Rabu, 10 Juli 2013

Panasonic HC-X900 review

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Like its predecessor, the Panasonic HDC-SD900, the Panasonic HC-X900 is a full HD camcorder has three separate sensors for red, green and blue light; these help it capture more accurate colours and more detail, while reducing noise, compared to single-chip camcorders. The camera supports 1080/50p video as well as 1080i and PAL. The new model adds updated image stabilisation and an auto-stereoscopic screen for glasses-free 3D viewing with the optional 3D adaptor.
Panasonic HC-X900
It’s a medium-sized camcorder which feels well-balanced in your hand, and all the major controls, such as zoom and record, are within easy reach of your fingers. You can either view the action using the flip-out resistive touchscreen or you can use the electronic viewfinder. Even though we’re now used to super-sensitive capacitive screens, the HC-X900’s resistive model is still responsive and it's easy to select the function you need. The touchscreen makes it easy to preview your footage, as it's uncluttered by too much information. There's also an electronic viewfinder for if you have trouble using the screen in direct sunlight.
The HC-X900's three 1/4.1in sensors deliver fantastic video in daylight, but footage does suffer from noticeable noise in darker environments, as was the case with the HDC-SD900. In good lighting, the three colour sensors capture scenes accurately, and even when surveying a panoramic scene, such as that from our rooftop, objects to the extreme left and right of the screen retain their colour and definition.
Panasonic HC-X900
The camcorder's sensor specifications are identical to those of the previous-generation HDC-SD900, but the camera does add 'pixel shift technology', where the green sensor is slightly offset relative to the red and blue, which helps the sensor to capture four pixels instead of one each frame. This, Panasonic claims, means the camera captures four times the pixel count of Full HD so has more information to use when processing the final video image, leading to greater accuracy. Even so, it isn’t greatly different from that captured by the HDC-SD900. Brighter colours look slightly more natural, but when they’re compared to footage captured by the HDC-SD900 last year, the difference isn’t overwhelming.
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Panasonic HC-Z10000 review

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3D video cameras have traditionally fallen into two broad ranges: low-budget models that you can use for a bit of fun, such as the Sony Bloggie 3D, and high-end professional models for film and TV. With its Z10000 Panasonic has taken a different tack, producing a high-end 3D model with plenty of control that's designed for enthusiasts.
At just shy of £3,000, the Z10000 can't be described as cheap, but for the level of control, range of inputs and quality there's simply nothing else at this price that's even remotely similar. You also have to take into account that this model is a proper 3D camera, using dual 3MOS sensors (six 1/4.1in sensors in total). That means there's a one 3MOS sensor for each eye's image, so you can shoot Full HD progressive video in 3D, rather than using a compromise, such as the side-by-side system budget models use, where each eye's image gets half of a 1080p resolution.
Panasonic HC-Z10000 XLR inputs
Dual XLR inputs let you attach high-quality microphones for better sound recording.
From the outside, the HDC-Z1000 is an impressive-looking bit of kit. Its large body houses the lens assembly at the front for the dual 3D lenses, plus there are two XLR microphone inputs (with phantom power) for audio, so you can use proper microphones and capture better-quality audio than by using the built-in Dolby Digital 5.1 microphone array.
As this model's aimed at the enthusiast market, there are also three lens rings for zoom, focus and iris control. Zoom controls also sit on rocker switchers on the side, when using the camera in a traditional hand-held grip, and on the carry handle. Dual XDHC memory card slots are nice to see and you can configure them so that the second card's for overflow shooting or for a backup, so you can protect any precious footage from memory card failure.
Panasonic HC-Z10000 side
Discrete controls for most commonly-used features, let you take full control of the video you're shooting.
The side of the camera consists of a set of dedicated buttons for most of the common controls, letting you quickly switch between automatic and manual modes for iris and focus, toggle the optical image stabilisation and switch between the white balance modes (auto, 3200K, 5600K, two user modes and a lock on the current automatically detected setting). There are also three programmable user buttons, but it's a shame that there's no quick method to adjust the shutter speed
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Canon Legria HF R36 review

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This review is of the Canon HF R36, however it also applies to the Canon HF R306, which is identical in every respect except it lacks the R36's built-in 8GB of memory
Canon’s HF R36 is a Full HD compact camcorder with a 1/4.85in CMOS sensor, 32x optical zoom, 51x intelligent zoom, a 3in colour touchscreen monitor and a whopping 8GB of internal storage space. That specification is already pretty good for a camcorder of this price, but Canon has gone even further by adding Wi-Fi connectivity, which means you can transfer recorded videos to your PC without a USB cable and stream videos to DLNA-enabled TVs and games consoles.
In fact, the HF R36 has many built-in features that are perfect for families that want to have fun with video, but don’t necessarily want to use a computer. Story Creator lets you create video stories using pre-designed patterns, various digital filters make your videos look like old black and white movies or a 70s TV show, and Memory Save lets you back up your images and videos to an attached hard drive from the USB host port.
Canon Legria HF R36
Of course, image quality is the key feature of any camcorder. When shooting from our rooftop in bright daylight, the HF R36 captured enough detail to make a satisfying family movie. It adequately captured the texture and staining of paving stones, pebbles and walls within five metres of the lens, but from around 15 metres the camcorder captures less detail, so that individual bricks are no longer apparent, although individual patches of colour are. Overall quality isn’t bad for a camera of this price, although the automatic focus is a little too soft and there's some noise, even in daylight.
The camera's CMOS sensor is supported by a 32x optical zoom lens, which works well up until half of its full extension. After that, objects have a pronounced halo effect and more noise is introduced. You can further extend the zoom digitally to 51x and 1020x. The former is Advanced Zoom, which is a hybrid optical and digital zoom which gives you a zoom boost without degrading quality too much.
There are also has a number of image stabilisation options, including Dynamic IS and Powered IS. Dynamic IS aids stability when walking with the camcorder and Powered IS adds stability when using the zoom, although you can have both activated at the same time. The image stabilisation is reasonable for a camera of this price (it's not a patch on the Panasonic HC-X800's stabilisation, for example), but we recommend using a tripod where possible.
Canon Legria HF R36
The HF R36 has a 3in touchscreen monitor instead of a viewfinder. Sadly, its horizontal and vertical viewing angles are poor, which can make it difficult to film at interesting angles. The touchscreen is also used for adjusting options, although the menu you see depends on the mode to which the HF R36 is set. The menu icons are clear and menu options easy to read, but they could be better organised. Even after some time with the HF R36, we still struggled to remember where certain menu options were located.
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Samsung HMX-QF30 review

