Computer Hardware
Here you will find information on computer hardware components and peripherals. From monitors to printers to trackballs, this section provides everything you need to know about computer hardware.
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For many of us, computers are an indispensable part of our daily lives. But computers are amazingly complex, and require some basic care to perform optimally. While no single article can even begin to cover all of the issues associated with personal computers, there are some basic—and important—things to remember to get you started, and to help keep your computer healthy and safe.
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Solid State Disk drives are actually closer related to traditional digital camera memory cards and computer memory then rotational hard drives. In solid state disk drives there are no moving parts so most of the traditional issues with rotation hard drives have been eliminated by utilizing superior technology.
Meridian Audio has developed the Meridian 810 reference video system as the company's next step toward improving the home viewing experience.
The following contains computer information you should know about ink photo printers and dye-sub models. Read on if you are interested in purchasing these inexpensive printerst for yourself or for a loved one.
You get what you pay for with $200 Linux Desktop Systems. The following Computer Hardware information contains all the information you need to know about these two machines and where to find them.
If donation is not the thing for you, there are companies out there that will take apart old electronic equipment such as computers or printers and reuse the parts that are recyclable. In general if you contact your local waste management program the staff can tell you which individuals or business in your community will take computers off your hands in order to recycle them. Read on to learn about computer recycling centers near you.
Take a look back at the vintage laptops that inspired the creation of the notebooks we have today. Bill Gates helped produce one of the models you will be checking out now. Learn more about these dinosaurs: Epson HX-20 Portable Computer, Osborne 1, TRS-80 model 100, Compaq's Portable 386, GRiD 2260 Convertible, DEC HiNote Ultra, Apple's PowerBook 520, Toshiba's Portege T3400, Apple's iBook, WidowPC's Sting 917X2
There's something I have to say at the outset of this review: From the time Apple Inc. announced the first 17-in. PowerBook G4 models five years ago, I've always been a little prejudiced against them.
With its four hard drive bays, two optical drive bays and four PCI Express 2.0 card slots, the Mac Pro is Apple's most configurable Mac, and the company offers a host of different upgrades and options. Macworld Lab tested a couple of different Mac Pro configure-to-order (CTO) systems and the results include our first Speedmark 5 score to top 400.
Basic 22-inch wide-screen LCDs are a steal for under $300, and decked-out ones are tempting, too, at less than $400.
Here's the stuff you'd have to pry from the hands of the PC World staff.
30-Inch Wide Screen Moniters are a great investment if you work with highly detailed documents or graphics application plus they make it easy on the eyes which is a great health benefit if you are infront of a computer all day. Most of these LCD 30-Inch Wide-Screen Monitors come with a built-in analog TV tuner that you can use for entertainment as well like the 37-inch NEC's MultiSync 3735WXM LCD.
Gartner predicts higher reliability could drive adoption of solid state disks. Sandisk has launched its new flash-based 32GB, 2.5-inch hard drive aimed as a replacement for traditional hard disks in laptops.
Some folks will tell you that a graphics card should be totally silent - the phrase 'seen and not heard' springs to mind. However, there's a certain amount of comfort in hearing a PC's fans spinning away as it takes on an intense task. A little noise? Sure, it's a good thing; it lets you know things are healthy. But there are limits.
We take an in depth look at Futuremark's flashy new graphics benchmark, 3DMark Vantage, test by test, and also get our first test result.
The 3M MPro110 is the smallest projector we've ever seen. It really does fit in your pocket, but is it practical to use, asks Jonathan Bray?
Intel will bring 45nm to the enterprise first, but applications will need to be multi-threaded to take full advantage of the architecture. Mary Branscombe gives us the lowdown on 45nm.
So you've probably heard about GPGPU and have a vague idea about what it does. But where did it come from and how does it really work? Here are five things you might not have realised about GPGPU technology.
