Ashley Cornell, email: [email protected]

While Sanyo’s televisions are typically associated with the low end of the market with average performance, its projectors are widely regarded as some of the best in the business.

That doesn’t mean they’re ridiculously expensive, though. On the contrary, the brand’s new high-contrast Full HD offering, the PLV-Z3000, is available for under £2,000. That makes it a cool £200 cheaper than the impressive Panasonic PT-AE3000 I recently reviewed, with which the Z3000 seems to have at least a few things in common when it comes to specs.

Before we dive into those specs, however, I regret to report that the Z3000 is about the most dismal projector I’ve ever seen. Its strikingly large body shows off all the design flair of a breeze block, as a sculpted dark gray finish wraps around a style-free rectangular body for a depressing effect. It’s basically the AV projector equivalent of a wet rainy day in Stockport – hardly what you want in your living room or cinema room!

Thankfully, things look a little better if you turn your attention to the rear of the projector and find a couple of HDMIs and two component video ports leading the HD load. There is also a D-Sub PC connector and a control connector for system builders.

However, as I begin to browse the Z3000’s extravagant feature claims, my objections to the thing’s ugliness fade into the background. Because there really seems to be a lot to do for such a cheap machine. For example, the projector unusually runs with a 100Hz engine (which jumps to 96Hz for 24p playback) to make motion appear smoother and smoother. Also, like the Panasonic, it has adaptive framing processing.

Next, it adds a new optical compensation plate to the lens array that drastically reduces light leakage, helping the Z3000 achieve a whopping (by LCD projector standards) contrast ratio of 65,000:1. Also contributing to that contrast number is a new variable aperture system with a lamplight volume control mechanism that can apparently adjust the lens’ aperture setting every 1/60th of a second – easily fast enough to prevent you from seeing obvious jumps in brightness during a normal viewing experience. Additionally, Sanyo claims to have reduced the bezel’s operating noise, so you should rarely, if ever, hear it opening and closing.

Speaking of running noise, I was also very impressed with Sanyo’s claim that the Z3000 can run with just 19dB of noise provided you use its low brightness settings. The 19dB figure is exceptionally low for such an affordable projector and the projector mostly lives up to its reputation as it runs quieter than any other affordable projector I can think of unless you foolishly run the lamp at full Brightness.

Sanyo has also tried to make a big deal out of the fact that the Z3000 is – as far as we know – the first projector to feature a 5:5 pull-down mode to deliver a more natural, smoother image from 60Hz inputs deliver. Which would be great if the UK actually had that many 60Hz sources!

Basic setup of the Z3000 is a breeze – provided you can find a coffee table big enough to support its considerable bulk. Thanks to the provision of exceptionally flexible horizontal and vertical image shift wheels on the side of the projector, I was able to position an image perfectly on my screen in no time at all – without the need for awkward, distorting keystone correction.

The projector’s on-screen menus aren’t bad either, in a matter-of-fact way. The only criticism here is that I found the image unusually difficult to calibrate properly. And worryingly, this seemed more to do with issues with the image itself than the projector not giving me enough adjustment tools to do the job. More on that later.

Among the main features of the menus to become familiar with are a selection of lamp power presets, two of which are dim, geared towards home theater use; gamma adjustment; adjustment of noise reduction; two “dynamic” aperture settings and one fixed option; the possibility of reducing the range of the iris; options for automatic black stretching, contrast enhancement and transient enhancement; an adjustable smooth motion mode; this 5:5 pulldown system; and last but not least, a really sophisticated color management system.

The latter actually allows you to select small target areas of the image (which is frozen at the moment you select the function) and adjust the level, phase and gamma of the selected tone using a “sliding scale” with slightly different shades on both Pages adjust the original. Helpfully, there are before and after boxes so you can track exactly what the impact of your changes is.

If that all sounds a bit scary, the projector also comes with a variety of pre-installed picture presets, including Brilliant Cinema, Creative Cinema, Pure Cinema and Natural. Although I have to say that I didn’t find any of them entirely convincing, mainly for the reason that I just wasn’t blown away by the color response of the projector when using one of them.

Seriously, none of the out-of-the-box modes seemed to deliver a color palette that I felt completely confident in, and to be honest while the considerable time invested in the innovative but very time-consuming color management system resulted in significant improvements, I never felt like the results looked quite “right”.

To be more specific, skin tones tend to look slightly orange, some greens look slightly anemic, and some dark scenes seem to carry a slightly green undercurrent.

As an interesting addition to this, two of the three cinema presets provided don’t add much brightness to the image at all, a phenomenon I usually associate with a projector struggling a little to get its colors right.

It is probably due to this apparent suspicion of brightness that the Z3000 does not deliver quite as much bite and dynamics as some of its competitors, including Panasonic’s PT-AE3000, even in dark scenes – or better combined dark/light scenes.

At this point, it’s high time to step in and make it categorically clear that, contrary to what you’re probably thinking, the Z3000 certainly isn’t a bad projector. For example, it handles black levels very well for a projector at its price point. There may be a bit more gray over the darkest black than with the Panasonic PT-AE3000, but I’d say the Z3000 actually outperforms the Panasonic slightly when it comes to reproducing subtle shadow detail in dark areas. This allows the Z3000’s dark scenes to appear slightly three-dimensional.

The Z3000 also produces a really sharp image, usually on par with the Panasonic, apart from perhaps a little more blur when depicting movement. Not that the Z3000 handles movement badly, mind you. When it comes to reducing judder, it’s even better than the Panasonic.

There is still some judder – even with the Smooth Motion mode set to full. But that judder seems to face you slightly less than it can on the brighter, sharper Panasonic. And I certainly prefer the relaxed approach to judder reduction exhibited by the Z3000 to the nauseating and side-effect-inducing aggressive approach observed at some settings for Sony’s MotionFlow projection technology and Philips’ HD Natural Motion system will .

I was also pleased not to notice any sign of the dreaded “chicken wire” effect from LCDs, even when viewing the projector on a 100-inch screen, and should also remind you not to worry as this is more of a LCD than a DLP projector is about the rainbow noise of DLP.

