You might think that optical character recognition (OCR) software can’t do much more. As long as it recognizes documents accurately and reasonably quickly, where’s the room for improvement? In fact, Nuance claims several notable improvements for OmniPage Professional 16, probably the most well-known OCR application on the market.

First, Nuance says the new version is between 16 percent and 27 percent more accurate than before, while also being up to 46 percent faster. In addition, it is said to be able to compensate for lens distortions in images of pages captured with a camera, to automatically redact words in sensitive documents and to process electronic and paper forms. It can create documents in Office 2007’s XPS format and includes copies of PaperPort 11 (Nuance’s document management application) and PDF Converter 4 which, as you can imagine, converts documents to PDF format.

The program is also claimed to do a better job of creating accurate representations of pages without packing everything into separate text and graphics frames. This has long been a nuisance as it’s one thing to get the page looking right and another to easily edit the text within this layout. Most OCR programs struggle with the “Basic Editing in Layout” part.

After installing and activating OmniPage Professional 16, you need to set up a scanner to work with it. The scanner setup wizard should run automatically, but it didn’t in our case. The wizard downloaded the latest scanner database from Nuance, which didn’t include our HP OfficeJet 7210, a recent and popular all-in-one. We had to run the program’s diagnostics to recognize it, which involved scanning text, grayscale, and color documents — about five minutes of work.

The main processing screen offers four main task tabs at the top with three windows below; one for thumbnails, one for a graphical image of the page, and one for the OCRed text. At the bottom is a full-width area for document statistics, most of which OmniPage calculates for itself.

The tabs are for workflow, load or scan type, page layout, and export. Despite what Nuance seems to be thinking, they’re not that intuitive to use. As if that were an admission, a series of how-to guides walks you through many of the tasks that should be obvious, but aren’t. Unexpectedly, the standard 1-2-3 workflow, designed to automatically process the most common OCR tasks, is set by default to load images from a file – do most customers really want to get their input documents? You must change this behavior before the program looks for a scanner instead.

After scanning a document and recognizing its characters, the program checked it and claimed it was 100 percent correct, even though there were two instances of the same typo in the text. Just because reading “tor” as “for” still makes a legitimate word doesn’t mean it’s correct.

OmniPage completed recognition in just over two seconds, which is fast, and even a more complex page with graphics and boxed text took less than 10 seconds. This page needed more preparation before we could get an editable document with a reasonable resemblance to the original. We needed to outline the areas of the page that we wanted treated as text instead of leaving OmniPage on Automatic.

Here, too, there are clear deviations. Some are understandable, such as B. the misreading of colored text compared to the original, while others, such. B. Differences in font and text style are less acceptable. Some of the text has been placed in boxes on the Word 2003 page we created, while the rest has been converted to the main text. There is also a variety of indents and line spacing, even though all text in the original has the same left margin.

It’s easy enough to save OCRed documents to any of the supported file types, including Word 2007’s docx, Adobe’s PDF, WordPerfect X3, and WAV for audio playback. The text-to-speech conversion is particularly good and sounds comparatively natural and expressive despite the US accent.

If you don’t need PaperPort or PDF Converter and can do without some of OmniPage Professional 16’s more business-related features like form OCR, word redacting (also redacting) and the batch processing manager, the standard OmniPage 16 costs around £60 – a big saving compared to the professional version.

“‘Verdict”‘

The improvements highlighted for OmniPage Professional 16 would all be useful, but according to our testing, the software still has some way to go to meet them. When batch processing long, standard text documents, the software can undoubtedly save a lot of time, but for more complex pages with significant graphic content, it can still be difficult to get close to what you’ve scanned.

points in detail

• functions 7

• value 7

• Ease of use 6

Convergence was one of the buzzwords of the computer revolution. But although camcorders have been able to take photos for years and most digital cameras have a film recording function, no device has really mastered both areas. Camcorders are too big to compete with pocket cameras and cameras are too small to meet the storage needs of video. However, weighing in at under 200g, Panasonic’s SDR-S10 certainly looks like it could be a contender for the Convergence crown.

The SDR-S10 has been widely touted as the world’s smallest camcorder. It owes its small size to the use of SD memory for recording, which Panasonic has favored in its camcorders for a number of years. The S10 comes standard with a 2GB card, but as it supports SDHC Class 2 or higher, cards with capacities up to 8GB and larger sizes are now on the way. Videos are recorded in MPEG2 format with a normal TV resolution of up to 10 Mbit/s. So the included card is enough for 25 minutes of video in the highest XP quality setting, or a more useful 50 minutes in medium SP mode.

However, we shouldn’t get your hopes up so early in the review. The S10 doesn’t come with a megapixel CCD like you’d find in Panasonic’s Lumix range of digital cameras. Instead, it packs a 1/6-inch, 0.8-megapixel sensor. This is perfectly adequate for video, but only captures photos at 640 x 480. So in reality, the SDR-S10 isn’t the perfect crossover device, as its diminutive size would suggest. It’s really only a pocket-size camcorder, although it still offers a healthy 10x optical zoom.

The S10’s form factor is also a bit odd, and we struggled to get used to it. The idea seems to be to hold the camcorder in your hand like a dictaphone, use your thumb to control the zoom rocker and your index finger to control the recording. It’s certainly as operable as that, but it’s a novel approach, forcing you to fire from just above waist height, rather than the head height that most people will be familiar with. We also found this arrangement particularly uncomfortable when taking photos – although this will be a very rare function with 640 x 480 still images. There’s also no lens cover where a built-in would have been appropriate. On the plus side, only a few seconds separate the device from turning on and being ready to record.

The SDR-S10 has a reasonable range of camcorder features. A manual focus mode is available and controlled via the menu buttons, which is fiddly but serviceable. In the default manual mode, you can control the aperture from F1.8 to F16 and then fully close it. You can also add up to 18dB of video gain to a fully open aperture. The shutter speed can be varied between 1/50 and 1/8000 sec in film mode and between 1/500 sec in photo mode. White balance options cover the standard full auto, tungsten, daylight and manual modes. There’s also the usual five program settings for Auto Exposure, including Sport, Portrait, Low Light, Spotlight and Surf & Snow. Wind cut and zoom mic audio features can also be enabled.

The manual settings are perfectly adequate for a camcorder of this class, but that’s not enough either. There is a screw attachment for tripod use on the underside, but there is no microphone input, no headphone jack and no accessory shoe. The memory cards also load from the bottom, so if you need to swap cards when using a tripod, you’ll need to unscrew the quick release shoe first.

With its single 1/6-inch sensor, the SDR-S10 would never offer high-end video quality. But we found the results surprisingly decent. In daylight, the colors were true to the original and the noise was not particularly pronounced, even in the SP recording mode. We were also impressed with the S10’s ability to cope in low light, where it opened up the aperture and increased the gain, resulting in some grain, but nothing the average consumer would find intolerable. However, the electronic image stabilization became very sluggish in poor lighting.