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The Samsung HMX-QF30 is ostensibly an updated version of the HMX-QF20, but little seems to have changed. The HMX-QF30 has a 1/4in sensor, just like the HMX-QF20, as well as a 20x optical zoom and 40x digital zoom. It also has a maximum pixel count of 5.1 megapixels and an effective pixel count of 1.75 megapixels. Both camcorders also have a built-in Wi-Fi adaptor, although the HMX-QF30 can do more with it.
The HMX-QF20 allowed you to upload your videos and photos to social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube, but the HMX-QF30 lets you transfer videos to your mobile and broadcast live on the internet with the Ustream web service.
Physically, the HMX-QF30 is as long as a typical compact camcorder, but it’s not very high. This, combined with the thin, unpadded handstrap, makes it uncomfortable to hold and use. Having all the major buttons on the back, such as record and zoom, exacerbates the problem, because you must use your thumb to control them rather than your index finger. This can cause you to nudge the QF30, adding judder to your videos and slightly altering the angle. This might not be a problem if you have small hands, but we think most adults would find it uncomfortable.

TOUCHSCREEN

The HMX-QF30 has a 2.7in colour touchscreen monitor, which is bright, clear and colourful. Its 230,000-pixel is a little, and although icons do look low-res, they’re also colourful and convey their purpose well.
Even though it’s a relatively small screen, the icons are sensibly arranged along the left- and right-hand sides of the screen, with recording time displayed along the top of the monitor. This leaves much of the display clear to view your scene, and you can remove the icons with a simple tap of the screen.
Samsung HMX-QF30
Sadly, we found the touchscreen difficult to use and often unresponsive. It sometimes wouldn’t recognise our swipes, for example, and it would often prove nigh on impossible to traverse a menu because it interpreted our swipe as a selection, taking us into another menu. We found this infuriating.

IMAGE QUALITY

The HMX-QF30 records videos in the MP4 format. This keeps file sizes low, but it also introduces quite a few compression artefacts. The HMX-QF30 can record at a resolution of 1,920x1,080 and a frame rate of 50fps interlaced. At this setting, the bitrate is a fairly low 15.5Kbit/s. Other than Full HD, you can also shoot in “web quality” and 1,920x720 at 50fps progressive.
There’s more mosquito noise than we expected to see in our outdoor footage, as well as the effects of compression such as blocky detailing and jagged edges. There was also quite a bit of chroma noise around certain objects.
We noticed a lack of detail, with some surfaces appearing washed out. We could see the mortar between the bricks of a wall at a distance of 10 metres, for instance, but it looked a little indistinct, with no texture detail or staining on the bricks. Certain surfaces looked a little washed out, too. The detail became more noticeable when we zoomed in on the wall, but the effects of compression were still evident. Often, the automatic focus had slight trouble focusing, and would noticeably pulsate in and out of focus ever so slightly.
The Canon Legria HF R48 isn’t perfect in this respect, but its footage does look sharper, and although there are some compression artefacts, they’re a lot less noticeable.
Even so, we think the footage is acceptable for a camcorder at this price, and it reproduced colour pretty well. It performed similarly in our studio footage, although the chroma and mosquito noise was more evident in this darker environment.
Samsung HMX-QF30

LOOK MUM, NO WIRES

There are two ways of using the HMX-QF30’s built-in Wi-Fi adaptor. One is to connect your smartphone to the camcorder directly in order to transfer photos or you can connect it to your router in order to upload photos and videos to social networking sites.
You can also use the the Samsung MobileLink app with it, which is available from the App Store and Google Play, and is used to transfer videos to your smartphone or tablet. Transferring photos is as easy as selecting them on the camcorder, then your phone and then clicking a button. Transfers were fairly slow, but the app is slick and simple.
As with the HMX-QF20, you can upload directly to Facebook, Picasa and YouTube. You must connect to a router in order to do this, which can be tricky, as you can easily ‘mistype’ the network password thanks to the touchscreen’s small keyboard and lag.
The HMX-QF30 has no connections other than A/V and Mini HDMI outputs and a Mini USB output, not even a headphone output. Considering the price of the HMX-QF30, this isn’t such a bad omission, and many users won’t notice the lack of ports.
If you already have the HMX-QF20, the HMX-QF30 probably isn’t worth the upgrade, but if you simply want a cheap Wi-Fi-enabled camcorder it could be a good buy, especially if you’re shooting quick footage for the web. There’s a lot of compression and noise, and the more expensive Canon Legria HF R48 provides better video quality and a better user interface. If you can spend more on the Canon Legria HF R48, you should do so.
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Canon Legria HF R48 review

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The Canon Legria HF R48 is a fairly compact Full HD camcorder with a ¼.85in CMOS sensor, a built-in Wi-Fi adaptor and 32GB of built-in storage for your videos and still images, in addition to an SD card slot. This is a large amount of storage, and is great if you’ve forgotten your SD cards.
Although small, the Legria HF R48 is comfortable to hold, which is due in part to the handstrap’s padding. It feels light but not cheaply made, and the touchscreen’s hinge feels sturdy, giving us confidence that it won’t break easily if handled by younger family members.
Canon Legria HF R48

IMAGE QUALITY

We were pleasantly surprised by the image quality of the Legria HF R48, given its price. There’s a lot more detail in daylight shots than we’d expect. You can see the grime on a handrail for instance, as well as reflections in panes of glass and the water-staining of painted surfaces, but it isn’t perfect. If you look closer, part of the handrail looks blocky, and we can’t see the texture of individual bricks in the wall opposite. Even so, these are things you’d only notice if you took the time to look. It certainly won’t stop you enjoying your footage. Colour reproduction was similarly good, although overcast skies appeared to have a blue tinge. We saw minimal noise, except when we trained the HF R48 on a cloudy sky.
Canon Legria HF R48
We were also pleased with the footage shot in our studio. There was still a great amount of detail in all but the darkest scenes. We could clearly see the toy train reflected in the fan blades, for example, but we couldn’t make out much detail on the darker parts of the train itself. Although noise was predictably present, it wasn’t too intrusive.
We also noticed a pulsating shift in focus when we activated a rotating fan LED, which caused the text on a pack of stickers to move in and out focus slightly. Again, you’d have to look closely to notice it.

The HF R48 also rendered the fur of our toys better than expected. Not as well as the much more expensive Panasonic HC-X920, but slightly better than the Panasonic HC-V520. With the HC-V520, some of the fur lacks detail, looking like a rough coloured surface, while other parts look like plump clumps of rice. You can tell the surface is fur, but it doesn’t look too realistic. The Canon Legria HF R48 renders the fur similarly, but has just enough detail to make the fur appear more realistic.