Overall, while I couldn’t entirely overcome the projector’s color issues, I did get close enough to show that the Z3000 can produce images that look truly superb for a sub-£2k projector.

“‘Verdict”‘

I might as well get straight to the point here and say that personally, if money is no object, I’d pick the Panasonic PT-AE3000 over this Sanyo. Partly because of the Panasonic’s really handy built-in anamorphic lens setting, but mostly because I find the default color settings much better and the rendering of dark scenes more dynamic.

But if you’d rather save a few hundred pounds to buy a couple of Blu-rays – and get a handy three-year guarantee too – then rest assured that the Sanyo PLV-Z3000 is still a very talented machine. Although you might need some help initially if you want it to look its best.

points in detail

• value 8

• functions 8

• picture quality 8

• draft 4

There is growing interest in inkjet all-in-ones that can handle both A3 and A4 documents, and Brother have several models that can more or less do this. More or less, because on this model of the MFC-5890CN, the A3 support only extends to printing. The device’s scanner is an A4 device, so A3 scans and copies are off.

As you can expect with the larger paper capacity, this is no small machine. However, Brother has managed to design it so that it doesn’t take up much more desk space than a typical A4 machine. Running top to bottom, the unit has a fairly tall automatic document feeder (ADF) at the top with a fold-out input tray that juts out at an oblique angle when open.

Below that is a sloping control panel at the front with all the usual controls. On the left are dedicated fax buttons, a number pad for dialing, the machine’s LCD display, mode buttons, menu navigation, and finally four buttons for black and white and color copying, job cancellation, and sleep mode.

As is now common on Brother machines, the LCD display is double-wide, which is particularly helpful when printing from memory cards – all popular types are supported – as you can see a thumbnail of the image and a menu of options at the same time.

The single paper tray can hold 150 sheets of paper and doesn’t have a built-in sheet feeder, but it does have a slide-out base and top cover, so you only need to enlarge it when printing on A3 paper. If most of your work is A4 or smaller, the tray doesn’t protrude from the front of the MFC-5890CN at all.

Brother doesn’t seem to have found out where sockets are conventionally positioned. The phone line and handset connectors are located on the back on the left next to the power outlet. USB and ethernet sockets are tidier but less convenient as you have to fold up the scanner area and run the cables through a duct to a position just behind the control panel inside the machine.

The company does much better with the ink cartridges, all four of which are inserted behind a fold-down cover to the right of the paper compartment. A one-off loading cycle then makes the machine ready to print within a few minutes.

The included software includes Brother’s MFL-Pro software suite, which takes care of scanning and uploading images from memory cards, as well as printing and OCR via the Nuance PaperPort 11SE.

As usual, the print speeds seem to have been plucked from the ether, with Brother claiming 35ppm for black and white printing and 28ppm for colour. Even in draft mode, which btw prints better than some and is probably usable for internal documentation, we can’t see how you could achieve these speeds.

In our tests, a five-page black text print took 1 minute 14 seconds, which translates to 4.05 pages per minute, and when we ran the 20-page test, which helps reduce processing time, the speed only jumped to 4.53 Pages per minute, about one-sixth the maximum rated speed. Our five-page text and color graphics print took 1 minute 55 seconds, or 2.61 ppm, so for all normal A4 pages the MFC-5890CN is slower than some of its direct competitors.

When printing A3 pages, the device is proportionally slightly faster. A five-page text print was completed in less than two minutes, and the corresponding text and color graphics page took just under three minutes.

Photo prints were also more on par with competing devices. The Brother printer produced a 15 x 10cm photo in 3 minutes 46 seconds in the highest photo mode, but in standard photo mode it took just 1 minute 39 seconds and there is very little visible difference between the two. Printouts from an SD card and from the device’s PictBridge socket each took 1 minute 42 seconds. A borderless A3 photo took a coffee break of 14 minutes and 30 seconds.

Print quality is reasonable for text, with only a small amount of unevenness visible around curved characters. Color graphics were also reproduced reasonably well, albeit without much life in the colors. Registration of black text over color is good.

A single sided copy from the scanner glass shows some loss of color making the copies look even more flimsy, but the result is serviceable. Photographic prints are reproduced well, with natural colors and high levels of detail, although overall they’re not quite as realistic as the best offerings from Canon or HP.

Scanning photos to a PC shows the same lightening of tone as copies, although the surprisingly high optical resolution of the scanner head of 1200 x 2400ppi ensures good levels of detail.

The four ink cartridges are the only consumables on this machine and we found them at prices putting the cost per page at 2.68p for black and white and 6.10p for colour. Black printing costs are about average for a machine in this class, but color costs are a few pence per sheet lower than most of the competition, giving good overall economy.

“‘Verdict”‘

Brother’s MFC-5890CN is a worthwhile all-in-one workhorse from a company that’s a growing force in business multifunction devices. It’s better suited for someone who needs the occasional A3 print than someone who prints A3 materials on a regular basis, and you’ll have to look for another model if you want to scan or copy in larger format.

points in detail

• print speed 7

• functions 8

• value 8

• print quality 8

characteristics

To press

to scan

Whatever else you may think of Philips, you certainly can’t deny that the brand is a true innovator. It’s always been that way to some degree, but Philips’ R&D department seems to have been in overdrive this year, and over the past few months has splurged on us with such goodies as new, ultra-powerful picture processing, a debut TV with LED backlighting and most recently a heavily refined version of its Aurea Light Frame technology.

But you know, for all the cleverness, quality and sheer extravagance of some of those earlier TVs, the new ‘Essence’ 42PES0001 is, to me, the brand’s most successful innovation to date. Why? Because it blends elegance with cold yet brilliant practicality so effortlessly that it has to be seen to be believed.

The key to what I love about this TV is that every single inch is designed to make it the ultimate hang-on-the-wall TV. This might seem rather odd when I tell you that the TV actually comes attached to a neat desktop stand, but trust me: the Essence takes the basic ‘hang it up’ concept and twists it in increasingly typical Philips fashion on 11′.

First off, the 42PES0001’s screen is surprisingly slim; only 38mm deep to be precise. What’s more, this stunning slimness isn’t compromised by unfortunate large, sticky bits like those found in JVC’s ‘Super Slim’ 42DS9 sets. It’s also worth mentioning that the 42PES0001’s screen weighs less than 17 kg.