It's unlikely you spend much time pondering the number of bits a processor can handle. However, recent developments could make it an issue affecting everyone. The 64-bit question has implications for all of computing, but will the impact be as great as 32-bit? Of course, 64-bit processors are nothing new - they've been around in RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) servers and workstations for years, and more recently in games consoles.
Lexmark's extremely budget-priced Z1300 inkjet printer claims the ninth spot on our latest chart.
The low-cost T-6815 and the convertible E-295C, formerly under the Gateway brand and now sold by MPC, enter our all-purpose laptops chart.
The system inside the Black Pearl II failed the stress test after 36 minutes, with the GPU about to roast at 103ûC. While the CPU was cooler at 89ûC, its temperature was still rising at a fast rate when the PC crashed.
If you're planning on air-cooling your PC, the BlackPearl WCR Edition has only two fans as standard - a 120mm intake fan at the front and a 120mm intake at the rear.
Intels X38/X48 chipsets support XMP technology and we put it to the test with A-DATA's latest Vitesta DDR3 memory. Read on to see how it stood up to the testing and if it's worth checking out yourself.
Ability's Ink Saver attempts to save you ink and money without reducing the quality of your prints. It sits between your computer and printer, examines print jobs and optimises them to use less ink, rather than reducing the output resolution, which is how draft modes work.
The box of Abit's AB9 is illustrated with a sleek train that looks like Japan's famously fast and technically impressive Shinkansen bullet train.
The AW9D-MAX is based on the Intel 975X chipset, so it supports CrossFire, but not SLI. There are two high-speed PCI-E slots and two 1x PCI-E slots, but only one PCI slot.
Abit has made several Fatal1ty motherboards, all of which have proved to be excellent overclockers, if a little on the pricey side. Its latest effort is the Fatal1ty AN9 32X, which is based on the high-end nForce 590 SLI chipset.
Abit returns with a more value positioned motherboard sporting NVIDIAs IGP based GeForce 7100/630i chipset. Could this be the motherboard that you've been waiting for?
As a top-tier P35 motherboard, the IP35 Pro has six RAID-capable S-ATA II ports, two RAID-capable eSATA II ports plus 12 USB 2 ports and a pair of FireWire ports.
Ironically, the IP35-E proved to be a slightly better overclocker than the IP35 Pro, and was able to run with a maximum stable FSB of 480MHz.
The nForce4 SLI Intel Edition chipset didn't come close to matching the commercial success of its cousin, nForce4 SLI for AMD64 CPUs. Part of the reason for this is that enthusiasts tend to prefer Athlon 64 over Pentium 4, but it didn't help that Nvidia's chipset for Intel CPUs was a lacklustre performer and poor overclocker.
After many years of discussion and debate, the 802.11n standard still awaits final approval. What is going on and why is ratification taking so long? At the time of writing, retailers and e-tailers are chock-full of wireless networking equipment, much of it boasting some claim to 802.11n standard performance.
Even if you have a quad-core CPU and GeForce 8800 GTX, without a fast, high-capacity hard disk you'll still be sitting around waiting for apps and games to load. To solve your storage problems, here's our definitive performance test of the latest drives.
Scythe HSFs tend to be either extremely loud, or passively cooled and therefore silent, so we were keen to see on which side of the noise divide its case fans fall.
From PCs to audio players, we rigorously test and analyze products independently to provide you with trustworthy information to use when you're planning a purchase.
If you’re looking for speed on a quality desktop then the ABS Ultimate X9 is the right gaming PC for you. Its overclocking added 3.55 GHz to the Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor with a superior cooling system. A pricy but worthy investment it will keep gamers extatic.
ACARD isn't the most emotive brand name, but the Taiwanese company makes a wide range of storage products, from RAID controllers to CD duplicators, and now SSDs.
If all you need is a notepad that will keep your scrawls for posterity, the DigiMemo is a slightly flawed but effective option, and well worth a look if your notes keep emerging illegible from the washing machine.