FEATURE-PACKED

The Canon Legria HF R48 has a wonderfully smooth and incredibly responsive touchscreen interface that’s packed with lots of sensible, well-organised options. The first level displays five icons that you can highlight with a cursor. Each icon represents a set of menu options, but click through the icon and you’re presented with a list of natural language options. Any menu items that are not relevant to the camcorder mode you’re using are greyed out, so you don’t have to worry about them. It’s certainly a lot better than the user interface seen on last year’s Canon Legria HF R36.
The R48 also has a built-in 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi adaptor that lets you control the camcorder remotely, upload videos to your smartphone or tablet and connect it to your router so that you can access it through your computer. In the latter scenario, the R48 operates as a media server, so you should be able to watch videos on your smart TV, too, as long as it supports media streaming from a server.
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Sony DEV-5 3D Recording Binoculars review

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The Sony DEV-5 uses two 1/4in Exmor R CMOS sensors to create a set of 3D recording binoculars that let you photograph or video outdoors in environments not suited to a camcorder or camera. The DEV-5 is of obvious interest to those with an interest in wildlife video and photography, but would also suit those wanting to record and enjoy sports events or other outdoor occasions.
Sony DEV-5 3D Recording Binoculars
We used the DEV-5 in a torrential downpour and it suffered no ill effect, although we did have to wipe the lenses every so often. The lenses are partially protected by a plastic surround, but this only protects it from rain and snow so much. A plastic lens cover protects the lenses when the DEV-5’s not in use, but it isn’t detachable. This means you can’t lose the lens cover, but it also means it gets in the way occasionally.
Unsurprisingly, given the amount of technology crammed into it, the DEV-5 is not small, measuring 88x155x219mm (HxWxD). It also weighs 1.2Kg, which is more than twice the weight of the Sony TD20VE 3D camcorder. Surprisingly, the DEV-5 only feels heavy when it’s hanging around your neck, but this is probably due to the unit being very well balanced in use. It felt so heavy when strung around our neck that we held it up to give our spine some relief, but it felt light when held up to our eyes. We expected it to be front heavy and to have to compensate for this, but it wasn’t.
Sony DEV-5 3D Recording Binoculars
You must set up the DEV-5 for your eyes before use, but the DEV-5’s controls and the viewfinder’s menu make this easy. The DEV-5 uses a 3D electronic viewfinder, although it can operate in 2D if you prefer (there’s a button on the DEV-5’s top panel). To set it up for your eyes, you must physically adjust the position of the diopters (the eyepieces) using a wheel located in between and above them. Once adjusted, you must also complete a simple visual alignment test through the viewfinder. Each diopter also has a ring that lets you adjust the viewfinder’s focus to suit your eyes. We had no problem adjusting it to suit our longsighted eyes.
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Pansonic HC-V520 review

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Panasonic is well known for its award-winning 3MOS camcorders, such as the Best Buy-winning HC-X920, which uses three separate sensors to capture fantastic-looking footage, but Panasonic has always provided excellent entry level camcorders too, the latest of which is the Panasonic HC-V520 - an evolution of last year's Panasonic HC-V500.
Pansonic HC-V520
It's a compact camcorder with a single 1/5.8in BSI MOS sensor, a 50x optical zoom, Panasonic’s excellent Hybrid Optical Image Stabilisation system and a built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi adaptor that lets you stream video to your TV or PC among other things. The HC-V520 is also capable of capturing Full HD footage at a respectable maximum bitrate of 28Mbit/s in the AVCHD 2.0 format and recording audio in two-channel Dolby Digital Stereo.
Although the sensor size remains the same, the HC-V520’s 50x optical zoom is longer than the HC-V500’s 38x optical zoom. The built-in Wi-Fi adaptor is certainly new. Otherwise, the HC-V520 looks and feels similar to the HC-V500.
Physically, it feels like an entry level camcorder, with its plasticky, slightly cheap feel, but in some places it actually feels better built than the more expensive HC-V720. On our review models at least, the HC-V520’s zoom lever felt sturdier than the HC-V720’s lever. Even the Mode switch on the rear of the camcorder felt tougher. Even so, the HC-V520’s port covers and SD card cover feel a little too cheap for a £425 camcorder.
Pansonic HC-V520
As for connections, the HC-V520 provides the bare necessities and nothing more. It just has a Mini USB for transferring your footage and images to your PC, and Mini HDMI and AV outputs for connecting it to your TV or projector. If you need a microphone input, a headphone output and an accessory shoe, you should consider the Panasonic HC-V720 instead.

IMAGE QUALITY

In daylight, the HC-V520’s image quality didn’t seem to have improved much on that of the HC-V500. Compression artefacts were evident, with certain surfaces and textures having both a fuzziness and blockiness about them. In our daylight rooftop footage, for example, the noise is very noticeable on the edges of the railings and various other objects, such as the construction materials on the building site opposite our office (often referred to as Gibb's effect or Mosquito noise). Chroma and luminance noise was also present. The HC-V520 certainly performed better in outdoor and brightly lit indoor locations than dark environments, comparative to our expectations that is, as evidenced by the prevalence of luminance noise in our low-light test.
Panasonic HC-V520 Mosquito Noise
You can see a hint of mosquito noise in this shot, around the railings
Compression effects were also noticeable on various textures, such as the fur of some of our toys. Part of our toy chicken’s fur is hit by a light source that changes in intensity, and this appeared flat, slightly blocky and without texture. The fur appears fairly well rendered in other parts of the toy, although it lacks the detail seen in the HC-X920’s footage. Although we’ve highlighted various compression effects and noise, the HC-V520’s captured footage still looks good for a sub-£500 camcorder. Colours are well reproduced and it captures a decent amount of detail. For overall video quality, there wasn’t that much difference between the HC-V520 and the HC-V720 despite the latter unit’s larger sensor.
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Toyota GT86 review

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We’ve longed for a genuinely exciting and desirable Toyota ever since the demise of the iconic Celica, so when it announced the rear-wheel drive, 197BHP GT86, a product of a collaboration between Toyota and Subaru that also resulted in the Subaru BRZ, we had to drive it. The car’s visually striking, having a clean, modern look that somehow harks back to the Japanese sports cars of the early 90s, and it’s difficult to decide from which angle it looks best: the side, front on, rear or rear 3/4s. We’ll settle for the side view and let you decide for yourself.
GT86 Side Shot