The “price” for this is the fact that the screen has no built-in tuners. Instead, the usual digital and analogue tuners are housed in an external media receiver box that comes with the screen along with all the TV’s connections.

But far from being a downside to the 42PES0001, I’d argue that external receiver box is actually a good thing. For starters, if you’re serious enough about hanging your TV on the wall to have the best part of two grand squirted onto one essence, the last thing you want is to have to deal with tons of cables, who stick out it. An external connection box with only a single cable running to the screen is much tidier.

In fact, the Essence outperforms Pioneer’s KRP-500A plasma TV in this regard because while the Pioneer system required separate power cords for its screen and media box, this Philips brings power, video and audio from the media receiver to the screen in just a ” Umbilical cord”.

The external media receiver’s body doesn’t hurt either, as it’s beautifully designed, with a glossy dark finish that looks almost as futuristic as the screen. Of course, the glossy finish of the receiver also matches the rich black finish of the exceptionally thin display bezel – a bezel that barely extends half an inch wide around the entire screen; a space-saving design reminiscent of Toshiba’s Picture Frame LCD models.

In fact, the TV’s bezel is so thin that there’s just room for a tiny Philips logo at the bottom and a “pin-hole” power indicator.

Speakers are always a touchy subject with extremely thin TVs, especially if you have wall mounting in mind. But again, Philips has found a remarkably elegant solution in the form of a really elegantly designed speaker bar which – but only if you want to use it in place of a separate audio system – can be secured to the bottom edge of the TV with a simple two-screw bracket . Additionally, this speaker bar connects to the TV’s audio output via a small row of touch-sensitive pins built into the mounting bracket, eliminating the need to fiddle with audio cables last year. Refined.

The Essence has already gone further than the vast majority of flat screen TVs to make wall mounting an absolute no-brainer. But we still haven’t gotten to what is arguably its most inspirational touch: its wall mount. The special thing about it – apart from the fact that it is included in the scope of delivery and not as an optional extra! – is the fact that it’s curved, allowing the TV to move around that curve until you want it to snap into place. This makes it infinitely easier to get the TV level on your wall because if you don’t drill the mounting holes perfectly level you can simply slide the TV around the bracket curve until you correct your drilling error. As a man who is what Barry White was to the marathon I really can’t overstate how brilliant I think this wall mount is.

At this point, I’d probably break in some bad news just in case you think my excitement is starting to get the best of me. While the Essence is undeniably beautiful, slim and practical, it also can’t ‘glow’ in the way virtually all other mid-to-high-end Philips TVs do these days. That’s because the thinness of the TV’s frame has made it impossible for Philips to house its eye-catching Ambilight technology, which sees relaxing, immersive pools of colored light pour out of the TV’s back and sides.

It’s a real shame because Ambilight generally works best in a wall-mounted environment. Also, the extreme slimness of the Essence’s frame would have meant there would have been less physical ‘barrier’ between the image and the Ambilight ‘pools’. But if push comes to shove, if losing Ambilight is the price to pay for the Essence’s stunning on-wall practicality, then so be it.

Coming back to the media receiver, I notice that I haven’t really addressed its connections yet. So there you go: it includes three HDMIs, a USB port, a DLNA-certified Ethernet port for PC networking, component and VGA PC inputs and a digital audio output – as well as the usual SCARTs and so on.

In an ideal world, a fourth HDMI might have been nice, but it’s hard to be grumpy when the box manages to offer such an unusual level of multimedia flexibility. Finally, its USB and Ethernet ports can handle MP3, .alb (slideshow), MPEG1 and MPEG2 files, as well as the usual JPEGs, while the Ethernet port supports a huge list of media server applications, including Windows Media Player 11 , PacketVideo Twonky Media 4.4.2 and Nero 8.

The Media Receiver from The Essence also has some pretty important things “under the hood”. Because the chipset of the latest video processor Perfect Pixel HD Engine from Philips is hidden there. We won’t go into great detail here as we’ve already covered it extensively in other recent Philips reviews. But essentially, it’s designed to improve color, contrast, detail levels, motion rendering, and video noise levels. The same, of course, applies to countless other video processing engines from competing manufacturers. But we’ve found time and time again that the Philips motor is significantly more aggressive and powerful than any of its competitors.

In conclusion, I can’t help but admire the Essence’s extraordinarily practical yet beautiful design. Actually, all I have to say about the images produced by its screen is that they are not in the slightest negatively affected by the screen’s super-flat status. The pictures of the Essence are among the finest in the world of flat screen TVs.

I refer you to recent reviews of the Philips Aurea II and in particular the 42PFL9703 for a full description of how the Essence’s pictures break down. But in summary, if you love exceptionally dynamic yet authentic colour, incredibly sharp detail and sharpness, and some of the best black levels in the LCD world (outside of LED backlighting, at least) then the Essence will do just fine.

Of course, the usual Philips tab applies here. Indeed, if you want to get the most out of the Essence, you’ll need to spend far more time tinkering with the numerous settings it offers than you would on a ‘normal’ TV. If you don’t do this – and get at least a basic understanding of what all the picture options actually do – you can end up with issues like obvious glitches in fast motion, overused edges, and even some overcooked colors.

Particularly controversial is the HD Natural Motion processing, which reproduces movement with an intriguing fluidity but also tends to introduce some fairly aggressive glitches even at the minimum setting. Some people can’t tolerate this feature at all, although personally I think it’s fine for regular TV shows and only becomes problematic for sports, HD movies, and console games.

But in any case, the key point about this feature – and one that many other reviewers seem to forget – is that you can disable it entirely if you don’t like it. And even if it does, the increased jerking only slightly spoils the still absolutely brilliant LCD images.

We suspect you could argue that paying for a high-spec feature like HD Natural Motion that you ultimately don’t use isn’t great. But while the Essence is certainly very expensive for a 42-inch LCD TV, to me the uniqueness of its offering and the extent of its innovation justifies the cost with or without HD Natural Motion.

