very curious as to the performance of the ION compared to the Intel chipset. So I’ve put it through it’s paces over the past couple weeks and I like it overall. I decided to see how it compares to my Acer Aspire One D250 in terms of performance as well, so I’ve got a lot of tests for you. This review turned out to be a lot bigger than I expected it to, so sit back, relax and read on to learn more…

Today we’ll start with the video unboxing for you:

Then of course the box contents:

The keyboard features keys that are rounded inwards, at first it was a bit odd typing on it, but after a while I learned to actually like it. The touchpad is very sensitive, in fact annoyingly so really, I found myself touching it while typing all of the time and messing up what I was typing.

Here’s the bottom and side views, the one glaring difference between other other netbooks I’ve reviewed is the addition of the HDMI port.

The battery removes to reveal a sim card slot behind it.

The HP Mini 311 comes with Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit installed on it.

Here’s a screenshot of the desktop with everything as it comes, with the addition of the MWSnap 3 icon, that’s my screen capture program I like to use for everything. It’s fairly bare, but you’ll notice some junk added like the Ebay shortcut, and the Play HP Games Shortcut. Included also are trials for Norton and Microsoft Office, and there’s two more HP icons, QuickSync and Support Assistant. These icons should all be the same on any standard Mini 311, the main difference here is the addition of the VZAcess Manager icon to enable you to use the Verizon network.

If you’re curious, and I was, I ran the Windows Experience Index on here and it scored a whopping 2.3 points, and that low score is because of the CPU which is to be expected.

Let’s see what’s in it, listed below are the full specs, but here’s the Device manager with the ‘important’ stuff listed for you:

Also here’s the CPU-Z screenshots from the Mini 311 as well:

So the main feature or difference between a regular HP Mini 311 and the Verizon one is the Verizon Broadband Access. To access it you use the VZAcess Manager program. It’s simple to use, open it up and it starts the broadband modem automatically, then you’ll see a list of connections. Highlight the Verizon Wireless and click Connect WWAN and it will connect for you and you’re set.

One interesting thing about the program is that you can put a zip code or part of one into the WiFi Locator section and it will put up a list of then by address for you.

I decided to check the speeds of the Verizon service by using two different online tests, SpeakEasy and SpeedTest.net.

The speeds we see here are fairly slow, really. I looked around a bit and the average user speeds for Verizon 3g is about 1.1Mbps download and 470Kbps upload. I’m not getting near that really as you can see, but you have to remember the other factors that may attribute to that. Who knows how far I am from a tower, and who know how many other people were using it while I was.

To give you an idea of what that means here’s the same two tests running on my 20/30 Verizon FIOS:

….I also learned from this test that I need to call Verizon and see what’s wrong with my upload speeds, there’s something wrong there…

Using the HP Mini 311 is great, I got the rated battery life with no problem. It is a small battery, but you can always buy another if you wish to add more run time.

It seems fast, as fast as my other Atom based netbooks, but this one just seems a bit snappier to do things. Could be Windows 7 as opposed to Windows XP that I run on my netbooks, but it just feels faster for the most part.

Now I’ve got two main netbooks I use the OVZ Neutrino and the Acer Aspire One D250, and I’m just not sure about the HP Mini 311 in terms of how it feels in my hands. It’s hard to describe, but it seems a bit big to me really. Physically it’s a lot bigger than either of the other netbooks I’ve got, but the HP mini 311 only has a 11.6 screen as opposed to the 10.1 of the Aspire and Neutrino. That isn’t that much bigger really but yet the HP Mini 311 is much larger and heavier than the other two netbooks, especially the tiny Aspire One D250. The HP Mini 311 just seems big to me really, in both size and weight.

Running video on the Hp Mini 311 is nice, I had no real problems running HD video at all, but you’re supposed to be able to do this with the ION chipset right? So that’s a good thing there. The ION chipset just makes anything graphic and video related run much, much smoother.

I have to mentioend also that the sound is very good from the Altec Lansing speakers, a bit light on the bass, but that’s fine for me though.

The pretty much covers the basics, but let’s move on to some comparison testing.

Specifications:

HP Mini 311-1037NR

With Mobile Broadband Built-In, You’re Ready to Go
A notebook with Mobile Broadband Built-In gives you the freedom to stay mobile and connected without the need for additional equipment.

Connect Worldwide with GlobalAccess
Get high-speed, wireless Internet access in over 185 destinations worldwide with Verizon Wireless GlobalAccess. Available on select global-ready Mobile Broadband Built-In notebooks enabled by Gobi.

It’s ultra– portable. Lightweight. Less expensive than standard notebooks and functions on America’s largest and most reliable 3G network. You can keep on top of business and stay informed and in touch when out of the office and even when out of the country! The HP Mini comes with Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium Operating System, is global capable*, features an 11.6″  display, 2GB of RAM and 160GB Hard Drive. It comes with Altec Lansing Speakers, a built–in Web–cam with integrated digital microphone, is WiFi and Bluetooth capable.

*Requires installation of SIM card and addition of GlobalAccess plan or feature to customer account for GSM roaming capability.
Specs:
Product Name: 311-1037NR
Microprocessor: 1.60GHz Intel Atom Processor N270
Microprocessor Cache: 512KB L2
Memory: 2048MB DDR3 System Memory (1 Dimm)
Memory Max: 3072MB
Video Graphics: NVIDIA ION for Windows 7
Video Memory: up to 895MB total graphics memory
Hard Drive: 160GB (5400RPM)
Multimedia Drive
Display: 11.6” Diagonal HD LED BrightView Widescreen Display (1366 x 768)
Network Card: Integrated 10/100 Ethernet LAN
Wireless Connectivity
* 802.11a/b/g/n WLAN
* Bluetooth
*HP Broadband Wireless (un2400 Mobile Broadband Module)
*Radio/Frequency Bands: CDMA/1X/EV–DO Rev.A: 800/1900MHz; UMTS/HSPA: 850/1900/2100MHz; GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900MHz
*Mobile Broadband and GlobalAccess Service capable (SIM card provided separately)
Sound
* Altec Lansing Speakers
Keyboard    : 92% full sized keyboard
Pointing Device: Touch Pad with dedicated vertical Scroll Up/Down (note: no on/off button)
External Ports
* 5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader for Secure Digital cards, MultiMedia cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, or xD Picture cards
* 3 Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0
* Headphone-out/Microphone in combo jack (compatible with 3.5mm 4-conductor jack with stereo audio and mono mic)
* HDMI
* 1 VGA (15-pin)
* 1 RJ -45 (LAN)
Other Devices
* HP Webcam with integrated digital microphone
Dimensions: 11.4 in (L) x 8.03 in (D) x 0.78-1.20 in (H)
Weight: 3.22 lbs
Security
* Kensington MicroSaver lock slot
* Power-on password
* Accepts 3rd party security lock devices
Power:
* 65W AC Adapter
* 6-Cell Lithium-Ion battery
*(usage up to 6.25 hrs w/Windows 7)
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit
2-yr Contract Price:$299.99
*Various discounts available

Since I have the Acer Aspire One D250 that is a relatively new netbook, I figure it would be perfect to compare to the ION chipset and the HP Mini 311.

I mentioned I have the OCZ Neutrino, but in that I’ve got an SSD and it’s not really a stock, off-the-shelf netbook so it’s not great for comparison really.

I should note that on my Acer Aspire One D250 I have Windows XP 32bit installed, while the HP Mini 311 is running Windows 7 32Bit.

Quickly, here’s the Device Manager from my Acer Aspire One D250 and the CPU-Z shots as well. The glaring differences are the double ram of the HP Mini 311, and of course the Nvidia ION chipset.

These netbooks are pretty much the same really, so I was very curious to see what difference there is with the Nvidia ION chipset instead of the Intel 945 Chipset. I’m sure most people are curious as well, so I went on a benchmarking spree basically…

Besides the ION chipset, the hard drives are the same capacity, but different makers, so let’s start there with Atto and a couple SiSoft Sandra Tests. For all the Sandra tests I used the new SiSoft Sandra 2010 portable Edition.

The Toshiba hard drive in the HP Mini seems a bit faster than the Hitachi in the Aspire One.

Let’s just to the Physical Disks test and the File Systems Tests from SiSoft Sandra.

First is the File Systems Test:

Drive Index :
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.
Random Access Time :
Results Interpretation : Lower index values are better.
This is not the raw disk performance that other benchmarks test – but the speed of the volume itself that depends on many more factors like file system, operating system cache, position on disk, etc. Thus this is the performance you get at the file system level.
Drive Index: is a composite figure representing an overall performance rating based on the average of the read, write, and seek tests, and file and cache size. The Drive Index is intended to represent drive performance under typical use in a PC. A larger number means better performance. The weighting of the results is not equal it represents the distribution of different files sizes as used on these devices (obtained through field research).

As you can see the HP Mini 311 performs quite a bit better.

Next is the Physical Disks Test:
Drive Index :
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.
Random Access Time :
Results Interpretation : Lower index values are better.
As the test measures raw performance it is independent on the file system the disk uses and any volumes mounted off the disk.
Drive Index: is a composite figure representing an overall performance rating based on the highest read or write speed across the whole disk. Thus the higher the better.
Access Time: is the average time to read a random sector on the disk, analogous to latency response time. Thus the lower the better.

Here they look to be evenly matched.

Let’s jump to a full systems test using Crystalmark:

You can see the HP Mini 311 performs better overall, but looking closer they seem evenly matched until you get to the graphics testing at the bottom. Here’s where the ION comes into play.

No pretty graph for you this time, but I also ran Cinebench 10. It tests two things, the CPU and the Graphics, the CPUs are the same, so we’ll ignore that result and move to the Graphics test:
The second test measures graphics card performance and is run inside the 3D editor window. The project file used can test all graphics cards that support the OpenGL standard. In this scene, only the camera was animated. This scene places medium to low demands on graphics cards and tests the maximum speed with which the scene can be properly displayed.

Scores:
Acer Aspire One D250: 212
HP Mini 311: 1150
There’s a big difference in those scores.
Here’s the actual screen shots if you’re interested:

Since we’re talking, multi-media let’s jump over to SiSoft Sandra CPU Multi-Media Benchmark. Yes it’s not a graphics benchmark, but the entire computer plays a role in the test.

Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.
Benchmark the (W)MMX(2), SSE(2/3/4), AVX processor units.
Results Interpretation
Multi-Media Integer (Pixels/s) – higher results are better, i.e. better integer performance.
Multi-Media Single/Double Float (Pixels/s) – higher results are better, i.e. better floating-point performance.

As you can see my Acer Aspire One falls behind a bit here.

Speaking of CPU tests, let’s see how much of a difference there is between them.
Starting with SiSoft Sandra CPU Arithmetic Test:
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.
Benchmarks the ALU and FPU processor units
Results Interpretation
Dhrystone (MIPS) – higher results are better, i.e. better integer performance.
Whetstone (MFLOPS) – higher results are better, i.e. better floating-point performance.

As expected, really no discernible difference.

Let’s move on to the Cache and Memory Test:
Benchmark the processors’ caches and memory access (transfer speed).
Results Interpretation
Cache/Memory Bandwidth (MB/s) – higher results are better, i.e. faster memory bandwidth.
Speed Factor (MB/s) – lower results are better, i.e. less difference between processor cache speed and memory speed.

Here oddly we see the Aspire One fall behind a bit, same processor but lower performance.

Memory Bandwidth test:
Benchmark the memory bandwidth of your computer
Results Interpretation
Integer Memory Bandwidth (MB/s) – higher results are better, i.e. faster memory bandwidth.
Float Memory Bandwidth (MB/s) – higher results are better, i.e. faster memory bandwidth.

Again the Aspire One falls behind…

Memory Latency Test:
Benchmark the latency (response time) of processors’ caches and memory
The latency of caches is measured in processor clocks (i.e. how many clocks it takes for the data to be ready) as it is dependent on the processor clock speed.
The latency of memory is measured in nanoseconds as it is typically independent on processor clock speed.
Results Interpretation:
Latency: Lower is better
Speed Factor: Lower is better

Here we see the Acer does a bit better.

Now SiSoft Sandra also has network tests, I’ve never used them before but I thought why not give them a try. These tests are using the built-in Wi-Fi cards of both netbooks which they both have different ones.

Internet Connection
Benchmark the bandwidth and latency of the Internet connection of your computer
The test attempts to measure the bandwidth and latency of the connection to your ISP’s gateway computer; this should be the maximum transfer rate of the link (i.e. between your computer and ISP gateway).

Data Bandwidth :
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.
Data Latency
Results Interpretation : Lower index values are better.

Here we see the HP Mini 311 scores a bit better than the Aspire One does.

The last test I have is the Wireless Test.

Wireless (WLAN/WWAN)

Benchmark the wireless bandwidth of your computer.

The test uses the ICMP (ping/echo) interface to measure the response time and transfer bandwidth to an access point.

Data Bandwidth :
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.
Data Latency :
Results Interpretation : Lower index values are better.

Oddly here we see the Acer Aspire One D250 performs much better.

Well that wasn’t that last test actually, for some fun I ran the x264 HD Benchmark 3.0 from TechArp

Simply put, it is a reproducible measure of fast your machine can encode a short HD-quality video clip into a high quality x264 video file. It’s nice because everyone running it will use the same video clip and software. The video encoder (x264.exe) reports a fairly accurate internal benchmark (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encode and it also uses multi-core processors very efficiently. All these factors make this an ideal benchmark to compare different processors and systems to each other.

so here’s the results:

HP Mini 311:

Results for x264.exe r1342
————————–
encoded 1442 frames, 6.48 fps, 3899.26 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 6.53 fps, 3899.26 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 5.98 fps, 3899.26 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 6.39 fps, 3899.26 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 1.53 fps, 3970.98 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 1.50 fps, 3970.69 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 1.53 fps, 3971.67 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 1.53 fps, 3971.30 kb/s

and here are the results for the Acer Aspire One D250:

Results for x264.exe r1342
————————–
encoded 1442 frames, 6.84 fps, 3899.26 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 6.85 fps, 3899.26 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 6.84 fps, 3899.26 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 6.78 fps, 3899.26 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 1.53 fps, 3971.06 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 1.54 fps, 3970.62 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 1.53 fps, 3971.81 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 1.53 fps, 3971.28 kb/s

To give you a better understanding or comaprison for those results I also ran it on my Corei5 750 computer:

Results for x264.exe r1342
————————–
encoded 1442 frames, 63.64 fps, 3901.21 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 64.67 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 64.07 fps, 3901.21 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 63.98 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 19.67 fps, 3971.81 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 19.76 fps, 3971.25 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 19.61 fps, 3972.15 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 19.53 fps, 3970.28 kb/s

As you can see there’s a huge difference there.

Why I ran that test exactly, I’m not too sure, but I figured why waste the results…

Conclusion:

The HP Mini 311 is a great netbook, it’s fast and quality made. The Nvidia ION chipset has a clear advantage over the Intel chipsets of late, it just really makes the entire computer feel more responsive and just faster overall. Video and any graphics just seem, and are much smoother when played on the ION chipset.

This is my first ION based netbook, so I don’t have much to compare it to, but if I had a choice I’d choose the ION over the Intel for obvious reasons. Going from the Intel chipset to the ION chipset is like night and day truly.

I’m much prefer not to have the HP junk installed and not to have trial versions of software installed either. I’d much rather install my own anti-virus software than have to deal with the annoying prompts of Norton any day.

Pros:
+Very well made
+Excellent performance overall
+Looks nice
+HD Video and HDMI output
+Very nice keyboard

Cons:
-Verizon network is a bit slow for me
-HP Junk installed
-Trial software installed
-Seems big and heavy

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

This product was given to TestFreaks for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review, we do not, and never will, accept payment from companies to review their products. To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.

Verizon HP Mini 311-1037NR Netbook is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

If you’ve read any of my NAS reviews then you’d know that I’m a big fan of NAS boxes, I much prefer them over any other external storage system. They are and can be much more than just a storage device, they can run surveillance, FTP and Web servers, along with different types of media servers and numerous other things. I find them to be the best all around storage devices out there today. With a NAS box I don’t have to carry anything with me, all of my files are accessible via the internet, meaning no need to carry an external hard drive or even a USB drive. This also means I’ve got a central place to backup my files, and anyone else on my network can do the same thing. NAS boxes also allow network users to share files and any types of media across the network, everything is right there for you in one central place.

Today I’ve gathered eight different NAS boxes for comparison. They range from four drive boxes down to single drive ones. The brands I’ve collected are a sampling from Seagate, Thecus, Synology and QNAP. These companies are the biggest and most popular NAS box providers out there, and the ones I have represent low end to high end versions for both home or personal use up to higher end feature packed boxes.

Here’s seven of the NAS boxes:

I had a late arrival to this collection so it wasn’t here at the time the ‘family’ portrait was taken

The boxes in this roundup are these, with links to my own reviews of them if you wish to read about them more in-depth.

Thecus N3200 Pro (review HERE)

Thecus N2200 (review HERE)

QNAP TS-109 Pro II (review HERE)

QNAP TS-419P (review HERE)

QNAP TS-219P (review HERE)

Synology DS209+II (review HERE)

Seagate BlackArmor NAS110 (review HERE)

Seagate BlackArmor NAS220 (review HERE)

The product names for each box listed below are hyperlinked to their specific page on the manufacturer website so you can click those to learn more about the boxes as well.

The first thing I want to do is to briefly touch on the interfaces of the boxes themselves, both the Admin side and the User side. Again you can check the reviews above for more in-depth looks at all of the boxes and their interfaces.