When it comes to editing compatibility, the S10 does pretty well too. There’s a proprietary AV jack with breakout cable for composite video and RCA audio connectivity, but USB2.0 is the main interface for connecting to a computer. Unlike most camcorders, you can’t connect the S10 to a PC unless it’s AC powered. This is a good safety measure considering the battery lasts less than an hour. Once connected, the S10 will appear as a removable storage device and its files are easily accessible via drag-and-drop.

The Panasonic saves its MPEG-2 video in MOD format, which we first encountered on JVC’s Everio. While editing wasn’t easy back then, most mainstream apps now support MOD files, so there shouldn’t be any issues with footage from the SDR-S10. We were able to import the files into Adobe Premiere Elements 3 and Ulead Video Studio Plus 11 with no problems. MotionSD STUDIO 1.2E comes for Windows users but nothing for Mac.

The SDR-S10’s size makes it the most pocket-friendly true camcorder we’ve seen. The video quality is still perfectly acceptable for the intended market, although there are insufficient features for the enthusiast. The low digital camera resolution also feels like a missed opportunity to create a killer convergence device, and the 25 minute recording time at top quality settings is a bit paltry too – you’d still only get 100 with an 8GB SDHC card get minutes.

“‘Verdict”‘

However, at under £300 the SDR-S10 pulls off a bit of a coup. Normally you would expect to pay a premium for the gadget desirability of a camcorder like this. But the price is on the lower end of the DV camcorder market. Now that you can pick up 8GB SDHC cards for just over £50, the format is beginning to look like an affordable option. So, for a very reasonable price, the SDR-S10 really is a respectable camcorder that you can carry in your pocket without people asking if you were glad to see it. And it’s waterproof too!

points in detail

• picture quality 7

• functions 7

• value 10

image processor

lens functions

video recording

general characteristics

A 42″ HD Ready TV from one of the most respected brands in the flat screen world for just £650? What’s not to like, for goodness sake? Um, quite a bit, actually…

Uncertainties about the Philips 42PF5521D begin to accumulate as soon as you see it. Because while it’s not exactly ugly, there’s no doubt that the striking contrast of the jet black screen bezel with the slightly cheap-looking silver speaker area certainly lacks the refinement and build quality of many TV rivals these days. However, we reckon we can live with aesthetic compromises for £650 provided the performance quality is right.

The connections of the set are also mixed. Providing two HDMIs actually seems quite generous, but the shine is diminished by the fact that there is no dedicated analog PC interface, meaning that one of the HDMIs can be used as both a digital PC input and a socket for dual Tasks must serve HDMI video sources.

The 42PF5521D’s feature count is frankly disappointing. You get at least a built-in digital tuner – something we don’t really think you should expect on a £650, 42-inch TV. Aside from that, the only things that are even remotely interesting are a Virtual Dolby Surround audio processor, which delivers a pseudo-surround sound performance from the TV’s two speakers; a contrast enhancer; picture-in-picture options (single tuner of course); and a very limited version of Philips’ Active Control system, which analyzes incoming images and automatically adjusts one or two facets of the image to always keep the image looking its best.

You’ll find that there are two Philips features that the 42PF5521D doesn’t offer: Pixel Plus or Ambilight. In terms of the former, highly acclaimed Philips picture processing engine, the 42PF5521D doesn’t even have an old version of the technology like some of Philips’ other portable flat screen TVs. So the 42PF5521D’s images can’t take advantage of Pixel Plus’ remarkable abilities to improve image detail and color saturation. darn.

Now, in terms of Ambilight, it’s always disappointing when a Philips TV doesn’t have pools of colored light spilling from its sides. But then we suspect this really is a luxury feature that would probably never make it that far in the Philips range.

The 42PF5521D’s specs throw up a sky-high – and obviously very promising – claimed 10,000:1 contrast ratio, along with an odd-looking native resolution of 1024 x 1080.

Of course, this ratio does not mean that the TV is actually taller than it is wide! The key to the apparent mystery lies in the use of a technology called ALIS – or ‘Alternate Lighting of Surfaces’ to give it its full name – in the 42PF5521D. Without blinding you with unnecessary science, ALIS uses an extended phosphor coverage and electrodes positioned between horizontal rows of pixels, rather than directly below, to effectively double the screen’s horizontal resolution. Which would be all well and good if we hadn’t felt significantly overwhelmed by other current ALIS-based screens. We hope the 42PF5521D can restore our confidence in technology.

Unfortunately it can’t. Not for a long time.

Its images are plagued by a whole host of issues, which actually mean the £650 asking price looks anything but a bargain. For starters, the device’s black level response is strikingly poor for plasma standards. The claimed 10,000:1 contrast ratio looks nothing short of ridiculous as the dark background of the Berlin factory attack sequence disappears under a gray haze in Mission: Impossible III on HD-DVD. In fact, getting anything like a true representation of black on this TV is far more impossible than anything else in the movie!

Inevitably, this gray over parts of the image that should be black also serves to hide background detail in dark scenes, reducing their depth and sense of scale. We wouldn’t go so far as to say that turning Gears of War into a 2D scroller instead of a 3D shooter on the Xbox 360 is bad enough, but, well, you get the point.

The other really big issue with the 42PF5521D is that its color reproduction is way below average. Instead of the vibrancy we always get with LCDs, and increasingly expect from plasmas, we get a really drab palette that just doesn’t grab your attention and doesn’t pull you into the action. It also doesn’t help that many of the tones on display look far from natural. For example, actors in dark scenes mostly seem like they’re about to throw up, such is the odd pallor of their skin. Also, reds look orange and rich greens just look weird, to be honest.

And there’s more. During the battle between Smeagol and a friend for the ring in The Two Towers, distinct trembling sounds can be clearly seen across the ridges and crests of the characters’ faces. This is an old-school plasma issue that we really don’t expect to be that obvious these days.

The 42PF5521D’s final major disappointment is that its images don’t look sharp, even with HD footage. In fact, sometimes even pristine HD sources like Pirates of the Caribbean on Blu-ray look more like upscaled standard definition than true HD perfection.

With the 42PF5521D’s striking silver speakers proving to be far less powerful than they look, producing a tinny, underwhelming soundstage, is there anything good we can say about the 42PF5521D at all? Just this: it’s pretty good at upscaling standard definition sources to match the 1,024 x 1,080 resolution, making it look cleaner and smoother than usual. courting.

“‘Verdict”‘

Once upon a time, many years ago, the 42PF5521D’s performance would have been acceptable for a budget product. But today, with new plasmas from Panasonic and especially Pioneer setting new performance standards almost weekly, the 42PF5521D just isn’t good enough – at any cost. And not for the first time we think it’s high time to put ALIS on weed.