Finally, if we turn to the speaker bar that comes with the 42PES0001, it’s good without being truly brilliant. On the other hand, it’s capable of good volume levels and the soundstage remains amazingly open and detailed even when pushed very loud. On the downside, there’s not enough bass to provide a truly satisfying counterpoint to the high-frequency enthusiasm. But let’s be fair here; In the context of the sound produced by many regular flat-screen TVs, let alone one that’s only 40mm or so thick, the Essence’s efforts are actually pretty good.

“‘Verdict”‘

On paper, I think the Essence’s claim to fame as the easiest TV to ever hang on the wall probably sounds a bit dull compared to things like LED backlighting and the Aurea Light Frame. But in reality, the extremes to which Philips has pushed its wall-hanging goals with the Essence, while maintaining a firm grip on aesthetic beauty AND performance standards, has resulted in a product that, dare I say it, touches at least a little seems to be genius.

How we test televisions

We test every TV we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to properly compare features. We will always tell you what we find. We never accept money to rate a product.

Learn more about how we test in our Ethics Policy.

Used as the main TV during the period

Tested over a week

Tested with industry calibrated tools, discs and real world use

Tested with broadcast content (HD/SD), video streams and demo discs

points in detail

• functions 9

• value 7

• picture quality 9

• draft 10

• sound quality 8

characteristics

Physical Specifications

A few weeks ago we looked at an intriguing new concept from projector manufacturer Optoma aimed at the gaming community. The GameTime GT-3000 bundle consists of a DLP projector, a separate colour-matched 2.1 speaker system and a specially designed carrying case to carry it all around – all for the incredible price of £349.

While the GT-3000 was reasonably ok, it ultimately failed to win TrustedReviews’ hearts due to the lack of HD support. While the Nintendo Wii might be ok for Christmas parties, we spend most of our gaming time in the HD company of a PS3 or Xbox 360. Sorry Wii fans, but that’s just the way it is!

We therefore receive the bigger brother of the GT-3000, the GT-7000, with significantly more excitement. Because despite being just £150 more than the GT-3000, the GT-7000 introduces native HD Ready resolution and HDMI input to the party, making it far more likely to ignite our gaming appetite.

In fact, its much-improved HD credentials aren’t the only improvement the GT-7000 brings. It also claims a contrast ratio of 4,000:1 – twice that of the GT-3000, which raises real hopes that the GT-7000 will be able to handle the GT-3000’s somewhat disappointing black levels.

My hopes that this will be the case grow with the discovery that the GT-7000’s brightness is rated at 1600 lumens versus the GT-3000’s 2300 lumens. In my experience, while manufacturers’ stated specs can never be fully trusted, the GT-7000’s contrast-boosting contrast/brightness balance is far more likely to produce truly likable results than the GT-3000’s brightness bias.

In my eyes, the GT-7000 also surpasses its cheaper brother aesthetically. It’s basically the same remarkably small, slightly matter-of-fact shape as the GT-3000, but it has a piano black finish that’s much classier and easier to keep clean than the GT-3000’s ‘ice white’.

The GT-7000’s speakers are, as far as we can tell, identical to the GT-3000’s, apart from being black rather than white. They are quite attractively designed and look like a classic iPod speaker accessory. And their design is pretty clever too, thanks to the way they’re ‘flat-packed’ for transport but feature a fold-down subwoofer that allows the stereo speakers to stand upright when placed on a table.

As we’ve already noted, the GT-7000’s connections include an HDMI input. But gamers might also appreciate a component video connection and a D-SUB PC input. There’s also an S-Video connection and, surprisingly, even a 12V trigger output that could be used to automatically turn on a motorized screen. We’ve seen that many projectors costing thousands of pounds don’t offer these handy little jacks, so kudos to Optoma for being so thoughtful.

As you’d expect from a device that’s designed more as a “casual device” for casual users, setting up the GT-7000 is a breeze. Simple zoom and focus rings sort out image size and sharpness, while there are menu options to shift the image sideways or vertically a respectable distance, and vertical keystone correction to straighten the edges of the image when you’re sitting the projector above or below center of the screen.

However, if you want to dig deeper into your setup, you can. Other options in the menus include Overscan adjustment, EdgeMask adjustment, a range of themed image presets, various degamma settings (which are really worth experimenting with), and even the ability to adjust red, green, and blue gain and bias of the image to optimize elements.

Remarkably for such a cheap projector, the GT-7000 features Texas Instruments’ BrilliantColor and Tru-Vivid processing systems, which make colors appear more intense.

To be honest, the first thing I did when I actually tested the GT-7000 was reduce BrilliantColor to its level two or three (out of 10). Because if you leave it higher, images tend to look distractingly grainy and “forced”. Also, I personally wouldn’t recommend using the TruVivid setting at all, as while it can improve the vibrancy of objects with lots of colors, it can make skin tones look distinctly odd. Not for the first time, I feel that features like TruVivid and BrilliantColor should be left to true high-end projectors that are better equipped to get the most out of them.

Another provocative setting is the gamma preset control. Because messing around with it can have a huge impact on the overall flavor of the final image, and as such it’s a feature that you should revisit regularly depending on whether you’re watching a movie or TV show, or of course playing a game.

Indeed, provided you take these fairly basic precautions, the GT-7000 can produce some amazingly good images for such an insanely cheap projector.

The black levels in particular are a revelation, making Dead Space’s endlessly dark corners eerily black and believable on Xbox 360, and helping to create a good sense of scale. In other words, the GT-7000’s black levels give a sense of ‘being there’, much more successfully than any other under £800 projector I’ve seen – including the GT-3000. This is clearly an extremely important strength for a projector that focuses on gamers.

I was also pleased with the sharpness of the GT-7000’s images. Extremely textured graphics like those of Gears of War 2 look truly HD, with decent sharpness, solid detail, and less evidence of scaling “softness” than we found on the non-HD-capable GT-3000. The additional resolution of the GT-7000 also helps produce color blends more subtly, reducing the streaking effect experienced by the GT-3000.

While not as bright on paper as the GT-3000, to me the GT-7000’s images are actually far more dynamic thanks to the vastly improved black level response. So much so that the GT-7000 proves crucially the perfect projector for Blu-ray movies and games, making the GameTime name actually feel unnecessarily restrictive.