We’ll take a look at the QNAP Boxes First:

TS-219P Turbo NAS

The TS-219P Turbo NAS is the 2-bay network-attached storage server with iSCSI dedicated to the SOHO and home users who need a mass storage center to store and share huge amount of digital data. The NAS supports 2.5″ and 3.5″ SATA hard drives, and is featured with excellent hardware design for storage expansion, outstanding data access performance, high system reliability, and numerous powerful software applications. The TS-219P is the top-class model in the current home and SOHO NAS market.

CPU: Marvell 1.2GHz
DRAM: 512MB DDRII RAM

TS-419P Turbo NAS

QNAP TS-419P Turbo NAS is the 4-bay, 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch SATA HDD network-attached storage server with iSCSI applications dedicated to SMB, SOHO and home users. As a storage centre for mass data backup, management and sharing, the TS-419P Turbo NAS supports excellent hardware design, outstanding performance, high system reliability, and numerous powerful software applications.

CPU: Marvell 6281 1.2GHz
DRAM: 512MB DDRII RAM

TS-109 II Pro Turbo Nas

A reliable network-attached storage (NAS) is an important asset for most small business nowadays to keep their data safe and sound. The high performance, all-functions-in-one TS-109 Pro II is their best choice. The NAS adopts Marvell 500MHz CPU and 256MB DDRII memory which largely enhances system performance and remains highly stable even when there are multiple simultaneous accesses to the services. The friendly web-based interface enables users to easily set up a network system for all sorts of storage applications without MIS help.

CPU: Marvell 5182 500MHz
DRAM: 256 MB DDRII

The QNAP boxes all have the same interfaces, it’s an AJAX based system and it looks really nice. With the new firmware updates, even the oldest one, the TS-109 Pro II looks and works just like the newest models. Since all the interfaces look the same, I only have to show you one set of pictures really.

The admin side is an icon based system that’s very easy to navigate. It has dual navigation actually, a tree style on the left side and in the main window is the graphical icon style,

The web based user interface is simple and easy to use with a personal folder as well that can be created for the user that only they can access.

Next up is the Synology:

DS209+II
High-Performance 2-bay SATA NAS Server for Small-and-Medium Business Users

Synology Disk Station DS209+II offers PC server equivalent performance for efficient data sharing and backup. Its high performance coupled with sophisticated Synology Disk Station Manager 2.1 provides an ideal solution for cross platform sharing, secure server backup, Windows ADS integration, business mail server, and corporate surveillance.

CPU: 1.06GHz, 64bit@DDR533, with floating point
Memory: 512MB

The Synology interface is a bit brighter in colors.

The Admin side of things is similar to the QNAP in that it’s icon based, but it’s arranged a little bit differently. It has the same style though with the navigation tree on the left and the main widow has larger icons.

The User interface is graphical based when you login, nice large icons allow you to see everything easily. Depending on what services you’ve got enabled and what permissions you’ve set, the ‘desktop’ menu will change for end user.

The file manager is simple but it works well.

There’s also a very nice network music player as well built in:

Next up we’ve got the Seagate BlackArmor NAS boxes. The interfaces are the same for both boxes.

BlackArmor NAS 110
Desktop storage with an easy USB interface.

With centralized storage and automatic full-system backup for up to 10 PCs, BlackArmor NAS 110 is serious hardware. And with easy media streaming, remote access and intuitive interface, it makes accessing and sharing your content seriously easy.

CPU: 800 MHz Marvell 88F6192 Kirkwood CPU
Memory: 128 MB

BlackArmor NAS 220

Central networking that fits your business.
Network storage for up to 20 workstations. Designed with the small business in mind.

CPU: 800 MHz Marvell 88F6192 Kirkwood CPU
Memory: 128 MB

The admin end of the BlackArmor boxes is rather plain, mostly test, and no colorful graphical icons. It is easy to navigate and use though. It has dual menus, drop down style at the top and an expanded menu on the left side for the section that you’re accessing.

The web based interface for the BlackArmor boxes is a bit different than all of the others. Seagate uses something they call Global Access to access the boxes. You actually login to a special secure Seagate website to gain access to your files. This does make things very easy to setup, just enable the Global Access for the Account and then login to the site. There’s no messing around with webs servers, or trying to figure out your router settings or any dynamic dns settings either, it does make like much easier for the end user. This way anyone can access the BlackArmor boxes from anywhere, just visit the website and login to access your files. Here’s a picture of my account with box of the BlackArmor NAS boxes being accessed.

The two Thecus boxes are last up here.

Thecus N3200PRO
* Upgraded 3 Bay NAS with Vastly Elevated Performance
Committed to delivering the utmost performance and security, Thecus proudly introduces the revamped three-bay NAS, the N3200PRO. Powered by an AMD Geode CPU, the N3200PRO delivers the raw horsepower required to transfer files quickly and efficiently. With powerful RAID options (including RAID 5), a built-in LCM display, and vastly improved data throughput, the N3200PRO redefines the three-bay NAS once again with increased usability, functionality, and performance.

CPU: AMD Geode
Memory: 256 MB of DDR RAM

N2200

Designed for home use, the N2200 packs some useful features under the hood, including an iTunes server, a photo web server, and a media server (DLNA/uPnP compatiable). Sony’s Playstation 3TM and other DLNA certified digital media players can automatically discover and stream content instantly from the N2200. The most praised download manager (with http, FTP, BT, and eMule download features) on the N2200 brings low power and stable downloading instead of using regular PC. You can even use the N2200 as a simple surveillance server by plugging in a compatible USB web cam or IP cam!

CPU: SOC
Memory: Unknown

The two Thecus boxes I’ve got have two different interfaces. With the QNAP boxes I showed you, the newest firmware even updates the older boxes to the new interfaces, with the Thecus boxes it doesn’t. Not sure why this is, just how they do things I guess.  Personally I prefer the interface style of the older N3200 Pro over the new N2200 interface.

The N2200 admin interface fairly bland in itself, the navigation is a tree style located on the left side. One issue I have with this interface is that it’s slow to do most anything, anytime you access something it says ‘Please Wait’ for several seconds.

The User Interface varies between what you’re doing, the Web Disk is for sharing files and it’s simple. There’s also a very nice photo sharing server as well that’s easy to use.

Here’s the Admin interface for the N3200 Pro, it’s simple, easy to use, fast, and it’s all drop-down menu style.

The user side interface is simple looking but easy to use.

All of these boxes perform the basic functions for you, with some minor differences between them really.

For testing I didn’t run any internet access tests as it all depends on your own service as to how fast you’ll access and transfer your files. I’ve got 20/30 FIOS so my transfers will be much faster than someone with regular DSL, so there’s really no comparison to be made, and I was not going to sign up for several service providers, that would be ridiculous.

On my network I use a Netgear 8-Port Gigabit Switch and model GS608 actually.

All of the boxes were connected to the Netgear switch, on the same exact port actually. The transfers were done from my computer to the NAS boxes for testing on my network. My PC basically consists of an Intel Corei5 750 and a an Asus P7P55D-LE motherboard.

The two Seagate Black Armor drives come with their own Seagate brand hard drives, but the others in this testing do not comes with drives. I have four Western Digital Caviar Black 750GB hard drives that I used for all of the other NAS boxes.

(yeah I know there’s only two in the picture…)

Since the BlackAmor NAS220 is configured for Raid 1 or Mirroring that’s how I configured the other boxes as well at least those with two bays. The single bay boxes of course cannot be configured that way. The three bay and four bay boxes can be configured as Raid 1 and where for this testing, but of course that’s just copying and copying the drives. Kind of pointless for Raid 1 with three or more drives really, you’d be better with Raid 5 or another level of Raid for three of more disks.

I ran three different tests on the boxes for transferring files and folders via FTP, measuring the time it took and the average speeds of the boxes.

The first test is a single .TS Video file that is 900MB in size.

The chart is arranged by the speed, slowest to fastest.

If you look at the speeds you’ll see the Thecus N3200 Pro was the fastest, but if you look at the times it took to transfer the file you’ll see the BlackArmor NAS110 is slower in speed but took five seconds less to transfer the same file.

The next test is a large single file test, a 3.02GB .ISO file.

Here we see the Thecus N3200 coming in first place in both time and aver speeds for transferring the large file.

The last test I ran is a multiple files and folders test. The total size of the folder is 3.02GB but it contains 874 files within 199 folders, all varying sizes from a few KBs up to hundreds of MBs.

Here we see a big change in the ordering of this chart, or basically how the boxes handle this type of transfer. The Synology DS209+II is the fastest in terms of speed, but the BlackArmor NAS110 is actually 3 seconds faster for the transfer.

From this testing we can see the Thecus, Synology and the Seagate NAS boxes are the top of the performance list, with the QNAP boxes consistently falling a bit behind.

All of these boxes have their place though, it just really depends on your needs, not only storag4e capacity but what other things you might want them to be able to do as well.

To end this let’s check on the prices.

There’s many places to check the prices, but I stopped over at Amazon since it’s a place common to everyone and found the lowest prices for these boxes. (Prices as of 12-20-09)

You have to also remember that both BlackArmor boxes come with the drives, and none of the others do so they will incur an additional cost to actually get them up and running. The BlackArmor NAS110 is a 1TB single drive model, the NAS220 is a 2TB two drive model.

Prices lowest to highest:

Thecus N2200:  $193.37

Seagate BlackArmor NAS110:  $228.99

QNAP TS-109 Pro II: $249.00

Seagate BlackArmor NAS220: $323.99

Thecus N3200 Pro:  $354.59

QNAP TS-219P: $379.00

QNAP TS-419P: $429.00

Synology DS209+II:  $469.69

Value wise I’d have to call the NAS220 as the winner with two 1TB drives already installed, but it’s not the fastest according to my tests, and it does have some limitations as well.

As far as performance, well, it all depends on what types of transfers you do the most. Multiple file and folder transfers will work the best with the Synology, it handles them very well. You could also choose the BlackArmor NAS110 as it performs well, but you don’t have raid security for your files since it’s a single drive.

If you’re using these boxes on your home network for personal use like pictures and files, pretty much any of them will work fine for these types of smaller transfers. You’ll really notice the differences I think in more of a business setting or high volume file transfer setting.

The Theucs N3200 Pro is a 3 bay style NAS box and you’ll need to purchase three hard drives to utilize it, depending on the size you choose is how much more it will cost you to get it up and running. Of course we have the same situation with the other ‘empty’ boxes as well, the QNAP Ts-419P requires four drives to fully utilize it, so you’ll be spending quite a bit more money on that one.

There are other things to consider as well, the Thecus N2200 and both the QNAP TS-419p and the TS-219P can utilize both 3.5” and 2.5” hard drives. With the 2.5” drives installed you’ll lower the noise level and the overall power consumption.

Bottom line really is that there is no clear winner to be declared, there are pros and cons to each one in this comparison. it will all depend on what your needs are really as to which one you’ll choose.

Personally I can say that I use both the Thecus N3200 Pro and the Seagate BlackArmor NAS220 all of the time. The BlackArmor NAS220 is my private little server and backup device on my network. The Thecus N3200 Pro is actually web enabled with DyDns set etc so friends and family can access it if need be, and I use it also for my own backups as well. Yes I run two backups of my files in two separate places. I actually run the N3200 in RAID 5 mode to make sure my files are secure and safe.

So I’ve provided the information, I think you can make your own choices.

Network Attached Storage Comparison – 8 Tested and Compared is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

All of the phones I’ve reviewed up until now have been for the AT&T network, the obvious reason is that I’m on the AT&T network. Recently Verizon emailed me and asked me to check out some of their products and of course I said yes. They gave me several choices of phones to look at and I had to pick the DROID for the first one to review.  I love phones, they’re great little devices that have come very far in terms of advancements over the years, and the Droid is one of the most advanced ones on the market today. I’ll admit it, I’m a bit jealous of the Verizon customers for getting this phone, when I first saw this I wished I could get my hands on it to not only review but own. I got one of my wishes anyway, I get to use it for a while, play with it and review it.

So today I’ve got the Motorola DROID from Verizon Wireless. My first impression of this phone was that it is very well made.  When I unboxed it the first time I was truly and pleasantly surprised by the build quality of the Droid. I’ve been using it for a few weeks now and I love it honestly, I’d happily give up my AT&T Tilt for it, but sadly it’s not available on the the AT&T network yet, though there are rumors that it will be. The interface is intuitive and it works well for anything you need to do. Reception on the Verizon network is very good here in Pittsburgh on the Droid. Overall I’ve very much enjoyed using the Droid, it seems to make using a phone for more than just calls much easier. The screen is bright and colorful, and very responsive to touch making it easy to use as well.

The Droid arrived in a small box, it’s a presentation style box that slides off to reveal the phone.

Inside you’ll find the phone, USB cable, AC USB adapter for charging and some information booklets along with the quick start guide.

The Droid is primarily all black with just some gold accents on the back and the camera button is gold as well. The Motorola logo is on the top and at the bottom you’ll find four buttons, beneath those is the Verizon logo.

The back is the battery cover with the Verizon logo and Google logos, you’ll also find the 5MP camera along with its flash.

A nice surprise is that a 16gb microSD card is included with the Droid, that should be more than enough for most anything you need to take with you. The microSD card slot is under the battery cover, but you’ve got to remove the battery to access the card. I don’t like that at all, why should I have to power down the phone to access the memory card?

There aren’t many button on the Droid. The top is where you’ll find the power/lock button and the 3.5mm audio jack and the left side has the USB port.

On the right side you’ll find the camera and volume buttons.

The Droid is a slider with an almost full QWERTY keyboard, but almost I mean there’s no separate numbers, you’ll have to press the ALT button to access the numbers and special characters. This isn’t too big of a deal though, it’s common to do that on many phones today.

When you power up the Droid you’re greeted with the Motorola logo, the Droid log and the HAL style Droid symbol.

Specifications:

DROID

Check it out. DROID by Motorola is fast. Like scary fast. You can blaze across the Web with a massive processor and Verizon’s powerful 3G network. You don’t even need to type! With Google Search by Voice, you just tell it what you want and DROID searches the Web to find it. You can switch between up to six apps at once! Choose a few (or a few hundred) from Android Market and try it yourself. DROID won’t bother you while you’re running those apps. It keeps disruptive alerts at bay in a handy expandable notification panel.

It’s a pint–sized power plant. It’s location–aware. Voice–recognizing. App–mashing and multi–tasking. It can see through walls. And connect you to anyone or anything at break–neck speed. At some point, power and intelligence mean something more than a phone. At some point, you have yourself a DROID by Motorola.

Design:
* World’s Thinnest QWERTY Slider
* 3.7″ Touch Screen 480×854 WVGA display — supports up to 16M colors
* Slide–Out QWERTY Keyboard
* Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR Supported Profiles: Headset (HSP), Hands–free (HFP), Stereo Audio, Phonebook Access
* 5 Megapixel camera with auto–focus, dual LED Flash and Image Stabilization
* DVD Quality Video Capture with quick and easy uploading to YouTube
* Dedicated Camera/Video Key

Specifications:
* All–Digital, 800/1900, CDMA EVDO Rev A
* OMAP3430 — 550MHz
* Memory — ROM: 512MB, RAM: 256MB
* Dimensions: 4.56″ (H) x 2.36″ (W) x 0.54″ (D)
* Weight: 5.96 ounces
* Usage Time: Up 385 minutes OR
* Standby Time: Up to 270 hours
* SAR: Head: 1.49 W/kg; Body: 1.50 W/Kg

(This is just part of the specs and features listing, you can visit the DROID site HERE to learn more about it)

The Droid is a slider as we know, a very thin slider which is nice.

The Droid has a slide to unlock on it to unlock the phone, to lock it you just tap the power button or wait for it to lock itself.

Once unlocked the home screen will appear, the following picture has more icons than are displayed on the Droid by default, I added them myself.

Tapping the arrow on the bottom of the screen brings up the programs menu.

There’s a whole lot of stuff in the Droid to cover really, so I’m just touching on a few, or else I’d have many, many more pictures for you. Here’s a video of the interface for you though:

Here’s some select pictures of the interface.

Tapping the ‘lined’ button below the screen brings up a small menu, here you can select settings where you can change wallpaper, search, set notifications and adjust the settings of the Droid.

Under the settings you’ll find the networking settings as well. Here you can access Bluetooth and Wifi along with other network related things.

As far as Bluetooth it worked perfectly for me, I paired it with my Jawbone2 and had no issues at all with it.

Wi-Fi worked well also, the Droid actually seems to see more WiFi networks than my netbook does in the same places.

The media player is nice, it’s basic but it does what it needs to do. I did notice that loading up the music player does take a while, I’m guessing that because it has to search and list your music, but even if there’s no music on the phone it takes quite while to load.

Google maps comes with the Droid and it does do basic navigation. It’s not like having TomTom on your phone like my Tilt does, but in a pinch it works for quick directions. GPS fix is fast and accurate.

The web browser is fast as was accessing the Verizon network and it has the now common zooming feature. Websites look clear and readable even when not zoomed in. Load times seem fast, but that also has to do with the website itself. There is no flash support yet for the browser, I tried to go to Hulu and watch something but it said I needed the plug-in which isn’t available yet according to Adobe.

I like the dialing pad, the numbers are nice and large and spaced far enough apart that you won’t accidentally hit the one next to it.

The call quality is very good on the Verizon network, I was able to clearly hear other people and the people I called said I sound fine with no issues. The ear piece speaker is nice and loud also. The speaker phone part is not bad, but it’s kind of grainy and not exactly clear but you can understand what people are saying. It’s not perfect but it works.

As far as the camera, it’s very good outside in natural lighting. The following three pictures were taken on a rainy, overcast day, hence the rainbows, but they’re clear and look pretty good.