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

• value 6

• image quality 4

• sound quality 4

“Platform: PC, Xbox 360. Verified version. Xbox 360.”‘

I have to admit that I ignored Call of Juarez when it first came out on PC last year. Maybe it was because we were going through a glut of first-person shooters at the time, or maybe it was because it was developed by Techland: the producers of Chrome Specforce, one of the most boring sci-fi FPS games I’ve been into met years ago. Whatever the reason, I’ve been wondering if I made a mistake ever since. A lot of pretty sane people have praised Call of Juarez. It has been described as innovative and compelling; as a better attempt at the video-game western than either Gun or Red Dead Revolver. Ubisoft obviously saw something in the game too and picked it up for this revamped, improved Xbox 360 conversion and an improved DirectX 10 PC version for the US.

Graphically, the 360 ​​version falls somewhere between the original DirectX 9 Call of Juarez and the DirectX 10 update, with overhauled textures and improved HDR lighting and effects. Regardless of the changes, the game looks great most of the time, with some of the most natural-looking outdoor environments we’ve seen since The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and scenes bathed in a kind of warm light that wouldn’t have embarrassed John Ford’s elegiac western classics. From frontier towns to grassy highlands to spectacular desert canyons, Call of Juarez bends double to live up to the expectations formed by a handful of Sergio Leone films and every western Clint Eastwood has directed since The Outlaw Josie Wales became. Character modeling is solid, and if the game struggles to create convincing interiors and dusty mines, it’s still a million miles from the abysmal, bland work that Techland produced in Chrome Specforce. To be honest the screens on these sites don’t do it justice: apart from a slightly exaggerated depth of field effect, Call of Juarez does a damn good job of eye candy.

Additionally, these other reviewers rightly praised Call of Juarez for its innovation. Too many shooters have been interested in making the same rut lately: take the classic Doom template, add squadmates and vehicles, throw in some standard Halo-style battles, and spice them up with the best visual effects on that money can buy . Call of Juarez takes a schizophrenic path that is less well known. On one side, you play Billy – a misunderstood half-Mexican youth who can’t help but get into trouble. He’s framed for murder in the early stages of the game, spending the rest on the run, sneaking through towns, mines and homesteads, avoiding badass bandits and renegade Apache fighters. On the other hand, you also play as Reverend Ray – a gun-toting preacher straight out of Clint in Pale Rider School who deals about equal parts lead and will.

The fact that Ray is on the trail of Billy is what gives the game its most interesting dynamic. While Billy can fight with a whip, pistol, rifle, or bow, his relative weakness makes stealth a more viable option. That means you’ll spend about half the game hiding, sneaking, pot-shotting from a safe distance, and engaging in a little first-person platform-jumping action.

Ubisoft has apparently made changes that make these levels more action-packed and less frustrating than the original PC version, and to be fair they rattle through at a pretty decent pace, with enemy AI forgiving enough to allow for success , but not so indulgent that it becomes inevitable. For those of you who prefer the smell of gun smoke to all that belly crawling, the Ray levels deliver it in spades. Everywhere Billy goes he seems to leave a trail of lawless vermin in his wake, and bringing them the justice of the Lord is what Ray does best.

Thanks to decent – if not quite FEAR-level – enemy AI, a fine selection of hard-hitting pistols and rifles, and a solid understanding of how to stage a gunfight, the Ray levels are a blast. The revolver, your main weapon, is dual wieldable with the left and right triggers, and with limited ammo in each weapon, you’ll need to think about your shots and use tactics to survive. Additionally, revolvers come in a variety of forms with varying levels of accuracy and damage, and weapons become unreliable – even dangerously flawed – after prolonged use. Also, this isn’t a game you can afford to get caught out on with no ammo. Though Ray is armored, he’s not invincible, and the game uses a Call of Duty 2-style health recharge system to keep you on your toes. Putting all of this together, you have some of the most satisfying firefights I’ve enjoyed since FEAR

I don’t make the comparison randomly either. Call of Juarez’s gunplay requires the same considered approach as FEAR, and the game even has its own equivalent of FEAR’s slowmo feature. Holster your revolvers, then click a trigger to draw and the game will enter focus mode. Time slows to a crawl and a crosshair moves slowly towards the center of the screen. You can move slowly to aim perfectly and – when the reticle marks a target – fire off a barrage of rounds. Wait for the crosshairs to line up and the game will return to normal speed, and (hopefully) any vile sinner in sight will fall to the ground, suffocating. It’s the perfect way to simulate the kind of antics loved by The Man with No Name or Django. One minute you’re the target of every good-for-nothing, the next you’re the last survivor.

So up to a point, Call of Juarez is an excellent FPS. I really can’t say that enough. If you are bored of your standard sci-fi or military shooters and are looking for something with a different feel and vibe, it comes highly recommended. It has looks, it has brains, it has atmosphere. It even has a pounding, finger-plucked, guitar-heavy soundtrack and very respectable vocal work. In order to enjoy it, however, you must be willing to deal with some rough edges, some of which will spoil your overall enjoyment.

The biggest problems arise with the sequences in which Billy has to jump from ridge to ridge or swing his whip over chasms. The jump controls just aren’t precise enough to make tricky jumps and you’ll constantly fall to your doom and have to repeat long stretches. The checkpoint save system is excellently implemented most of the time, but it always seems to fall off at these points. We’re not talking ninja gaiden frustration here, but be warned. The whip pieces are actually worse, partly because the whip itself is a nightmare to aim and control, and partly because the game physics seem to have taken a vacation when it comes to swinging. It’s hard to predict your swing and ridiculously unrealistic.

And it’s this lack of polish that spoils the game as a whole. Every now and then there’s something – a cutscene, a badly staged battle, an impossible section in an Indian country – that reminds you that you’re not dealing with a top-notch triple-A product. Now and then there is a bit amateurish production design that breaks the atmosphere and brings the mood back down to earth. You’ll be amazed at the sniping skills of outlaws and Apaches, who, as you’ll learn later, can hit you from miles away with a rusty rifle. You’ll suffer the same dialogue every time you fail certain stealth sections, no matter how many times you’ve heard it before. You might even be put off by a pathetic initial level of amazing craftsmanship. Someone should have spotted these things while testing and sat on them quickly.

Those aren’t my only complaints. The environments aren’t particularly interactive, leaving you wondering why you can set fire to a saloon full of outlaws but not a wooden structure full of bandits, and many of the levels are as linear as anything in Call of Duty 2 or Medal of Honor. Sure there are horseback sequences, but these seem limited and never give you anything more than increased perspective and speed. In fact, the whole game has a floating quality of movement that goes against its gritty, run-down, and dirty feel. For all its innovation, Call of Juarez just isn’t as refined or well-executed as Gears of War, GRAW2, or 360’s other top-notch shooters.