Still more good news is that the GT-7000’s colors look both more richly saturated and much more naturally toned than those of the GT-3000. I have to be realistic and say that we’re clearly not talking about color nuance or accuracy to compete with a regular or high-end projector. But the tones are generally good enough to convince rather than distract, and in fact it’s that respectable color palette along with the really, really decent black level response that ultimately makes the GT-7000 so much better than any other projector we can think of can the same money.

As is always the case with a budget DLP projector, the GT-7000 suffers from the technology’s rainbow effect, where red, green and blue stripes dart around in your peripheral field of vision or appear over very bright picture elements. This can be a little annoying during gameplay, which tends to use higher contrast images than your average movie or TV show. But actually the problem is much less apparent than with the GT-3000 or indeed many of the more expensive DLP projectors we can think of. In addition, the GT-7000 also manages impressively those dual DLP problems of dot creep in dark areas and hissing noise over moving skin tones.

I wasn’t as concerned with the GT-7000’s standard definition performance as I expected, either. Sure, the lack of really high-quality video processing circuitry means standard-definition pictures look pretty soft, and there’s little if any effort to reduce the MPEG blocking noise found in many digital broadcasts. But actually the slightly soft flavor of the GT-7000’s standard Def picture seems to reduce grain and mosquito noise, and provided you adjust the video and gamma presets to suit the type of source you’re watching, there’s less of a problem, too through dodgy hues than I would have expected from such a dirt cheap projector.

One concern I have, however, is that the GT-7000’s surprisingly high output seems to almost push the physical limits of the projector body. In other words, although its cooling fans seem to be working extremely hard judging by the occasionally annoying amount of noise they emit, the GT-7000 projector runs very hot. While this can be handy for keeping the house warm if you run out of heating oil over the New Year, it’s a bit of a concern when it comes to the projector’s longevity. That said, the GT-7000 comes with Optoma’s five-year color guarantee, so maybe I’m worrying too much.

As for the sound produced by the GT-7000’s included speakers, I’m afraid the situation is just as uninspiring as it was with the GT-3000. Because while the small speakers can get louder than you’d expect at first glance, and can handle relatively undemanding audio like Viva Pinata 2’s “cute” soundtrack, they tend to fall apart with the explosive theatrics of something like Gears of War 2 The midrange distorts and even disappears under duress, all too often taking the vocals with it.

“‘Verdict”‘

Although the GT-7000’s audio system is a disappointment, the projector more than makes up for it by producing amazingly good images for such an amazingly affordable device. In fact, it’s good enough to perform believably on both HD movies and games, giving it an all-round appeal that makes the £480 asking price look so cheap it’s almost obscene. But in a nice way.

points in detail

• value 10

• functions 7

• picture quality 7

• design 7

Best known for its extensive line of RAID controllers, Promise Technology is now entering the home and small business NAS appliance market with a modest range of devices. It also brings another acronym to the storage industry, although BYOD (bring-your-own-disks) simply allows you to buy an unpopulated unit and add your own SATA hard drives.

One feature that piqued our curiosity about the NS2300N was Promise’s new SmartNAVI client utility, as it claims to be equipped with artificial intelligence. This is a bit overwhelming, although the utility offers some useful features to help with general setup and configuration. SmartNAVI runs as a background task, accessible from the system tray, and automatically locates SmartStor NAS devices on the network.

Selecting an appliance from this interface launches the main window, which offers a useful one-click setup wizard. This applies a set of defaults based on what it finds on your network, and these include IP address, time zone, and automatic volume creation. The user interface does a lot more as it allows you to manage important functions of the appliance without having to use the PASM (Promise Advanced Storage Manager) web interface.

You can create volumes, manage users, groups and shares, and access the new Download Station tool. The latter is a feature that is appearing with increasing regularity in most desktop NAS devices, allowing you to access remote files via BitTorrent, HTTP, and FTP. We found it easy enough to create a link to our FTP server from the SmartNAVI interface, and once we added the link the download would start. Performance leaves a lot to be desired, with a 690MB video clip FTP download from both the NETGEAR ReadyNAS and Iomega appliances yielding less than 0.4MB/s average speeds

Promise can add new functionality to the appliance using plug-ins and also offers plug-ins for iTunes and DLNA servers along with Download Station. Previously these could only be added by copying them to the appliance and installing them from the PASM web interface, but this can now be done directly from SmartNAVI.

Enabling the DLNA plug-in automatically creates three new subfolders for storing music, pictures and videos, allowing you to stream content directly to UPnP compatible devices over the network. There isn’t much to see for the iTunes server as once activated the appliance will show up in the iTunes client as a new server and will advertise any music stored in its default music folder.

The device itself is a fairly well-constructed plastic box, although the front door doesn’t lock and the drives are held in place with thin plastic hot-swap trays. It is equipped with a 333MHz FreeScale MPC8313E processor along with 128MB of DDR2 memory and the embedded Promise PDC20771 controller supports mirrors and stripes. They have a Gigabit Ethernet port on the back and the single USB port next to it can be used to connect external storage, share printers over the network and add an intelligent APC UPS.

The main web interface of PASM is nicely designed and also offers a setup wizard to create new users and groups, enable file sharing services for Windows, Unix, Linux and Macintosh users, start the FTP server and create new shared folders be able. Security is good as the appliance supports both workgroup and Active Directory modes for Windows users and share access can be tightly controlled by granting each user read/write or read-only access. They can also use quotas to limit their personal storage space and FTP access can be set per share.

Backup options focus solely on the SmartSYNC tool, which provides functionality to back up local files and folders on the appliance. Access is via the SmartNAVI interface where you select your source data and either back it up manually or run it on a schedule. If you activate the one-touch backup function via the PASM interface, you can use SmartNAVI to start all predefined backup jobs immediately. Each SmartSYNC backup job creates a folder on the appliance under the user’s own share with subfolders showing the computer name and drive letter. Data can be easily restored directly from the SmartNAVI interface as it lists all your own backups and associated files on the appliance and you can restore them to their original location or any other location of your choice.