DRIVER-FOCUSED COCKPIT

This 2+2 coupe is nice inside, too, and we like the clean, uncluttered dashboard and centre console. Toyota’s intention was to create a driver-focused cockpit, and it’s certainly achieved that goal, with the instruments being easy to see and handle but not comically large.
The driver’s instrument cluster is dominated by a white RPM dial that’s inset with LED panels displaying information such as speed, fuel economy and the currently selected gear. You can see pretty much see everything you need to know at a glance.
To the left of the steering wheel is a centre console that contains dual-climate temperature controls, the engine start-and-stop button and one of two in-car entertainment systems: Toyota Touch and Toyota Touch & Go. Both systems provide touchscreen control over audio and Bluetooth connectivity, but Touch & Go gives you a satellite navigation system and access to Google Local Search, which provides live information on parking and fuel pricing, to give two examples. There’s also a USB socket, so you can charge your phone and playback music.
GT86 Interior
The small steering wheel feels great and is perfect for a sporty car such as this. Sadly, it lacks multifunction controls such as volume, track select and call answer buttons, which makes answering phone calls and changing tracks more awkward than it should be. A multifunction steering wheel doesn’t seem to be an option, either, which is a great shame.
GT86 Steering Wheel
There’s a lot of room for both the driver and front passenger, and the seats are comfortable, even over long distances, but the rear seats are seemingly present for cosmetic purposes only. Even with the driver’s seat configured for our relatively short 5ft 8in frame, we couldn’t see how a small child could occupy the seat behind it, never mind an adult. The rear seats are great for extra, easy-to-reach luggage space, but are otherwise pretty much superfluous.
There isn't much room in the cabin for items such as glasses cases and CDs, either. There’s a removable cupholder that sits in the centre console, but drinks are easily nudged if you use the handbrake.
GT86 Rear Seats
We’d prefer a hatchback, and the GT86 looks as if it should have one, but the boot feels more spacious than its 243-litre capacity suggests, and we had no trouble loading it with the weekly shopping. Should you need more space, you can fold down the rear seats.



GT86 Rear Seats Folded Down
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Motorheadphones Bomber review

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Without a trace of metal on them, the Motörheadphönes Bomber headphones don't look very heavy metal. However, they're light, secure and comfortable to wear, although the earpads get a little warm and itchy. An in-line remote and built in mic mean you can control your media player and answer your phone. We were also pleased to find that the fabric wrapped cable isn't prone to tangling.
Motorheadphones Bomber
The headphones claim to make "everything louder than everything else", but they increase the bass until it overwhelms the muddy and distant mid-range, even leaving vocals a little lost in the background. The treble sounds fine, with a clean bright edge. This is a pity, because under the overwhelming bass, it sounds like there's a fair bit of detail there.
The headphones are best for punchy, dynamic tracks, working well with drum and bass, pop and straightforward rock. Motorhead sounded pretty good, too.
At £80, the Bombers feel like an attempt to get rock fans their own answer to Dr Dre's Beats. They'd be worth having at half the price, but £80 is pushing it.
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QPAD QH-85 review

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The Qpad QH-85 is a gaming headset with 53mm drivers, 15K-25K frequency response and a detachable microphone. Its aluminium headband is covered with padded leather and its ear cups are surrounded by velour material. The padded leather provides ample cushioning, which makes the headphones comfortable.
Not only is the headband adjustable, the ear cups also tilt up and down and move slightly to the sides, so we had no trouble getting a snug fit.
The 53mm open-backed drivers are larger than the usual 40mm drivers we see in many gaming headsets. Bigger doesn’t equal better, but in this case the QH-85s sound superb, with accurate sound across the frequency range. With a clear mid-range, a crisp high-end and bass that has presence but doesn’t drown the rest of the mix, it helped bring Bioshock Infinite to life and worked just as well when watching films.
Qpad QH-85
Unlike many gaming headsets, which can produce too much bass, Qpad has found a great balance between low frequencies and the rest of the frequency range. However, the open-backed nature of this headset means it leaks a lot of sound. If you play games in the same room as someone else, they'll quickly get irritated with the unwanted extra noise. You’ll struggle to get the best out of the Qpad unless you’re listening to your source material at high volumes, so it’s best suited for solitary gaming.
The boom microphone is removable if you don’t need it for general use, and is attached on a bendy arm that you can pull closer or move further away from your mouth. The in-line volume dial has a switch to mute the microphone should you not want to transmit audio. We had no complaints about voice quality when making Skype calls or during in-game conversations, and the foam shield helped reduce unwanted breathing sounds. Qpad also bundles an adaptor with the QH-85 that lets you use the headset with a smartphone, which is handy if you want to make calls with the headset.
As a gaming headset, the QH-85 is incredibly well-rounded. It’s built to an exacting standard, fits comfortably and delivers fantastic sound for games and films. Unlike many gaming headsets, its balanced bass also makes it great for music. The open-back design makes it unsuitable for use away from the PC, but if you’re looking for something just for games, this is an excellent choice.
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Senneheiser Momentum On-Ear review

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We were blown away by the Sennheiser Momentum headphones, released earlier this year, but their size and price meant that they certainly weren't suitable for everyone. With the new Momentum On-Ear headphones, Sennheiser has retained the build quality of the larger over-ear headphones in a more compact form.
Sennheiser has successfully retained the larger headphones' audio quality in this smaller design, too. The bass is vibrant and prominent in the overall sound, but doesn't overwhelm treble and mid-range detail, although it was quite noticeable when compared to our flatter reference, particularly on busy tracks with a pulsing bassline. This was particularly audible on our metal and industrial test tracks, particularly at high volumes. However, we were pleased by the absolute clarity of heavily layered instruments and vocals in our most complex test tracks and loved their reproduction of jazz and world music.
Vocals in general sounded brilliant, with every subtle vocal detail of complex choral sections clearly audible on tracks from Coope, Boyes and Simpson's a cappella Jerusalem Revisited to the full orchestra, band and choir of Turisas's End of an Empire. Less bombastic recordings also fared well, with the emotive vocals and strings of Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World benefiting from the headphones' spacious sound and excellent stereo separation.
The headphones are available in four colours: white, blue, green and pink, with further shades to follow later in the year. They're beautifully designed, sturdy and remarkably light, which is always desirable in a pair of headphones you intend to use on the move. The padded cups sat comfortably on our ears without exerting any uncomfortable pressure. Despite their soft fabric finish, they didn't get too hot even on a warm summer's day, although we imagine they could become a little unpleasant if you get sweaty.
There's not much sound isolation, but with our music switched on, not too much background noise from our office was audible. Trains were a little more challenging, though, forcing us to raise the volume to overcome background sound. While at low volumes you're unlikely to disturb those around you, the on-ear design meant that some sound was able to escape and be heard by our neighbours, despite the headphones' closed-backed cups.
The Momentum headphones come with two detachable cables. One has an in-line microphone and volume control for use with a mobile phone and the other is a straight stereo cable for use with your computer. Both measure 1.4m. Also supplied is a bulky, semi-rigid carrying case and a thin cloth pouch. When travelling, we spent more time with the headphones on our ears or around our neck than in their case.
Although they don't have particularly good sound isolation, the Momentum On-Ears are a great buy if you want headphones that you can use comfortably in a variety settings, whether you're in a quiet room at home, in the office, or on public transport. Their light weight makes them far more comfortable and practical to wear on the move than most headphones capable of producing this kind of sound quality.
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LG Optimus L3 II review

