Belkin Wireless G Router review

For Those Who Need The Space

Belkin’s new router is rather compact and is excellent for cramped tables. The router can also be hung up on a wall if required. The design is pretty and the build quality isn’t too bad either.

It comes with four ports for clients and one for an Internet connection — standard for a home router.

The user interface is boring, and way too bare for most people’s liking. The design doesn’t make it very easy to use either. It has all the features expected, including the ones for security. WEP, WPA and WPA2 are all supported, but the interface is painfully slow.

Routing, as expected, is possible too, and a unique feature is the list of application and games along with the list of ports used by them. This means you can just choose from a list and add to the port forwarding list. Filters can be set up to block access during specified hours or days. Support for DynDNS and DtDNS is also available, which allows the router to automatically update your WAN IP using free DNS services. This allows easy access to your computer or router from other locations. This feature is increasingly popular on routers these days though.

The Belkin Wireless G Router performs well with wired connections, but not so well wirelessly. A gigabyte of data took around two minutes four seconds to download across wires, but the same data took close to seven minutes thirty seconds over the air. Uploading files took a litle longer, but we didn’t have any latency issues. The router does not support 802.11n, for those who might want it. Updating of the firmware can be done using the web interface itself. With everything considered, we can’t highly recommend this product because of its price.

At Rs 2,699, it isn’t overly expensive, but for a little more you can get much better products with the same (or more) features and a much better interface. However, if space constraints are your biggest concern, and you want something really small to hang on the wall or keep on your table, the Belkin Wireless G Router might just be what you’re looking for.

Specifications
Four 10/100 Base-T LAN ports, One WAN port, IEEEE 802.11b, 802.11g

CoolerMaster Cosmos

CoolerMaster (CM) has always catered to enthusiasts with their Stacker series of cabinets, which represent the upper echelon of the world of desktop cases. The Cosmos (codename RC1000) deviates from the hardcore (and pricey) Stackers, with something that offers designer looks.

Brushed steel is rare but always a hit, and the Cosmos sports panel quality and a finish second to none—even better than CMs own RC830 series. It has two aluminium bars on the top and bottom. The front door is equally attractive—tinted fibre and you can change its orientation (left or right). We also noticed the two rubber covered holes in the back of the cabinet—perfect for the tubes of a liquid cooling kit.

There’s a fan on the bottom of the case handling air intake, while the two fans on the top and one rear fan are exhausts. CM states this creates some negative pressure—which explains why they have a VGA duct without a fan—it’s bang in the middle of this negative pressure region, and should divert air onto hot running graphics cards. Our 8800GTX did keep its cool even during long gaming sessions. Dust filters have been provided at appropriate areas—these are easy to remove and clean. The power supply mounts at the bottom—similar to Antec’s P180.

Removing the side panels is as easy as flicking a switch. There’s a lot of space to work with inside, and the first difference is the six hard drive trays complete with handles—hard drives will now sit sideways (vertically), which restricts airflow—particularly since they’re 3 drive rails in a row.

Everything from the side panels and power supply housing, to the HDD trays and the fan mounts have silent, rubber treatment to keep the dBs down.

The Cosmos is undeniably attractive. If you want class and have money to burn, it makes a good buy. It also makes sense as housing for an overclocked, water cooled setup. As far as air cooling goes, the better-ventilated Stacker RC830 will outperform (though it costs more). The only downside we can come up with is the choice of metal—steel—which makes the Cosmos a hefty proposition at 16.9 Kg. We’re told there’s an aluminium (and costlier) version coming soon.
Specifications
Dimensions—W x H x D—266 x 598 x 628 mm, weight—16.9 kgs, Form factor—Mid Tower, 3.5 inch bays—6, No of fans—2 x 120 mm

EVGA nForce 750i SLI FTW Motherboard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKxLpKKCNqw&feature=PlayList&p=7AB7404C800F19AE&playnext=1&index=6