For testing, we installed a couple of Western Digital Raptor drives and configured them as a stripe. General performance is nothing special, as copying our test video between the appliance and a Boston Supermicro 3.2GHz Pentium D workstation over Gigabit Ethernet yielded read and write speeds of 10.5MB/s and 9.1MB /s yielded. FTP speeds were no better as the FileZilla client reported average read and write speeds of 7.5MB/s and 7MB/s.

“‘Verdict”‘

This small, two-drive NAS unit offers a reasonable range of features for the price, and Promise’s new SmartNAVI utility offers easy configuration and quick access to key utilities. However, our favorite dual-drive NAS box is still Netgear’s ReadyNAS Duo, as it offers a lot more for a similar price and better performance.

(middle)”‘The new SmartNAVI utility provides easy access to the main functions of the SmartStor”‘(/middle)

(middle)”‘New functions like the iTunes server can be added directly from SmartNAVI as plug-ins”‘(/middle)

(middle)”‘The SmartSYNC workstation backup tool can be run directly from SmartNAVI”‘(/middle)

(Middle)””The client support is particularly good and everyone can be managed via the PASM web interface.””(/Middle)

(middle)””Animated system status icons are provided and the fan can be turned off by the appliance if required””(/middle)

Brand loyalty seems to be de rigueur at the moment and Ferrari must be one of the main culprits. Ferrari recently started handing out brand associations like Mentos at a Foo Fighters concert. You can now get Ferrari phones, Ferrari notebooks and even Ferrari Lego! If you’re not careful, the Ferrari brand will soon be so watered down that it won’t bring any caché with it at all.

Not that we’ve gotten there yet, but one has to think about the relevance of Ferrari branding on a piece of high-end audio equipment, even one made by the award-winning Meridian. Sure, having high-end audio in your Ferrari might be desirable, but vice versa? let’s find out

The F80 is a small desktop all-in-one home entertainment system designed and built by Meridian Audio in collaboration with Ferrari. It includes a 2.1 speaker setup, quality amplifier and digital sound processor, CD player, DAB/FM tuner, DVD player and a healthy selection of additional audio inputs for connecting your Personal Media Player (PMP) or other external audio sources. It all fits into a package that measures just 408 x 230 x 185mm, making it easy to fit on most window sills, bedside tables or TV cabinets. Of course, given its staggering price and eye-catching looks, you wouldn’t want it in any of the above locations, but would rather have it standing high up on a pedestal in the center of your living room, both to really show it off and to keep it out of reach keeping children and pets.

The version that was sent to us is finished in a bright yellow (red, black, silver and white are also available) or Modena Giallo to give the official name. Whatever it’s called, it’s definitely beautiful. The color is rich and bright, and the glossy surface is flawless. If the only impetus Ferrari had in the design of the F80 was the paintwork, it would still justify the connection.

However, you will be pleased to hear that this is not the case. Not only did Ferrari bring their painting skills to the process, but they were instrumental in the development of the low-resonance, high-mass composites used in the chassis. These materials were needed to enable the construction of such a small device – especially given its chosen curved shape – that could maintain the audio quality Meridian is associated with. Its stiffness and density suppresses resonances and eliminates the possibility of the rattling you normally associate with a plastic construction.

Speaking of construction, if the old audio equipment adage “the heavier it is, the better it sounds” is true, the F80 certainly has to be second to none. At 6.5 kg (14.3 lbs), this thing is without a doubt the deceptively heaviest thing we’ve ever tested. Without exception, everyone in the office who stopped by to see it picked it up and underestimated the effort – luckily there were no injuries in the process, save for a few slightly bruised egos.

That weight combined with the device’s mains operation pretty much negates the portability of the F80, despite its compact looks. It’s fine for going from room to room or going outside for a BBQ, but it’s not a boom box replacement.

In addition to the high-density composite materials used in the chassis, the F80 has two other features that ensure the unit’s excellent sound quality. First are the specially designed speakers, all contained in their own isolated compartments. The left and right speakers are full-range designs that use powerful neodymium magnets and high-temperature voice coils in conjunction with a die-cast chassis and magnesium/aluminum alloy diaphragms to deliver immense power and volume while maintaining pinpoint accuracy to guarantee. The subwoofer, on the other hand, is a special long-excursion design that offers high bass response despite its relatively small size.

The second pillar of the F80 is the Digital Sound Processor (DSP). Well, some of you may have hacked the mentioned DSP as visions of those horrible sound-destroying digital EQ settings that you get on MP3 players come to mind. However, let me assure you that this is the last thing the DSP does on the F80. Rather, it optimizes the distribution of the audio signal to make the most of the compact speaker layout to provide a wider soundstage.

The extent to which it affects the sound can be controlled via the menu system with seven ‘Width’ options on offer. Stick with the width setting of 0 and you’ll still get a very pleasing stereo effect when seated in the best position. If you’re too close or listening at low volumes, the effect is lost a bit, but cranking up the width setting compensates for this. We’ve found that setting the width to “3” is a good all-around setting if you just want to set and forget.

Other sound customization options include a location setting that lets you choose from Table, Shelf, Corner, Floor, and Free. The difference between the two is subtle but noticeable, and certainly choosing the “right” setting will ensure optimal listening. However, if you’re unsure, selecting the “Free” option seemed fine for most situations.

Bass level can also be adjusted for typical effect, and while there’s no dedicated treble setting, there is a “tilt” control that oscillates the frequency balance around a central point, reducing bass while increasing treble, or vice versa . As usual, we found we didn’t feel like leaving these controls set and simply left them both at “0” for the majority of our listening. Not that they produced a bad sound, but we were pretty happy with the default setting and we’re sure most other listeners would be too.

While touching on the menu issue, I have to say that it’s one of the best menus I’ve ever used. A large part of the usability is thanks to the crystal-clear yellow OLED screen. It’s perfectly legible from every angle, to the point where you can’t physically see it, and the high resolution makes even the fine text in the menu crisp.