Taking pictures inside isn’t bad but you’ve really got to hold the phone still. The flash works well, as does the zoom feature. You can get very close to things to get very good detail, you can see the details but they’re a bit grainy. I took some other ones at my sons Holiday party with the Droid and they didn’t come out so good, so I’m not too impressed with the indoor picture quality, especially when the subject is moving even in the slightest. Colors though seem to be right on, but when zooming they appear a bit washed out.

No sample video for you, video isn’t bad, but it’s not great either, it’s what we’ve come to expect from a cell phone camera.

I did run across one problem that really bugged me. You can put shortcuts on the home screen to lead to things you use most often, but they don’t always work. For example I put a shortcut to the picture gallery on the home screen, when i press it it says that application isn’t installed.. I don’t get it, I know it’s installed.

I’m a Windows Mobile kind of guy, my last couple phones have been and honestly I like Android much better than WinMo. It just seems so much easier to use, the phone itself is much more responsive and overall just faster.

The battery life is good as well, even with leaving Bluetooth on all of the time.

There is one other thing that I don’t care too much for, the screen is very glossy and it reflects everything, in bright light, especially if it’s behind you it can be hard to see the screen.

Conclusion:

Everything about the Droid screams quality, from the build to the interface itself. I’m truly impressed by the actual build quality, this thing is built like a little tank. The interface is intuitive and it works well, everything just seems to much easier to do. The phone is fast at pretty much everything it does, with a few exceptions though. I really do like this phone truly.

Camera picture quality is not the best indoors but it works very well outdoors. Sound quality is very good, i had no problems with hearing people or them hearing me.

Reception on the Verizon wireless network here in Pittsburgh is excellent, no matter where I went I had a signal. One of the reasons I’m on AT&T myself is that I can get a phone call in my house, AT&T is the third carrier I tried actually. I didn’t get to try the Verizon network though, but it works well here.

If you’re a Verizon customer or thinking of switching then I can certainly recommend you give the Droid a look, it’s a great phone overall really.

Pros:
+Excellent build quality
+Good reception
+Easy to use
+Everything is fairly fast
+Great interface

Cons:
-Picture quality isn’t the greatest indoors, and video is not the greatest
-Shortcuts don’t seem to work all of the time for some reason
-Must remove battery to access microSD card
-No flash support for browser

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

This product was given to TestFreaks for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review, we do not, and never will, accept payment from companies to review their products. To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.

Verizon Wireless Motorola DROID is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

I love gaming, I always have and I always will I think. I can remember way back when I was a kid enjoying playing games, and now that I’m an adult I still enjoy it quite a bit. My favorite types of games have to first person shooters, real time strategy and role playing games, and not necessarily in that order either. I game because it gets me away from everything, away from the rigors of daily life. It allows me to go visit some planet somewhere, or live a fantasy life, it’s an escape that many people have come to love. As far as role playing games are concerned though, I only like a certain type, the type that lets you actually be involved in the game, I don’t care much for the ones that you get to sit back and watch the battles, I want to be involved.

Today for review I’m looking at a game that isn’t going to be released until next year, sounds like a long way off but it isn’t really. January 5th is the release date of Divinity II: Ego Draconis for both PC and Xbox360 and I got the PC version a few weeks before that date so I could bring you a review or preview of it. I’ve got tons of screenshots for you along with a video as well from my time playing the game. Divinity II Ego Draconis will offer you hours and hours of play even if you just play it right through without doing any of the side quests. The graphics are beautiful, and game play is fun and exhilarating, especially as you fly around in your dragon form. So continue on to learn more…

Just so it’s clear, the preview build I received is 90% complete, but I could still complete that game. I found no real issues with this build, it seemed finished to me aside from maybe a couple graphical glitches here and there.

When you start the game you’re actually a dragon slayer, as you progress you will become a full dragon knight and there’s a whole back story behind all of that as well with accompanying cinematics to help the story unfold. It’s not until quite a bit into the game that you get to play as a dragon actually. As with any RPG you start out weak and without much in terms of weapons and armor. You’ll need to fight and earn experience and money to move up in levels and buy what you need. You’ll also find things sometimes on the dead bodies of your slain enemies, and you may find treasure chests, boxes and barrels that may contain money or other items of interest.

The main menu is rather plain with minimal options for load, save, credits, exit, continue, new game and options.

I played Divinity II at 1920×1080 resolution through my Vizio 47” HDTV over HDMI with most all settings on high. I’m using a slightly overclocked Intel C2Q9650 along with an ATI Radeon 4870 1gig video card. The majority of the game played very smoothly, with some issues with slowdowns only when I was in dragon form and lots of other dragons and arrows were flying around the screen, but it was only for a second or so.

The other options are for controls, brightness, sounds and gameplay.

Specifications:

Divinity II Ego Draconis

Divinity II – Ego Draconis brings you back to Rivellon, a timeless world of awe and magic, torn and scarred by successions of apocalyptic wars. Ever since the Great War ended, the Order of the Dragon Slayers has had eyes only for their number one enemy: the Dragon Knights who killed their Divine hero.

But all the while the true enemy  the Black Ring still festers beneath the surface, ready for its next move, poised to strike. For their leader Damian tirelessly plots silent schemes with utterly malign intent.

Then one day, an event takes place that will reshape the history of Rivellon: a dying Dragon Knight gives her powers to a member of the order that seeks to destroy her: you.

Perhaps you, blessed as you are with the powers of the Dragon, will be able to stop the black tides that threaten to engulf Rivellon. Many adventures await you, many mysteries yearn to be unravelled and all the world awaits the outcome of your new destiny.

Divinity 2: Ego Draconis brings you back to Rivellon, a timeless world of awe and magic, torn and scarred by successions of apocalyptic wars. What the peace-loving people of the land did to deserve such terrible calamity, not even the gods can tell, but as any of their warlords will snidely say, the time to wonder and question quickly vanishes when the Lord of Chaos is slaughtering your kin, burning your cities and sowing the onetime fertile soil with salt. Twice this incarnation of evil burst forth from its hellish dimension to wade in valiant blood against the blackened sky, and twice Rivellon?s defenders would not back down despite appalling losses. Still, victory brought no relief, for they knew that some day, the Demon would be back.

And back he’d be, sooner than anyone could have anticipated, because, as is so often the case, evil festered from within: humans, loyal to the Damned Hordes, sought not only to ensure the return of their dark master, but to give his Demonic form human semblance, so that rather than to destroy Rivellon, he would come to rule her. This group, known as the Black Ring, were close to achieving their goal and would doubtless have succeeded had it not been for both the tireless vigilance of the famed wizard Zandalor and the startling fate of an unsung adventurer named Lucian. This adventurer, guided as he was by the forces of good, exposed the Black Ring’s sinister schemes and when the time came willingly underwent a daring ritual that infused him with the powers of the gods. So the Divine was born.

Leaving but grim corpses in his wake, the avatar of light followed the enemy to its stronghold, nestled deep beneath the desert wastes of Yuthul Gor, where he stalked and killed every Black Ring elder until finally he and their diabolic leader, the Demon of Lies, stood snout to face. The fiend smiled and told the Divine he was too late: the transfer was complete and the Lord of Chaos would walk again. Indeed, behind him, on a large altar lay a newborn infant, a shell of innocence wrapped around a soul of utter corruption. The Divine’s sword saw the Demon dead, but despite being able to put an end to the vast plague that had almost brought Rivellon to her knees, he could not bring himself to kill the child.

So I mentioned about the graphical glitches early on, well I’m not sure if this is one or it’s just part of the game, but I noticed that in some parts of the game you can’t be a dragon and fly along burning the trolls, imps etc. The first doesn’t affect them at all it seems, but other times it does. One of the glitches that I ran across was you could fly through some things, and other times things might just appear in front of you, so only time will tell if these things get fixed for the final version. Overall though the game feels and looks basically complete.

One thing that bugs me about this game though is that you can’t free fly, you’re a dragon after all so why can’t I fly over that mountain? There’s an invisible ceiling that you’ll hit if you fly to high up. You’ll also run into semi-transparent barriers as well, some are clear that you just can’t go through as a dragon or a man, and some have a reddish tint that indicate dragon-free zones. If you try and fly into one of these zones you’ll die if you’re a dragon, but as a human you can walk through the barrier unscathed.

As a dragon you’ve got the standard ability to breathe fire and a few magic spells also.

You also have essentially the same inventory while you’re in your dragon form, and you can equip yourself with special dragon armor also.

One thing I do appreciate about this game is that when you change any armor your character will change as well, both the dragon and the human will change to wear the new armor.

The user interface during game play is minimal and it sits at the bottom of the screen. There are spots for spells so you can have them ready to cast in both dragon and human form. The interface also shows your hit points and spell points in the form of both a bar and numerical.

The other interface is the main one which also pauses the game. There are tabs in the interface for Hero, Skills, Logbook, Save, Load and World Map.

The Hero has several other tabs for weapons, armor, jewelry, consumables, quest items and treasures.

Under the Logbook tab you’ll find several more tabs for History of Conversations, Quests, Monsters encountered and achievements.

If you look at the last screen of achievements you’ll see I finished the game, it took a long time, and I’m not going to spoil anything for you, but it was a lot of fun to play.

The World Map tab is not only the world map, it will also show if you’re in a dungeon or other areas as well. The map can point out areas of interest like Quest related destinations, and other points of interest.

The graphics are beautiful in Divinity II Ego Draconis. You’ll be able to see far distances and when you get close up to things they still look very good. Here’s a bunch of screenshots at different angles, inside and outside, close up and far away. I mentioned I’ve got an Intel C2Q 9650 and an ATI Radeon 4870 1gig video card, it was able to handle everything fairly well with the settings on high and everything looked very nice. I’ve also got 4 gigs a ram in my system and I am running Windows 7, the motherboard is a P35 based Gigabyte brand one.

You’ll be doing a lot of fighting in Divinity II, what would an RPG be without fighting right? This is one of the parts of this game that I love, you’re actually involved in the fighting. You press the mouse button and your character will do something like swing the sword or shoot his bow. You’ll also be able to do special moves and combos as well to do high amounts of damage to your foes. You could also just hit them with a fireball or two if you don’t want to get your hands dirty. You’ll run across well over 100 different creatures to fight in Divinity II and the majority of them will be using magic so you’ll need to make sure you’re prepared.

While being the dragon, Divinity II does have the motion blur effect while you’re moving, it’s kind of annoying really, at least I think it is. The view is amazing though and well worth it, there’s nothing like flying fast through canyons and shooting fire at your enemies.

Another thing that bugs me about this game are the quests, there are many times that you’ll really have no clue as to what you need to do next, there’s just not enough information provided at times in the game.

Part of that gripe pertains to the walls seen earlier, you’ve got to get to the place on the other side but you’ve got no clue as to how to get there. You’ll find teleporters though that you can use to get certain places. Some of these teleporters can be set and some are stuck going to only one place so you’ll need to kind of work your way around to get to your intended destination and some just specifically go one way. This also goes back to the being a dragon part of it, you can see those barriers but yet you can’t fly over them?! You’re a powerful dragon that can cast spells and spit fire but yet you can’t fly very high.

Once you progress farther in the game you’ll gain control of the Battletower. This is your sanctuary, here you can upgrade your character, create potions, upgrade or spell your weapons and even create your very own creatures to fight along side of your in battle. While you’re playing Divinity II some creatures will drop body parts, be them their own or own of one that they may have just had, either way you’ll get it and you can use it for your own creature creation.

One of the great features of Divinity II is the fact that the game is classless, so you’re not limited to only one class. You can actually combine the powers and abilities of all of the classes to be the strongest hero, mage, priest, warrior ever seen.

In Divinity II you also have the ability to mind read the non-player characters. When you mind read though you pay for the ability to use it through experience points, in other is will cost X amount of experience points to mind read characters. It’s an interesting feature that adds a different dimension to the game.

While playing Divinity II you can play through the main quest, but there are many other side quests as well to accomplish that will even add more game play time to the game. Side quests are different from other games, you can fail them or just refuse them and something might happen.

The non-player characters in the game are nicely done, the cinematics are beautiful actually. While in game and conversing with the NPCs you’ll you a text box at the bottom of the screen, there may be several choices to pick from for your responses and you can easily spend several minutes chatting with some of them.

To finish this all off here’s a video of me playing as the dragon:

A week or so ago I also posted several videos, trailers and concept art that CDV sent along. You can find them HERE if you wish to.

Conclusion:

Divinity II Ego Draconis is a great game really, I thoroughly enjoyed playing it from start to finish. In fact I’m thinking about going back and playing it again just to do complete all of the side quests. If you’re a fan of dragons and RPG games then you’ll want to add this to your list of must-have games in 2010, and you won’t have to wait long either, the release date is early January.

The graphics are beautiful, the acting is decent and the storyline is interesting, you’ll want to keep playing to see what happens next that’s for sure.

The issues I ran across are most like because the version I got wasn’t quite complete, so they shouldn’t be there in the final version. You will however require a fairly decent computer system if you wish to play Divinity II with all the bells and whistles turned on and in high definition.

Pros:
+Beautiful graphics
+Get to play as a dragon
+Long story
+Many quests with varying endings
+Classless system

Cons:
-Dragon flight is oddly limited
-Sometimes you’re left wondering what to do next
-You’ll need a fairly decent system to play the game at full quality and high resolution

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

This product was given to TestFreaks for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review, we do not, and never will, accept payment from companies to review their products. To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.

Divinity II Ego Draconis for PC is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

A little over a year ago I reviewed the Epson WorkForce 600 All-in-One Printer, and yes I still use it, at least until the new WorkForce 610 arrived for review a few weeks ago. I used the WorkForce 600 almost everyday actually and have yet to have any problems with it, no paper jams, no nothing with it, it has worked flawlessly for me. If you read my review of the 600 then you’ll know I found it to be an excellent printer, the 610 in no different in that respect, and really it hasn’t changed all that much. The main difference is that the graphical interface has be redesigned for the better. So continue on to learn more about the Epson WorkForce 610..

We’ll start off with a video unboxing, followed by the still pictures:

Here’s the packaging and the contents:

The WorkForce 610 looks exactly like the WorkForce 600, aesthetically I see no differences.

The Automatic document feeder is on the top, you just flip open the door and insert your paper.

The top opens to reveal the scanner, but then it opens again, under the scanner is where you’ll put the ink cartridges.

The input and output paper trays are both collapsible, this is great if you’re space limited, just slide it out if you want to print and when you’re finished just slide it back in. The paper goes in the tray on the back of the WorkForce 610 and then comes out the front.

On the back you’ll find you connections for USB, power, phone lines and Ethernet.

The front is where the main interface is. The whole front access panel can tilt out and up providing the optimal viewing angle for ease of use.

Off to the left side of the panel is the card reader and USB port.

The front panel features an LCD display with several buttons. To the far left of the LCD display is the power button and a quick access button, directly left is the Help and Display/Crop button. Directly right is direction navigation buttons, menu, back and +/- buttons. This panel is the main interface panel for accessing all of the functions of the WorkForce 610.

To the right of the interface panel is the number keypad and dialing buttons for fax functionality, to the far right is two more buttons for Stop/Clear and Start.

The interface is basically identical to the WorkForce 600 with the exception of one button. The main difference, you’ll see later, is that Epson redesigned the actual interface on the LCD.

Here’s a picture from my review of the WorkForce 600 of the front panel, the View/Auto Correct button has been replaced with the Help button on the 610, other than that they’re the same.

