REVIEWS: Benq V2410T monitor

Looking for a flexible monitor?

If you're looking for something a little more "flexible" than your average LCD screen, you'll find a fairly limited selection of displays that offer height, tilt and swivel adjustment that are complemented by decent performance and a reasonable price. Benq's V2410T ticks all of these boxes and while it stops short of delivering on all fronts, there's still plenty to like about its latest 24-inch LCD.

With a 16:9 (1920 x 1080) aspect ratio and LED-backlighting the 2410 is impressively slim but necessarily heavy due to the presence of a wide, flat stand that can accommodate its wide range of movement. It does an excellent job in this area and can be hoisted over 20cm from a desk, rotated to portrait orientation, has a 90 degree swivel movement and a 25 degree tilt, with adjustments extremely smooth and easy to make with one hand due to the efficient weight distribution.

This is a key benefit of a display that is otherwise rather basic, sporting almost no defining features on the rather bland, matt-black bezel and omitting HDMI, built-in speakers and USB ports. D-Sub and DVI-D connections are all that come as standard and BenQ utilises a typical arrangement of presets, environment and colour modes to offer flexibility depending on use.

Its proprietary Senseye technology offers previews of some of the environment modes on offer (gaming, movie and photo accompany "standard", "eco" and "sRGB") and we were fairly pleased by the admittedly general adjustments made to help optimise content in these settings. Some tweaking may be required for those with a sharp eye for detail, but contrast levels, colour accuracy and response time were about what we'd expect for a monitor at this price point. While far from outstanding, most will be pleased with the performance on offer, and the built-in eco mode, which saves around 20 per cent, is bright enough to be set as default in most cases.

As mentioned, Benq's V2410T is quite reasonably priced at around ?185, which considering its size and the range of orientation adjustments available makes it very good value for money. Though it's unlikely to win any awards for pure performance, it will still be more than adequate for most audiences and those in a position to take advantage of its key benefits will find very little not to like.

Verdict:

The V2410T is a large, slimline LED-backlit display that will suit those who demand a degree of flexibility without top-notch performance. It does well in most of the key areas and provided its rather basic specifications are sufficient for your needs, this is an impressive general use display at a very reasonable price.

Tags:HardwareMonitorsBenQBenQ V2410T

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Benq V2410T monitor originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 11:15:14 +0100

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REVIEWS: Apple Mac mini 2.4GHz

A perfect companion for your TV?

Apple has refreshed its Mac mini and made more substantial changes than we saw at the last evolution of this tiny desktop computer. But does the Mac mini deliver, or is the new asking price of "649 just too much to bear"

Apple have been masters of design for some time and the new Mac mini is certainly the best looking iteration of this computer. Gone is the plastic, offering up an aluminium body, aping the design of the MacBook Pro. It is beautifully crafted, with minimalist lines and free from fuss. Compared to some of the other small format nettops out there it looks far superior.

Designed like this, the Mac mini is the sort of desktop PC you will be happy to have on display, and Apple also has its sights on the home cinema market. On several occasions when we were introduced to the Mac mini by Apple, they pointed out that people liked to connect the Mac mini to their TV, hence the inclusion of an HDMI connector, a first for Apple.

The Mac mini won't just look the part set alongside your high-end home cinema rig, but it offers up more power than your average nettop, such as the Acer Aspire Revo, which offers an Intel Atom processor, rather than the 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo on offer here.

It measures 197mm square, with a height of just 36mm and effectively offers up the same internals as the MacBook (except the hard drive is a little bigger at 320GB in the Mac mini), which adds a screen and keyboard in its plastic enclosure for an additional ?200. Fans of Apple Mac computers can't help but notice the creep in price, especially as when we reviewed the Mac mini in March 2009 it was under ?500.

