Products: Reviews

The ASUS Transformer Tab TF300 is an Android tablet that combines a keyboard dock accessory to act like a real notebook.

The $US129 (as of May 9, 2012) HP Photosmart 5520 e-All-in-One color inkjet multifunction (copy/print/scan) is a decidedly welcome replacement for the HP Photosmart 5510 e-All-in-One--a handsome but disappointing product that lacked manual duplexing and layout support. The Photosmart 5520 makes amends big-time, offering an automatic duplexer as well as both booklet and multipage printing. In other aspects, the units are virtually identical.

Sony's Tablet P offers something different in the tablet market, opting for a design with dual-screens that fold onto each other when closed.

ARN had the opportunity for a hands-on experience with the new E1500 wireless-N router with SpeedBoost.

The aluminium-finished HP ProBook 5330m looks a lot more expensive than it actually is. It's a $999, 13.3in laptop with a full-voltage Second Generation Intel Core i3 CPU, 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive located in its 17mm thin chassis. It's designed for business users who want something reasonably small and stylish that can be easily transported, and we think it's a great proposition considering its low price.

Every once in a very long while, I get to review a product that strikes me as a stepping stone toward the future. Microsoft Lync 2010 combines instant messaging, VoIP calling, live meetings, and videoconferencing, but it's more than the sum of these parts. Although Lync integrates with almost any PBX, it puts the PC at the center of communications so effectively that it could send your current phone system packing.

Dell's Streak 7 tablet runs on Google's Android 2.2, and is powered by Nvidia's Tegra 2 dual-core processor. The tablet will be upgradeable to Google's Android 3.0 OS, code-named Honeycomb, soon after its launch, said Michael Tatelman, vice president at Dell, speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

I continue to be very impressed with Synology's small business storage products, and the new DS1010+ is no exception. In fact, it elevates my opinion even more. This feature-packed, speedy, and remarkably affordable five-bay storage array supports just about every file sharing protocol available, can scale up to 20TB of raw storage, can be expanded on the fly, and has a great GUI. It can be purchased for $1,750 with 5TB of raw storage, and it can push 100MBps streaming writes and 110MBps streaming reads. Sure, it's not an enterprise-class device, but look at the price. What's not to love?

As you probably already know by now, Apple is holding a product event in later this month. The big question on everyone's mind: Are tablets on the table?

The capacity of external USB hard drives is going up all the time. Unfortunately, most only offer a USB 2.0 connection, which limits how quickly you can get your data onto or off the drive.

January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is a great place to see new gadgets but they're not always available right away. A couple of the coolest gadgets from this year's CES, Sony's OLED-based Walkman and Samsung's slim Blu-ray Disk player, are now on their way with availability from April.

The Kingston SSDNow M series SNM125-S2/80GB solid state drive provides excellent performance for a 2.5in hard drive, but the very high cost and low 80GB capacity make it a very expensive storage option.

Western Digital has managed to fit 2TB of storage in a single hard drive. The Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB (WD20EADS) has a competitive cost per gigabyte of storage, although there are faster hard drives available.

With a bright 10.1in screen, big keys and an ExpressCard/54 slot, the HP Mini 2140 is easy to use and has more functions and capabilities than most netbooks on the market. It's marketed as a netbook for business users, but it doesn't have an unreasonable price tag. In fact, if you don't mind spending close to $1100 for a netbook, this ultraportable laptop is definitely one you need to consider — even if you're not a business user.

The Logitech ClearChat Premium is a PC gaming and VoIP headset that does everything it is designed for — it’s acceptable for listening to MP3s, it recreates game audio well, and the microphone is good enough for chatting.

There's no doubt the Windows XP-based MSI Wind U120 netbook looks good. Its white lid and palm-rest contrast beautifully with the glossy black bezel of the screen and the matte black base; but the Wind U120 offers more than just good looks. You get plenty of useful features, good battery life, and an ultraportable notebook that's easy to use.

The massive lens barrel makes the Nikon CoolPix L100 look like an intimidating, advanced digital camera, but the opposite is a lot closer to the truth. It’s an easy-to-use point-and-shoot digital camera with a big zoom lens that’s suitable for almost any situation.

The Olympus Mju Tough 6000 digital camera is the little brother to the Olympus Mju Tough 8000, but it doesn't take a step back in the photographic stakes. It’s a compact, ruggedised and automatic camera that’s useful for snorkelling, bushwalking, skiing and countless other outdoor activities.

Polycom QDX 6000