Specifications:

Epson WorkForce 610 All-in-One Printer

Features & Benefits
* Increase your productivity – up to 2x faster than leading competitive ink jets, when printing laser quality text1
* Speed through critical documents – maximum print speeds of 38 ppm black/color; laser quality speeds of 15 ppm black, 9.3 ppm color1
* Protect important documents – instant-dry ink for smudge, fade and water resistant prints; highlighter-friendly too
* Dependable – engineered for reliable paper feeding
* PC fax – save paper by faxing documents directly from your computer1
* Easily share – Wi-Fi for wireless connectivity, and Ethernet for wired networking
* Print three times as much – get about 3x more prints than with our standard 69 ink cartridges, when using the included 97 Extra High-capacity ink cartridge
* Small footprint – takes up less space on your desk
* Save energy – uses up to 70% less power than a laser printer1
* Save paper – save up to 50% of your paper supply with manual, two-sided printing1
* Get more done – 30-page Auto Document Feeder to quickly copy, scan or fax stacks of originals
* High-speed faxing in black and color – as fast as 3 sec per page; speed dial storage up to 60 numbers; fax memory up to 180 pages
* PC-free, borderless photos in a snap – 2.5″ LCD and memory card slots for easy transfer of files
* Individual ink cartridges – replace only the color you need
* Product protection you can count on – 2-year limited warranty; phone support, without charge, for the life of the product; plus, access to exclusive templates, tutorials and offers with product registration

Specifications:

Printing Technology: 4-color CMYK drop-on-demand MicroPiezo ink jet technology
Ink Palette: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black
Ink Cartridge Configuration: 4 individual ink cartridges
Ink Type: DURABrite Ultra pigment ink (smudge, fade, water resistant, and highlighter friendly)
Fade Resistance / Print Longevity: Up to 118 years

Maximum Print Resolution: 5760 x 1440 optimized dpi

Maximum Print Speed:
Black: 38 ppm
Color: 38 ppm2

Laser Quality Print Speed:
Black: 15 ppm
Color: 9.3 ppm2

Scanner Type: Color flatbed
Optical Resolution: 2400 dpi
Hardware Resolution: 2400 x 2400 dpi
Maximum Resolution: 9600 x 9600 dpi interpolated
Scanner Bit Depth: 48-bit color / 24-bit output

Copy Quality: Color: Black/White, Draft: Normal

Copy Quantity: 1 – 99 (PC-free)

Maximum Copy Size: 8.5″ x 11″ (PC-free)

Copy Features: Fit to page, automatic reduction and enlargement (25 – 400%), adjustable copy density

PC-free Printing:
Print all photos, photo index sheet, color photo restoration, scan to PDF, scan to memory card, Auto Photo Correction, print your own school papers, college-ruled, wide-ruled and graph papers, personalized stationery with and without lines

Auto Document Feeder: 30 Sheets

Supported Digital Camera Technologies: Epson PRINT Image Matching®, Exif Print, DPOF, DCF v. 1.0/2.0

Direct Camera Connection: Front PictBridge™ port (print from digital cameras and mobile phones, PC-free)

Color Preview Monitor: 2.5″, tilt LCD display

Built-in Memory Card Slots Compatibility
CompactFlash, Microdrive, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Duo 3, MagicGate Memory Stick, MagicGate Memory Stick Duo 3, Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Pro Duo 3, Secure Digital (SD), SDHC, mini SD 3, mini SDHC 3, micro SD 3, micro SDHC3, MultiMediaCard , xD-Picture Card, xD-Picture Card Type-M, xD-Picture Card Type-H

PC- Free Paper Support: Plain (8.5″ x 11″), Photo (4″ x 6″, 5″ x 7″, 8” x 10”, 8.5″ x 11″, 16:9 wide)

Fax Capabilities: Black-and-white and color
Fax Specifications: PC fax
Fax Speed: Modem: 33.6 Kbps – as fast as 3 sec per page
Fax Memory (pages): Up to 180 pages

Maximum Paper Size: 8.5″ x 44″

Paper Sizes:
3.5″ x 5″, 4″ x 6″, 5″ x 7″, 8″ x 10″, 8.5″ x 11″, 8.5″ x 14″, A4, B5, A5, A6, half letter, executive, user definable (3.5″ – 44″ in length)

Borderless Photo Sizes:
3.5″ x 5″, 4″ x 6″, 5″ x 7″, 8″ x 10″, 8.5″ x 11″, A4, 16:9 wide

Paper Types:
Supports plain paper, Epson Bright White Paper, Photo Paper Glossy, Premium Photo Paper Glossy, Ultra Premium Photo Paper Glossy, Premium Photo Paper Semi-gloss, Presentation Paper Matte, Premium Presentation Paper Matte, Premium Presentation Paper Matte Double-sided, and Matte Scrapbook Photo Paper (letter)

Envelope Types:
No. 10, DL, C6; plain paper, bond paper, air mail

Input Paper Capacity:
100 sheets plain paper, 10 envelopes

Weight and Dimensions (W x D x H):
Printing: 18.1″ x 22.1″ x 12″
Storage: 18.1″ x 13.6″ x 9.3″
Weight: 18.3 lb

Connectivity:
Hi-Speed USB 2.0
Wireless Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) — Compatible with 802.11n
Wired Ethernet (10/100 Mbps)

Since I was using the WorkForce 600 I uninstalled all of that software first to make sure I was starting fresh. To install the WorkForce 610 you just pop in the disc and follow the instructions, the installation will vary a little by which type of connection you’re using. Once you install the drivers then you can install the extra programs like Presto Page manager and Arcsoft Print Creations. The extra program do add value, but are not needed for the 610 to function.

Once you’ve got everything installed you’ll notice a new icon has appeared on your taskbar, it will let you access the printer and it’s properties along with monitor the status of it.

I’ve got a video of the interface and still pictures of it as well.

The first option is setup, here you’ll find everything to setup the printer and all of the settings.

The next option is print ruled papers, you can print not only ruled but custom stationary as well without the PC.

The next menu choice would be Backup Data, this one is rather self-explanatory, it helps you backup your data.

Next would be copy, this works just like a copy machine. You can select amount of copies, color or black and white and color density along with paper type. The copy function is very useful, next to the actual printer I use this one most often. The automatic document feeder can be used with copy to make copying multiple pages easy.

The next menu option is Print Photos. Here you can directly print from various sources like a USB drive or memory card. You’ll view the pictures right on the display and print them how you want in various sizes. You can do basic editing functions as well like cropping right through the interface. There are also many option to change when it comes to fixing or correcting the pictures.

The next option would be Scan, this one is self-explanatory as well, it’s a scanner which you can use to scan documents or photos. The nice thing about this is that it can also be used without the computer, you can save the scanned image right to a USB drive or memory card.

The last option is Fax, this is for your faxing needs. It’s simple, easy to use and it works fine.

I really like the new interface much better, everything is right there for you with no scrolling. Here’s one picture of the old interface, you can easily see the difference.

Using the WorkForce 610 is simple, it’s one of the easiest printers to use really. The graphical interface makes life much easier.

The print quality is excellent, black is nice and crisp, the results look like those from a laser printer. Printing photos with the WorkForce 610 is easy and the results are excellent, professional quality prints. You will find a difference though depending what type of paper you use, in other words don’t print photos on plain paper, only use photo paper. I know people that use regular paper for photos and complain about the quality, I don’t understand it really. I really like the photo choice options, you’ve got many choice when in comes to sizes and types of photos to print out.

Epson sent me different paper samples as well, like heavy stock matte and photo paper, everything looked excellent when printed on the 610.

There are a few things I really love about this printer, the speed is the first one, it’s fast, very fast. I also find the auto document feeder very useful when it comes to copying multiple pages. I like the photo print options as well, it’s nice to be able to just stick my memory card in the printer and print right from there while making any adjustments if need be.

The specialty things like stationary and ruled papers options are a nice option really. With these specialty options you don’t have to open up a creation program and play around with it, you can do everything right from the printer.

As far as faxing, the WorkForce 610 works fine, just like the 600, no differences there at all. I mentioned in the WF600 review that I don’t like the lack of a handset and that still holds true for this one.

Scanning and copying are both fairly fast and work fine, no issues there at all.

I’ve got the WorkForce 610 hooked up to my network via an Ethernet cable only because I’ve got a switch and have extra spaces on it, and it sits close to the switch. I did use it wirelessly as well, and had no issues there. Since it’s hooked to my network everyone in my home can access it. I use my main computer mostly, but I do have other computers in my home, along with netbooks, having it on my network allows everyone and every device to access the printer.

If you look at my WorkForce 600 review you’ll find many comments, and the majority mention paper jams and ink issues. As far as paper jams, I’ve never experienced on yet in the year I’ve used the 600, and not one on the 610 since I’ve been using it. The complaints about the ink are that it doesn’t seem to last and it won’t print if on cartridge it out. They’re small cartridges so yes they’re limited on ink, but what printer doesn’t come with small cartridges? The issue with the not printing, well I’ve never experienced that since I always have extra ink cartridges. It’s a common sense problem really, if you use it a lot you’ll use a lot of ink and you’ll run out faster, so why wouldn’t you have spare cartridges?
You can’t beat the price for the WorkForce 610, Epson lists the MSRP at $200, but it can be had for about $140 most places, I think it’s well worth the cost.

Conclusion:

The Epson WorkForce 610 is an excellent All-in-one printer that’s well worth the cost. If you’ve looking for a printer that can satisfy your home and business needs and then some, this is the printer you’ll want to take a closer look at.

The WorkForce 610 is a feature packed powerhouse that most anyone would be happy with, and with it’s low price tag it truly is an excellent choice if you’re in the market for an All-in-one printer that truly does it all.<

Yes it can be loud when printing, but to me that’s no a big deal. It is big, and it’s heavy, weighing in at almost 20 lbs, but it’s not meant to be portable.

The WorkForce 610 is a great printer overall, I truly like it a lot and can easily recommened it. I still like the WorkForce 600, but the 610 is better overall especially with the new graphical interface.

Pros:
+Fast printing
+Tons of features and options
+Excellent print quality
+Works perfectly
+Scan and print photos, stationary, specialty items without the PC
+Print directly from USB, memory card of even camera
+Easy to use an install

Cons:
-Large and heavy
-Can be loud

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

This product was given to TestFreaks for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review, we do not, and never will, accept payment from companies to review their products. To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.

Epson WorkForce 610 All-in-One Printer Review is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

The latest DSLR cameras are designed to work at speeds their predecessors can only dream of. Features such as 1080P video recording make lightning fast read/write speeds a necessity. If you are an owner of a newer cameras such as the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, then the Sandisk Extreme Pro Compact Flash card maybe worth checking out. Released this past October, this CF card features unprecedented 90 MB/s max read/write speeds.

The Extreme Pro series is available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities and are UDMA 6 enabled. It features Power Core Controller & Enhanced Super-Parallel Processing “ESP” designed by SanDisk to increase the card’s performance level. The card is rated for use in temperatures from -25°C to 85°C and can withstand falls from a height of up to 9 feet. Plus it has Sandisk’s lifetime warranty.

Reviewing the new SanDisk Extreme Pro Compact Flash card is easier said than done due to its blazing speed. The card is so fast that every device I tested with the SanDisk Extreme Pro Compact Flash Card was slower than the CF card.

After testing the card with multiple cameras including fairly recent offerings from Nikon and Canon I discovered the real world benefits from the SanDisk Extreme Pro Compact Flash Card come when shooting fast moving action or sports.

Sandisk keeps things mostly Green with a small cardboard package with the CF card found within. They do use a plastic tray to secure the card when a cardboard one would work just as well.

Besides the CF card, Sandisk provides a protective plastic case for storing the card outside of the camera. As an added bonus Sandisk also includes the serial number to activate a copy RescuePRO recovery software that is available via download.

The SanDisk Extreme Pro Compact Flash Card will look familiar to owners of prior Sandisk Extreme Compact Flash cards. On the front is the Sandisk Label indicating the card’s size, model and speed while on the back is a blank area for labeling the card.

For today’s review we received the 32 GB SanDisk Extreme Pro Compact Flash Card. Freshly formatted the card held 6730 highest resolution (10.1 megapixels) non-RAW jpg shots on my Canon EOS 400D.

Specifications:

SanDisk Extreme Pro 32gb Compact Flash Card

Now there’s a memory card fast enough to keep up with your advanced DSLR: The SanDisk Extreme® Pro™ CompactFlash® card. With lightning-fast (up to 90 MB/s* read/write) speed, you’ll be able to capture more continuous burst shooting-and get the most out of your professional digital SLR camera. And with up to 64GB** of storage, you’ll be ready for more RAW+JPEG and high-def video.

SanDisk engineered its Power Core™ Controller to take whatever your camera’s buffer can dish out. By distributing image data across the card more rapidly and efficiently, this card delivers professional performance.

READ & WRITE PERFORMANCE: Up to 90MB/s (600x)* for serious performance gains.

CAPACITIES: 16GB, 32GB, 64GB** give you more room to capture RAW+JPEG, sequential bursts and high-definition video

UDMA: UDMA 6 enabled (works in all UDMA modes)

POWER CORE CONTROLLER^TM & ENHANCED SUPER-PARALLEL PROCESSING^TM “ESP”: Was invented by SanDisk to increase the card’s performance level.

TEMPERATURE: Tested to perform from -25°C to 85°C (-13°F to 185°F)

SPECIFICATION: Meets CFA Specification Type I Card

DURABILITY: Shock protection and RTV silicone coating added inside for protection against moisture and humidity

WARRANTY: Backed by rigorous stress-testing procedures and our limited lifetime warranty.

* Up to 90MB/s read/write.Based on SanDisk internal testing: performance may be vary depending upon host device. **1 megabyte (MB) = 1 million bytes. X = 150 KB/sec. and 1 gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes

† 30 years warranty in Germany and regions not recognizing Limited Lifetime warranty

Not all cameras can support 64GB capacity CompactFlash cards. Please check with your camera manufacturer for 64GB compatibility.

Price: $559.99

Digital SLR cameras require fast CF cards primarily in burst mode when the camera needs to offload data from its buffer quickly. There are several variables that affect the speed of this transfer such as large files, small buffers and slow controllers; all of which can cause delays in writing to a card yielding lower frames per second.

When transferring data from the CF card to a hard disk interface; the card’s speed, operating system used, and card reader performance are areas where bottlenecks can occur. SanDisk has a new Express Card Reader, which operates under OS X and supposedly yields close to 90 MB per second speeds. Sadly, USB based card readers will not be able to achieve anywhere near those numbers due to limitations of the interface’s speed.

For benchmarking, I used ATTO DiskBenchmark and DiskBench. For comparison I used the ATP ProMax II CF 8GB, which is also a CDMA enabled CF card and is rated at 45 MB/sec speeds. To test transfer speeds, I used the Kingston 19-in-1 Card Reader.

Looking at the ATTO DiskBenchmark results the read speeds for the ATP top out around 24 MB/s while the Sandisk hits 28 MB/s and for the write speeds 17 MB/s for the ATP and 21 for the Sandisk. So there is a slight speed gain with the SanDisk Extreme Pro Compact Flash Card with a USB interface, however the bottleneck seems to be the USB interface in the PC operating system not the CF card itself.

DiskBench is used to tests disks and drives in real world situations copying and reading files you choose. For this benchmark I used a 720 MB file. Once again the Sandisk Extreme Pro comes out on top.

During real world testing with a Canon 40D and Nikon D300 we saw no discernable difference between the SanDisk Extreme Pro Compact Flash Card and CompactFlash cards rated at 60 MB/sec. Using the Canon 40D we were able to keep our finger down on burst mode almost indefinitely getting about 6.3 frames per second. The older Canon 400D operating on the highest quality with RAW mode was able to handle a burst of 6-7 shots before succumbing to the camera’s slower buffer.

Here are some shots one of my colleagues took using the Sandisk Extreme Pro with the Canon 40D at an NHL game.

Researching online literature the most extensive testing was performed by CNET’s Lori Grunin who tested the SanDisk Extreme Pro Compact Flash Card with the Nikon D300 and Canon 5D Mark II. The burst completed on the Extreme Pro 1.3 seconds faster than the Extreme version on the Nikon. While on the Canon 5D Mark II there was a 1.9 second savings for burst completion in the JPEG +RAW mode.

In plain English, unless shooting long bursts using the highest resolution JPEG +RAW files there really are no noticeable performance gains using the Extreme Pro over the last Extreme card.

Conclusion:

The Sandisk Extreme Pro is the fastest CF card on the market. It is best designed to work with the newest DSLR models which are CDMA 6 enabled. The photographer who captures lots of fast moving action such as sporting events will see the most benefits from the new SanDisk Extreme Pro Compact Flash Card especially when shooting in the best resolution in JPEG +RAW mode. Otherwise the performance gains are slight.

As newer cameras are released they will be optimized for the fastest card on the market. On these cameras we will see the true gains from the SanDisk Extreme Pro Compact Flash Card.

The other drawback of the SanDisk Extreme Pro Compact Flash Card is the price. Its high price may turn off many consumers when the slightly slower Sandisk Extreme cards are available for a few hundred dollars less for comparably sized cards; unless you want the 64 GB version which is only available in the Extreme Pro model.

Unfortunately the card is too fast for most cameras on the market and unless using the SanDisk Extreme Card Reader you will not see the fastest speeds with file transfers to the PC or Mac. Like all other storage media as the product stays out of the market for longer duration prices usually drop significantly. Unless you need the fastest CompactFlash card market and your camera and/or computer can see the real world gains I would recommend to wait a little while before investing in this card.

Pros:
+Available 64 GB version
+Lightning fast
+Lifetime warranty
+Extreme weather resistant
+Impact resistance

Cons:
-Price
-Optimal for newer digital SLR cameras

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

SanDisk Extreme Pro 32gb Compact Flash Card is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

It’s been a while since I’ve taken a look at any cell phones hasn’t it? Well today I’ve got the new Pantech C790 Reveal for you. The Reveal is for AT&T and it’s considered a messaging phone, it features a full slide out QWERTY keyboard and a regular dialer keypad as well. It’s got a 1.3MP camera in it, along with bluetooth, AT&T navigator and access to most all other stuff on the AT&T network as well. It’s not a smartphone by any means, but it resembles one. One of the nice features of the Reveal is that both keyboards are active at the same time so basically you’ve got a full QWERTY keyboard with a separate numeric keypad as well, so there’s no pushing a function button to access numbers. The music player is also something that I like quite a bit, the layout is nice and it’s easy to use. The features of the phone can be numerous but it’s a phone first and foremost and that’s what it needs to do the best I think and the Reveal works well as a phone for making calls too. So read on to learn more about a great little messaging phone…

First up we’ve got the Unboxing video for you, and then some still pictures of the Reveal following it:

Specifications:

Pantech C790 Reveal

Reveal is a slim, responsive slider that features an open-faced numeric keypad on the front of the phone which glides up to uncover a full keyboard underneath.  Uniquely, both sets of keys stay active simultaneously, giving users fast access to numbers and letters at the same time – providing a truly quick messaging experience.  Ideal for updating statuses with new pictures and videos, texting, IMing or emailing friends, Reveal keeps everyone connected to their digital life at every moment of the day.  All of this happens at the speed of 3G, which makes playing and managing music and videos a breeze.

Reveal is one of the first phones to come preloaded with AT&T’s new HTML mobile browser and att.net home page, which combines the best of full and fast HTML browsing with custom features for personalizing favorite bookmarks and local searches.

Reveal features a wide range of cool options that include:
* Two, Always-active Keyboards – Full QWERTY and numeric keyboards stay active when both are open to make writing messages with numbers and letters easier than ever.
* Music and Video – Discover, play, store and manage your favorite music and video using AT&T’s portfolio of mobile music services, including Napster & eMusic Mobile.
* 3G Speeds – The nation’s fastest 3G network makes browsing the Web, updating your status, and streaming music and video fast and enjoyable.
* Navigation – AT&T Navigator provides voice-guided, turn-by-turn directions in real time.
* Video Recording and Picture Taking – Take and share pics and video clips using AT&T’s Video Share calling.