Internally you get that Intel Core 2 Duo processor running at 2.4GHz, with a 2.66GHz version available for an additional ?123. This is supported by 2GB of RAM, upgradeable to a maximum of 8GB, although that would set you back an extra ?400. There is a 320GB hard drive, with a 500GB version costing you an extra ?80. So there are configuration options available to you, but they do come at a cost.

Fortunately, one of the changes made to the Mac mini is the new removable bottom. This simply rotates and comes away, revealing the innards, so you can easily upgrade the RAM yourself, giving you the freedom to shop around, or wait until you find you need to upgrade it.

The connections are precisely arranged on the rear, offering up Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 800, HDMI, Mini DisplayPort, 4x USB 2.0, an SD card slot and headphone and mic 3.5mm jacks. Arranged as they are we didn't have a problem, until it came to the SD card slot.

Putting it on the rear makes the design look tidy, but if you regularly want to use it to access files from your digital camera for example, you'll be scrabbling around the back to do so. Its less convenient for those who might have the Mac mini as part of an installation, but for those who have it sitting on a desk it isn't a significant issue. The same could be said of the USB ports, if you want to regularly move files to a USB drive, you'll need to make sure you have easy access.

With the aim of making the Mac mini a tidy little device, Apple have done away with the power brick. This is now internal, so all you have to do is plug in the cable. This again makes it much tidier, both above and below your desk. Internally you also get Bluetooth 2.1 and Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, so you'll be able to hook-up wirelessly to peripherals and your network.

On the back beneath all the connections is the exhaust outlet. With the design offering no ventilation, we found that the Mac mini runs with a purr that is barely noticeable and nothing like the volume you'd get from the fan-cooling on games consoles, some Blu-ray players and PVRs. However, the Mac mini will get warm once you set it to various tasks and you'll hear the fan changing speeds, throttling up and down. We didn't find that the slot-loading SuperDrive made much noise once running.

The Mac mini isn't a power house like some of the iMac models. Ask it to do various tasks at the same time and you'll see it slow down and struggle, just as the MacBook will. It will handle regular daily computing tasks with easy however and also being capable enough to work with our images and transcode your video. If you are planning to hook it up to your TV to play HD content from your network, then it copes well enough. Rarely will you be running a number of applications as well as your HD content, but if you are in the business of editing large amounts of HD video, you might find it won't quite be up to the challenge.

We tried some HD movies and video camcorder content and encountered no problem with playback of this type of material, thanks to the Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics chip, which Apple say offers 2x the performance of previous Mac minis. This will also handle your 3D gaming, although Windows fans will point out that you can buy a respectable gaming rig for this sort of money on their rival platform.

The inclusion of Mini DisplayPort means you'll be able to hook up to Apple's Cinema Display, or an existing monitor using one of a wide variety of adapters which will cost you around ?20 each, although you get an HDMI-DVI adapter in the box. Those with newer monitors or taking the TV route will be able to use the HDMI (no cable supplied).

A variety of resolutions are included to get the best option for your TV and we found we had to tweak the HDMI monitor settings too on the 1080p setting to get the screen to fit properly. The same will most likely apply to your TV, so you'll have to dig in the picture settings of your TV to get the best result. The HDMI will carry the audio stream, so you can easily get your audio content to your TV or AV receiver with the option of having system "Sound Effects" use the internal speaker, so they don't boom out.

Verdict:

Overall the Mac mini wins a lot of points for the design. You'd be hard pressed to find any desktop computer that looks as elegant as this. But at the same time you are paying for that design statement. You can get a more powerful Windows PC unit for a fraction of the price, but that's not the point. You buy the Mac mini because you want Mac OSX.

The addition of the HDMI is appreciated as it makes it really simple to connect it to your TV so you get all the benefits of having a proper computer connected to the big screen, for whatever reason, be it for staying connected, using IPTV services or connecting up to your network - or all of the above. We also hope that this is a precursor to HDMI coming to the next iteration of MacBooks, although this is purely speculation on our part.?