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The LG Optimus L3 II is one of the cheapest smartphones around. It’s the most basic model of LG’s inexpensive Optimus L range and you can get it from just £90 SIM-free. Although it's cheap, it runs an up-to-date version of Android, 4.1.2 Jellybean.
It’s quite short and stocky, and its bulk makes it feel much heavier than its 107g weight. We didn’t mind this, though, as the extra heft makes it feel more durable and better made than its flimsy, plastic pop-off back might suggest. Its curved corners make it very easy to hold, too, and it’s small enough to use comfortably with one hand.
LG Optimus L3 2
It’s not the fastest smartphone we’ve ever seen and we experienced a slight jerkiness when scrolling through its various menu options and when we opened up apps. It’s certainly slower than what we’d normally expect from a 1GHz single-core processor, and it showed in our SunSpider JavaScript benchmarks. It completed the test in 2,306ms, which is quite sluggish compared to most other budget phones.
It’s not particularly good for playing 3D games either, as we couldn’t even install our usual 3DMark graphics benchmark tests. It will still run games like Temple Run 2 and Angry Birds, but anything more taxing is likely to produce a significant slowdown in frame rate.
LG Optimus L3 2
The Optimus L3 II's 3.2in screen also made web browsing quite frustrating, as it only has a tiny 320x240 resolution. We had to zoom right in on desktop web pages to make the text legible, and even then there was a slight delay in the text becoming clear enough to read from its mass of blurry pixels. Zipping through image-heavy pages wasn’t one of its strong suites either, but at least its responsive touchscreen alleviated the pain a little with smooth pinch-zooming and finger-scrolling gestures.
However, the low resolution also means using standard Android apps isn't as comfortable as it could be. For example, reading email or looking at the calendar, isn't as good as on phones with higher resolutions.
LG Optimus L3 2
The screen’s overall image quality is fairly average. Solid blacks weren’t particularly deep and colours lacked the rich vibrancy of slightly more expensive phones. It also had fairly low contrast, but flaws like these are easily forgiven considering the L3 II’s price.
With such a small screen to power, we had hoped this might translate into a longer battery life, but its 1,540mAh battery lasted just 5 hours and 58 minutes in our video playback test with the screen set to half brightness. This would be a poor score for any phone, even at this price, and we’ve seen other budget handsets last over 11 hours under the same conditions.
Typing was more problematic. With so little space available, the keys felt a little cramped. We were still able to type relatively accurately, but typing at speed produced a lot of mistakes. We liked the main layout of the keyboard, though, as we didn’t have to access a second keyboard layout to get numbers or different types of punctuation; instead, just hold the relevant letter key down to access the number or punctuation character you want.
LG Optimus L3 2
LG hasn’t made too many alterations to the operating system, but we wouldn’t expect much customisation at this price. Besides, stock Android is so good that customisations can often ruin the entire experience. There are five home screens and its drop-down quick setting buttons can be rearranged and customised to your liking, but strangely this doesn’t include its main settings. Instead, it’s relegated to a tiny button below the brightness settings, which is much less obvious.
The L3 II’s 3.2-megapixel camera was equally disappointing. Even in bright sunshine, our outdoor shots came out looking quite cool and dull, and there were great swathes of each photo where the pixels blurred together. It fared better indoors, but any increased sharpness soon dulled when it tried to cope with lower lighting conditions. Recording video was equally blurry, but we were pleased to see that its voice recognition feature worked without a hitch, allowing us to take photos with our voice instead of having to hit the on-screen shutter button.
There's no denying that the LG Optimus L3 II is very cheap. At just £90 SIM-free, it's one of the cheapest phones that we've ever seen. However, we'd suggest caution, as the small screen size, low resolution and sluggish processor all count against this smartphone. Spend a little bit more money and you can get a much better smartphone, such as the Budget Buy-winning Huawei Ascend G510.
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Samsung Galaxy Young review

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The Galaxy Young is one of the cheapest Android phones we've seen. At £90 on O2 prepay, it's not quite as much of a bargain as the ZTE Kis, which is currently £45 on Virgin prepay from Argos, but it's certainly the cheapest phone we've seen SIM-free.
Samsung Galaxy Young
You get a good-looking phone for your money, which feels well made. We like the soft-touch plastic on the rear, which is similar to that of the Galaxy S3 and S4, and the silver sides manage to make the phone look classy rather than tacky. The Young is a compact handset, with a small 3.3in screen, but is a relatively chunky 12mm thick. We liked the extra thickness, as it meant we could keep a firm grip on the handset despite its small width and height.
Samsung Galaxy Young
Like many budget phones, the Young has a 320x480-pixel screen. For Android to look its razor-sharp best we like to see a minimum of 480x800 pixels, and the Galaxy Young's text is slightly on the blurry side. There's also a significant amount of grain, but the screen is certainly usable.
Samsung Galaxy Young
The Young runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. We’re used to the latest versions of Android running as smooth as silk, and the operating system runs well on the Galaxy Young - at least on the surface. The app tray comes up quickly and the animation to flick between app trays is smooth, but it's when you open an app that the limitations of the phone's single-core 1GHz processor start to show.
In the Chrome web browser, the BBC News website took nine seconds to render, while most dual-core smartphones can render the page in five. Scrolling around pages is far jerkier than we're used to, and there's a second or so delay between tapping in the address box and the keyboard appearing. The Maps app is also especially slow, especially when new tiles are loading, which makes scrolling around a chore.
The slow performance is backed up the Sunspider JavaScript benchmark; the phone completed the test in a very slow 3,203ms. The phone's slow speed does give it one particular advantage; good battery life. In our continuous video playback test, we saw nearly nine hours from the Young's 1,300mAh battery.
Core phone functions such as messaging are less of a problem. There is a bit of a delay between pressing a key on the on-screen keyboard and the letter appearing, but accurate typing is helped by the keyboard's sensible design; each key is small but spaced far apart from the others, so fat fingers don’t struggle with the screen's low resolution.
Samsung Galaxy Young
We were impressed with the phone's five-megapixel camera, which managed to resolve a surprising amount of detail from its three megapixels in outdoor shots, and compared favourably with the Samsung Galaxy S3's camera, which we tend to use for our reference. However, like the S3, the Galaxy Young struggles with exposure in bright conditions, meaning that the sky is more likely to be a bleached-out white than something with texture and clouds. Photos taken in low light show plenty of noise, but again, are reasonably impressive considering the phone's low price.
Galaxy Young outdoor test shot
Not bad on the detail front, but the camera struggles with exposure in bright conditions
The phone's slow speed does give it one particular advantage; good battery life. In our continuous video playback test, we saw nearly nine hours from the Young's 1,300mAh battery.
It's difficult to rate the Galaxy Young. On the one hand, you won’t find a fully-featured Android 4.1 phone for less SIM-free. On the other, it's slow to the point of frustration at times. We'd recommend picking your carrier in advance, then buying a better handset with a prepay subsidy, such as the great-value Vodafone Smart III.
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Samsung Galaxy S3 review