Technical Specifications:
Battery Capacity: 950 mAh
Talk time: Up to 3 hours
Standby time: Up to 10 days

Dimensions:
Weight3.95 ounces
Size (inches)3.9 x 2.35 x 0.58 inches

Memory:
Internal memory storage: 256 MB

Expandable memory storage: 16 GB microSD

Wireless Technology;
GSM/GPRS: 850/900/1800/900 MHz
3G: UMTS 850/1900/2100 MHz
EDGE high speed data network
BLUETOOTH technology: 1.2

Display:
Display size: 2.2 inches
Resolution (pixels): 320 x 240
Colors: 260K

Camera:
Resolution: 1.3 megapixels
Zoom: 4X

The Reveal is a bit of a large phone, it’s wide, but yet it’s very thin, it still fits in your hand comfortably though.

The interface is fairly basic, but it’s easy to use, and of course you’ll find the AT&T bloat junk there as well. It would be nice if these phones, not just those from Pantech, but any phone could come without the bloat junk and up selling tactics. When you slide the Reveal open both keyboards will light up for a few seconds as well.

Here’s a video of the interface along with my comments about the phone, you’ll find the interface is very similar to other Pantech phones and it’s easy to navigate.

I used the Bluetooth with two different BT headsets and both worked perfectly fine, once they were paired the first time they automatically connected every time thereafter.

The call quality is decent, but as I mentioned in the video, it depends on the network I was calling. When calling AT&T calls were perfect, but when I talked to people on Verizon they weren’t that great, at least that’s what I was told, on my end the calls sounded fine.

I got the rated talk time and standby time from the Reveal, so that’s all good there.

I like the screen, it’s big and colorful, though the icons do look a bit pixellated, but not too bad though.

The browser works for surfing the web, and the speed is comparable to other phones.

The overall design of the phone is nice, it feels solid and the slider works well.

The built in speaker works for calls, it’s not bad, but you won’t want to listen to music through it.

Speaking of music, the music player is one of the best features of the Reveal, I’m not sure what it is about it, but I really like it and how it works.

The Reveal can be customized with backgrounds and a couple styles to choose from, and you can use MP3 files for ringtones.

It’s no Windows Mobile phone, but for what it is I like it quite a bit, it’s not a bad little phone really.

As far as signal, I had no problem with that, but with AT&T I’ve never had a problem getting a signal where I’m located either.

The video camera isn’t the best, but it works for quick little videos, no demo for that.

I do have a few picture for you though, the first three are taken outside in natural light and the last four are taken inside.

The pictures taken in natural or sunlight are much nicer than those taken indoors. When taking them inside you’ve really got to hold the phone still to get a decent picture.

Conclusion:
Overall the Pantech Reveal is a great little phone really. I like the music player quite a bit, and the dual active keyboard makes typing much quicker and easier. The Reveal is nicely made, it feels solid and sturdy, and it’s designed well.

The camera isn’t best, but the cost of the phone is inexpensive really, so I didn’t expect great quality pictures.<

Call quality on my end was fine, but I was told that sometimes the quality on the receiving end wasn’t clear.

Pros:
+Easy to use
+Well made and designed
+Decent call quality on my end

Cons:
-Call quality on receiving end is not the best
-Camera is not the best

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

Pantech C790 Reveal is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

I love network attached storage, or NAS boxes as they’re called because they’re extremely useful for many, many things. External hard drives are nice if you want portability, but how many people actually take a big external HDD with them. Most people I know use them for backups and storage, they just site there hanging around waiting to be used. So I figure why not replace those external hard drives with something that does the same thing, but is just much more useful overall, a NAS box is just that.

Today for review I’ve got a little NAS box from Qnap called the TS-219P. It supports two 3.5” or 2.5” SATA hard drives and is truly feature packed with the ability to become your main network storage device at home and while on the go. Not only is it for storage and backups, you can stream from it, use it as a mini-surveillance system, a web sever, or even a stand alone torrent machine.

We’ll start off with the video unboxing:

I don’t think I’ve got to re-describe everything that was in the video but here’s some still pictures of the product:

Specifications:

TS-219P Turbo NAS

The TS-219P Turbo NAS is the 2-bay network-attached storage server with iSCSI dedicated to the SOHO and home users who need a mass storage center to store and share huge amount of digital data. The NAS supports 2.5″ and 3.5″ SATA hard drives, and is featured with excellent hardware design for storage expansion, outstanding data access performance, high system reliability, and numerous powerful software applications. The TS-219P is the top-class model in the current home and SOHO NAS market.

Hardware Spec.
CPU: Marvell 1.2GHz
DRAM: 512MB DDRII RAM
Flash Memory: 16MB
HDD: 2 x 3.5″ SATA I/II HDD or 2 x 2.5″ SATA HDD
HDD Tray: 2 x hot-swappable and lockable tray
LAN Port     1 x Gigabit RJ-45 Ethernet port
LED Indicators: HDD 1, HDD 2, LAN, eSATA, Status, USB
USB: 3 x USB 2.0 port (Front: 1; Back: 2)
Supports: USB printer, disk, pen drive, USB hub, and USB UPS, etc.
eSATA: 2 x eSATA port (Back)
Buttons: System: Power button, USB one-touch-backup button, reset button
Alarm Buzzer: System warning
Dimensions: 150(H) x 102(W) x 216(D) mm / 5.91(H) x 4.02(W) x 8.5(D) inch

Weight:
Net weight: 1.74kg/ 3.84 lb
Gross weight: 2.92kg/ 6.44 lb

Sound Level (dB):
W/o HDD installed: 32.5 dB
Stand by: 32.7 dB
In operation: 36.3 dB(Background: 25.2 dB)

Power Consumption (W):
Sleep mode: 5W
In operation: 21W (with 2 x 500GB HDD installed)

Power Supply: External power adaptor,60W, Input: 100-240V
Secure Design: K-lock security slot for theft prevention
Fan: 1 x quiet cooling fan (7 cm, 12V DC)

Since one of the features of the TS-219P is that it can use 2.5” hard drives that’s what I used with it, two Seagate 160gb SATA drives to be exact. Installing them on the rack is easy, just a few screws and you’re all done.

When you power the Qnap TS-219P on the power button will light up green and the HDD and network activity lights will blink.

Once you’re powered on you’ll need to setup your NAS, this is accomplished by installing the Qnap Finder application. The software will find the Qnap NAS box and then you can configure it.

Configuring the NAS takes a few steps, but they’re easy ones, total time from start to finish took about 15 minutes and that was including initializing the drives and updating the firmware as well.

To access the Qnap TS-219P you can open your web browser and type in the IP address of the box, or what I did was just open My Network in Windows Vista and there it was, just double click on it and the browser will open for you.

I have to say I really like the interface of this product, it’s a good looking graphic interface. Before you login to the TS-219P you can scroll through the menu choices, you click the picture or use the slider at the bottom beneath the pictures.

The web based interface for users is very basic making it easy to use for most anyone:

The Download Station for BitTorrent is rather simple as well, with several options along the left side for you to get your torrenting going. You can set up the Download Station to download whatever and it will work without your computer even being on.

The Administrator interface is huge, you’ve got plenty of options to keep you busy enabling and disabling services along with creating users. It’s  a dual interface, along the left side is tree style navigation, with the same things being shown in the main window, but graphical.

I had to break the navigation three into two parts as it’s huge:

As you can see you’ve got tons of options with this product, you’ve got control over everything through the Admin interface.

The Qnap can also be enhanced with Plugin called QPKGs, these can add a lot more functionality to the box. Some example are:

TomCat which is a Java web sever basically.

WordPress – I think we know what that is

Joomla – Content Management System

Squeezbox Server – Something for Squeezbox owners to stream their media.

and there are many more as well.

You’ve also got and iTunes Service built right in as well for you to share your music on your network.

Finally I wanted to test the transfer speeds of the Qnap TS-219P and I put it up against a few others I’ve reviewed in the past. It’s a simple test really, just transfer a rather large file via FTP and see how long it takes and get the average transfer rate as well. keep in mind though that the speeds are going to be different for other people as the hard drives used are different in all of the machines and most likely they’ll be different in yours as well.

(EDIT: It seems I mislabeled the chart, it should say 219p and not 419p as it does…)

The Qnap TS-219P might look a bit slow, but it’s still not bad at all. You have to keep in mind that I used two 5400RPM 2.5” drives with the TS-219P, while all of the other NAS boxes used 7200RPM 3.5” hard drives.

One final note is that the TS219P is rather quiet when running, I never really heard the fan running at all. When you first turn it on the fan revs up to full speed for a second or two, then it slows down and gets quiet. As far as noise from the hard drives, you really cannot hear them either. The Qnap TS-219P was sitting on my desk about two feet from me, and the noise level didn’t bother me at all.

Conclusion:

The Qnap TS-219P is a powerful and extremely useful little NAS box, it won’t take up much space or make a lot of noise, but it will allow you to do things over your network that you’ve only dreamed of. It’s certainly much more than a backup device…

The interface is very nicely down and easy to navigate for even the most novice of user. Anyone can have the Qnap TS-219P up and running on their network in a matter of minutes really.

Pros:
+Quick and easy setup
+Nicely designed and well made
+Quiet
+Easy to use for even the novice user
+Extremely useful
+Can be enhanced with add-on packages

Cons:
-Might be considered expensive by some
-A bit slower than others (could be due to the 2.5″ drives access times)

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

Qnap TS-219P Turbo NAS is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

Kingston has just announced a new SSD drive, while that in itself isn’t that exciting as SSDs have been around for a while, the purpose of this particular drive though is different than others. The Kingston SSDNow V Series 40gb SSD is meant to be a boot drive only with the user putting their files, folders etc on a standard hard drive. The idea behind this is to speed up boot, shut down and the operating system overall, and I think everyone can appreciate that. What I got for review is the entire bundle, which is a kit that includes the SSD drive, rails for installation, cables and software to make the transition easier for the user. So continue on to see how it compares to other SSDs and standard hard drives…

We’ll start off with an unboxing video then some still pictures of the contents:

Specifications:

Kingston SSDNow 40GB Boot Drive

Kingston SSDNow 40GB Boot Drive Features and Specifications:

* Sequential Speed***: up to 170MB/sec. read
40MB/sec. write
* Performance: enhances productivity; makes users more efficient
* Innovative: 2.5″ form factor; uses NAND Flash memory components
* Silent: runs silent and cool with no moving parts
* Reliable: less likely to fail than a standard hard drive
* Shock Resistant: no moving parts; handles rougher conditions than a hard drive
* Supports S.M.A.R.T.: Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology
* Guaranteed: three-year Kingston warranty, 24/7 tech support
* Capacity¹: 40GB
* Storage temperatures: -40° C to 85° C
* Operating temperatures: 0° C to 70° C
* Vibration operating: 2.17G (7-800Hz)
* Vibration non-operating: 20G (20-2000Hz)
* Power specs: Active: 0.15W (TYP); Sleep: 0.06W
* Life expectancy: 1 million hours MTBF .

SNV125-S2/40GB     40GB 2.5″ SATA SSD (stand-alone drive)     $ 115.00
SNV125-S2BD/40GB  40GB 2.5″ SATA SSD (desktop bundle)     $ 130.00

We’ll start off with ATTO Disk Benchmark. We all know ATTO so there’s no explanation needed.

For all of the tests I compared them to both SSDs, 3.5” and 2.5” drives I’ve got on hand:

Hitachi Deskstar 3.5” 500 GB – HDP725050GLA360  (7200RPM/3g/16mb)
Seagate Momentous 2.5” 5400.3 160GB – ST9160821AS (5400RPM/1.5g/8mb)
Hitachi 2.5” 160GB – HTS543216l9a300 (5400RPM/3g/8mb)
Patriot 128GB Warp SSD Drive PE128GS25SSDR
OCZ Agility Series 60GB SSD OCZSSD2-1AGT60G

If you look at those green bars on the Kingston SSDNowV you can see the read speeds are extremely fast coming in at almost 200MB/s. None of the other SSDs or drives even come close to those scores. So far I’m impressed with the read speeds, but those write speeds are a bit on the slow side…

Next test is SiSoft Sandra 2009 SP4A Physical Disks Benchmark (Read Test)

Physical Disks

Benchmark hard disks (i.e. the disk itself, not the file system).

As the test measures raw performance it is independent on the file system the disk uses and any volumes mounted off the disk.

Drive Index: is a composite figure representing an overall performance rating based on the highest read or write speed across the whole disk. Thus the higher the better.

Access Time: is the average time to read a random sector on the disk, analogous to latency response time. Thus the lower the better.

Not bad, coming in second place..

Next test is Sandra File Systems Benchmark, this one is in two parts:

File Systems

Benchmark mounted file systems (i.e. volumes).

This is not the raw disk performance that other benchmarks test – but the speed of the volume itself that depends on many more factors like file system, operating system cache, position on disk, etc. Thus this is the performance you get at the file system level.

Drive Index: is a composite figure representing an overall performance rating based on the average of the read, write, and seek tests, and file and cache size. The Drive Index is intended to represent drive performance under typical use in a PC. A larger number means better performance. The weighting of the results is not equal it represents the distribution of different files sizes as used on these devices (obtained through field research).

Here the Kingston lags a bit behind, but still when compared to a conventional drive it scores very well.

The File Systems Test also gives us a breakdown of the results so you can get a detailed look at the performance.

There’s a lot of information in the chart, you might want to click it to get a better view.

The chart is ordered by Buffered Read Speed going slowest to fastest.

Overall the Kingston drive scores fairly well.
Next up is two test using DiskBench.
The first test is using a 349MB .AVI Video File.
This is the time it takes to Copy From and Copy To the drives, lower is better of course.

As expected the read speed is very good for the Kingston, coming very close to the OCZ Agility. The write sped however is a full second slower really, but do you really care about 1 second?
Here’s the actual Transfer Rates in MB/s for test, higher is better.

Same thing here, this just tells us the speeds of the drive.
The last test is using a larger file, a 3.15GB .ISO file actually.
Here again, this is a timed test, so lower is better.

The slow write speeds of the Kingston make is fall to last place, but if we referenced the chart by read speeds we’d see a very much different story.
Here’s the transfer rates for the test:

The write speeds are what hurts the Kingston drive, but that’s not the idea of this product though is it?
The idea of the Kingston SSDNowV Boot Drive is to accelerate read times and that it does very well.
I did use it as intended, I installed Windows 7 on it and on a regular hard drive, boot times and overall the system seemed much quicker.
The included software can help you clone your hard disk if you’ve already got you operating system installed on a standard HDD.
The idea behind this product is to put the operating system on the SSD and then use a regular hard drive for programs, files etc, and this idea is a good one but it can be time consuming and honestly a bit difficult for the beginner. To use the SSDnowV you’ll need to move your folders etc to your other hard drive and make sure the operating system knows where they are, this can be a bit tricky, but it can be done with a little knowledge and patience.
As far as the cost of this compared to other SSD drives, there really isn’t any other 40GB SSD drives to compare it to, but there are smaller and larger ones that all cost more than the Kingston SSDNowV does.

Conclusion:

The Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot drive is a cost effective way to increase the overall performance of your system. This drive has very fast read speeds which will allow your system to boot and shut down faster and overall increase access performance of your system.

Yes it’s not the fastest out there, but for the cost it’s well worth it, especially for the novice user or someone just getting into SSD drives.

Pros:
+Very fast read speeds
+Everything included in bundle
+Low cost
+Fairly easy installation

Cons:
-Slow write speeds
-Can be time consuming when moving files and folders

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive Desktop Upgrade Bundle is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

Gadget pron, gadget porn, unboxing, unpacking, uncrate, it’s been called many things, but it’s The Unboxing. Why is it that we love to unbox our gadgets, what is it that excites us so much about unboxing a new gadget or any tech related toy?

My take on it is that it’s sort of like Christmas all over again when we were kids, the mystery, and the satisfaction of holding some new wonderful toy in our hands. Even though we know what’s in the box usually, it’s still exciting and thrilling to unbox it. You can see the ads, read the reviews, see other people unbox something but it’s just not the same as getting your own hands on it and seeing for yourself what’s in the box.

What is an unboxing exactly?

The analogy could almost be made to that of undressing a woman (or man, whatever the case may be).  We take our time with it, examining it on the outside, caressing the box, taking a closer look at it, seeing all there is to see on the outside. Then comes the time to open it, slowly and carefully undoing the flaps on the box to reveal the prize that awaits us inside, what we’ve been waiting for with breathless anticipation. As we open the flaps our pulse quickens with sweet excitement. Once open we stop to take a deep look at what we see, examining everything, every part, taking it all in, the lines, the patterns we see.

Then comes to time to fully unbox our prize, slowly we peel away the inner layers to reveal what’s beneath, what we’ve been waiting for, is it worth it? Is it going to be all that we expected? Once we get the covering aside we get to see our prize in all its glory, we lay it out, stand back so we can take it all in. Then comes the time to actually get our hands on it, we gently caress it, fondling it with our hands,  our fingers caressing the lines, curves and grooves of the surface, even taking the time to take in the aroma of it. Finally comes the time to really get to work…. was it climatic, or anti-climactic, was it what you expected?

From my experience with unboxings, unboxing products that is, it’s usually always rather anti-climactic. The product never seems to live up to the hype that surrounded it in the advertising. Some do leave you with a nice feeling, but most are blah.

The unboxing has sort of become an unspoken competition between sites on the internet to see who gets it first. Let’s face it, if you’re the first one to get the product, you’ll get the most traffic and hits. We all want to be the first, it’s nice being number one especially when it comes to new tech. When those sites get the product first they’re usually hyped about by other sites and linked from many more, but it comes down to who you know or who your contacts are in the industry.

So When Did it All Start?