That’s why I was relatively stingy with the score at the bottom of this page. Despite its merits, Call of Juarez isn’t quite the game it could have been with just a little more attention to detail. It shows considerably more imagination and ingenuity than a number of bigger namesakes, though, and it’s a good platform on which Techland could – if given the chance – build a fantastic sequel. Given the leap in quality between Chrome Specforce and this one, I wouldn’t say that’s out of the question. More specifically, should Call of Juarez 2 come out, I’ll be far less inclined to ignore it. In fact, I’ll be one of the first in line to take a look.

“‘Verdict”‘

Enhanced for the Xbox 360, Call of Juarez scores highly for its exploration of an underexplored genre and its interesting game mechanics. Only a lack of finishing touches and polish keeps it from becoming a full fistful of dynamite.

characteristics

There was a time when if you wanted to play games you didn’t buy a notebook. Notebooks were fine for spreadsheets and shopping lists, but fire up an up-to-date 3D game and you were entering a world of painfully slow frame rates. It’s all different these days of course, with everyone from the likes of Rock, Evesham and Dell offering pimped out powerhouses designed to give you portable gaming pleasure that you can easily slip into a cupboard when you’re done. If that’s the sort of thing that appeals then you really can’t buy without considering Alienware. It prides itself on producing gaming PCs and notebooks for the masses and based on previous efforts, we know it does a pretty darn good job. Inevitably, a fully loaded Alienware system is going to cost the proverbial arm and leg, but it’s still always going to be more affordable than truly custom boutique suppliers of true exotica such as Vadim. After all, this is a company owned by Dell.

Good news then that Alienware has launched a new top-of-the-range gaming notebook. The system we were sent was pretty loaded specification wise, which accounts for the full on £2,462 price tag, compared to the rather less eye watering £1,198 that the system starts at. Coming under the Area-51 umbrella, our sample m9750 features an Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 running at 2.33GHz, backed up with 2GB of 667 RAM. This is combined with nVidia SLI graphics. Just to be clear, SLI is nVidia’s dual graphics card technology, so you’re not just getting one GeForce Go 9750 GTX in this notebook, you’re getting two. In case you’re not up on your graphics technology, that’s a good thing, potentially offering up to twice the performance in certain games. Along with this you’re getting two hard disks, which can be set up in RAID 0 or 1 configuration offering either 250GB of secure storage or 500GB of ultra fast storage. You also get a 1,920 x 1,200 resolution display, which is quite something on a 17in display – you won’t see this resolution on anything smaller than a 23in external monitor.

There are two aspects to the Alienware that make it stand out when you first see it; its physical size and its design. It’s actually quite compact for a notebook with a 17in screen – I guess black really is slimming. The traditional Alienware ribbed effect is present on the notebook lid along with the Alien head and I was delighted to see the squinty eyes light up blue when the notebook is powered on. I know it’s rather shallow to be impressed by such small things but then it’s the little things that make the difference. If you want your machine to stand out from the crowd at Lan party or when friends come over, this will do the trick. It’s not just the look, but the feel too. The new ‘Stealth Black’ finish is well named, not only looking good but having a slightly weird absorbent, slightly oily feel to it. If Alienware claimed that the m9750 was radar resistant, I’d probably believe it.

There’s a substantial clip holding down the lid, which once dealt with lifts up to reveal a magnificent 17in, 1,920 x 1,200 display. The bezel has a shiny finish to it and is adorned with the Alienware logo. There’s also a adjustable 1.3 megapixel webcam at the top.

The 1,920 x 1,200 resolution is really something, giving plenty of desktop real estate and making this a real contender as a desktop replacement. A possibly downside is that squeezed into a 17in display text at normal sizes can be quite small, so you may have to zoom up at times. But let’s face it, this is a notebook aimed at entertainment, not shopping lists or boring spreadsheets, though it will of course be pretty good for those as well. In pure quality terms the screen is good. It’s averagely bright but perfectly sharp, and its ‘Clearview’ coating gives it a high gloss sheen, effectively boosting colour and contrast. It also boosts reflections too though, and if you’re working in front of it for extended periods in a brightly lit environment, say the TrustedReviews office, then it could prove distracting. If you’re locked into a dark secluded gaming dungeon however, this screen will be right in its element.

As you might expect, beneath the screen you’ll find the keyboard. In an elegant touch I liked the way the area containing the hinges for the screen curve upwards. Beneath this you’ll find shortcut keys for the usual suspects such as your web browser, your mail program and your media player. There’s also a TV button, which makes sense as there’s an integrated TV tuner to make the most of Vista’s built-in Media Center software. Above these there’s a row of blue backlight indicators for wireless, charging, hard disk activity and if the mouse pad is active, as well as scroll and number lock. Of course the power button of the right of this has a cool blue light too.

You get a pretty much full size keyboard with a number pad too. It does mean that when you’re sitting in front of it you’re shifted slightly over to the side, but it’s not as bad as some I’ve used. You get a full size Backspace, Right-Shift and Return key, and arrow keys underneath, but the Home, Page Up/Down and End keys are also located on the arrow keys and you have to use the Function key to get to them. The keys have a good feel to them but I did want a touch more travel to them – not a deal breaker though. The touch pad is a large oblong affair, to match the aspect ratio of the screen, and there’s a scroll area on the right of it.

At the front edge of the notebook you’ll find the optical drive – an 8-speed dual-layer DVD burner. On either side you’ll find the speakers, which are well placed to project audio into the room. Volume level was pretty decent and would suffice for gaming or watching movies.

On the left hand edge you’ll find an Express card slot – not PC Card, and a memory card reader. You’ll also find one mini Firewire port, a USB port and a Gigabit Ethernet socket and right in the corner a security hook, should you need to keep it locked down. On the opposite side you’ll find one more USB port, and all the audio sockets, headphone and microphone and line outs for front, centre, surround coming from the integrated Intel High Definition Audio chip to give you 7.1 when hooked up to a compatible speaker set. If you prefer to output digitally to an amplifier, there’s an optical port. There’s also an analogue volume wheel, though I found it was a little insensitive requiring far too much scroll to reach the desired level.

At the rear you’ll find DVI and VGA connectors and a hybrid TV tuner, giving you either analogue or digital, but not both. There’s an S-Video input to accompany this and audio in for connecting up a set-top box. There’s a final USB port, taking the count up to three and even a modem connector. The power input is right in the centre, which is unusual and kind of cool.

One aspect that should be noted is that Alienware has made no pretensions at making this a Santa Rosa machine – there’s no Santa Rosa CPU, no Turbo Memory, no Draft-N wireless. But as we’ve found that at least one of these is missing from most supposedly Santa Rosa machines we’ve looked at, I’m not all that disappointed.