Gigabyte EP45-DS3R Intel P45 Socket 775 Motherboard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KTKVYISxwA

Gigabyte EP45-DS3R Intel P45 Socket 775 Motherboard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KTKVYISxwA

MSI P6NGM

Based on NVIDIA’s new MCP 73 platform, the P6NGM is a mid-sized PCB. It supports all Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors; there are 2 PCI slots, 1 PCIe x16 slot for a discrete card, 2 memory slots, and 4 SATA ports. The P6NGM supports 1333 MHz FSB (officially) so all Penryn dual- and quad-cores should work fine. A 4-pin CPU power connector defies the new 8-pin standard. The onboard graphics is a GeForce 7050 solution—D-Sub and HDMI connects have been provided as well.

Specs:

NVIDIA MCP 73 chipset; 1 x16 PCIe, 2 x PCI, 1 x PCI X1 slots; 4 x SATA 2.0, 1 x IDE ports, 1 x D-Sub, 1 x HDMI connect

MSI P6NGM

Intel D201GLY2

Honey, I Shrunk The PC!

The D201GLY2 is the cheapest motherboard-processor combo solution to come out of the Intel stable. Built to the micro ATX form factor, the motherboard is mere 17x17 cm. This combo makes a lot of sense for people building Linux nodes or low power downloading machines.

The motherboard comes with an Intel Celeron 220 processor soldered, which means no speed upgrade. The core 2-architecture based processor runs at Jurassic 1.2 GHz on a 533 MHz system bus. Thankfully, the motherboard supports DDR II, but it has single memory slot—so no dual channel for you.

Though the motherboard comes from Intel, both the chipsets are from SiS, namely, SiS662. The graphics driver for Windows works well, but with Ubuntu 7.10 and Linux Mint 4.0, we ran into display problems and needed a patch driver for the GUI to work properly.
Other features include two SATA ports, one IDE slot, six USB ports, one serial port and one parallel port. A 10/100 Ethernet comes onboard and it has only one PCI slot.

Considering the hardware, we didn’t run our usual heavy duty tests, but instead relied on some old ones to do the number crunching. The processor is reasonably fast and can handle three applications simultaneously.

Running multimedia, we could see the system suffer a bit when switching between applications. Graphic engines on the motherboard are quite weak and don’t stand a chance when put to gaming. Reasonable resolution movies run fine, but high resolution ones occasionally stutter. The chipsets and processors are passively cooled and when put to task, get really hot. We suggest going for the actively cooled model (D201GLY2A).

Priced at Rs 3,300, the D201GLY2 offers excellent value and if you want to build a compact, low cost machine, the 201GLY2 is definitely the solution to go for. However, don’t expect to run games or any other heavy duty application. We suggest this for building a downloading machine, a print server or a file server.

Asus Maximus Formula

Crossfire Compadre

This one comes as an overclocker’s delight. The ASUS Maximus Formula is based on Intel’s new X38 chipset, sporting an ICH9R Southbridge. This is a limited edition, and features hand-picked components for extreme overclockability.

There is support for Penryn and 1600 MHz FSB, and dual x16 slots that officially support CrossFire. Incidentally, the PCI-E slots support the new PCI-E 2.0 standard too—more future-proofing for you. ASUS drops in their fusion block system as well—basically a heat-pipe solution that integrates a water block on the Northbridge chipset for proper cooling. The entire board has a very intricate heat-pipe system that remained cool no matter how hard we thrashed it.

Some nifty little additions will appeal to overclockers: the CMOS, Power and Reset buttons, and colour-coded LEDs on the PCB that will display the status (whether overvolted or not) of components including CPU, memory, Northbridge, and FSB. There’s also an inbuilt sensor that will warn you if GPU temperatures exceed a set threshold—a boon for users with the latest thermal monsters from NVIDIA and ATI. ASUS has also incorporated a 2-phase memory voltage termination for better voltage regulation even while overclocking—this should filter noise and RF interference for better performance under stress. The BIOS is full of overclocking options and tweaks—newbies and enthusiasts alike will feel
at home.