We were originally concerned that the Mac mini would run overly hot, but this didn't appear to be a massive problem in our tests. It runs quietly enough to slot into your lounge without being offensive, so is a convenient and powerful alternative to some of the devices out there.

The only issue is price. The entry-level model is expensive and upgrading makes it more expensive than is reasonable. It looks great, but if bang for your buck is important, you'll find better value elsewhere.

Tags:HardwareDesktop PCsNettopsAppleApple Mac miniMac mini

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Apple Mac mini 2.4GHz originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:07:24 +0100

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REVIEWS: Apple Magic Trackpad

A touch of magic?

If you've used a MacBook Pro or MacBook over the last couple of years then what we'll be looking at in this review of the Apple Magic Trackpad is old news."We say that because the technology is the same, the experience is the same, and the usability is the same; anything you can do on the trackpads of the latest MacBook or MacBook Pro laptop range, you can do here. So do you really need to buy this ?59 accessory"

Rather than rush out with a "first look" or "hands-on review", we've played with one for the last 24 hours in a standard office environment to see how it compares against a mouse, and whether it really offers much of a different experience.

The device itself oozes typical Apple minimalist design. It's a sheet of aluminium that sits on your desk at a slight angle waiting to be touched, and coated with a wear-resistant glass surface. The angle is created by the battery tube at the top, which takes two AA batteries. Apple claims this will be enough to power it for around 2 months.?That tube houses the power switch and the gubbins to make it all work. Aside from a green light that only lights up when it is pairing, there is very little to report here.

While the top is metal the underside is white plastic - identical to the Apple Bluetooth keyboard. In fact design-wise it is identical in its approach.?It's the same brushed metal on top, the same angle, the same depth, the same height, in fact you can put the two together and pretend they are one piece.

Unlike most other computer peripherals, the surface is free from buttons. But you still get the ability to left or right click, thanks to the small feet on the leading edge of the underside.?It's an incredibly simple and clever idea that works just like the MacBook Pro's system - you just click on the trackpad without realising there is no button.

The Magic Trackpad is connected to your Mac via Bluetooth, and the only other requirement here is that you are running OSX 10.6.4."Connect the device to your Mac and at first you'll believe that you've bought a rather uninspiring and expensive trackpad that doesn't do much."

Just perform a software update (if you haven't already) and empower your Magic Trackpad to deliver on its"promises."A quick restart later and you're ready to tinker if you so wish, although for the most part you won't have to.

The new software gives you the power to scroll, rotate, pinch, open and close, screen zoom, and secondary click when using two fingers.

Add a third finger and you can swipe to navigate and drag windows around, while four fingers up and down opens Expose and swiping left and right gives you the ability to change applications.

Don't panic you can just use the one finger. The travel of your finger on the trackpad is more than enough to cover your screen within a single motion and that saves you having to keep lifting your finger.

There are other options with your single finger; i.e. tap to click (which can be turned off) and secondary click zoned into the bottom right corner, for example: we found a two finger click was easier, but there are choices so you can set it to your preference.?You can adjust tracking, double-click and scrolling speed as well.

In practice, and it really is the same as the MacBook Pro trackpad, although we found it easier to use three and four finger movements due to the increased real-estate.?The glass is"beautifully"smooth on your fingers and the click, which can be done from anywhere with very little effort, is responsive and you don't really have to press that hard.

With the resting feet responsible for the clicking part of the trackpad you will have to have it on a level surface. We tried balancing it on a leg - it just doesn't work - but you can use it up to 10 metres away. We're sure that swapping trackpads around in the office will lead to a great deal of hilarity.

Verdict:

So desktop users should you ditch your mouse? The mouse might be ugly but it will allow you to whizz around the desktop quickly and it is what you are used to. This brings with it a host of new functions and we feel it is better than the company's Magic Mouse offering.