Having a 1,920 x 1,200 resolution display on a gaming notebook often doesn’t make all that much sense, but there is some logic to it, when you’re pairing it with SLI graphics. The dual GeForce 7950s have required some real work done on the design to deal with the increased heat output and if you put your hand behind the rear exhaust when it’s in full flow and your can really feel it. What’s impressive though is that even when playing games the machine is surprisingly quiet and it doesn’t get outrageously hot.

To be honest at first it seemed difficult to be amazed at the dual 7950s, as when it comes to desktop graphics the GeForce 7-series is yesterday’s news. As ever, what was the fastest a few months ago seems tired all too soon. But the reality is that dual 7950s is still the fastest things available in mobile graphics on the planet, so it does deserve our respect. More than just raw speed though, the GeForce 7 series lags behind the 8-series in terms of features and quality – being Direct X 9, not 10 and offering less hardware acceleration for H.264 video processing. Real areas where this might an issue are if you want to run with HDR and anti-aliasing at the same time, or play games such as Lost Planet with the best effects possible. In testing I also found that the machine dropped frames when playing 1080p Quicktime trailers encoded in H.264, which was a bit of a shame.

While this was slightly disappointing, it was offset by firing up Oblivion, which over a year since its release is still one of the most demanding tests to which you can put a gaming rig. The m9750 passed this test admirably, which is something beyond most laptops. I played with very high graphical settings at the native resolution and achieved around 30fps in quiet scenes. It did stutter a little when the swords came out and the action heated up, so you would need to take the graphical settings down a little but if you do you’ll get a great gaming experience. If you play a less demanding title you should have no problems at all. The high resolution on a relatively small screen produced produced a smooth, clear image that looked just fabulous.

Still, with DX10 games such as Crysis looming the 7950s could seem to be a limitation so I was relieved to confirm that Alienware will offer an upgrade path to mobile 8800s when they appear, though there is absolutely no information at present on when this might be or how much it might cost. It’s vital to know this though, as if you’re going to spend around £2,500 you need to know that your investment won’t be completely obsolete by the end of the year.

Along with two cores in the CPU, and two GPUs, this fully loaded machine also sports two hard disks, both offering 250GB of hard disk capacity. This means that you can set up RAID 0 or RAID 1 configuration – for extra capacity and speed, versus security – it’s your choice. If you go for RAID 0 – that’s 500GB – not bad for a notebook, though we’d recommend an external backup, as with two disks there’s two points of potential failure. The disks provided were spinning at 5,400rpm though faster 7,200rpm models are available. When we received our review sample, SLI drivers for Vista were not ready so Alienware shipped the machine to us with Vista on one disk and XP on another. As a result our 3D tests are done in XP. However, Vista SLI drivers are here so that’s what all shipping machines will have.

When it came to performance we had to decide what to compare the machine to. In laptop terms it’s pretty much out there on its own but we felt that the Shuttle SD39P2 system that I looked at recently was a good candidate. After all, aside from a laptop, if you’re looking for a compact system a Shuttle would be the way to go. The luxury a Shuttle gives you is the ability to put a full-on GeForce 8800 GTX inside, As such, in performance terms the Alienware is soundly beaten on the raw numbers front, which hurts it considering that the Shuttle is also a lot cheaper to put together, even if you add the cost of a 24in monitor and speakers.

In raw performance terms then, the Alienware doesn’t make sense – but what you have to take into account is its portability. Sure, 3.9Kg is not light, but you can’t fold up a Shuttle and place it in a draw or carry it around anywhere nearly as easily. The looks and design are also on a different planet. I actually don’t see this machine as quite the complete package – I’d have liked to have seen a dual digital TV Tuner for a start, but it’s still the best gaming laptop I’ve seen. The dual 7950 GTX cards can and will deliver an excellent gaming experience and when the mobile 8800 series do eventually arrive this machine could be something very special indeed. There’s no denying that there’s still ultimately a compromise to be made between portability and performance but the fact that you’ve got an upgrade path if you buy now makes this still an enticing prospect on two conditions – you really want a laptop over a compact desktop and you’ve got the funds to fuel your desire.

”’Verdict”’

Alienware has done its reputation no harm with this wonderfully designed and great looking beast of a machine. Two cores in the CPU, two GeForce 7950 GTX GPUs and two hard disks, along with a TV Tuner, 7.1 output and decent speakers, make it a superb entertainment machine. Sure you can build a faster desktop for less, but for ultimate portable power this Alienware is on another planet.

How we test laptops

Unlike other sites, we test every laptop we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.

Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.

Used as our main laptop for the review period

Tested for at least a week

Used consistent benchmarks for fair comparisons with other laptops

Reviewed using respected industry benchmarks and real world use

Score in detail

• Performance 8

• Value 7

• Features 9

Do you own your own private island? Check. Living in a huge villa? Check. Lamborghini Gallardo in the garage? Check. Then you’ll probably want to add this one to your collection – the Asus Lamborghini VX2. Asus isn’t usually associated with high-flying super-brands, so in what it calls an “unprecedented merger … of advanced technology and amazing design”. Of course, it is not unprecedented at all. Acer has been doing the same thing with Ferrari for years and Asus has just stolen the idea. But hey, if it produces such beautiful notebooks, why not.

Personally, I’ve decided that if I found an amount of money in the form of a supercar to burn, I’d probably prefer a Lamborghini to a Ferrari. After all, if you have it and really want to flaunt it, why not do it right? Lamborghinis are just a bit more shine, a bit more bling and the Gallardo is just a stunning looking car.

Despite the enticing glimpses of the Gallardo in Asus’ commercials, the VX2 doesn’t really resemble a Gallardo. It does not have perfectly balanced, shaped curves or a balanced aggressive posture. In fact, I could say that when closed, it’s just a laptop with a yellow lid if I want to be harshly dismissive. But that would be unfair with a certainly great looking machine with lots of exquisite design details. The piano lacquer finish on the yellow lid is bright, smooth and elegant and an eye-catcher in true Lamborghini style. If you crave attention, that’s your boy.

The Lamborghini emblem sits proudly on the lid, with the Bull logo sublime, while the Asus logo is discreetly placed at the bottom left. At the front there is a black honeycomb grille, reminiscent of a car radiator grille. Among them are four translucent lights with icons next to them that indicate when the laptop is connected, charging or Wi-Fi or the built-in Bluetooth 2.0 EDR is turned on. The hinge is painted black at the top, as is the back of the integrated webcam. Basically, it’s a good-looking lid.