We've had mixed experiences of Acer monitors in the past, and the AL1751 continues this trend, to a degree. While there are aspects of the physical design we don't like - notably the external power brick - there's an awful lot here to appreciate.
Acer's AL1971AS TFT monitor measures 19 inches from corner to corner, but it's not the prettiest display we've ever clapped eyes upon. Its silver bezel and black base look neat enough, but the overall feel is on the plasticky side.
This monitor is excellent quality, but there's no digital input. If you can do without it, the AL2416W is a fair bit cheaper than the competition.
The Acer AL2423Wdr is a bargain that offers good text and graphics at a great price. This wide-screen 24-inch monitor comes with the Portrait Displays's PivotPro software installed; this software enables you to rotate your operating system's desktop to match the screen's orientation making the monitor’s display panel more attractive.
Best for viewing office documents, this 26-inch (25.5-inch viewable area) LCD's weak graphics performance defeats its low price.
Besides, the AL2623W is part of Acer's office line of monitors, and it's for everyday work that you'll notice the greatest advantage it offers. It's incredibly liberating to have four windows open at once and, although it's nothing a 24in model can't do, the extra Desktop real estate makes everything that much clearer.
The Altos EasyStore 2TB is the first network-attached storage (NAS) device we've seen from Acer. It immediately stood out from other devices we've seen, due to its huge capacity of 2TB.
Most of the notebooks we've reviewed recently have dual-core processors, usually from Intel. However, Acer's affordable Aspire 5101AWLMi uses a single-core AMD processor.
Dell was the first to offer a 3G-ready notebook with its Latitude D620 but, along with Fujitsu Siemens, Acer is among the first to ship a notebook with 3G integrated as standard.
The Intel Core Duo T2300 processor has a clock speed of 1.66GHz, around the same as that of the Pentium M 730. The T2300 has two cores running at this speed, which improves performance when running multiple or multi-threaded applications. The frontside bus has risen from 533MHz to 667MHz, increasing the speed of memory access.
Since the official unveiling of Intel's new Centrino Pro platform last month, Santa Rosa press releases have dominated PC Pro's inbox. But while many manufacturers have simply shoved one of the new CPU models into an existing chassis, others have tried to be a little more innovative.
Moderately powerful laptop has dedicated nVidia graphics, HDMI output, and an HD DVD reader.
There's a good selection of ports around the edges of the 7720G. Four USB2 ports, FireWire and a memory card reader are provided. There are DVI and VGA outputs as well as a TV output.
This big, beautiful consumer laptop's 18.4-inch screen could be brighter, but speed and other features make up for that.
As the 8920G is so wide, there's plenty of room for a keyboard and number pad, while the touch pad itself is generously proportioned and has a separate scroll area. To the right of the keyboard are handy buttons for switching Bluetooth and WiFi on or off and launching a web browser or email client.
A good purchase if you’re on a budget, the Acer Aspire 9300-5005 is an affordable replacement notebook that comes with an integrated webcam and a long lasting battery life. This laptop conveniently toggles Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless activity on and off although you have to provide the Bluetooth ExpressCard yourself.
In the laptop market, there aren't many examples of bigger being better. But even a cursory glance at some of the Aspire 9410's most obvious charms - the 17in glossy TFT, large hard disk and DVD-RAM drive - is enough to warrant a closer look.
Acer has included a hybrid TV tuner like the one on the 5514. We love the Acer Arcade software, as it's based on CyberLink's PowerCinema 4 application. This lets you play back all your media files from one easy-to-use, attractive interface.
Acer's Aspire 9802WKMi is a desktop replacement that, judging by its epic proportions, could probably replace your entire desk. Its size is due to the 20.1" LCD, which is the biggest we've ever seen on a notebook.
A huge, 20.1-inch display and solid multimedia features help this hefty desktop replacement stand out.
The Acer Aspire AS9802WKMi takes the recent trend for desktop-replacement notebooks to an extreme, with its wide-aspect TFT measuring 20.1in diagonally, and running at 1,680 x 1,050. The screen is nearly an inch thick, and the whole machine weighs a colossal 7.8kg - about three times that of an average notebook.