The Maximus Formula SE also has a more-than-sufficient number of SATA, and USB ports.

With a PC Mark 2005 score of 10,572, the Maximus Formula isn’t bottlenecking the QX6850 (3.0 GHz) in any way. With a graphics score of 18,299 in 3D Mark 2005 (using an 8800GTX), this board is definitely free of the early hiccups that plague most platforms. We did get our E6550 (2.33 GHz) to run along happily at 3.15 GHz (the FSB being overclocked from a default 333 MHz to 450 MHz)—a very good result.

Rs 16,800 may seem high, but it’s plenty of board for that much. ASUS includes a rich bundle too. Highly recommended for those looking at a high-end, stable platform in general, or CrossFire in particular.

Nvidia nForce 680i

The Hyper-Performance Platform!

NVIDIA’s holiday-season gift to Intel’s latest breed of processors, the 680i sports small (meaning better) chipset-cooling heatsinks which share a single heatpipe. The inclusion of a hex POST debugger is appreciated, as is the huge gap between the two x16 PCI-Express slots (no more issues with dual-slot coolers).

The 680i sports a new BIOS aimed at the hardcore enthusiast. Voltages from CPU to memory to even the Northbridge and Southbridge can be tweaked, ensuring minimal bottlenecks while overclocking.

LinkBoost—an NVIDIA trademark—automatically overclocks the individual PCI-Express lanes when you SLI with any of the 8 series cards or 7900GTX cards.

There’s a couple of Gigabit LAN ports sporting something called DualNet technology. These ports can actually be clubbed together for twice the theoretical throughput, while the TCP/IP acceleration engine aboard each LAN controller reduces CPU utilisation.

nTune has also been reworked, and now allows changing most BIOS options from Windows itself. This can be a huge advantage for overclockers who are in an all-fired hurry, though the hardcore will still want to fine-tune the neatly laid-out BIOS.

We managed to get our QX 6700 (Core 2 Quad, 2.66 GHz default) to 3.45 GHz at a multiplier of 13 (default 10), without any tweaking… simply awesome! Super Pi 1M calculations took 14 seconds at this speed, and 18 seconds at stock.

For the enthusiast who wants performance at stock and stability under overclocking, the 680i makes for a very a potent package. It’s future-proof, and a rock-solid overclocker as well. If you want the best platform for your new Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad processor, you can’t go wrong here.

Specifications
Intel Socket 775; 1333 MHz FSB; 2x16 SLi; third PCIe Graphics Expansion Slot; supports DDR2 800 MHz (SLI-Ready memory with EPP: 1200 MHz); 46 PCIe lanes and 9 links; 6xSATA II; 2xPATA; RAID: 0,1,0+1,5; Dual Gigabit Ethernet; 10xUSB 2.0; 5xPCI; HAD (Azalia) audio

Dell XPS 420

The Good 420
The XPS 420 is the top of the line Dell desktop model for the Indian market. Cramped with features, the XPS 420 is a multimedia powerhouse aimed at gamers, enthusiasts, etc

This new model features a new completely revised chassis. Finished in shiny black plastic, the front panel is a smudge magnet and attracts much dust as well. The side panels finished in brushed aluminium with a big XPS logo scream for attention. One unique thing about the XPS 420 is the presence of small LCD screen on the top (Windows Sideshow) an extension of Vista’s Sidebar. This small LCD can be used for showing small tidbits of information via the sidebar gadgets. New gadgets can be downloaded from Microsoft’s Web site.

The base configuration consists of Intel Quad core Q6600, 2 GB of DDR II 667 MHz, 250 GB hard drive and 8600 GTS graphics card. These components are powerful enough to ensure a high-end rig experience, though we think the 8600 GTS is aging and expect dell to replace it soon with the newer 9600GT card.