When you open the lid, you’ll see an impressive 15.4-inch widescreen display with Asus Clear Shine technology – basically a high-contrast, high-brightness coating that is sure to make Windows Vista Ultimate look like this. Blues look particularly good and the video was fluid. The viewing angle was also pretty good – there’s some color shift and it’s better when coming from the sides than it’s horizontal, but it’s not nearly as extreme as some displays.

I often criticize laptop displays for not offering enough resolution, but Asus got it right with this one. It has a generous resolution of 1,680 x 1,050, which means there is plenty of space for applications and multiple Windows. You won’t find this resolution on a desktop monitor smaller than 20 inches, so some may find the icons and text too small to work with a 15.4 display. Usually I don’t have a problem with small text, but even I had to enlarge the document to be able to write it comfortably on the laptop. If you ever have trouble squinting at small text, you may have a problem here. The only other concern is that the graphics chip is struggling with so many pixels, but we’ll look at that when we get to performance.

A 1.3-megapixel camera is mounted on the display. The surface around the lens retains the high-quality appearance of the rest of the notebook and can be rotated in both directions. If you want or need to communicate, a built-in webcam is useful – less to carry and no messy cables.

It’s not often that what’s under the screen is more impressive than the screen itself. The fit and workmanship around the keyboard is just fantastic. Immediately above and below the keyboard are speckled metal strips. The words “Automobili Lamborghini” are stylishly engraved at the bottom right, while at the bottom left there are four small square lights as if outside, one for power, charging, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Above the keyboard is a number of keyboard shortcuts for enabling Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, switching between power-saving modes, enabling/disabling the touchpad, starting Windows Media Center, and finally switching on/off. And yes, this is the full version of Windows Media Center, as it is now an integral part of the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Vista, with the latter pre-installed on this notebook.

While opening most notebooks feels like getting into a cheap car, the VX2 has the feel of a really expensive vehicle. Above and on the sides of the keyboard are real leather stripes with excellent yellow stitching, including round hinges that really enhance the look. This mainly moves the VX2 from being just another laptop to something you actually like to stand in front of. The old motorist cliché of a well-equipped interior can be described as a “nice place to be”. Well, it’s certainly worth saying about this notebook. The warmth of the leather against the matte shine of the metal stripes, combined with the white lights, is just very cool. The high design continues to the speakers that run down the sides, with the angle of the leather undoubtedly reflecting the sharp angles of the Gallargo. In short, I like the way it looks.

The actual keyboard itself is very good. The size of the notebook means there are no tight keys with a full-size Shift and Backspace key and an extended Enter key. The typing movement is quite firm, but it felt pleasant, although I had to take off my watch to be able to rest comfortably.

The smooth black of the trackpad tapers subtly downwards and the mouse buttons are separated by a biometric fingerprint protection system. The first time you gently swipe your finger over it, a wizard will be launched that allows you to “enroll” it so that you can use it alternatively and/or in addition to a password. It’s a sign that the VX2 doesn’t just have a well-equipped interior – there’s a lot of technology in it.

Before we get to that, let’s take a look at the left side where you will find a DVD burner that can handle almost all kinds of DVD media. Thanks to LightScribe technology, you can burn a dual-layer disc and even etch a label on it. Next to it is a connector for connecting an external DVI port, next to it are two USB 2.0 ports and then a VGA output and an S-Video output. In the left corner you will find a Gigabit Ethernet port.

The sound functions are managed by a Digital HD audio chip built into SoundMax, which sounds pretty good through headphones or through the speakers, which have a surprising volume. At the top level, there is no distortion and there is even a little midway, although inevitably the bass is missing.

If you move to the right, you will find an express card slot and above it a card reader that accepts SD/MMC and Memory Stick. Having just bought the fantastic Fujifilm S9600, I have to wonder why none of these card readers can handle xD cards. Next to the reader, an infrared port is crammed, although I can’t see this being used, and then you’ll find an SP/DIF output so you can plug Dolby Digital into an external amplifier with the right cable. This includes a microphone output. If you go further, you’ll come across another USB 2.0 port that brings the total to three, and then there’s a mini Firewire port. In the right corner you will find a modem connection and then the socket. The back is free of ports or ports, aside from a Kensington lock, which is certainly needed if you leave it in a public place.

With a brand like Lamborghini, you’d expect some pretty fast components to be inside, and by and large, you’d be right. The fixed storage is provided by a Hitachi TravelStar – a model with 5,400 rpm and a capacity of 160 GB – notebook drives are starting to become quite extensive. However, the star of the show is the Intel Core 2 Duo T7400. This mobile processor operates at 2.16 GHz and has 4MB of Level 2 cache. When it’s going at full speed, quite a bit of heat is emitted through the connector on the right, but you can switch to cooler mileage profiles. If you activate one of the functions via the function key, you can see a decent animation – a clear difference from the normal basic feeling of cheaper notebooks.

The CPU communicates with the two sticks of the 1GB PC2-5300 via a 667MHz front side bus. 2 GB of RAM is quite important for a high-performance notebook running Vista. The only downside is that there are no free slots in case you want to add more, but you can of course add an external storage key thanks to ReadyBoost technology, which, as we have proven, works quite well.

While the CPU is top class, the graphics are actually in the middle range. With 12-pixel processors at 450 MHz, a 128-bit memory controller, and 512 MB of 1,000 MHz memory, the GeForce Go 7700 is essentially an 80-nanometer process response of the Go 7600, making it cooler and cheaper to manufacture for nVidia, but doesn’t really contribute much to the performance. This can be seen in our game results. Vista turns out to be a pretty annoying beast for our benchmarks and Call of Duty wouldn’t run on this notebook, while Battlefield 2 delivered the same score in every single test. With the games that have worked, you can see that the VX2 really struggles to deliver a smooth frame rate at native resolution and maximum settings. However, if you set the game to friendlier, medium levels of detail, you can play comfortably on this notebook. Aside from the benchmarks, we tried FEAR and it was fine.

Thanks to Vista, we can’t run our normal MobileMark battery tests, but by switching to the Office profile, I have about two and a half hours of use before it was prompted to be connected. If you keep usage low, you should be able to reach three hours of playing games or watching movies, then you’ll watch much less. At 2.43 kg, however, this is not really a notebook for regular use without a power connection.

Matching a notebook like this, Asus has bundled probably the most plush notebook bag I’ve ever seen. The trim and seams correspond to those of the VX2 and of course it has the unmistakable logo on the front. Of course, this almost screams to attack me, but no doubt your guards will do it for you as you stroll down the road. If you don’t actually have bodyguards, in the brief moments you actually have with the carrying bag, you’ll appreciate the foam-padded handle that’s just nice to hold. Also included are a leather mouse pad and a small Bluetooth mouse, which are suitably dressed in Lamborghini paint.

The VX2 is without question a very cool notebook to look at and operate and stands out from the crowd. The nice thing is that it does more than beat Sony in its own game – it actually offers something different and is more exclusive in a sense.

