The Lenovo IDEAPAD U310

A STYLISH YET INEXPENSIVE NOTEBOOK THAT CAN UPDATE MAILS WHILE IN SLEEP MODE AND LAST 7HRS ON A SINGLE

KEY SPECIFICATIONS

 Intel 3rd generation Intel® Core™ i5 processor

 Up to Genuine Windows® 7 Home Basic (64 bits)

 13.3” HD display, 16:9 widescreen

 Intel® GMA 3000 HD graphics

 Up to 4GB DDR3 memory, up to 500GB HDD storage & 32GB SSD1 cache

 Stereo speakers with Dolby Home Theatre V4 audio enhancement

 Integrated Bluetooth®1, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi

 USB2.0, USB3.0, HDMI connectors & 2in1 card reader

 Integrated 720p HD webcam

VAIO Z Series Laptop

Absolute mobility and speed in an ultra-thin notebook

                                                                                                        For £1,271.00

Cooler Master

               Cooler Master 140mm 1000RPM Red LED Fan

Cooler Master 140mm 1000RPM Red LED Fan (R4-BCDR-10FR-R1) Case cooling is becoming more essential these day  The better airflow inside your system, the cooler and more stable system you will get.

Features

4 high intense LED.
Fully transparent design.
Quiet operation with low RPM.
High air flow for maximum cooling performance.

Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920 Review

Logitech has recently launched the Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920 webcam, and this one is of particular interest to people because the H.264 video compression is done in the camera itself. Yup! you heard that right, we are talking about built-in hardware compression here. If you are not familiar with how this works, usually, webcam capture video and an uncompressed stream is sent to the computer, where the main processor (CPU) performs the video compression before it is sent by a software like Skype and facebook video calling software. The compression can vary from a video-call software to another, but the principle stays the same. By having the camera perform the hardware, it is possible to have excellent video quality, even on a mildly powerful computer..

Context:

I use Skype quite a bit in the office, so we decided to put the camera to the test to see if it lives up to the hype. Note that to take advantage of the 1080p video streaming in Skype, one needs to install Skype 5.7 (beta for now) or above. To test this, I have decided to try the Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920 on my old Macbook Air (Core 2 Duo + 4GB), as it is not a powerful computer. I was really curious to see how the camera would perform.

Results:

The result was very interesting: both the image quality and the fluidity of the Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920was noticeably higher than even the Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910 which is just a notch below, and the difference is particularly noticeable when compared to the older Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 that was one of the best webcams just a couple of years ago.

Energy Take Classic 5.1

Good part:

The Energy Take Classic 5.1 offers outstanding sound quality for a compact surround-sound speaker system. All of the speakers feature a beautiful piano-black finish, looking more expensive than the system's budget price. Altogether, the system is one of the best home theater values available.

Bad part: 

Pioneer's SP-PK21BS sounds better for the same price, although it's a much larger system.

The bottom line:

The Energy Take Classic 5.1 is the best budget speaker system we've reviewed, earning our Editors' Choice Award with its outstanding sound quality and exquisite looks.

Intel Core i5 670 Processor

Intel Core i5 670 Processor Technical Specification:

Codename: Clarkdale
Clock Speed: 3.46 GHz
Turbo Mode: 3.77 GHz
GPU Clock: 733MHz
FSB: 1333 MHz
Socket: LGA 1156
32nm Process
TDP: 73w
Dual Core
L2 Cache: 2x256kb
L3 Cache: 4MB
Hyper threading – 4
Intel Core i5 670 Processor Price in India: Approx. 18k Indian Rupee (INR)

Apple iPad (2012)

MRP: 30500

Summary

If you are an iPad 'one' user, or a user of any other tablet available in the market, then you should consider the upgrade to the New iPad. If you are an iPad 2 user however, we suggest you skip this iteration and wait for the fourth generation iPad as that will be a better value for money upgrade for you.

Design

If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it! We placed the New iPad and the iPad 2 in the hands of virtually everyone who walked into our lab and while the display was off, none of the users could make out the difference between the 2 devices. Some of the people who were iPad 2 users complained about one being heavier than the other and they guessed which was which.

Display

What will make your jaw drop to the ground is the new Retina Display. Once you switch on the display, there is no going back to whatever tablet you used before this. It’s the same experience users had when they decided to switch from the iPhone 3GS or any other smartphone to the iPhone 4.

No matter how close you go to the screen of the New iPad or how much you zoom into the text, you will see no pixilation. The resolution of the 9.7-inch display is 2048x 536. That’s 264 PPI (Pixels Per Inch). The Retina Display is twice the resolution of the iPad 2, which sports a resolution of 1024 x 768 (132 PPI).

To the naked eye, the display on the New iPad may seem slightly less bright when compared to the iPad 2, but we have never seen a crisper display on any device.

New Features to iOS

iOS has seen its fair share of tweaks since its inception and Siri was one of the biggest highlights last year when Apple announced the iPhone 4S. We all expected to see Apple’s voice controlled personal assistant make an appearance on the New iPad, but we were all left a little disappointed. Instead, Apple has added a simple voice dictation feature to the device.

Users can tap the microphone icon to the left of the keyboard, dictate, hit the button again and viola! The device understands what you say. Well almost...When we tried the dictation app with our Indian accent, we were not very successful. The app refused to identify a lot of neutral words and if you try to dictate Indian names and places, be prepared to pull your hair out!

As awesome as the dictation feature is in an American accent, it is equally frustrating in an Indian accent.

Western Digital My Book Essential 3TB

Full Review

This Western Digital My Book Essential 3TB (WD30EZRS) external hard drive uses internally a drive we have previously reviewed. That is, the Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB (WD30EZRS), an internal 'green' drive. The 3TB storage serves as an attractive option for users who want to store a lot of data on external drives. Whether you are a desktop user who wants the flexibility of data on a portable drive, or a laptop user with enormous storage needs, WD claims this is the drive to pick.

Design

The My Book 3TB comes in a form factor measuring 16.5cm in height, 13.5 cm in depth and 4.8 cm in width. In terms of appearance, it's almost an exact replica of earlier iterations of the My Book Essential Series. The drive is rounded around the edges - aptly resembling a book - and has a glossy black plastic build that attracts its fair share of fingerprints and smudges. At the front of the drive, there is an LED power indicator, with the WD logo located at the lower section.  

The two rubber stands, located at the vertical base of the drive, keeps the drive slightly elevated above ground level allowing for a better air flow. Grate-like air-flow/heat-dissipation vents cover the vertical top, rear and bottom sections of the drive. At the rear of the drive, you will find the rectangular Power Button.

A SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port, a standard power port, and a Kensington port are located below the power button. The drive comes with a USB 3.0 cable, a power adapter and cable.

New ALIENWARE M11x Laptop

The Alienware ™ M11x—pure gaming power that goes anywhere it wants:

Featuring the most powerful processor and graphics combinations of any sub-38.1cm (15”) gaming laptop (NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 335M)

Vivid HD (720p) 29.5cm (11.6”) widescreen display with HDMI output port

Intel® Core™ i5 and i7 processors enable increased performance while maintaining long battery life.

Performance without increased power consumption.

Preliminary weight starting at 2kg.