The 20-inch LCD monitor comes bundled with the system is breathtaking. The screen is glossy and reproduces crisp images. Movies are fun on this monitor, so is editing photographs and the sheer space on offer will allow you to open two word pages side by side. The LCD also has an embedded 2 MP Web camera, which can be used for chatting, taking photographs and capturing video. The capture quality is good and colours are faithfully reproduced.

There is also an MPEG 2 transcoder with front mounted AV ports, which can be used for importing video from camcorders and encoding it to DivX. The accompanying software, however, isn’t user friendly and requires lot of patience to learn. Additionally, there is the 19-in-one memory card reader with Bluetooth 2.0 module, wireless (Bluetooth) keyboard and mouse and a Hauppauge TV tuner card with remote. Miscellaneous items include micro fibre cloth for wiping the LCD, soft and hard mouse pads and a folder with the necessary manual and CDs all perfectly packed in the box.

The cabinet can be opened without any tools. All it requires is pulling a single latch to release the side panel. On the inside, everything is neatly packed. Since Dell has opted for the BTX form factor, the system requires just one fan to cool itself. The cables and wiring are tied down and routed optimally without affecting the air flow. The single 120-mm fan is placed right after the huge CPU cooler and throws out hot air from the front of the cabinet. Throughout our testing process the system remained cool and quiet. Though the cabinet is tall and the internals are neatly organised, there isn’t much space for future upgrade; just two hard drive slots that’s what you get here.

On the software front, Dell has bundled in Adobe’s Elements Studio package consisting of the Lite version of Photoshop Elements, Premier Elements and SoundBooth CS3. The typical Dell in-house software is present and they provide complete control over every aspect of this beautiful machine.

The XPS 420 performs admirably in all aspects, thanks largely to the powerful hardware that’s under the hood. The Q6600 simply chewed through the test we put it through and has enough grunt to transcode home videos on the fly. Though the 8600 GTS ran through the entire graphics test delivering playable frame rate, we think it’s best to upgrade to a higher card. Dell offers 8800GT in lieu of the 8600GTS and if your pocket permits you should upgrade for better gaming experience. Overall, the system performance is more than satisfactory, despite Vista running on the system, it was responsive with hardly any lag.

Priced at Rs 69,169, we feel the XPS 420 is overpriced considering the weak graphics subsystem. However, it is very difficult to recreate the overall look and feel that the XPS 420 has—the beautiful case, neatly packed interiors, stupendous hardware and the tiny LCD screen on the cabinet! If you have money to blow and appreciate style, then the XPS 420 fits the bill.

Specifications
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, 2 GB DDRII, 250 GB, Media Xcelerator, 8600 GTS, 20-inch LCD screen with 2 MP Web cam and Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

Price: 69,169

Acer Aspire One(Aspire1)

Is This The One?

Acer is yet another laptop manufacturer fired up with the Netbook craze. Acer calls their version the Aspire One. Like the MSI Wind and the higher-end ASUS EeePC, this one too runs on the all new power saving Intel Atom processor — the 1.6 GHz N270.

The Aspire One we received had a 120 GB hard drive, a three cell battery and a 9-inch screen. In terms of size, it is the smallest of all the Netbooks we’ve seen, but not by a lot. The weight too is similar to the three cell versions of the other laptops.

In terms of looks, it surpases all the other netbooks. The body has a glossy finish and bits and pieces of contrasting colours are used on tips of the hinges. Sporting a 1024 x 600 resolution, the One has a wider aspect ratio than the typical wide-screen desktop. The glossy finish on the screen means that a lot is reflected, but it also makes images look a little sharper.

The base slants into the front of the laptop, which makes it consume less space. The keyboard has no inclination whatsoever, and this makes resting the hands on the edge very difficult.