The menu itself is controlled by seven of the ten buttons that run down the center of the F80 just below the display. Aside from the home button, which toggles between the main menu and your current display, all buttons are context-sensitive. So when you are in radio mode, you adjust the tuning and switch between the (radio) bands. When playing a CD they will play/pause, skip forward, skip back, etc. It really is that intuitive, I just can’t fault it. Best of all, unlike many other devices, the menu doesn’t expire when you adjust the settings. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been frustrated with menus disappearing when testing different settings – I’m in the menu for a reason, don’t try to question me!

And relax…

On the back there’s a wide range of input and output options, with digital audio in and out, S-video and composite outputs, and an iPod dock connector that stands out (this is compatible with the forthcoming i80 dock ). The video connections are for DVD playback and the quality from them is quite impressive. However, we consider recording component video to be the absolute minimum necessary to get the best video signal from your DVDs. Additionally, we’d ideally have HDMI output and Blu-ray Disc support to make this a true one-stop home entertainment system. The latter are forgivable, though, considering the F80 actually launched early last year – maybe it’s time for an update?

The remote control is also a bit disappointing. It’s a generic button cell battery powered thing that uses little popper style buttons. It’s not inherently bad, but it doesn’t have the classy feel you’d expect from a product this expensive.

There are two external antenna connections with three different antenna extensions included, as well as an internal antenna, giving plenty of options for an optimal radio setup. Unfortunately, radio reception, and DAB in particular, is very poor in our area so it’s always difficult for us to comment on the tuning abilities of one device over another. For what it’s worth, the F80 was no worse than any other unit we’ve tested, and when a signal was found the F80 shone just as brightly as any other sound source, which of course this unit is really all about.

No matter what genre of music or video I threw at it, the F80 not only handled it, it excelled at it all. Whether the violins of Mozart, the cheeky attitude of the Sex Pistols, the soporific tones of Dido or the pulse of the Serenity engines, it never missed a beat while maintaining clarity, warmth and brute power. It’s really fantastic and certainly on par with any conventional Hi-Fi that costs £1,000.

So is the F80 worth its £1,500 asking price? Not quite. Unless you really want a Ferrari-branded hi-fi system. Technically, it just doesn’t add up. On the one hand, the F80 pretends to be an all-in-one home entertainment center with its DVD playback, but it lacks key features like HD movie playback and HDMI connectivity. If you take DVD playback as an added bonus and consider the F80 purely as a compact hi-fi then it struggles again, simply because £500 is a hefty premium to pay just for the compact design. However, if you don’t have the space for a ‘proper’ hi-fi system and appreciate the convenience of such a compact unit, there are few on the market that can offer the same audio fidelity.

“‘Verdict”‘

With the F80, Meridian proudly follows Ferrari by crafting a stylish and beautifully crafted compact home entertainment system. The sound quality is unparalleled for such a small device and the extras like DVD playback are very welcome. The only sticking point is the astronomical price, but there’s little else on the market that can offer everything the F80 offers in such a small package.

TV tuners are the unsung heroes of media center PCs. While Blu-ray drives, graphics cards and low-power CPUs make all the headlines, if you’re looking for a true all-in-one multimedia PC, the heart of your system is the TV card. After all, playing downloaded videos, flipping through your photos and listening to your music collection are all good reasons to set up a media center, but it’s not until you’ve added a TV that your multimedia experience is truly complete.

Furthermore, a few years ago just an analog tuner was enough to keep us happy, but with the advent of Sky+ and dedicated Freeview Personal Video Recorders (PVR) we are now demanding the ability to not just tune in to digital TV, but watch one channel while recording another. For this reason, dual digital tuners have become a must-have for the full-fledged media library.

So now that you know how important it is to have TV skills, what’s the best way to get them? First off, you can choose between a TV tuner card (either PCI or PCI-Express) or a USB device. There’s little reason to choose one, but considering your media center is likely to be a fairly permanent system once set up, you can also opt for an internal card to keep things organized.

Having decided which card to use, you now need to decide whether to go with two separate cards or a single card containing two tuners. Again, while it doesn’t matter what you choose, you might as well go for the simplest solution, which is the single card. In other words, if you’re looking to add TV functionality to your PC/Mediacenter, you probably want a card like the one I’m looking at today, the Compro VideoMate E900F.

This PCI Express x1 card not only has two digital tuners, but also accommodates analog transmissions, so you can theoretically choose between two digital tuners, one digital and one analog, and two analog tuners. However, there is a problem – Windows Media Center does not support the use of two different types of tuners at the same time. So you’ll have to choose between either two digital tuners or two analogue tuners – I don’t think that should worry most people too much. While the accompanying software does support the simultaneous use of analog and digital, as we’ll see later, you should avoid using Compro’s software.

The rear of the card also has inputs for receiving video signals from S-video, composite and component video sources, so you can use this card to record digital copies of your old VHS tapes, for example. There is also a mini socket for the radio receiver, another mini socket for the radio signal and two antenna sockets.

In addition to its TV tuner functionality, you also get an FM tuner, although we found that Windows Vista Media Center didn’t recognize this, so once again you had to use the crummy bundled software to listen. Not only that, the reception was unimpressive least of all for us who just about manage to record four stations. Admittedly, the radio reception in our office isn’t great, but it was well below what we would normally expect.

In the box you get the card, a driver CD, a copy of the Ulead DVD MovieFactory 5 SE (to convert the VHS tapes you just recorded to DVDs), a dongle for the extra video inputs, an FM antenna, a low profile board , a remote control, an aux-out audio cable for use with PCs that do not support digital audio, and a power button cable required for the remote to properly turn the PC on and off.

The basic installation of the card is very simple; You plug in the card, turn on the PC and install the drivers. If you just want to use the media center software built into Windows, that’s all. If you don’t, all you have to do is install the VideoMate software. However, if you want to use the remote control and turn the PC off and on properly, things are a bit more complicated…

When you install the card, you must also use the power button cable to connect a set of pins on the card to the regular power button header on the motherboard. You then take the cable from the actual power button on your PC case and connect it to the other set of pins on the card. Now you can turn on the PC with the power button on the remote control.

However, we have identified a problem with this system. When shutting down the system with the remote control while the Windows Media Center software was still running, the PC restarted immediately. Without the media center running, the PC would shut down gracefully, but it’s pretty important for a media center to shut down normally through the media center software.