The screensaver is, of course, cool shadow image of a Gallardo accompanied by roaring 5-liter V10 humming noises, which is either very cool or highly embarrassing, but that’s the thing about a notebook like this – it polarizes opinions. In our book, it’s a refreshing change and reason enough to like it.

”Judgment”

You’ll either love or hate the look of the Asus Lamborghini VX2, but the quality of its construction or the strength of its components can’t be denied. It’s not the fastest device for gaming, but for general use and casual gaming, this is a serious-looking and powerful part of the kit.

How we test laptops

Unlike other websites, we thoroughly test each laptop we review over a longer period of time. We use industry-standard testing to properly compare features. We will always tell you what we find. We never accept money to evaluate a product.

Learn more about how we test in our Ethics Policy.

Used as our main laptop during the reporting period

Tested for at least one week

Consistent benchmarks used for fair comparisons with other laptops

Verified against recognized industry benchmarks and real-world usage

Points in detail

• Power 8
• Value 7
• Features 9

Security has and always will be a concern for us all. Even if you double lock all your doors, put six foot walls round you house, and have three starved Rottweilers patrolling your garden, sometimes you just can’t get that niggling feeling of doubt out of your head.

For businesses, or the rich, CCTV cameras have always added that extra layer of security. However, the cost, hassle, and unsightliness of installing bulky CCTV cameras around our homes is too prohibitive for most of us to bother. Fortunately, Solwise has come up with a solution that just might be what we all need.

The Solwise Vesenet Home-Plug camera is a VGA web camera that uses Home-Plug technology to transmit video data to your network. From there you can view the stream on your computer or set it up so you can view it from anywhere round the world via the magic of the Internet. Of course you can get wireless cameras that do this, like the Axis 212PTZ IP Camera and the Linksys WVC200 Wireless IP Camera but they still need power and they’re expensive. With this you get an all-in-one box that, at only £62.46, is very cheap as well.

We’ve covered Home-Plug before, in our review of Solwise’s and Devolo’s 85Mbps network adapters. It’s a version of Ethernet Over Power, a technology that uses your home’s existing power cabling to transmit data. It’s faster and more reliable than wireless networking and, of course, you don’t need to rewire your whole house – unless your power cabling really is that bad! It’s not often all the TR staff have exactly the same opinion about a product but, well, let me put it this way. Currently every one of the review staff now uses some form of Ethernet Over Power in their own homes.

The camera itself is 128mm long (175mm with the power cable plugged in), 74mm wide, and, 49mm high (165mm with the stand). This, although hardly small enough to conceal in a flower pot or door bell, is a lot smaller than a full blown CCTV camera.

The case is made of a light grey plastic that strikes me as being potentially quite conspicuous. This isn’t helped by the inclusion of status LEDs on the top of the unit which flash away constantly. Of course, not everyone will be concerned by the visibility of the device, in which case the status LEDs are quite useful. Also, the case isn’t waterproof so, if you do plan on using it outside, you’ll need to house it in something else.

On the back of the camera you’ll find the power socket which is a two-pin figure-of-eight type. The incorporation of the power supply into the camera goes a long way to explaining the devices size. Maybe a future iteration could separate the camera from the rest of the device, for truly hidden camera antics.

On the bottom is the mount for the stand and a sticker which, along with the usual jargon, lists the unit’s MAC address. On the front are the lens and an array of what look like LEDs but are in fact, as the chap from Solwise put it, “pretty holes”. The explanation given was the housing is the same as that used by other products which use IR LEDs for night-vision, so its just filled in the blanks for this version. It’s a bit cheap, to say the least, but this is a budget product so I certainly wouldn’t begrudge Solwise that much.

The stand is articulated by a ball joint that enables you to point the camera in any direction, it also has screw holes for mounting on a wall.

As with all Home-Plug products, setup is a cinch. Just plug the provided power cable into the camera and into the nearest mains socket. Then, using a Home-Plug network adapter, take the signal from the mains to your router. Wait a few moments for the devices to establish communication and you’re ready to go.

By default the device is set to accept a DHCP assigned IP address so, once plugged in, you should be able to access the web interface straight away – just type the IP address into your browser. Otherwise you will need to run the included IP CAM utility which will detect your HomePlug devices and help you configure networking options for them. DNS and email settings for Internet access and auto emailing can also be setup from this software.

To start viewing images you simply open a browser and put in your devices IP address or, if you’ve setup DNS, the camera’s domain name.

Once you’ve opened the web interface you can either logon as a user or an admin. As a user you can view the video stream, email an image and adjust image settings. As an administrator, you can adjust network, email, and security settings as well as do everything a user can.

Image quality settings include resolution, compression quality, and, orientation – in case you’ve had to mount the camera upside down. A particularly useful setting is anti-flicker which enables you to synchronise the video sample rate with monitors, fluorescent bulbs, and any other non-continuous light sources. The video streaming is powered by Java and enables you to take screenshots which is very useful.

Image quality isn’t brilliant but, for general surveillance use, it is more than capable. I would’ve liked to see some remote (or automatic) lens adjustment so that you can zoom in or refocus but this would likely have added a lot to the cost.

As it stands there isn’t much you can do with this device, except maybe use it to see who’s at the front door. You really need to combine it with the recommended DVR software which has motion detection and scheduled video recording to take full advantage – then you may stand a chance of actually catching that thief.

”’Verdict”’

Solwise has added some great functionality into a very innovative product and offered it a price that would appeal to anyone. However, image quality and lens remote control issues mean the Solwise HomePlug Camera is more of a novel toy than a serious surveillance device. However, if all you need is to recognise someone at the front door before you open it then maybe this is the device for you.

Announced as recently as January this year, the EasyShare V803 occupies the second-from-top position in Kodak’s popular V-series of pocket-sized compact digital cameras, just behind the 10-megapixel V1003. The V803 features an 8-megapixel CCD, a compact 3x optical zoom, a 2.5in LCD monitor, and comes in a range of no less than eight different colours, including red, blue, yellow, purple, white, silver, pink and the sexy matt black version I’m testing today.

The 3x zoom compact digital camera market is rather crowded to say the least, so a camera has to be either very cheap or very good to stand much chance of success. With its 8MP sensor and auto-only controls the V803 is competing against the likes of the new Fujifilm FinePix A800 (£120), HP Photosmart R927 (£150), Nikon Coolpix P3 (£170), Olympus FE-250 (£190) and Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W100 (£200). The V803 has a list price of £149.99, and is available online from around £130 including delivery, so it’s got the first qualification covered, but what about the second?