One of the issues with the touchpad is the buttons for the mouse clicks. Both of them are situated vertically on either side of the touchpad which makes accessing it a little awkward. Fingers get crossed while trying to access the button on the other end while using one finger to slide around the touchpad. The touchpad is also considerably smaller than the ones found on the other netbooks. Acer had to do this to make the laptop as compact as possible. Although there is a thick bezel surrounding the screen, there isn’t any space spared around the keyboard. The keyboard feels alright, and the keys are sturdy. The keys do seem a little smaller than the 10-inch EeePC and MSI Wind. The Control key is on the extreme left of the keyboard unlike the MSI Wind where the Function key is the last key in that row.

Acer could have tried to squeeze the bezel around the screen a little more, but that would mean making the keyboard even more cramped and tiny than it already is.

One cannot help but feel that with such a large bezel, Acer might have put in a 10-inch screen instead; though this would raise costs. The speakers are weak, and sound extremely flat. The sound is a lot better once you connect headphones to it.

The laptop doesn’t have enough vents on the sides to throw out hot air, which means it runs warm most of the time. Expansion is taken care of by the three USB ports and two separate SD card readers on the laptop.

The Aspire One comes with a soft inner lined carry pouch and a very small power adaptor, which doesn’t get very hot. ASUS’s eRecovery feature comes installed which ensures you don’t lose any drivers or software.

The Acer Aspire One comes in many flavours and the Linux version is easily the cheapest of all the Netbooks. At Rs 20,999, the one we reviewed — the 9-inch one with a 3-cell battery and a 120 GB hard drive makes excellent sense. Overall, this is an impressively put together Netbook, and is well worth the price tag.

Specifications
Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB HDD, 8.9-inch LCD (1024 x 600), 10/100 LAN, 802.11b/g WLAN, 3-cell battery, Dimensions: 24.9 x 17 x 29 cm

Price: 20,999(21,000)

Courtesy:Digit

ASUS Eee PC 1000H

Not Just Another Netbook

The Eee PC 1000H impresses with its superior performance and its gorgeous looks altogether making it all the more perfect companion for the road warrior. We’ve noticed a trend from ASUS with the Eee PC — they improve on the older versions of this mini laptop, but keep the older ones around.

The latest, and the largest of these netbooks is the Eee PC 1000H, which shares many of the same features of its predecessor the Eee PC 901 including a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, 1GB of RAM and the same gorgeous drop dead looks. However, it has some differences like a larger 10-inch screen, more spacious keyboard, 160 GB hard disc drive and no more Linux — just plain old Windows XP; our favourite.

The Eee PC 1000H comes in different colours like Red, Green, Pearl White, Fine Ebony, and all have the same glossy lid that’s a fingerprint magnet. It’s a good thing ASUS includes a complimentary cleaning cloth, because it’s bound to be used often.

We got the Fine Ebony version for review, the glossy black lid has the new Eee PC logo in cursive on top. Its improved silver hinges give it a fashionable look.

The display, unlike the older 7-inch Eee PC, is a bigger 10 inches, with a native resolution of 1024 x 600. The display is quite bright and vibrant. The matte display screen looks good at various viewing angles. In comparison to the Acer One, the Eee PC’s display seemed crisp and vivid, and it’s something movie fanatics would love. The display controller is an onboard Intel GMA x3100, so don’t get your hopes up about playing games or doing 3D intensive work.

The Glossy black bezel comprises of an inbuilt 1.3 megapixel webcam that is good for video conferencing, and the onboard Digital array microphones. The onboard speakers are Dolby Sound Room Certified, and despite being positioned underneath the laptop, they reproduce clear (but not powerful) sound. They’re still good enough to cover a small room.

The Eee PC 1000H gets a bigger and better keyboard than its ancestors, the keyboard is about 92 per cent of the original Eee, will pose no problems for speedy typists and is comfortable to use.

The touchpad, however, is a bit of disappointment. Unlike the keyboard, it isn’t comfortable to use, and the two click buttons are very hard on the fingers. The touchpad does support multi-touch, and the iPeople amongst you are sure to love it.