The Predator is an awesome-looking PC, and marks a radical departure from Acer's usual desktop PC range. Clearly aimed at gamers, the Predator-meets-Transformers styling should appeal to anyone wanting a PC that's special on the outside as well as the inside.
First impressions are good. For a start, the iDea 500 is about the size of a DVD player, and at only 71mm high it's also perfectly proportioned to fit into a standard hi-fi rack. All of the heat is dissipated through the sides, which means you needn't worry about stacking other AV devices on top of it either.
Acer's Aspire iDea 510 is the first Media Center PC we've seen from the company in a while. We were impressed by its slim, attractive case, which isn't much bigger than a DVD player. It's quiet, too, even during intensive tasks such as video encoding, so it won't be distracting when you're trying to watch TV or a movie.
Acer's Aspire One bucks the trend for netbooks to be getting bigger and pricier, with a budget offering that still manages high levels of quality.
Netbooks are like “laptop lites,” packing less power but more punch at retail, as budget-conscious consumers open up their wallets more willingly for the modestly priced computers.
The following contains computer hardware information you should know about the Acer Aspire One Mini-Notebook.. Read this preview if you are interested in purchasing an Acer Aspire One Mini-Notebook to enjoy on your own or to share with a loved one.
With its bargain-basement price, the Aspire One looks like a steal--until you realize you need the six-cell battery.
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The Acer-branded motherboard uses the Nvidia nForce 780i chipset, while a Delta Electronics 750W PSU dishes out power, providing a fairly standard four 12V rails rated at 18A each. Storage is provided in the form of two 640GB Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS hard disks, one of which is partitioned to provide a 250GB storage drive, with the rest dedicated to the OS.
Previous Acer cameras have delivered high specifications at aggressively low prices, but the CU-6530 sees the company taking a different tack.
Acer's Ferrari 1000 ultra-portable notebook is designed to ape the stylish look of the cars. The lid is decorated with carbon fibre, with the famous Prancing Horse badge in the middle. It certainly looks striking, though whether it's tasteful is down to personal choice.
The 250GB hard disk is spacious and there's also a slot-loading DVD drive, a media card reader, Bluetooth 2.0, three USB2 ports, FireWire and a handy fingerprint reader.
This racing-themed laptop has modern features and design tweaks that improve on previous models.
You can barely throw a remote control in PC Pro's labs without hitting a Media Center PC these days, but to take full advantage you'll need a TFT that both looks the part and supports widescreen TV. Finished in glossy black and Ferrari red, Acer's Ferrari F-20 will certainly lend your living room a certain something.
There's no mistaking that Acer's G7700 Predator is a PC aimed at hardcore gamers. Gaming PCs tend to have heavily stylised cases and the most powerful components for playing the latest, most demanding games, and they also tend to be expensive.
There are big digital projectors, for filling large auditoriums, pocket projectors for camera phone users who want to show off in pubs, and there's Acer's K10. It's a glossy black unit, about the size of a Mac mini, with a 100-lumen output, and has been designed for small presentations. The neat thing about the K10 is that it doesn't use a conventional lamp.
There are times when photos, words and a grand list of specifications won't do a product justice. Read on and learn more.
The n311 has a 480x640 pixel screen, meaning it has four times the resolution of its predecessor. This makes text and graphics sharper on the screen, and also leaves more room for Pocket Internet Explorer to display web pages properly.
This wide-screen LCD is too expensive for a no-frills model with no frills with undistinguished performance.
While the PH730 is fairly large for a home projector, the clean lines and stylish case make this a decent-looking device. The feet are stylish and sensibly designed for ease of use. To learn more about Acer PH730, read below.
Acer's PH730 DLP home cinema projector aims to give you the thrills and spills of the cinema from the comfort of your living room. Supporting a native resolution of 1,280x768, it's capable of taking 720p HD content; it will accept a 1,080i input, too, downscaling the picture to fit.