Initial impressions are extremely favourable. The camera is sleek and stylish, with an aluminium body that is smoothly rounded with no protruding controls, and build quality is excellent. The lens retracts back into the body, and the whole package is designed to slip into a pocket for a night out. It has a long thin shape, measuring 103 × 54.5 × 25 mm and weighing 141.5 g, so while it’s not quite in the ultra-compact category, it is one of the smaller and lighter cameras I’ve seen recently. The LCD monitor is positioned centrally on the back panel, with the main control buttons on the top and left, leaving plenty of room on the right to hold the camera, and despite the lack of any sort of thumb or finger grip it fits securely and comfortably in the hand, and can easily be operated one-handed. The only thing I wasn’t too keen on was the zoom control, which is a bit small and fiddly and only provides five steps between the wide and telephoto ends of the zoom range.

The V803 is a simple snapshot camera, but even so it’s not entirely lacking in useful features. It doesn’t have any manual exposure controls, but it does have an exhaustive list of 23 scene programs, including left and right panorama stitching, a high-ISO anti-blur mode, a panning-shot mode with lower shutter speeds, text-copying mode, a silent flashless museum mode as well as the usual options including portrait, landscape, sport, night landscape and portrait, snow and sunset.

Picture adjustments on the menu include three different saturation settings, monochrome, sepia, and unusually for a point-and-shoot compact, adjustable sharpness. Other options include single or continuous AF with multi-zone or centre-zone focus point, three metering modes (multi-patterns, centre-weighted or spot), and a self timer with two second, ten second or double-shot options. Exposure compensation is conveniently located on the left and right directions of the D-pad. Not a bad selection of options for a budget-priced compact.

One slight hiccup in this so-far satisfactory result is general performance. Turning the camera on requires holding down the power button for just over a second, after which the lens pops out at near-supersonic speeds, but unfortunately the rest of the camera just can’t keep up with it. From the first press of the button it takes a leisurely 4.5 seconds to start up, most of which seems to be occupied by the software booting up. It shuts down again much more quickly, in around 2.75 seconds. The camera doesn’t have a proper continuous shooting mode, but it does have a four-shot burst mode which can shoot at one frame a second, although the flash is disabled in this mode.

The AF system is reasonably quick, and operates extremely well in reduced lighting, such as a pub or club. It can focus in total darkness thanks to the AF illuminator, but this only has an effective range of about 1.5 metres, good enough for close portraits but not much more. This is just as well, because the flash is seriously underpowered. The stated range is 0.6–3.0m at wide-angle and 0.6–2.0m when zoomed in, but to be honest this is a bit generous. I found that in a social setting (down the pub) the effective range at wide angle was no more than two metres.

The video mode at least is good, shooting at 640×480 resolution and 30fps with decent quality sound. Movie playback offers frame-by-frame advance, simple editing, and the option to take still frames from video clips.

Battery life seems to be reasonably good. The V803 is powered by a surprisingly compact 1050mAh Li-ion rechargeable, and I was able to use the camera for several days, shooting about 150 shots, many with flash, without making much of a dent in the charge meter.

Fortunately the V803 makes up for its performance deficiencies in picture quality. As with most Kodak cameras, colour rendition is fantastic, with superbly rich natural colour. Exposure is also excellent, with very good dynamic range providing plenty of shadow detail without losing the highlights. The 8MP sensor captures plenty of fine detail without the purple highlight fringing that affects some high-resolution CCDs. Noise control is also good. Although there is some image noise as low as 100 ISO it remains well controlled up to the maximum of 1600, and shots at that speed are usable.

Surprisingly the picture files average only around 2.1MB, which is very small for an 8MP camera, but despite this there was little evidence of compression artefacts, and it does mean that a 1GB SD card is enough for a massive 439 shots.

The Kodak Retinar lens performs brilliantly, providing perfect corner-to-corner sharpness with no trace of chromatic aberration. There is some barrel distortion at wide angle, but no more than most zoom compacts, and anyway it vanishes completely with just a touch of zoom. The zoom range of 36-108mm equivalent is wider than most other 3x zoom compacts, making the V803 a good choice for holiday snapshots with wide landscapes and large groups of people.

”’Verdict”’

If you can forgive its sluggish start-up time and underpowered flash, the Kodak Easyshare V803 is a well made and stylish camera with a good range of user options, long battery life and easy handling, and which can provide excellent picture quality at a very reasonable price.

”A range of test shots are shown over the next few pages. Here, the full size image has been reduced for bandwidth purposes, and a crop taken from the original full resolution image has been placed below it in order for you to gain an appreciation of the overall quality.

Full-sized versions of some of the following images can be downloaded in a new window by clicking on the sample shots as indicated. However be aware that the average file size is over 2MB, so those on very slow connections will experience some delay.”

—-

—-

At the minimum 80 ISO the image is nice and clear, but a little dark since it was below the minimum shutter speed.

—-

Just one third of a stop higher at 100 ISO and there is some colour speckling in the darker areas, but the level of detail is still good.

—-

At 200 ISO the exposure is noticeably better, although there is still colour noise in the darker areas.

—-

At 400 ISO the exposure is brighter, and the level of image noise is only slightly increased.

—-

At 800 ISO there is a sudden drop in the level of detail, as the noise reduction system blurs and resharpens the image.

—-

At 1600 ISO there is significant image noise, but the overall quality and level of fine detail is still not too bad and would print fairly well.

—-

”A range of test shots are shown over the next few pages. Here, the full size image has been reduced for bandwidth purposes, but on some shots a crop taken from the original at full resolution has been placed below it in order for you to gain an appreciation of the overall quality.

Full-sized versions of some of the following images can be downloaded by clicking on the sample shots as indicated. However be aware that the average file size is over 2MB, so those on very slow connections will experience some delay.”

—-

The 8MP sensor is a good size to take advantage of the high quality Retinar lens, which provides plenty of sharp detail.

—-

This is a 100percent resolution crop from near the bottom of the above shot. Not a trace of edge distortion or chromatic aberration.

—-

The Kodak Colour Science image processor is one of the best around for perfect colour reproduction.

—-

The lens does produce some barrel distortion at its widest angle setting, but it is no more severe than that produced by many other 3x zoom compacts.

—-

”This page consists of resized images so that you can evaluate the overall exposure.

Full-sized versions of some of the following images can be downloaded by clicking on the sample shots as indicated. However be aware that the average file size is over 2MB, so those on slow connections will experience some delay.”

—-

Exmouth sea front on a cold and windy day in February. I was amazed how many people there were walking on the beach, wrapped up against the worst of the effects of the fresh air. This is taken with the 36mm-equivalent wide end of the zoom.

—-

This shot was taken from same spot as above, but zoomed in to the 108mm-equivalent telephoto end of the 3x zoom.

—-

The V803’s flash is somewhat underpowered. This shot was at a range of about 2m, but it it still too dark.

—-

Features