The heart of this Netbook is an Intel Atom N270 processor, running at 1.6 GHz. This processor, as you probably know, is designed for low-end computing, but it will not disappoint those looking to mainly work online and on some office documents. Overall, the Eee PC 1000H can handle most basic computing tasks easily with some mid-range tasks to boot.

The Eee PC 1000H comes with 1GB of RAM, for the Windows version and 2 GB for the Linux version — which is strange, because most Windows users would prefer 2 GB of RAM. The disc drive is the biggest plus here — a whopping 160 GB. Although the drive is a slower 5400 rpm model, we were quite happy to not be running Windows Vista.

The Eee PC 1000H comes with a six cell battery. The battery lasted for 3hrs and 23 minutes under test conditions. The large battery and the power-saving Atom processor are to be thanked for the impressive battery life.

Despite the bigger screen and bigger battery, ASUS has tried to keep the weight as low as possible. At 1.45 kg, this Netbook shouldn’t be hard to lug around. Those looking for an extremely portable Netbook should definitely pay close attention to this latest model of the Eee PC. Now that the HDD is bigger, as is the screen, there’s not much else once could ask for in a Netbook. However, you do have to consider the price, which is fast approaching the realm of full-fledged, entry level or mid-range notebooks. You may want to keep in mind that the Eee PC comes without an internal optical drive, as this might
change your buying decisions.

Specifications
Intel Atom processor N270, 1GB Ram, 160 GB HDD, 10-inch display, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LAN, Windows XP.

Courtesy:Digit

HP DV1133tx Entertainment Notebook

Big on looks

The new HP DV4 1133tx sports the same kind of satin finish that makes the DV 4 series standout wherever you happen to come across one. Dressed brilliantly in a bronze coloured imprint with silver outlines, this notebook looks good.

The notebook has a vibrant 14.1-inch screen with a native resolution of 1280x800 pixels. The screen is a special anti-glare glossy panel meant for easy working at various light conditions, but due to low brightness the display disappoints and is not at all helpful in working under bright light conditions. This notebook also has an integrated 1.3MP webcam along with array microphones on the glossy bezel.

Keyboard and touchpad have been given the same bronze colour to compliment the looks of the laptop. The keyboard is comfortable to work on and also the keys are big and spaced out well. Touchpad is very responsive but is small as compared to other notebooks and lacks a horizontal scroll.

The notebook has 3GB RAM for smooth Vista operation, upgradable up to 8GB, but this is surely an over kill for this laptop. It’s SATA HDD that showed a Drive Index (Max Data transfer rate achieved) of 62 MB/s while having a random access time of 17ms. So you will not have to wait for applications to load or commands to process.

As an entertainment PC, this notebook comes loaded with an analog TV tuner, Windows media centre, HDMI out and Dual remote controls. While playing HD content, videos are colourful and vibrant and there is no problem of freezing. Its audio is handled by Stereo Altec Lansing speakers that are big on sound output but are not very good when it comes to bass output.

This notebook performed well on most of our benchmarks and returned good scores. It scored 4268 marks in PCMark 05 which means that this laptop although not very good in terms of overall performance, but will be able to handle most present day applications like Ms office and Photoshop easily. 3D Mark05 returned a score of 3089 which is a low for most 3D intensive applications and for playing newer games.

A battery backup of 1 hour and 55 minutes, under standard test conditions, is good enough for a notebook with a 14.1-inch display but seriously speaking this is not enough for the road warrior, you might consider buying a 9 cell battery pack if you plan to use this notebook on the move.

To sum it up, HP DV4 1133TX is a notebook with good looks but with mediocre performance meant for people who want all-in-one solution for computing, entertainment and casual gaming.

Specs: Intel C2D T5800 2GHz, 3GB DDR2 667MHz, 320 GB HDD, Windows Vista Home Premium, 14.1in AG panel display 1280 x 800 resolution, Inbuilt analog TV tuner, wireless remote controls, Nvidia 9200M GS 512MB graphics card

Price: Rs. 47,990

Courtesy:Digit