The Acer TravelMate 3002WTCi is an ultra portable laptop that is fully user upgradeable. It has an impressive battery life that comes standard with not just one but two swappable, rear-mounted batteries, one of which is a high-capacity power pack. This notebook comes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capable and has 3 different USB ports to play with.
If any evidence was needed of the Core Duo's flexibility, the 3012WTMi delivers: in stark contrast to the Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi, a 3kg machine that had enough grunt in both everyday applications and 3D games to equal desktop PCs, this TravelMate is all about working on the move.
The TravelMate 3022WTMi is Acer's first white notebook and, like the others on test here, is designed entirely with the mobile professional in mind.
The Acer TravelMate isn't perfect - particularly when it comes to bulk and battery life, but it does undercut the A-Listed Samsung Q70 by £200, plus it packs in more power and a larger screen. If this is more important to you than longevity away from the mains, it's well worth a look.
Acer has given the veteran TravelMate chassis a spruce up for its first dual-core notebook. The lid has a carbon-fibre finish to it, and the curved keyboard and gunmetal grey colouring lend it a distinctive look.
The 8215WLMi is the first notebook we've seen from Acer to use the mobile version of the Core 2 Duo, bringing desktop-class performance to the venerable TravelMate 8000 range. The chassis is largely unchanged, although that's no bad thing - it offers plenty of design features whether you're sat at a desk or on the move.
Acer has given this TravelMate a powerful 3D graphics processor, which has hardware acceleration for HD video playback. It ran our Doom 3 test at a playable frame rate and will handle the latest games, though not at their highest detail levels.
Basic system boasts more expansion room than most value PCs, but isn't as fully loaded as competing models that cost less.
Tiny but powerful, this PC is perfect for small workspaces and kiosks.
The connection speeds offered by Firewire and USB 2.0 have opened up new possibilities in storage technologies, especially for external and portable solutions. Being able to add new drive space without opening the computer, and move it to another machine rapidly, are advantages that people clearly appreciate.
We love digital radio - you can flick quickly between channels and there's none of that annoying hiss and crackle. But if you think DAB is good, take a look at this - it's the first Wi-Fi radio we've ever seen and it can play thousands of radio stations from around the world.
If you're like many PC users today, you'll find that the excessive noise and vibrations coming from your system are just too much. If you want to reduce the amount of noise your computer makes, then the AcoustiPak Deluxe Sound Dampening Material is the right product for you.
True Image is a hard disk imaging program and the only commercial competitor to Norton Ghost. Both programs take an exact copy of your hard disk's contents, which you can use to restore your PC.
This article describes how to see all active connections to your computer over the internet. Read the article and get more useful information about that.
Standard backup features on the basic 410 are limited so you'll need to upgrade using the optional features. The BakBone NetVault software option is expensive but the price does get you five client licenses and a free 500GB virtual tape library.
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DVDXpress DX2 offers quality video capture direct to DivX at a very reasonable price. The ADS Tech offers a stress-free way to breathe life into your home movie collection.
The Pebble is singularly striking. Curved with a reflective silver surface, and literally the size of a pebble, it's hard to believe when it's turned off that it packs such a bright OLED screen.
There are several ways to use Fast User Switching. You can open the Start menu, click the Log Off button and choose Switch User. Alternatively you can hold down the Windows key and press L, which takes you to a list of user accounts.
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But, while the relatively good battery life, large hard disk and 3G modem are undoubted benefits, they're not enough to save the 4213. The bland chassis and, more importantly, the poor keyboard can't convince us that this is worth almost £60 more than Advent's last foray into such an oversaturated market.
As far as performance goes, the Advent can't play games, but few laptops can, and it's more than adequate for general applications. It also can't be faulted on price. Less good is its exterior. Besides the input problems, the case, thoughsleek at first glance, is rather plasticky when you get close up. These superficial failings undermine what's otherwise an excellent laptop.