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UPDATED - this review has been updated to cover the new 4G LTE version of the Galaxy S3
The Galaxy S3 was unquestionably Samsung's big launch for 2012, and has been our recommended Android smartphone since we reviewed it back in June. The Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE is the updated version, with a new wireless chip to support EE's 4G network, putting it on par with the 4G-enabled iPhone 5.
There are a couple of other tweaks. The phone now has 2GB rather than 1GB RAM, and is available in a smart Titanium finish as well as the standard Galaxy S3 white. It also ships with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of the box, but as the standard Galaxy S3 has just been updated to Jelly Bean this isn’t a reason to upgrade to the LTE.
Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE
We've covered the strengths and weaknesses of 4G in our full EE 4G UK review, but suffice to say that the Galaxy S3 LTE has no problem making the most of the network's speeds. When we first tested 4G, which was a couple of weeks before the network officially launched in the UK, we saw 44.91Mbit/s downloads and 20.94Mbit/s uploads - astonishing speeds that match or even exceed the fastest home broadband connections.
We had to take those speeds with a pinch of salt at the time, as very few other people were using the network at the time so there were little constraints on bandwidth. However, even nearly a month after the launch of the network, we're still seeing astonishing speeds. In our Central London office, the Android Speedtest.net app measured 26Mbit/s downloads and 16Mbit/s uploads. This is twice as fast for downloads as our home ADSL connection, and around 16 times as quick when uploading. The Galaxy S3 LTE showed around the same speeds as Huawei's 4G Ascend P1 in our office, which is what we expected.
Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE Speed Test
4G is astonishingly quick in Central London - faster than most home broadband connections
Web browsing is certainly snappy and pages load just as quickly as when connected to an ADSL line over Wi-Fi. However, your 4G connection is unlikely to replace a broadband connection over Wi-Fi just yet. For a start, as we've already mentioned, EE's 4G data limits are fairly stingy; you'll be fine for normal out-and-about use such as checking emails, using maps and browsing web pages, but you'll quickly eat though your data allowance.
The other problem is app support. We found that BBC iPlayer would automatically set the quality of its TV stream to a low level when connected to the 4G network, even when we changed the streaming quality setting to High in the app's settings. The quality was far better when we were connected to a wireless network, showing iPlayer automatically sets the stream to a lower-quality level when you're on a 3G network rather than Wi-Fi.
Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE Wi-Fi iPlayer
Over Wi-Fi video is sharp and clear
Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE 4G iPlayer
The stream is much lower-quality over the mobile network, even though 4G is quicker than our office Wi-Fi connection
The new handset has an identical chipset to the non-4G Galaxy S3, with its quad-core 1.4GHz processor, but has 2GB instead of 1GB RAM. We struggled to see what difference this made to the handset's performance compared to a previous-model Galaxy S3 which we had upgraded to Android 4.1, and the handsets managed an identical 1,771 in the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark. Occasionally the 2GB handset would open and close apps slightly faster, but the extra RAM seems to make little practical difference in everyday use.
We did find, however, that the new version had slightly worse battery life than the old - we're not sure whether this is due to the new operating system or the chipset, but in our continuous video playback test we saw 9h 19m from the Galaxy S3 LTE, compared to 9h 57m from the Galaxy S3.
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Griffin StudioConnect review

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We've reviewed a number of MIDI and analogue audio interfaces designed for use with computers, but the Griffin StudioConnect is the first we've seen for the iPad; it can interface with MIDI instruments as well as record from analogue sources. While a tablet wouldn't be our instinctive first choice for music production and recording, there's a certain logic at work here. The iPad has been widely adopted by creative types of all sorts and there are already plenty of apps for musicians available, such as Apple's own GarageBand software. There are also whole websites devoted to making the most of the iPad as a MIDI device.
While most people use USB to connect their MIDI devices these days, Griffin has taken a different approach with the StudioConnect. Rather than a USB input, it has the older 5-pin DIN MIDI in and out ports. These might be unfamiliar to anyone who's started using MIDI control surfaces in recent years, but most MIDI keyboards, drum pads and other controllers still have 5-pin MIDI in and out ports as well as USB. You'll need to buy two midi cables separately, and because MIDI, unlike USB, doesn’t provide power, your control surfaces will need to be powered separately.
Griffin StudioConnect
All this meant that setting up our MIDI keyboard involved a bit more effort than our usual approach of just plugging it into the nearest USB port. Once we'd got all the right cables together, though, everything worked quite well. The dock comes with its own power supply and has a standard Apple dock connector for your iPad. iOS automatically recognised the dock as a MIDI interface device and we were immediately able to use it with MIDI-compatible audio apps.
You'll also need to connect the dock to a set of speakers, as it takes over from the iPad's built-in speaker and doesn't have an integrated set of its own. There's a pair of phono outputs on the back, so - with the right converter cables - we were able to connect the dock to everything from the analogue input on our radio to a pair of professional-grade studio monitors.
Griffin StudioConnect
The back of the StudioConnect also has a 1/4in mono TRS input of the sort used with electric guitars. We were pleased to find that our recordings sounded great, whether we were using a clean or effected guitar sound. We also used the port to make recordings from a microphone, but we had to use a conversion lead with our dynamic mic's XLR input, as the StudioConnect lacks an XLR input of its own. This is something of an oversight, given that XLR mics are a popular and common piece of studio kit.
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Mio Cyclo 300 review