The thrill of the unboxing has been around for quite some time I’m sure, way before the internet and videos of people unboxing things. I can imagine back several decades ago when the first telephone arrived to a guy like you or me.  He sat there excited when it arrived, thinking he was one of the first to ever get his hands on one. He took his time with it, unboxed it, and explored all there was to see…

We could probably even go back farther than that, let’s say back to ancient Greece, with the abacus, or actually farther that that as the first abacus dates back to Sumeria circa 2700BC or so. Can you picture the first guy to receive an abacus fondling it with delight?

Unboxings are primarily a guys thing, but I’m sure there are girls out there that enjoy it as much as we do, especially if we look at it from the view of the analogy above

The idea of this article was to present you, the reader, with a history of the unboxing, but that’s hard to do. It’s very hard to pinpoint the very first unboxing ever done. People claim that one of the first unboxing videos was of the PS3 by CheapyD. It’s been viewed more than 800,000 times so far, but it’s hard to believe that’s the first one, maybe one of the first very popular unboxing videos, but not the first.

If we look up the definition of unboxing we find at the ‘Urban Dictionary’

The Internet trend of showing photos or video from the unpacking of a retail box of some desirable product, such as the latest laptop or portable music player.

The oldest unboxing video I found on YouTube was from 3 years ago of the Nokia E61, but still there has to be older ones than that out there, doesn’t there? We’ve been unboxing stuff for centuries really, there has to be older than three years ago out there somewhere.

Let’s Talk With Someone Who Does it for a Living?

Unboxing.com, which is actually Gear Live just turned 5 years old, but I don’t think the actual unboxing part of their site is that old..

I caught up with Andru Edwards, the CEO of Gear Live and asked him a few questions about this unboxing stuffs:

TestFreaks: So, why do it, unboxings I mean?

Andru Edwards: Readers and viewers like to see what is in the box, and we are able to give advice on what else you might want to buy, especially if it isn’t included with an item, like an HDMI cable.

TestFreaks: What was your first unboxing video? (link to it?)

Andru Edwards:The first video was the Logitech Harmony 720 universal remote control, back in 2006:

http://unboxing.gearlive.com/unbox/article/unboxing-live-001-logitech-harmony-720-814511/

TestFreaks: How did it feel when you did your first unboxing?

Andru Edwards:There wasn’t any special feeling or anything. I just felt like I was doing my job, which is to inform our readers and viewers!

TestFreaks:Why do you think people like to see unboxings?

Andru Edwards:Because they are able to live vicariously through the videos and take part in the launch or release of a product. Others like them because they are informational, and are actually good to watch when considering a purchase.

TestFreaks: How many do you personally average per month? How many does the site have posted now?

Andru Edwards:We have over 50 unboxing videos, and over 100 unboxing photo galleries. We typically do 2-4 per month.

TestFreaks:Are there any particular types of products that you like to unbox specifically or is everything treated the same?

Andru Edwards:We treat everything the same from a journalistic perspective, but I personally prefer unboxing items that are unique, and have great presentation. Apple products usually fall into this category, as do game consoles, and more recently, the Beats by Dr. Dre headphone line.

TestFreaks: What is your favorite unboxing of all? (link to it to use in the post)

Andru Edwards:Probably the one where we unboxed the iPhone 3G live, in the Apple Store, at launch:

http://unboxing.gearlive.com/unbox/article/q208-unboxing-live-038-the-apple-iphone-3g-white-and-black/

TestFreaks: Do you think unboxings add value to reviews?

Andru Edwards:Definitely. They give you a close look at the product, and again, you get to see everything that is included in the box, so you know what else you may need to pick up while you are at the store.

TestFreaks: Do you like to watch unboxing videos? and why?

Andru Edwards:Not necessarily, but only because I get my hands on items typically before they hit stores. So I’ve already seen them.

TestFreaks:Any idea where the phenomenon of the unboxing came from or started?

Andru Edwards:No idea, but we were one of the first – we’ve been doing it for over 3 years.

TestFreaks: Tell me a bit about Gear Live Unboxing…

Andru Edwards:Well, Gear Live in general is a consumer electronics news blog, and we do video reviews of products, as well as unboxing videos. We record in high definition in a studio, and definitely try to highlight the product, and give an expert opinion alongside the unboxing visuals. You can find it at unboxing.gearlive.com.

TestFreaks: I see if you type unboxing.com into the address bar of a browser it automatically directs to unboxing.gearlive.com, is there any story behind that? The acquisition of the domain name.

Andru Edwards:It was just part of a decision to move all our domains under the Gear Live banner. We moved all our domains to subdomains of Gear Live. We acquired the domain because we needed a place to house the unboxing videos we were doing.

…and I’d like to thank Andru for talking with us.

What About Other Sites?

Unbox.it used to be an unboxing site but it’s not longer there, it’s a parked page with ads on it, so don’t go there.

Sites like Engadget and Gizmodo are also known for their unboxing videos and pictorial unboxings, and they seem to always get the stuff first before anyone else does, so theirs are always very popular.

Speaking of Engadget  I found a rather old unboxing over there as well.

The iPod with Video pictorial unboxing from October 2005: http://www.engadget.com/2005/10/18/unpacking-the-ipod-with-video/

and I also found a Pictorial unboxing of the Macmini from almost 5 years ago over at Uneasy Silence: http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2005/01/2009/

Over at flickr, in the Unboxing pool there is surprisingly only a little over 2,000 photos, I would have thought there’d be a lot more really. (Maybe I need to join and add a few more thousand…)

Way Back When!

I can remember back in my Commodore64 and Vic-20 days getting the magazines, there they had product reviews with basic unboxings in them, while not as exciting as a video, they fulfilled our needs at the time until we got our hands on the real thing.

So for the history of the unboxing, well it started out most likely shortly after the camera was invented, with people taking pictures of things they received and were excited about.

I did find a pictorial unboxing of the iSight from August 2003 here: http://homepage.mac.com/iblog/PhotoAlbum6.html

Actual unboxings started with product reviews in magazines, then with the coming of the internet and video sites like YouTube and Viddler, and others, people really had a chance to show off their unboxings. At first I think they were product reviewers experimenting with a new way to show their readers just what you get in the box. Then as the popularity picked up, every day people started sharing their new products through unboxing videos as well, to share with friends and whoever else cared to watch.

Other Types of Unboxings:

There’s a new trend in unboxings though, finding old products new and unboxing them like the guys over at AlfredTV did with a 20th Anniversary MAC.

As with any popular thing out there, there is going to be people making fun of it and doing parodies. Microsoft did a parody video unboxing for Internet Explorer 8, and even created a fictitious character named Roland Wacker to do the unboxing and he even has his own Facebook page.

Probably the most awesome unboxing parody is for the Samsung Omnia i900, it’s more of an advertisement, but it’s still very well done. They’ve taken the unboxing to a whole new level, it’s hard to explain, just watch the video.

Unboxings have evolved a life of their own really, at their height there were sites just dedicated to unboxings, but they’ve since come and gone apparently, with Unboxing.com becoming unboxing.gearlive.com.

Then of course we have Amazon who, trying to partially cash in on the unboxing phenomenon I’m sure, named their video download service/  on demand service, ‘Unbox’.

Doing a search for ‘Unboxing’ on Google or Bing doesn’t really come up with much of a history of it all, just, as expected, many links to sites containing videos of unboxings.

Unboxings though don’t just have to be videos, some sites have sections for pictorial unboxings, which isn’t quite the same thing in my book. Maybe if it was a video and still pictures to accompany it, then that might work.

I think the primary allure of the unboxing is that it shows us what’s in the box, even if it’s vicariously through the screen, we still get to feel the creators excitement as he unboxes the product for the first time. The other attraction is of course the fact that the videos show people what exactly they’ll be getting before they buy something, it’s always nice to know what’s in the box. That’s one of the primary reasons I like product reviews, when I’m looking to buy something, I like to search for a review, to know the opinions of the product, but also to see what else comes with it.

Here’s one of our  unboxings, of the Synology DS209+II NAS Box:

There are products that actually I don’t do video unboxings of because I’m actually a bit excited and just want to see what’s inside. An example would be that I just received the DoubleSight 7” LCD for review, it was one of those products that I was a bit excited about to be getting for review. I just had to get it open to check it out, and it was worth it as it is a very nice product.

The unboxing is something that non-techies don’t quite get. They understand to a point in that it shows the product and what comes in the box, but they don’t understand the thrill of it all. Understanding the idea behind the unboxing and the thrill of it might be hard for some people, but us enthusiasts understand it very well, it’s just one of those things that we love. One of the best parts of being a reviewer I think is the unboxing, be it on video or just still pictures, there’s always a thrill when getting a new product, especially one that isn’t on the market yet.

While the origin of the unboxing has eluded being found, it’s there, in all of us really, it’s been around for a long time and will remain a popular pastime of geeks and non-geeks alike.

You can find all of our unboxing videos on Viddler HERE, along with game videos and other product related movies.

An Unofficial History of The Unboxing is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

a postulated unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, and is transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena.

In layman’s terms a meme is an item of pop-culture that is spread via word of mouth or today, by email and instant messaging.  Like a viral video that keeps being parodied or a photo being photoshopped again and again.  Memes are usually fun and entertaining but from time to time – downright annoying.

Here are some of the most popular Internet memes:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Keyboard Cat meme – the original video was created by performance artist Charlie Schmidt and uploaded to YouTube on June 7th, 2007.  Fast forward almost two years to 2009 when Brad O’Farrell used a clip from Schmidt’s video to express a moment of Fail in his own video, “Play him off, Keyboard Cat.”  So Keyboard Cat is now added onto the end of “fail” videos as a punch line.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ashton Kutcher announced on Twitter that keyboard cat was his favorite new video.  Then on The Daily Show Stephen Colbert messes up and the Keyboard Cat mocks him – with Colbert challenging him to “keyboards at dawn. ”

And on May 7th, 2009, the news that the cat, Fatso, died a year ago and the keyboard cat original video was recorded nearly two decades ago (late 1980’s/early 1990’s) broke, according to CNN.  But I’m predicting we haven’t heard the last of Keyboard Cat.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Flash Mob meme – okay, this is my personal favorite meme.  And if I ever get the chance to participate in one… you better believe, I’m there!  A flash mob is when a large group (preferably hundreds) of people come together in what appears to be spontaneous behavior in unison.  Either in dance, song, pillow fights, freeze frame and more.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The choreographed group scenes usually take place at high profile landmarks.  Many companies have gotten into the act using ‘flash mobs’ as a promotion tool.  They’ve also become main stream by appearing on the Showtime series Weeds.    And recently Oprah had her own flash mob in her season premiere, as her audience sang and danced with The Black Eyed Peas. Simply put… Flash Mobs are fun, cool and entertaining… especially to the unsuspecting bystanders.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kanye Interrupts/Imma Gonna Let You Finish meme – one of the newest memes, Kanye Interrupts began at the 2009 MTV Music Awards.  As Taylor Swift is announced the winner of Best Female Video, Kanye West jumps in front of her steals the mic, and tells the crowd that Beyonce’s video should have won, as it IS “one of the best videos of all time.” He then handed the mic back to Taylor and stormed off the stage. Because Kanye had taken up Taylor’s time, the show cut to commercial before she could continue.

Later that night, Beyonce won Best Video of the Year (shows what a class act she is) and asks Taylor Swift to come up and give the speech that she did not get to give earlier.  By Monday, Kanye’s interruption was all over main stream television.

Click here to view the embedded video.

YouTube user freeyourpixels created a mash up of Kanye interrupting President Obama. President Obama spoke before Congress about Health Care reform and during the speech, Republican Representative Joe Wilson heckled the President, interjecting with “You Lie.”  So by combining these two interruptions together into one parody video, and being the first to do so, freeyourpixels became the number one most viewed Youtube channel of the day, and the video was viewed over 1.5 million times in under 24 hours.  Approximately 80 people re-uploaded freeyourpixels video.  With dozens of Kanye Interrupts videos created since.

By the night of September 13th and morning of the 14th, people on forums across the Internet began photoshopping Kanye onto dozens of backgrounds. How do you do your own Kanye Interrupts?  Photoshop Kanye into your image and type – “Look [insert name here], I’m really [insert adjective] for you. Imma Let you finish. But [insert name] is the [insert hyperbole] of all time.” – onto it.

According to knowyourmeme.com, it is safe to say that not only did Kanye’s interruption overshadow anything Kanye West has ever done before.  It has spread the farthest, propagated the furthest, and changed the most in the shortest amount of time when compared to other Internet Memes.

Demotivational Posters meme– are steeped in sarcasm.  They poke fun of the ‘motivational’ posters.  The origins of demotivational posters seem to point to Despair, Inc. during the mid to late 90s… with many websites like 4Chan using de-motivational posters.

If you have a sense of humor you’ll love demotivational posters – so in effect, they can actually motivate.  They most definitely will make you laugh… and laughter IS the best medicine.  Check out these demotivational posters and get motivated… I mean demotivated.

Chuck Norris Facts meme – are sardonic facts about actor and martial artist, Chuck Norris, that have become an Internet phenomena… so widespread to be a meme.  The facts are usually ridiculous embellished claims regarding Chuck Norris’ virility, masculinity, toughness, etc.

The facts typically make Norris out to be superhuman.  For example,

• There is no theory of evolution.  Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris allowed to live.
• Outer space exists because it’s afraid to live on the same planet as Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch, HE decides what time it is.

Chuck Norris facts first appeared on the Internet in 2005. Conan O’Brien started making jokes on his late night show about Norris (particularly, Walker, Texas Ranger) and is credited with inspiring the Internet fad.  Every time this meme starts to slow down something happens to give it momentum again.  The latest was with the 2008 Presidential election – Norris was a supporter of Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and did an ad parody, ‘Huckabee Facts’.

The Rickroll meme – I have a friend that has rickrolled me so many times, you’d think I wouldn’t fall for it anymore… but alas, he finds a way to trick me every time.  Rickrolling involves the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up”.  The meme in this situation is the old ‘bait and switch’.  The unsuspecting recipient receives a link pertaining to a topic at hand, and when clicked on takes them to the Rick Astley video – and you have been ‘rickrolled’.

Rickrolling came about according to Wikipedia,

The practice itself is said to have begun as a variant of an earlier prank from the imageboard 4chan known as duckrolling, in which a link to somewhere (such as a specific picture or news item) would instead lead to a thread or site containing an edited picture of a duck with wheels. The user at that point is said to have been “duckrolled”.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The first known instance of Rickroll occurred in May 2007 on /v/, 4chan’s video game board, where a link to the Rick Astley video was claimed to be a mirror of the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV (which was unavailable due to heavy traffic). The joke was confined to 4chan for a very brief period.

By the following year it had spread beyond 4chan to become an Internet meme… with more than 18 million adults to date having been rickrolled.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time meme – Peanut Butter Jelly Time (PBJT) is a flash animation consisting of an animated ‘Dancing Banana’ emoticon and the song “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” by The Buckwheat Boyz.   The video features a dancing banana singing the PBJT (a rather annoying if not cute) song.  The first Peanut Butter Jelly Time flash animation was put on Offtopic.com forums in early 2002 – by March 21st, 2002, a user by the name YrebWarts posted it on the popular Flash gallery Newgrounds.com where the clip became wildly popular spawning a number of remakes.

By the end of 2002, Peanut Butter Jelly Time made its debut into the mainstream media when popular NBC sitcom Ed showed the main character Ed watching the flash animation during one of the episodes.  Over the course of 2003 the animation showed up on any site that showcased viral content.  And then in 2005 new life was breathed into it when PBJT was featured on an episode of Family Guy, with Brian the Dog doing his own rendition of Peanut Butter Jelly Time.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Don’t Tase Me Bro meme – on September 17, 2007, Andrew Meyer confronted Senator John Kerry at a speech at the University of Florida about Kerry’s involvement with the organization known as Skull & Bones. The encounter ended with Meyer being forcibly removed by police and tasered repeatedly, during which time he screamed the famous phrase “DON’T TASE ME BRO!”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thus another meme was born.  Many remixes were made… one of my favorites is Andrew Myer vs. MC Hammer.  The phrase ‘Don’t Taze Me Bro’, according to Wikipedia, was so popular that The New Oxford American Dictionary listed “tase/taze” as one of the words of the year for 2007.  The Yale Book of Quotations designated the same quote as the most memorable quote of 2007.  The phrase can even be found on T-Shirts.

Lolcats meme – is another one of my favorite memes.  The lolcats iz pictures of cats using bad grammar but the cats are so cute and the captions so funny you can’t help but laugh.  According to Wikipedia,

it’s an image combining a photograph, most frequently of a cat, with a humorous and idiosyncratic caption in (often) broken English—a dialect which is known as “lolspeak” or “kitty pidgin” and which parodies the poor grammar typically attributed to Internet slang. The name “lolcat” is a compound word of the acronymic abbreviation “LOL” and the word “cat”. A synonym for “lolcat” is cat macro, since the images are a type of image macro.   Lolcats are designed for photo sharing image boards and other internet forums.

If you’d like to make your own Lolcat pic – you can go to icanhascheezburger for a step by step guide to making your own.  Have fun, be creative and share your lolz!

Facepalm meme – just as the name implies… it is the act of placing one’s face into one’s hand.  It’s a gesture of non-communication that expresses dismay at someone’s lack of common sense or simply over a “wtf” moment.  One of the most popular images of facepalming is of Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek the Next Generation, clutching his face in disbelief.

So the next time someone says something stupid on the Internet (where it’s difficult to show emotion) or so ridiculous that it leaves you speechless… just facepalm them.