At ?59 you really want to make sure this is magical enough to replace your current mouse and we would have to say this comes down to how much you enjoy using a trackpad. For MacBook users wanting to bring that touch experience to their desktop Mac, or if dock your MacBook at your desk, then you probably don't need convincing. For us, this gives you the chance to break the excellent touchpad experience out of your notebook and get it on your desk.

If you spend most of your time on the road, with a MacBook Pro in tow, you probably don't need to lug around an extra trackpad and you won't be able to use it fully without a surface to put it on.

For us this is a mouse replacement, but it's worth heading down to your local Apple Store and trying it out for yourself.

Tags:HardwareAppleApple Magic TrackpadMiceMice And Keyboards

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Apple Magic Trackpad originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:05:40 +0100

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REVIEWS: BlackBerry Torch - First Look

Is this the future of BlackBerry?

Research In Motion has announced a successor to the BlackBerry Storm and BlackBerry Bold, merging two of its flagship handsets to create a new line that offers both a QWERTY keyboard and touchscreen experience."But has it created a prodigal son, or a bastard child" We managed to get some hands-on time with the new device at the UK launch of the new smartphone in London.

The first things you'll think when you glance at the device is that it's big, that it looks like the Palm Pre, while at the same time looking very familiar.

That's all understandable. The BlackBerry Torch sports a 3.2-inch 360 x 480 capacitive touchscreen display. While that's smaller than the iPhone 4 or the HTC Desire, it's wider, giving the phone an overall measurement of 111 x 62 x 14.6mm and a weight of 161 grams.?It gets even bigger when you slide the device upwards to reveal the 35-key QWERTY keyboard that is styled very similar to the Bold.

Size aside, the Torch offers all the usual buttons you would come to expect from a BlackBerry. Like the new Pearl 3G (9150) the model sports the rubberised hidden buttons on the side. Under the capacitive, rather than the clicky variant, screen we saw on the Storm are a further array of buttons: call, hang-up, menu, back and an optical trackpad giving you yet another way to interact.

There is also a 3.5mm stereo headset jack - handy as the multimedia capabilities have been vastly improved in the new BlackBerry 6 OS.

Around the back, is the classic "leatherette" cover and a 5-megapixel camera with flash. It will come with continuous auto focus, image stabilisation, scene modes, geo-tagging and zoom, as well as video recording at up to 640 x 480 resolution, but not 720p HD footage. We weren't able to test the camera.?

Inside and you'll get a rather disappointing 624MHz processor with 512MB flash memory. Why RIM hasn't just gone for the speed boost and featured a 1GHz processor like the majority of its competition is beyond us. Will that decision be its downfall? It's hard to tell from our play with the handset as they were pre-production models, but we did see the odd bit of lag.

Storage comes in the guise of 4GB built-in memory plus a microSD/SDHD card slot that supports up to 32GB cards. RIM says you'll get a 4GB card included, boosting the storage total to 8GB out-of-the-box.

Connectivity includes 3G, Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n) and stereo Bluetooth. Yes, you will be able to tether the handset to be able to access the Internet from a paired laptop, but you won't be able to turn it into a wireless hotspot like you can with Android.

That's the specs, but how does it perform? We spent about an hour with the new smartphone and if you're a BlackBerry user you are going to be very happy and impressed.?The BlackBerry Torch sports the new BlackBerry 6 operating system and that brings with it a load of new features.

RIM says that the focus of the new OS is to "Keep it fresh, keep it familiar, make it approachable", and its clear that's what RIM has done.?That means a grid interface that you know and love, but with new bits and bobs to make it easier to use.

The biggest difference is that, rather than folders, you get tiles that you can swish through in a similar fashion to webOS and Android. These tiles (we aren't sure whether you can customise or create new variations of) include All, Media, Frequent, Downloads, and Favourite, with you being able to drag apps into the different areas just like you can with Android and iOS 4.

You'll also get universal search, so when you start typing it brings up everything in your phone related to what you are searching for. If it's a new search that has nothing do to with anything on the phone, you'll get links to YouTube, and Google, while if you've got web history, music, emails or other such stuff with references, links for those apps will appear instead.?It's very simple, but very clever.