As for the remote itself, it’s a typical copy of the official Windows Media Center remote, absolutely no different than any other we’ve seen in such a kit. While it works perfectly, if you plan to use this tuner card with Windows Media Center, we recommend that you also purchase the official remote control. It’s nicer looking, better built and doesn’t require fiddling with your power switches – it just works over USB.

When we first installed the card, we also thought that it wasn’t working properly or that it didn’t support using its tuners simultaneously. However, after a little research we found that this was because we didn’t have a second antenna plugged in for the second tuner (I had mistakenly assumed the second antenna socket was for a radio antenna). This was quite confusing as I’ve had a dual digital tuner card for a few years that uses a single antenna input for both tuners. For this newer card, using two seems like an odd step backwards. Compro has informed us that the retail version of this card does indeed come with a one-to-two antenna splitter, so you’re at least up and running right out of the box.

Once that obstacle was overcome, the card worked perfectly, recording over 70 channels into the Vista Media Center. We could easily record one channel while watching another, and (possibly because of the very fast review unit we installed the card in) channel switching was nearly instantaneous. The picture quality was also very good.

Realizing that not everyone will use this card just as a tuner for the built-in Windows Media Center software, we also tried the included software and were amazed that it could only recognize four channels. In addition, the interface is clunky and unintuitive, slow and generally so awkward that we advise you to avoid it at all costs. If you don’t want to use Windows Media Center, you essentially need to buy some decent TV software like SageTV.

“‘Verdict”‘

The Compro VideoMate E900F does a perfectly decent job as a basic dual TV tuner card, and while the remote control is a reasonable alternative to the official Windows Media Center, we’d still prefer the latter for ease of setup. The additional video ports could also come in handy and with some decent software the radio could appeal to some too. However, if all you want is a dedicated digital dual tuner for your media center, there are simpler, cheaper alternatives like the Hauppauge Nova-T 500.

Lexmark recently facelifted its line of all-in-one inkjet printers for home and school, and the X5650 sits firmly in the middle of that market. At a relatively low cost, the device is designed for printing, scanning, copying, photo printing and faxing. Even with the new look, the printing press has hardly changed compared to its predecessors.

Following Canon’s curved black and silver profiles, Lexmark uses mid-grey instead of silver and has designed its new device with an all-round effect that’s both functional and pleasing to the eye.

Lexmark has added a small handle on the right side of the product’s paper input tray to adjust the paper guides without having to move them by hand. We can’t see that as a major advantage and also wonder about the spring-loaded flap that sits in front of the shelf – as with so many newer Lexmark models. It doesn’t seem to do anything useful. We initially thought these flaps were to keep dust from falling into the feed mechanisms, but given the size of the gap between this flap and the paper, it must be pretty ineffective.

The most interesting thing about the front of the X5650 is its two-line status display, which appears to be a white-on-black LED panel rather than the more standard LCD. Although the size still limits the display to around 16 characters and longer messages require scrolling to be read, the display is much brighter and higher contrast than any LCD and is easy to read even in low light.

The control panel is well laid out, with four silver mode buttons on top, a power button on the left, and a start copy button on the right. Below that are the number pad, menu control and compartment keys for the address book, redial and other functions.

In addition to memory card slots for all common card types, the PictBridge slot also accepts a standard memory stick, which by default downloads all JPEG and TIF files found into a Lexmark application on your PC. It is also possible to use a proof sheet to select and print photos without a computer.

The Contact Image Sensor (CIS) scanner on the top scans optically at up to 600 x 1200 ppi and the 25 sheet Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) is clean and lays flat on top of the scanner. You can scan to a PC or a flash drive plugged directly into the device.

The X5650 runs with two cartridges, one black and the other tri-color, but you can replace the black cartridge with a tri-color photo cartridge to enhance pastel tones. Once you lift the scanner area of ​​the device, these two cartridges snap into a head carriage in standard Lexmark fashion and are easy to service.

Along with its looks, the supporting software that comes with the X5650 has been revised. Although Abbyy Finereader’s copy is OCR as before, other applications have been streamlined so Productivity Studio handles things like scanning, OCR, email and fax, and more standard photo editing. You can also use this software to create posters and greeting cards.

At first glance, Lexmark seems to be becoming more realistic with its speed claims, as it now states 13 ppm for black and white printing and 3 ppm for colour. However, our five-page text print took 1:04 and its 20-page equivalent 3:02, yielding real-world black print speeds of 4.69ppm and 6.59ppm, still nowhere near published specs.

Part of this is due to increased rasterization times before the first page begins to print. We’ve seen pauses of up to 25 seconds before documents are printed, and this may be due to a new default setting that prints multi-page documents in reverse order, so they don’t need to be resorted.

Our five-page text and color graphics document took 3:18, a print speed of 0.30ppm – a tenth of what Lexmark says. A 15 x 10 cm photo print took 2:09 from a PictBridge camera, rising to 2:22 when sent from a PC.

Print quality remains one of the most important attributes of any printer, and the X5650’s results are only fair. The text is black and fairly well defined, although there is some blurring around the edge of the bold characters. Business graphics tend to look faded, although there is no evidence of banding and registration of black text over color is good.

Photo prints are still hampered by obvious points of dithering in large areas of color like the sky, but detail in darker shaded areas has been improved over some of the previous Lexmark all-in-ones we’ve examined.

The two standard ink cartridges are available in two capacities and as return program and non-return program versions, with a small discount on the return program parts if you agree to return them to Lexmark. When using the higher capacity XL cartridges we calculate a page cost of 3.88p for black and white printing and 7.53p for colour.

That cost is higher than the Lexmark X6575 we recently tested, for example, about 0.5p per page for black and closer to a cent per page for color.

verdict

Subjectively, the X5650 looks better than its predecessors, with a neater profile and a much easier to read display. The software has also been improved, but print speeds are slower than before, if at all, and print quality shows no noticeable improvement. If you compare the photo output to prints from Canon, Epson or HP printers, you’ll see where Lexmark continues to lag behind.

points in detail

• print speed 6

• functions 9

• value 8

• print quality 7