Three popular Internet memes that I am going to give a brief mention to is, Tub Girl, Goatse and Two Girls and a Cup.  You are more than welcome to do a Google search yourself… it is difficult to find the original videos.  In fact, the memes that go around now are actually videos of people’s reaction to watching the videos. These memes used shock value and gross and disgusting images and I have no desire to see the videos but as I said feel free to check them out if you so desire.

There are dozens of memes floating around from past to present… just waiting for the next viral meme to replace the last.  Several Internet celebrities have been born from what some call memes – you can find some of them here.  In the “great” words of Kanye, “Look  Rickrolling meme, I’m really sorry for you. Imma Let you finish. But Kanye’s Interrupt meme is the best meme of all time.”

If you don’t see your favorite meme here… share it with us.

10 Internet Memes That Can Still Make You Laugh is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

High Definition content is not limited to HDTVs, many people, myself included like to watch movies on our PCs, but to really enjoy the experience you need a full HD monitor. The majority of these monitors are rather expensive, especially for the larger sized one, but you can get them inexpensively if they are refurbished. Buying a refurb monitor is something that many people will stay away from, but I’ve never had any real problems with them. I’ve bought them myself and received them for review so there’s no bias involved there, I’ve had the same experiences either way.

Today for review Geeks.com has sent me over the  Hannspree 23” 1080P LCD monitor. Hannspree is company that is well known for making excellent quality and good performing products. The monitor I’ve got for review is a refurbished one so it does cost a bit less that it would buying it new, and I haven’t run across any dead pixels or problems with it so far. This monitor features a 5ms response time in addition to having a contrast ratio of 15,000:1, so it works very well for everything from gaming to movie watching.

This is one of those computer monitors from Geeks that is refurbished so it comes in a plain brown box, in other words no retail packaging, but it was packed well for protection.

There was no instruction manual included, but I got one easily off of the Hannspree website, though you really don’t need it just to hook it up. Included with the monitor is the base, audio cable and a VGA cable.

The Hanspree HF237 is one of those 23” Monitors that has a glossy bezel on it. I’m not sure when glossy became popular but I don’t care for it, I don’t like the glare and reflections you get from them. Up on the right side you’ll find three little stickers, one is the Energy Star logo, under that is an Eco Friendly logo and beneath that is the Certified for Windows Vista logo. The Hannspree HF23 is supposed to use less power than others on the market making it energy efficient.

On the bottom right corner of the bezel, under it actually you’ll find the controls for power and settings.

On the back you’ll find four mounting holes in the center. Underneath the lip of the cover is where you’ll find the connections. On the left side is where the power connector is while the right side is where you’ll find the video and audio connections.

Specifications:

23″ Hannspree HF237HPB HDMI Widescreen LCD Blu-ray 1080p Monitor w/Speakers & HDCP Support (Black)

Price: $145.99

With Full HD 1080p support, you can enjoy high-def games and Blu-ray movies in 1920 x 1080 resolution! This spacious 23-inch monitor will bring smooth, blur-free motion to all your onscreen action, thanks to the 5 ms response time. Plus, the X-Contrast ratio of 15000:1 and the 300 cd/m2 brightness ensure a crisp, vibrant-colored display. Oh, and you won’t have to worry about getting an external source for audio — the HF237HPB already has speakers built in for added convenience.

Features/Specifications:

General Features:
* Black, glossy bezel
* 23-inch TFT LCD active matrix display
* 1920 x 1080 Full HD resolution
* 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio
* 300 cd/m2 brightness
* Pixel pitch: 0.266 (H) x 0.266 (V) mm
* 5 ms response time
* Contrast ratio: X-Contrast 15000:1, DCR 1000:1 (typical)
* Displayable colors: 16.7 million
* Viewing angle: 170° (H) / 160° (V)
* Integrated 1W x 2 channel stereo speakers
* Color temperature: Warm, Nature, Cool, User Mode
* Horizontal frequency: 24 to 83 kHz
* Vertical frequency: 50 to 75 Hz
* Comes with tilt adjustable base
* 100 mm x 100 mm wall mountable
* Certified for Windows Vista

Connectors:
* HDMI (w/HDCP)
* 15-pin VGA
* Audio in
* 3.5 mm Headphone

Dimensions w/Base:
# 16 x 21.5 x 7-inches (H x W x D, approximate)

For installation I hooked up the Hannspree HF237HPB via HDMI to my Sparkle GTX260 video card. It was easy to do, I just had to use a DVI to HDMI adapter that I had lying around.

I should also not that I found no dead pixels at all on this monitor. When you get a refurb that’s one of the things people worry and complain about, but I found none at all.

As far as colors are concerned everything looked kind of faded or washed out when I first turned it on. I played with the settings of the monitor itself and just couldn’t get anything to look correct. I then went into the Nvidia control panel and found an option under ‘Adjust Desktop Color Settings’ for ‘Digital Color Format’, it was on RGB, but once I selected YCbCr444 all of the colors changed to the way they should be.

Once I changed than setting the colors were perfect, the blacks are very black, everything is nice bright and crisp. Taking a picture of the screen doesn’t quite show you exactly the color look, but it’s close.

I’ve also just received the Spyder3 Express from Datacolor that I used with it as well, and it changed things a very little bit but not much at all from the settings I had them set on. So the default color settings are very close to what they should be.

As far as settings on the monitor itself, there really isn’t that much to change. The on-screen display is divided into six parts with a few options for each selection.

There is a settings under Brightness and Contrast called X-Contrast, you can turn it on and off. I had it turned on for a while but eventually turned it off as I just didn’t like how it worked. What I mean is that it automatically changes the contrast ratio, if you’re watching something dark it seemed to make it much darker and watching something like a movie it would do that quite often with the levels of brightness or contrast always changing, it got to be annoying really so I ended up turning it off.

As far as viewing angle is concerned, the monitor can be viewed from most any angle with only the extreme viewing angles presenting any problems, for most people it should be fine.

I stuck a Blu-Ray movie in and watched it, I found no blur during movements and everything was clear, crisp and smooth overall.

The included speakers are decent, a bit tinny sounding but not bad overall. Obviously the built-in speakers are not going to provide you with a surround sound experience or any heavy bass, but for general uses and light movie or TV watching they should be adequate.

Gaming on this monitor is heavenly really, it’s so nice to be able to run full 1920×1080 resolution. My other monitors are only 1680×1050 and I can see the difference easily between the resolutions. The motion is smooth, no blurring or anything like that at all in gaming. The response time seems fine for gaming.

With regular everyday work I found it does add quite a bit more desktop real estate, for instance in a word processes I can see two pages at once now on the screen.

I did run across one small annoyance with this monitor. When I put in a movie and go to full screen there’s a good five seconds where it’s just all black, I can still here the sound but just no picture. It’s minor annoyance, but still annoying nonetheless.

I’ve never used an HDMI monitor with my PC until now so I can’t compare to anything, and I did research this problem and couldn’t find anything about it. My guess is that it has to do with the HDCP of the system itself. Maybe someone reading this can help me out with this one and why it does this..

Conclusion:
I’m truly impressed with this monitor, especially since it’s a refurbished product. There are no flaws physically or internally, it looks brand new. It offers a very nice high definition experience overall for a low price.

I don’t care for the glossy bezel, but there’s not much I can do about the design of it.

The minor annoyance with the blacking out when switching to full screen is one that I can live with, but it’s something that I’d like to understand why it does it.

Pros:
+Excellent picture for everything
+Easy to use and setup
+Inexpensive really

Cons:
-Glossy bezel picks up fingerprints, dust and reflects everything
-Rather long delay when switching to full screen for movies

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

23" Hannspree HF237HPB Widescreen 1080p HDMI LCD Monitor is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

If you’ve paid any attention to what’s going on in a couple days then you’ll know that the new operating system from Microsoft is set to launch, October 22nd to be more specific. It’s called Windows 7, while I’m not attracted to the name of it, I do like the operating system itself. It offers many new things over Vista, including the ability to run smoother and of course better reviews and feedback.

The new Windows 7 comes in three basic versions available to the consumer, yes there are other versions like Enterprise but those are more for business level installations so we’re not going to worry about those too much, we’re more concerned with what choices the average consumer has. Each of the versions has something different to offer the consumer, and as expected as you go up in price the more features you’ll expect to find and the more stuff you’ll be able to do. You also have the choice of 32bit and 64bit versions of the operating systems as well.

There is another version not listed on the chart called Windows 7 Starter, it’s not exactly available to purchase but the average  person may run into it especially if they’re purchasing a netbook with Windows 7 pre-installed. W7 starter is basically a very minimalistic or stripped down version of Home Premium that’s configured to run fast and effectively on netbooks or lower specification notebooks. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles and aesthetic attributes of the other versions like Aero for example. These things are omitted for a reason, to make the end user experience that much more enjoyable and faster.

System Requirements:

Here’s the basic system requirements direct from Microsoft:

Windows 7 system requirements:
If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here’s what it takes:

*1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
*1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
*16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
*DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Those are the bare minimum requirements of course, but if you want to do more:

Additional requirements to use certain features:

*Internet access (fees may apply)
*Depending on resolution, video playback may require additional memory and advanced graphics hardware
*For some Windows Media Center functionality a TV tuner and additional hardware may be required
*Windows Touch and Tablet PCs require specific hardware
*HomeGroup requires a network and PCs running Windows 7
*DVD/CD authoring requires a compatible optical drive
*BitLocker requires Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2
*BitLocker To Go requires a USB flash drive
*Windows XP Mode requires an additional 1 GB of RAM, an additional 15 GB of available hard disk space, and a processor capable of hardware virtualization with Intel VT or AMD-V turned on
*Music and sound require audio output

And of course a little disclaimer:

Product functionality and graphics may vary based on your system configuration. Some features may require advanced or additional hardware.

You can find more about the system requirements for Windows 7 HERE which does include links to other resources from Microsoft to help you understand the requirements.

If you’re really unsure as to the ability of you system to run Windows 7 you could always try the Windows Upgrade Advisor. It’s a program that runs on your computer from Microsoft that will be able to scan your PC to determine if it will be capable of running Windows 7.

Three Main Choices:

–Windows 7 Ultimate

For most people, at least most guys, they’ll go for the Ultimate Version because, let’s face it, guys think more is better and if the moniker  ‘Ultimate’ is attached to something then most guys have to have it, it just means it’s the best of something. When the word Ultimate is used it means it’s the best, the most powerful, the ‘Ultimate’ of something. The average person or even the manliest of guys won’t be needing the Ultimate Edition though, they’ll never use it and it’s just not worth the cost to pay for things you won’t need just because it has the Ultimate tag on it. W7 Ultimate is essentially the Enterprise edition available to the consumer and it does offer a bit more security in the form of BitLocker both on and off of your PC.

I’ve got both Vista 32bit and 64bit Ultimate Editions, but in my years with them I’ve never once used BitLocker and I’m what is called an Enthusiast or Hard Core User.

Honestly the average consumer and even most enthusiasts will have no need for the Ultimate Edition of Windows 7. Yes there are circumstances that you might need them, but that’s why Microsoft has offered choices for us, to let us choose what we need and want in our operating system. On the other hand though, it only costs $20 more than Home Premium version, so I say what the heck, why not get it?

–Windows 7 Professional

In my opinion, the Professional Version of Windows 7 is what the majority of power users, enthusiasts and business users will want. It offers all of the features anyone will want or need in the new OS.

The new Windows XP mode is something that I think many people will find useful, especially those that never upgraded to Vista. Windows 7 offers a virtual Windows XP environment to let users still run their ‘old’ programs essentially. XP Mode is offered in both the Professional and Ultimate versions.

In addition to XP Mode you’ll also find easy networking and backup and restore over a network, which is of course included in the Ultimate Edition as well.

–Windows 7 Home Premium

The Home Premium version is one that is the least expensive of them, and the one that has the least amount of features. It’s for people that only need their systems for basic things like browsing the internet, word processing and multimedia stuffs. I think the home premium version is something that the new user will be happy with, most users today don’t really do much more than check email, and browse the internet with their computers including watching videos etc.

The Home Premium version is billed as ‘The Best Entertainment Experience on Your PC’, it’s for those that are basic users, this version is what most people will find acceptable for their uses.

I’ve installed Windows 7 on my main computer with 8 gigs of ram along with netbooks including the little Asus EEEPC 900A with only 1gig of ram, and it runs perfectly fine on all configurations.

–Upgrade or Full Version:

So there are three main choices when it comes to choosing which version of W7 you might want, but in actuality you’ve got six choices because all three editions are available in Full or Upgrade versions.

—The full versions cost more money than the upgrade versions, almost twice as much

—The full versions require a complete re-install of everything

–The upgrade versions will upgrade your current installation of XP or Vista, but you might run into small problems like having to re-install applications and application compatibility

–Microsoft recommends installing on a new PC and not upgrading:

…And while we don’t recommend it, should you choose to upgrade your current PC from Windows XP or another operating system to Windows 7, we recommend that you get help with this process from your local computer service provider. You’ll need to back up your current files and settings, perform a custom (clean) installation, and then reinstall your files, settings, and programs.

Hardware Options:

There are two main pieces of your system that you’ll want to focus on when it comes to upgrading to W7 with  a third one that might be considered optional depending on what you’re using your system for..

–Video Cards:

The upgrade process really won’t require any new hardware for the average user unless they want to take advantage of things like DirectX 11, then of course you’ll need to purchase a new video card. That’s something though that really only pertains to gamers and enthusiasts, most business and personal users will have no need for DirectX 11, at least not just yet. To sort of future proof yourself though you might want to think about it as something to do in the future when the new video cards have dropped a bit in price.

–Ram or Memory

If you choose to get Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate for the XP Mode feature then you’ll want to check the amount of ram in your computer. According to the specs from Microsoft you’ll need an extra 1gig of ram to use XP Mode and an additional 15gigs of hard disk space along with a CPU capable of virtualization. As far as hard disk space is concerned the majority of people will be fine, and for CPUs, if you’ve got a relatively new one then you’re fine there as well. Ram is where people will most likely experience an additional cost relating to switching over to Windows 7, even then though, ram has dropped in price and it’s still an inexpensive and very easy upgrade.

–Monitor

The last component of your system that you might want to look at is the monitor, it won’t really affect the performance of your system but it will determine whether you can run high definition content of not. HDCP or High Definition Content Protection is something built into the newer operating systems, video cards and monitors to allows you to play HD content on your computer. What it does simply is encrypt the signal between the computer and monitor so it cannot be intercepted and copied. Many newer, but not all, monitors have this technology built into them. So depending on what you want to do with your system you might also need to upgrade your monitor.

32bit or 64bit:

The only other real question you need to ask yourself when going to Windows 7 is 32bit or 64bit version. For the most part they are basically the same and if you’re running a netbook chances are that you are limited to running 32bit only, so there’s no choice there.

The main reason to use the 64bit version is access to more ram, which in turn can make your system more usable, quicker and in turn make you more productive. That all depends though on what you’re using your computer for. If you’re browsing the internet and checking your email you won’t need gigs and gigs of ram, you’ll never use it all and it’s a waste. The average user will be looking at the 32bit versions of Windows 7.

Again here though, you could think of the future or your possible uses for your computer in the future, you might need more ram, or a system capable of utilizing more ram. This of course goes back to added cost where you’ll most likely need to purchase more ram, and this can get very costly buying four, eight or even twelve gigs and up of ram. You can run up to 192gigs of ram in Windows 7 64bit editions of Professional and Ultimate. You can see where the cost could easily skyrocket with that much ram in your system, the average user or even most enthusiasts and power users will never have a need for that much ram.

Alternatives:

So you might not want to or be ready to upgrade to Microsoft’s latest and greatest operating system, what choices do you have?

—If you’re currently running Windows XP I would strongly advise upgrading because the OS is very old and out of date and it’s not going to be supported for much longer. No support means lack of security updates and patches along with future hardware compatibility issues as well possibly.

–If you’re running Vista then you might want to consider upgrading because of all of the new features. Windows 7 is superior in terms of security, speed, usability and aesthetics.

–If you running something other than Windows like Linux or Mac OSX, then it’s a personal choice or preference as to what you’ll do. The chances of a Linux or Mac OSX user switching to Windows are slim, as are the chances of a Windows user switching to Linux or OSX. Windows 7 though is something that users of both operating systems might want to think about though as it is vastly improved over the previous versions.

—I prefer Windows as it’s the most popular and widely used operating system out there today, it just makes life that much easier when it comes to using and finding programs and games for the system. Let’s face it, Microsoft is here to stay and it’s more supported than any other OS out there honestly.

You do have several choices when it comes to choosing your operating system, at least when it comes to Linux, there are many different distros out there to choose from. The other two are of course Windows or OSX where you really don’t have much of a choice between the two.

–Choosing Windows allows you to use your existing hardware where with OSX you most likely cannot, you’ll have to buy an Apple specific machine. Yes there are ways around that, but the average person will not be willing to jump through all of those hoops, and of course it’s a legal gray area as well.

What Others Are Saying:

Several reviews have already been published about Windows 7 and most are very positive.

“With such broad aims, and such a diverse userbase, it’s no wonder that there are plenty of spots where the OS still falls short, but taken as a whole it’s clear that Microsoft has taken a strong step forward with Windows 7.”  -Engadget

“Windows XP was a great OS in its day. Windows Vista, once it found its feet several months in, was a good OS. With Windows 7, the OS is great again. It’s what people said they wanted out of Windows: Solid, more nimble and the easiest, prettiest Windows yet. There’s always a chance this won’t be a huge hit come October, given the economy and the state of the PC industry, but it’s exactly what Microsoft needs right now. Something people can grab without fear.” -Gizmodo

“Windows 7 is more than what Vista should have been, it’s where Microsoft needed to go. How much damage Vista did and whether Windows 7 is enough for people to finally abandon Windows XP are questions that nobody has the answers to right now.” -CNET

“Waiting a bit before making the leap makes sense; waiting forever does not. Microsoft took far too long to come up with a satisfactory replacement for Windows XP. But whether you choose to install Windows 7 on your current systems or get it on the next new PC you buy, you’ll find that it’s the unassuming, thoroughly practical upgrade you’ve been waiting for–flaws and all.” –PC World

The reviews are overall positive, the reviewers all seems to be unanimous in that Windows 7 is what Vista should have been and that it’s a worthy successor to the long lives Windows Xp operating system.