Perhaps hoping to ape Motorola and its Motoblur system. BlackBerry users get Social Feed, a built-in app that lets you unify your social networks in one place. Data, be it status updates on Facebook, or tweets on Twitter are automatically push/pulled into the new app so you can see what your friends are saying. Clicking on one allows you to reply directly within the app and creating a new message gives you the option to multiple post. Replying and keeping in touch with your friends has never been so easy.

Social Feed doesn't just deal with social networking though, it does RSS feeds as well with the ability to add and monitor your favourite feeds all in one like Google Reader. We weren't able to determine from our brief play whether or not you would be able to organise the feeds beyond just having them in the one feed, but if you only follow a handful of sites it will very helpful none the less.

What's interesting about the Social Feed app is that it's all push. Using the available API's and creating some new ones themselves, RIM has turned RSS and Tweets into yet another icon on your homepage to get addicted to. You can even set a buzz or red flashing LED alert for the whole process.

A new interface, ability to search, and then the chance to tell everyone about it will please, but not half as much as the new Webkit browser that's been introduced.?Here is the news you've all been waiting for ... it's now fast, it's now useful, and it now actually displays websites as they are meant to be seen.

That means we were able to load pages in seconds rather than minutes and they looked good. RIM has included pinch to zoom - remember it's a capacitive touchscreen on top - and double tapping on the screen zooms in forcing the text to auto-fit the page.?Other features include dull HTML 5 and CSS support as well as tabbed sessions, so you can view more than one web page at a time.

In an interesting move you'll be able to set the default font and size that it auto-fits too, so as to "fit in with your BlackBerry experience". We struggled to understand why or what that means exactly in our play, but we are sure we'll get to the bottom of it when it comes to a more in-depth review - when we get our hands on a final unit for a greater length of time.

Finally it's worth mentioning some niceties that we noticed along the way. There is an accelerometer, but it's automatically disabled when watching videos, to landscape of course, while that same locking feature comes into play for portrait mode when the keyboard slides out. Then there are the improved settings and set-up page that isn't now just a menu of words, making it a lot easier to manage things.

Elsewhere, another feature we liked was the ability to see new notifications without launching the dedicated app. All you have to do is simply click on the notification icon at the top of the screen and it displays quick links to all that information, be it Twitter messages, emails, text messages, calendar dates or anything else you've got setup for that matter.

And yes, music has been improved to look and act more like the iPod interface and pictures now get the ability to view by folder and date amongst other new options.

Verdict:

With the help of a new OS - BlackBerry 6 - BlackBerry has been able to create a device that we suspect most BlackBerry Bold owners will want to upgrade to. Yes, the BB 6 OS will be coming to the BlackBerry 9700, but this brings with it a touchscreen that the Storm series could only dream about.

Build quality is solid, and the new OS is great, although it's not without its gripes - mainly that it's not overly"intuitive"for non-BlackBerry users and that there are just too many ways to do something - touchscreen, optical trackpad, and keyboard.

If you were to compare the BlackBerry Torch to other handsets on market it would have to be the"Motorola Milestone vs Palm Pre Plus."If there were any BlackBerry users thinking of jumping ship to the Palm Pre Plus, this will definitely make them change their mind. The Milestone is a harder choice, mainly because of Android, but RIM is trying its best, and this isn't going to be a phone to woo the iPhone or Android owners back.

The BlackBerry Torch looks very promising, something that will whet the appetite of the BB faithful, and possibly allow RIM to stay in the race for Smartphone dominance.

The BlackBerry Torch will be available on AT&T in the US and Vodafone in the UK in the next couple of weeks.

Tags:PhonesMobile phonesBlackBerry TorchBlackBerryRIMFirst look

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BlackBerry Torch - First Look originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 03 Aug 2010 20:32:03 +0100

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