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The Mio Cyclo 300 is one of the first cycle GPS units from the company best known for its NavMan range of car GPS devices. It's a really well made bit of hardware, with a reinforced IPX7 weatherproof body that survived with just a little surface damage even after an impact and stood up well to the soggiest weather the British summer had to throw at it. Its battery life’s good too – Mio quotes up to 12 hours’ continuous use – we used it for well over nine hours in the course of a week before the battery indicator got low enough to make us feel that a recharge was advisable.
Mio Cyclo 300
We liked the handlebar mount, too. Rather than relying on plastic clips of the sort commonly used on lights and the like, the Cyclo has a grippy rubber disc that fits into a socket at the back of the GPS unit and is held on to your handlebars by a cable tie. The main body of the GPS unit clicks securely into place. With the cable tie properly tightened, the mount feels much more secure than traditional clips and is somewhat more forgiving when it comes to tapered handlebars too. However, we opted to attach it to our stem, where it fitted securely, slipping only in a torrential downpour - even then, the unit as a whole remained safely attached to our bike.
The touchscreen display is a little more reflective than we'd like, but its anti-glare shield means that it was still possible to view in all but the brightest direct sunlight. Keeping your eyes fixed on a satnav while you're cycling isn't the brightest idea, though, so the Cyclo provides you with voice cues when you reach junctions.
The main screen is occupied by six cheerfully colourful touch buttons. One activates the Dashboard, our favourite feature, which allows you to track and record your route, speed, total active time, elevation and more. The Navigate screen is where you ask the Cyclo to plan your route, either for car or bicycle. It lets you enter your home address as a shortcut and also has an address book for any other address you choose to enter. Entering address data is made easy by alphanumeric touchscreen keypads that won't let you enter any address that isn't in your installed map set - in this case, a 22-region Western European map set.
Mio Cyclo 300
We found that the database doesn't recognise some valid postcodes and as a result won't let you enter them. However, once you start typing in a street name, it'll ask to you choose from a list as soon as you've entered enough for it to create a shortlist of options. It’s worth noting that you can only calculate routes of under 200km in distance – that’s long enough for most cyclists, but more adventurous cycle tourists may have to divide their journeys into sections because of this.
You can also choose to visit local places of interest including restaurants, bicycle shops, cashpoints and medical services. We found the list for our local areas of London to be fairly comprehensive and rather handy. There's also a Tracks option, which lets you navigate on- or off-road routes you've previously created using the Mio Share web interface.
Other buttons take you to a log of rides you've previously recorded, ask the GPS to surprise you with a random route of a specified distance or time. An in-depth settings menu lets you choose between Ordinance Survey and TeleAtlas map displays, configure the screen's brightness and set details such as your preferred units of measurement.
Mio Cyclo 300
The navigation screen shows you where you are on the map and the direction in which you need to travel, but because the map is closely zoomed in order to be visible, it can be hard to get a sense of your surroundings. We're not too keen on its approach to roundabouts though - instead of telling us to "take the third exit", we were instead repeatedly told to make a "slight right" until we reached the exit we needed. Another problem here is that sometimes the GPS wasn't able to track our movement fast enough, leading us to miss turns when moving at speed. Central London, with its quirky one-way systems and unpredictable road-works, is always a challenge for any navigation tool, but the Cyclo became inordinately lost when trying to navigate our way through Soho.
The GPS then whines at you for going the wrong way until you turn around, but does eventually give in and attempt to plot you a new route as you're moving. It also took its time when it came to initially locking on to a GPS signal, although this is a fairly common problem if you're in a city with a lot of overhanging buildings. Beyond these issues, the Cyclo 300 simply isn’t very good at plotting effective cycle routes, routinely ignoring streets with cycle lanes in favour of those which lack such infrastructure, being entirely unaware of most off-road cycle paths and sending us up routes which are both steeper and longer than necessary to get to our destination without giving us any opportunity to choose between alternative options, in the way Google Maps does.
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Arcam rPAC review

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As ever more of us listen to our music collections from our PCs, we're often at the mercy of dodgy on-board audio devices. It's easy to find a sound card for less than £30 that'll improve on most integrated audio, but cheap audio hardware often sounds just that.
This is where DACs come in. While sound cards include Digital to Analogue Converter (DAC) chips, they're also kitted out with Analogue to Digital Converters (ADCs) for audio input, as might be required to record an audio file or chat on a microphone. Many - but not all - also have a dedicated audio processor, while cheaper models will have a single codec (short for coder-decoder) chip which integrates both DAC and ADC, generally at the cost of some audio quality. The most popular dedicated audio processors are made by Creative and C-Media (the latter appear in rebranded form on Asus's Xonar cards) and take the load off your PC when it comes handling features including MIDI processing, gaming audio effects, implementing virtual surround sound or converting stereo audio data into something which can be output by 5.1 surround sound speakers.
Arcam rPAC
These features are all potentially useful to someone, but if all you want to do is listen to high-quality stereo sound and get the most from your music, there's no point in paying for ADCs and dedicated audio processor chips when you could instead buy hardware with a really high-quality DAC. That's where devices like Arcam's rPAC come in.
The rPAC is a tough little metal box with a rubberised base that'll easily sit on the desk next to your PC keyboard or laptop. Its weight means that it's not prone to shifting or being dragged around by any cables you have connected to it. The rPAC connects to your PC via a USB port and has both a 3.5mm stereo headphone output at the front - this has a dedicated headphone amp stage and its own volume controls - and a pair of stereo phono ports at the back, so you can connect the DAC to your amplifier and speakers.
Arcam rPAC
Inside, there's a Texas Instruments (previously Burr-Brown) PCM5102 DAC, RF suppression to cut out interference from common sources such as laptops plugged into unshielded power supplies and an asynchronous USB chip, which maintains its own accurate clock to control the amount of data being passed through it, minimising the chance of (already rare) glitches in your sound.
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Kingston 64GB DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 review

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The Kingston DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 might seem a little expensive for a flash drive, but it is in fact great value. 64GB is a huge amount of storage, and the USB3 interface means it's a very quick performer.
The drive scored 182MB/s in our large-file read test and 94.3MB/s in our large write test, which is incredibly fast. It was slower in our small file tests, scoring 45.3MB/s in our small-file read test and just 6.7MB/s in our small-file write test.
Kingston 64GB DataTraveler HyperX 3.0
Predictably, plugging the drive in to a USB2 port reduced the data transfer rates, but it still performed well in our large-file read and write tests, scoring 32.3MB/s and 29.8MB/s respectively. Sadly, its small-file read and write tests were again disappointing, with 18MB/s and a terrible 4.9MB/s.
It’s a shame the drive's small file write speeds are barely quicker than USB2, as otherwise this is a great-value flash drive. If you mainly carry around huge video files, it's a good buy.
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Enermax DreamBass Genie review

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Enermax isn't the first company you'd associate with sound cards, or any form of audio hardware, for that matter, being best known for cases, power supplies and cooling kit. The DreamBass Genie USB sound card is part of a move into selling peripherals – there’s also a version that comes with a pair of headphones.
Enermax DreamBass Genie
The DreamBass Genie looks smarter than a lot of budget USB sound cards which, at their most simple, look like generic USB dongles. The DreamBass is instead designed to look like a valve of the sort used in analogue amplification circuits. Looks are deceptive, though - this little audio processor is entirely solid state. It has 3.5mm headphone and microphone ports and can deliver up to 96kHz 24-bit stereo sound. The audio processor is based on the VIA Envy VT1620A codec (a combined DAC/ADC chip) and uses generic operating system drivers, so will work automatically with any current Windows 7, Mac OS X or Linux operating system. A blue LED inside the unit's casing starts to flash when you plug it into a USB port.
There's a built-in pre-amp which is designed to add a bit of bass boost. It definitely succeeds - the sound that comes out of the DreamBass is certainly bassier than that from our high-end reference sound card (a Propellerhead Balance) or our laptop's integrated Intel HD Audio chip. Unfortunately, more bass doesn't necessarily equal better sound - there's a reason we prefer our audio hardware to default to a flat and balanced profile. The bass emphasis comes at the cost of brighter treble tones and gives lower notes a boominess that doesn't sit well with a lot of guitar-based music.
Enermax DreamBass Genie
However, our dubstep, drum and bass and psy-trance test tracks did benefit from the added bottom-end oomph - the bass grunted along happily, although we noticed some loss of brightness and clarity at the top end of the frequency spectrum. The enhanced bass makes for a full, punchy sound when paired with a set of budget Logitech 2.1 speakers, even though some euphoric treble lines and female vocals seemed underpowered alongside the heavier bass. We don't recommend listening with bass-emphasising headphones, but the overall effect through speakers sounds good for dance, pop and industrial music - we certainly had fun coming up with bass-heavy tracks to test it with. We also found that it produced some very satisfying explosions in games and movies, too. If your speakers have an underpowered bass, the bass enhancement at the pre-amp stage can help to compensate for this, too.
Enermax DreamBass Genie
However, if you want extra bass, most sound cards already output perfectly respectable levels, which you can emphasise by lowering the treble EQ settings on your favourite music software or by connecting speakers with a decent subwoofer. A sound card can provide a massive improvement on integrated audio, but we recommend getting one which by default outputs a flatter but more versatile sound, such as the Creative X-Fi Go! Pro, which also provides you with Creative’s powerful suite of audio optimisation software, which includes bass enhancement.
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TrekStor eBook Reader Pyrus review

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While most of TrekStor's eBook readers have colour LCD screens and can double as media players, the six inch Pyrus is a more traditional reader with an e-paper display and few extras. There's no integrated MP3 player for your audiobooks, for example.
TrekStor eBook Reader Pyrus
We've seen much better-quality e-paper displays than the Pyrus's 6in version. We don't seriously object to the slightly yellowish background colour, but the soft edges to text and slow refresh rate don't compare well to most rivals. The reader's design isn't brilliant either - it's a little too wide to hold comfortably with one hand, particularly if your hands are small. The page turn buttons are well positioned, though - there are forward and back buttons on each side of the display, so you can easily reach both buttons whether you have the reader in your left or right hand.
There are four labelled control keys at the bottom of the reader, which take you home, open the settings menu for whichever screen or document you currently have open, go back a step and open the search box. In the centre is a four-way navigation pad with a centre button with an uncomfortably spiky nubbin in the middle. These controls let you move around your library, select letters in the text entry matrix for the search box and navigate menus.
Like most readers, the Pyrus comes with its own software - you'll find Windows and Mac OS X installers on the reader's internal storage. The software gives you access to TrekStor's branded bookshop and let you authorise your reader for eBooks encrypted with Adobe Digital Editions DRM. The first time you run the program, you're prompted to download and install Adobe Digital Editions. If you already have an Adobe account, you can log into it via the Digital Edition software to gain access to all the titles you've bought previously.
Once you've logged in to your Digital Editions account, you're promoted to authorise your reader. You'll then be able to use Digital Editions to view books already on the reader - all the sample books are in German in this case - and manage the titles present on your PC. Once your reader is authorised you can also manage Digital Editions books using powerful third-party tools such as Calibre.
TrekStor eBook Reader Pyrus
TrekStor’s software may look slightly clunky, but it gives you an easy way to view the books present on your reader and lets you open them in Adobe Digital Editions for reading on your PC.
The software’s Shop tab opens up the Eason online bookshop, which lets you buy physical as well as electronic books. We had no problems registering for the service and there seemed to be a reasonable selection of books available.
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Datacolor Spyder4TV HD review

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Calibrating your TV can be a bit of a dark art – what might look right in one scene may seem completely overblown in another. The Spyder 4 HDTV calibration tool lets you simply adjust your TV accurately to improve its picture in every scenario.
Datacolor Spyder4TV HD
It attaches to your TV with four bungee cords, and to your laptop or PC with a USB cable. Both Blu-ray and DVD test pattern discs are included, plus a simple Windows application that talks you through the process. After twenty minutes, our test TV had much better shadow detail, colour reproduction and contrast than it did at the default settings.
It’s not advanced enough for professional installers, and at £112 it isn’t cheap, but film fans that want to tweak their home cinema setup should see a much improved picture with this calibration tool.
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Lindy Tablet PC Stand review

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The Lindy Tablet PC Stand looks like a cross between a sextant and a cosh, but this little gadget does actually make it easier to view your tablet on a desk or bedside table, saving wear and tear on your wrists.
Lindy Tablet PC Stand
The stand feels solidly made, with three legs that can be pulled out to various angles, which means that you can use it with small as well as large tablets, or even with an ebook reader. Little rubber-padded supports fold out of the legs to keep your tablet in place, and there are rubber bumpers in various places to keep your tablet secure and prevent scratching.
Lindy Tablet PC Stand
The stand comes with a carry pouch which helps protect it when in your bag with your tablet. This is the most attractive and secure tablet stand we've seen, making it the perfect accessory for anyone who wants to watch movies in bed without having to prop their tablet against their knees.
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