When Should You Upgrade to Windows 7 ?

When to upgrade to a new operating system is one that everyone seems to ask. My personal choice would be to upgrade immediately. I’ve been running Windows 7 myself for a while now and I think it’s nice and stable, and ready to use as my primary operating system, but I also have quite a bit of experience with troubleshooting and figuring out my own problems that may arise.

Bottom line is though, honestly I think the new operating system is fine the way it is. In my experience with it I’ve had no problems installing it on any of the several computers I have. The built-in drivers have all worked with my hardware and if not I easily found them from the manufacturers site.

I think it’s ready to go and users everywhere should just take the jump without much fear.

Users with older hardware might want to wait a bit to let the OS settle in, and let the hardware manufacturers come out with drivers for their hardware. You also might want to make sure your older hardware will even work with Windows 7 at all.

How to Choose what’s right for you:

To choose the right operating system for you I would suggest some basic guidelines or uses to help you make you choice.

If you only use your computer for basic stuff like internet browsing and checking your email then you’ll be fine with the Home Premium edition, and this goes for netbooks that you might want to upgrade. Chances are that if you purchase a netbook with Windows 7 pre-installed you’ll get the Starter edition so the choice will be made for you.

Don’t misunderstand me here though, Home Premium can be used for much more than just doing basic things, but it’s all you’ll need if that’s where your needs and uses are.

If you’re a business, enthusiast user or even a gamer then you’ll want to grab the Professional version, it offers all of the features that you’ll want and need in an operating system.

Then we have the Ultimate Edition, it has it’s place, but the majority of people out there will not need it. If you want it for bragging right then go for it, but I guarantee most people will have no use for it. Again though, as I mentioned earlier, Ultimate Edition only costs $20 more than Home Premium, so why not get it really…

There are exceptions of course to all of this, you might want to be able to use XP Mode, or you might actually use BitLocker and yet still fall into the average or basic user category. Again, this is why Microsoft offers a choice of different versions of the operating system for you.

Most people out there will either choose Home Premium or Professional versions of Windows 7.

This is not by any means a complete guide to upgrading to Windows 7, it’s basic and it’s meant that way, it’s meant to help the average user decide which version is best for them.

Personally I would choose the Ultimate Edition, only because it’s only $20 more than the Professional version which I would get anyway. If there was like a $50 difference than I wouldn’t do it, but for $20 I say why not?

So in my eyes it only comes down to two choices, Ultimate or Home Premium. Ultimate would be for business and enthusiast users while Home Premium would be for basic, light users and netbook owners.

Upgrading to Windows 7 is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

Researchers’ diving into the correlations between video games and negative human conditions is nothing new. For over a decade, we’ve been reading about the mental effects that violence and subjective opinions of inappropriateness found in game content have on the average human’s mind. Columbine happened because of Doom. City crime happens because of Grand Theft Auto. The General Aggression Model says Halo is the reason your kid doesn’t understand geometry and wears size 46 jeans. Researchers are always conducting hackneyed studies about video game users, always using mediocre testing methods and coming up with the conclusion they were hoping to find. Video games have been a scapegoat for obesity problems, child development issues, social introversion and the fact children don’t run down the street beating a hoop with a stick anymore.

A recent study by the Center for Disease Control, published by the no less than the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, is perhaps the most poorly-examined case study released about video gamers in recent years. The report classifies the average video gamer as 35, fat and depressed. It came to this conclusion by looking at the behavior of a small group of people from one city. Already, the whole thing is bunk, and only goes on to prove that stereotyping social groups through empirical research is still a hip thing to do.

Let’s first take a look at the “facts.” The study took part in the Seattle-Tacoma area, which apparently is a sufficient representation of the entire planet due to Seattle’s size, diversity, and having the highest internet usage in the country. The researchers apparently are aware that this is an inappropriate measurement of the “average” gamer, as the study states "The fact that the sample was drawn from a population concentrated in western Washington State and from an Internet-based panel may limit generalizability of the results.” However, that didn’t stop anyone from publishing the results as the conditions of the “average’ gamer. Microsoft Word also seems to think generalizability isn’t a word, and for the sake of being bitter, I’m going to agree with it.

249 gamers were selected from a group of 552 adults, all between the ages of 19 and 90. 56 percent of these folks were males. This small group of 249 people were the focus of this study – a study that obviously couldn’t reveal the average gamer as being any younger than 35, because teenagers weren’t included in the research. While the average age has increased over the past decade as games have evolved and drawn in a much broader market, the numbers can’t be accurate when a huge portion of the gaming community isn’t involved in a study to establish stats about the average gamer.

The conclusions were that men who game are fatter and use the internet more than men who don’t. Women gamers are more depressed than women who aren’t gamers. "Video game players also reported lower extroversion, consistent with research on adolescents that linked video game playing to a sedentary lifestyle and overweight status, and to mental-health concerns." My goodness, what a bunch of nasty folks we are.

Finally, the study concluded that for depressed gamers, playing video games is a type of "digital self-medication," with women more likely to play video games as a distraction from the horrors of real life.

I’m fairly certain that the average anything in America is 35 and fat. It’s a general median age, and Americans have the highest obesity rate in the world. Perhaps the average basketball player wouldn’t fit the bill, but I bet the average accountant, average TV watcher, average grocery store clerk, or average stamp collector would come back as fat, too. Especially if you only take a look at one group of people who are previously known to fit the bill…

I recall reading a study posted a few years ago by CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/01/10/life.stress.reut/) that credited Tacoma as the most stressful city in America, when examining unemployment, suicide, theft and weather. Perhaps that’s why their gamers are so depressed and stay indoors. Sure, the data is a few years old, but not that much has changed for the town. Suicide is still high, the weather still sucks, and the Seahawks are still terrible.

Anyone who doesn’t balance his or her life properly will become fat, except those fortunate few with hyperdrive metabolisms. Anyone who stays inside playing lots of video games, or anyone who stays inactive in general, will be fat. The results of this study don’t quite showcase a development in social examination, but are a big “duh” with a side of “yeah, so?” being dished out by Captain Obvious. Playing video games doesn’t lead to being overweight, inactivity does. I’d also bet that if the huge group of gamers aged 10-19 were included in the study, it wouldn’t have found the overall group to be as fat or depressed. What 35 year-old doesn’t have a few extra pounds? But again, this study wasn’t about valid research as much as typecasting and suiting an agenda.

On one level, this is just like the violence argument. The whole dispute is chicken and egg, but not really. We know which came first, but people need a faceless third party to blame for everything. Columbine didn’t happen because Dylan and Eric played Doom. Those kids were just plain insane, and were therefore drawn to Doom instead of Pokemon Snap. Overweight people are often depressed, which leads them to stay inside, be sedentary, and engage in sedentary activities. The cause of their obesity could be anything. People seek out the things that comfort their imperfections. How many overweight, sedentary, depressed people choose to read books or knit sweaters as opposed to playing video games as their means of escapism?

And imagine – people who are gamers spend lots of time on the internet. There’s a shocking revelation. People who are interested in a form of indoor technology are also interested in another form of indoor technology. Video games have become a social platform. Nearly every game can be played online; some of them even require such play. People are bound to make friends doing so. The ones that don’t are the ones that should be researched for social problems.

The study was based on self-assessment, a subjective means of collecting information. People answered questions about their habits and health. Someone saying they sometimes feel depressed isn’t the same as someone with a hardcore clinical depression problem. Everyone feels depressed at times, but that doesn’t mean they are depressed. Self-assessed claims are valueless. The study also fails to note how much gaming these gamers actually do, time-wise. The lack of this rather imperative information makes the real impact of gaming on the subjects even harder to gauge.

Conclusion:

What we have learned:

• -Americans can live to be in their 30s.

• -A good number of them are fat.

• -People tend to have stressful and depressing moments in their lives.

• -Women often have it rougher than men.

• -Sometimes people want to escape the things that bother them, or just engage in some entertainment, and they may play an undefined amount of video games to meet that end.

• -Especially if they live in Seattle-Tacoma.

• -We want to play as Big Daddies in the next Bioshock game for more reasons than one.

• -They also enjoy the internet.

• -Children (a.k.a. large portions of the mass audience being evaluated) have no relevance.

Thanks to this study, we know those things to be true. Keep up the good work, CDC. Soon you’ll get that grant money you’re after to “examine” these findings further. I’d suggest administering self-assessments to fourteen kite fliers in Biloxi, Mississippi about whether or not they wear socks to bed, and publish the generalizability of the activity’s effects on their ability to see ghosts.

You’re All a Bunch of Fat, Depressed Gamer Bums is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

The BlackArmor series from Seagate are aimed at small businesses, and professional users but they can be great tools for the everyday user as well. I’ve taken a look at two of the BlackArmor series of external hard drives the PS 110 and the Ws 110, and both are very nice products overall that can be great tools for transporting and keeping your data safe. Today I’ve got another in the BlackArmor series of  storage and backup devices, the NAS 220 2TB Network Attached Storage box. The NAS 220 is a NAS box as one might expect given it’s name, and I’ve taken a look at several NAS devices here on TestFreaks, so I’m not only giving you a comprehensive overview of the NAS 220 but tossing in some comparisons as well so we can see how it performs compared to a few others.

If you read my other Seagate BlackArmor reviews then the packaging for the NAS 220 will look familiar to you, they’ve got the same look to them.The NAS 200 is packaged very well with lots of foam for protection.

Unpacking everything we find the NAS 220, ethernet cable, power supply, software disc, and user manual. The manual is more of a quick start guide, the in depth manuals are located on the disc for both the NAS 220 and the backup software.

The NAS 220 was fairly hard to take pictures of, it’s black and the front is glossy. The main casing is metal and the front bezel is the glossy plastic, where you’ll find the power button and the status LED indicators. The bottom does have four rubber feet as well.

On the back you’ll find a cooling fan along with two USB ports, power connection and the ethernet port.

Of course I had to open it up to see inside. The hard drives are two Seagate 1TB drives, model 7200.12. They’re on rails to make installation and replacement easier, they just clip into the housing.

The bottom is open and you can get a good look at the chipset:

Specifications:

BlackArmor NAS 220

Model: ST320005LSA10G-RK

Central networking that fits your business.
Network storage for up to 20 workstations. Designed with the small business in mind.
* USE IT TO:Keep your business data safe and available
* Support up to 20 workstations
* Automatically backup every networked computer at your workplace

Built to grow with your business.
Simple enough to let you focus on what matters.
* Automatic, continuous backup of connected workstations.
* Two reliable, user–replaceable Seagate hard drives.
* Two USB 2.0 ports for external drives, printers and UPS.

Security that’s built right in.
You have plenty of things to worry about. Your network shouldn’t be one of them.
* Automatic data mirroring with RAID 1 configuration.
* Hardware–based encryption keeps your files secure.
* Secure internet access to files with easy permissions and controls

All the details that matter.
The features you want. All in one place.
* Microsoft Active directory support.
* Multi–volume management.
* Event email notification.
* DLNA and iTunes media streaming.
* 3–year limited warranty

Price: $429.99

I’ve got a ton of screenshots for you highlighting all of the features of the NAS 220, rather than make this article longer than it is, small thumbnail pictures will be used, you can just click them to see the larger view.

The NAS 220 included BlackArmor Backup software, and 10 licenses for it so you can use it on your network. I took an in-depth look at the actual BlackArmor Backup software in my review of the BlackArmor PS 110 2.5” 500GB external hard drive, so I’m not going to repeat it all here. You can hop over HERE to read that review if you wish.

I did run into a problem running the backup software on my main computer, apparently if you’ve already used a BlackArmor product, and even if you’ve uninstalled it, it will still ask for the original product to be attached to the system. What I mean is that when I tried to use the BA Backup with the NAS 220 I couldn’t do it, it would just keep searching and searching for a BA device and never find one. So I thought maybe trying to plug in the PS110 and see what happens and then it popped up ready to go, so I’m guessing it leaves something in the registry attaching BA Backup to  the system and previous drive. I even tried uninstalling it and reinstalling the software and it was still the same result, I had to attach the other BlackArmor product before being able to use the NAS 220 for my backups.

To get it to work as it should I installed BlackArmor Discovery and BA Backup on my netbook, this worked perfectly as it should. You just run the Discovery software, enter ID/Password, and then hit backup and it starts rights up.

Ok, now to the actual NAS 220 device.. I could’ve covered the backup part later but it’s basically a separate part of the device. When you first hook up the BlackArmor NAS 220 you’ll need to set it up, follow a few prompts and the system will initialize and you’ll be at the main administration screen in a matter of minutes.

The main admin screen features two menus, one drop down at the top and another on the left side of the screen. The drop down menus are the same as you’ll find on the left side for each section.

Under System you’ve got several options to choose from, Status, General Setup, Email Setup, Admin Password, Firmware Update, Advanced, SMART Manager, UPS Manager, Backup Client License, and Shutdown/Reboot.

Under Network you’ve got LAN, Services, Workgroup, Dynamic DNS and Printer Manager. Under services you can enable or disable Web Access, FTP, UPNP and NFS. Workgroup is just the workgroup info, and Dynamic DNS is the standard settings for that.

There are several options under Storage, but it’s divided into two sections Disk manager, and Management. Under Disk manager you’ve got Volumes, Shares, USB Shares, Quota and Downloader. Then under management you’ve got Tasks, Setup, Backup manager and Recycle-Bin manager. Then the Backup manager is broken down further as well into User Backup, task Monitor, USB to NAS, NAS to USB, Schedule Backup, and Restore, and then there’s yet another menu under that for Backup Server with Server Settings under that menu. So there’s quite a bit going on here in this section…

Under the Media Menu you’ll only find a few choices for DMS and Itunes

Under the Access heading you’ll find info for Permissions, Downloader, Shares and Global Access.

To access Global Access you’ll need an account, which is free, Global Access is essentially outside access to the NAS 220 through the Seagate Severs. It allows you and anyone else to have access via a web browser.

Here it is once you log into the Global Access account:

Some might say that having to use the Seagate Global Access is not a good idea since you’re going through their servers, I think it’s good and bad really. Who knows what information they collect as to what you’re doing, but it also makes life a lot easier to enable outside access to the NAS 220. With other NAS boxes you’ve got to setup Dynamic DNS, and then configure your router and maybe even firewall, with Global Access you just create an account and you’re ready to go, very easy to do. I know with my Thecus box it was trial and error and it took me quite a while to get it configured for outside access with my old router, with the new one I have though life was much easier.

Clicking on the Terms and Conditions or Privacy Statement on the Global Access site only takes you back to the main Seagate Website to show show those Terms and Privacy Policies, so who knows what’s going on there.

You can of course enable access the normal way as well if you wish to, but Global Access is much easier I think.

Ok, I’ve covered a whole lot of stuff, but now down to actual performance. I’ve got the Seagate BlackArmor NAS 220 hooked up on my network through a gigabit switch, and I decided to put it up against the other Nas boxes I’ve got on hand, specifically the Lacie2big, Thecus N3200 Pro, Qnap TS-109 Pro II and the Synology DS209+ II. I used the Windows 7 ISO file for the test, it weighs in at 3.04GB in size. Here’s the time it took to transfer and the Transfer Speeds of reach NAS device:

The BlackArmor comes in the second fastest of the bunch, not bad.

The BlackAmor NAS 220 is a well made product, and the fan is quiet. I’ve got it sitting on my desk to the left of me, about two feet away and I can’t hear the fan, but I can hear the drives accessing every once in a while. I’m sure most people won’t have it sitting where I have it. I’ve got my Thecus N3200 under my desk actually, so I never hear the drives or the fan.

As far as protection is concerned it’s setup in a mirrored raid configuration so you’ve got your data backed up, but you’ve only got half of the space. I like raid for the protection it offers, but I much prefer Raid5 simply because it offers more space, at the moment I use three 500gig drives in Raid5 configuration in my Thecus box and that gives me 1tb of storage that’s protected as well via the third drive.

So to each his own really, but the Raid1 of the NAS 220 will offer good protection for your data at fast transfer speeds and additional features like the Backup and ability to be a media server as well.

Conclusion:

The Seagate NAS 220 is a wonderful system for the home or small business user, I’ve got it hooked up to my main system and my netbook right now so I’ve got backup abilities for them and easy off-site access as well to all of my files on the server. The NAS 220 is an excellent device overall, it will provide the user with ease of use and peace of mind through the BlackArmor Backup System, you can easily backup your data with just a couple clicks.

The Global Access that Seagate provides is a very easy to use system that makes accessing the NAS 220 while you’re away very easy, just sign up for a free account, input the info into your NAS account and you’re set for access from anywhere in the world. You can of course set up access the ‘old-fashioned’ way through dynamic DNS and configuring your router if you wish not to use the Global Access system.

I did run into the small problem with the BlackArmor Backup software, it’s likely other won’t have the problem I did, it’s more of an extra step than a problem to get it to work really.

The NAS 220 is an excellent, feature packed NAS box that most any user will appreciate.

Pros:
+Easy to use
+Well made, quiet
+Easy off-site access with free Global Access account
+Relatively fast
+Tons of features

Cons:
-Ran into problem with BlackArmor Backup not seeing the box

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

Seagate BlackArmor NAS 220 2TB Network Attached Storage is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog