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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.

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

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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.

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

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

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

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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.

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”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.”

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

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

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

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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.

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”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.”

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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.

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

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

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Features

Do you like nude school? Quite wild? Do you know your Heelflip 360 from your No Comply? If these words don’t make sense to you, chances are you won’t need the Belkin SportCommand. You see, this is really geared towards outdoor, extreme sports enthusiasts who are likely to break iPods left to right and center due to a combination of total bail rejection and/or alcohol-related tomfoolery. If you’re just listening to your iPod on the train, this is not for you. Get back to your boring life, sucker.

If, however, the average weekend for you consists of a lot of trails and even more, you should seriously consider looking at this. What is SportCommand? Well, it’s a remote control for your iPod. A small white key attaches to the bottom of your iPod (any device with a 4th generation dock connector or higher) and you can hide it in your backpack or pocket to avoid harm. The main cushion of the SportCommand is a soft fabric lining that can be fastened with Velcro to the arm or thigh. You can use its large control buttons to easily change tracks and volume on your iPod, knowing that any painful accidents caused by your extreme skills won’t result in a painful credit card bill.

There are five buttons on the main panel – next/previous track, volume up/down and a central play/pause button. You can’t do any complex iPod navigation here, so don’t expect to filter songs by genre with this thing. However, you can happily navigate through playlists and albums, skipping the ones you don’t like and turning the volume down when you want to hear someone trying to yell at you from the other side of the hill.

Soft, flexible and fabric-like, the SportCommand has matching chunky buttons that can be pressed with gloved hands. We found that with our winter gloves, the operation went as expected. It is water resistant but not waterproof. However, if you do not like to exercise underwater, you will be fine in the snow and in the rain. The white segment on the front is the battery/receiver unit and is claimed to be more waterproof. We immersed it in water and didn’t find any side effects, so it’s safe to assume that this is the case. Unlike Apple’s own product, you can unscrew the front and get to the battery, replacing it as needed. Belkin doesn’t list an expiration date on the product, but we expect it to last a year or so before you need to consider replacing the battery.

In the box you will find a pair of Velcro loops – a small one that will attach it to smaller arms, and a second loop that attaches to the first so you can attach it to coated arms or legs. They attach to metal loops on the back of the SportCommand and have a super-secure velcro that once you attach it, this thing won’t go anywhere. You also get a carabiner to attach to a belt, loop or some description. It looks a bit flimsy, but the job will get done.

In practice, SportCommand works exactly as you would expect. However, on some level, his point of view must be questioned. You can’t do complex navigation with it, which means you’ll need to set up some sort of playlist to get started. Couldn’t you just turn up the volume on the iPod before putting it away and not add the tracks you don’t like to the playlist so you don’t have to skip? Because the iPod is a thing with a headphone jack, you need to make sure you have headphones with a cable long enough to run it to your backpack or wherever you decide to stow your iPod, which can be inconvenient.

Then we come to meaning. £46 is simply too much for this product – hell, it’s not that far off the cost of an iPod Shuffle that can be attached to your clothes and gives you the same level of control over your music, and borders on disposable given the price differential. We all know that extreme sports equipment is expensive, and I suspect Belkin thinks this should be no exception. But, competing with products that just mount your iPod on your arm, or even the ability to just hit the play button and toss your iPod into your backpack, it’s really hard to justify the SportCommand’s price tag.

“Sentence”

All in all, the SportCommand is clearly a product that does what it says on the box. If you immediately look at it and think – “Yes, finally!” Then you won’t be disappointed. That said, it’s hard not to assume that anyone riding the slopes won’t save a few pounds by cutting back on a couple of beers and spending the extra on an iPod Shuffle instead.

Netgear was one of the first companies to release a Skype phone with the SPH101D that offered a reasonable range of features, although we felt it had a few minor issues and was also quite expensive. Since then, a number of other vendors have launched remarkably similar products, but to date these have had some difficulty finding household acceptance. Netgear’s latest SPH200D aims to remove that reluctance by offering a dual-mode phone that can make and receive calls over both standard landlines and Skype.

Netgear has achieved this remarkable feat by combining a cordless DECT mobile phone with a dual-mode base station. The latter has an RJ-45 Ethernet port to connect to your home network and an RJ-11 port to connect to a standard landline. You can place the handset anywhere as long as it can receive a signal from the base station. The kit includes a handset, but the base station supports three other SPH150D models, although these were not yet commercially available at the time of review.

Setup is extremely easy as all you have to do is make sure the base station is on the same network as your internet router so it can get an IP address from its DHCP server. After initially charging the handset for the required number of hours, you turn it on, add details like your country code and preferred language, and then you’re ready to enter details about your Skype account. It only took a few minutes and then we were ready to start making calls over the internet.

The base station also has a web browser management interface and you can find the handset’s IP address by selecting ‘DHCP’ from the ‘Settings’ menu. Point a browser to this address and you can log into the base station, where you will be presented with a simple but informative interface. The home page provides general information about the system with details of your uptime, firmware version, and network addresses. The base station supports three types of Internet access and by default accepts a dynamic IP address, but you can use PPPoE or enter a static address if required. Note that you can access and change all of these settings directly from the handset.

Access to the Skype service is available through the web interface and you can create a new account from here, enter the credentials of an existing account and see if you are currently signed in. Again, the handset’s main page also provides information on the Skype sign-in status as well as showing how much credit you have in your account. The system page offers tools for updating the base station’s firmware, although it would have been nice if Netgear had provided an automatic checking feature, as they do with their draft 802.11n wireless routers. Last but not least comes the administration screen, where you can change the access password and reset the base station to factory settings.

Making calls with the handset couldn’t be easier as you enter your number using the chunky keypad and press the call button. The phone gives you a choice of Skype or landline, and once you’ve selected one, the call is made as usual. During testing, we found the SPH200D’s call quality to be good, with receivers not reporting any discernible difference between calls over Skype or landline. Curiously, from the caller’s perspective, we found that landline quality was superior, while Skype calls suffered from minor distortion.

On the SPH101, the choice of ringtones was just awkward, prompting us to turn them off and use vibrate mode. The latter isn’t supported here, but you can play with sixteen notes now, and while they’re not much better, at least you won’t be using the SPH200D in public. Conveniently, different tones can be set for incoming Skype and landline calls, the intercom function for multiple handsets and a confirmation tone when the handset is placed in the charging cradle.

To test what happens when Internet access goes down, we unplugged the Ethernet cable from the base station and the handset immediately confirmed that Skype access was down. However, provided there is electricity, you can still make landline calls.

As is usual with Skype services, contacts can be organized in the phone for quick access, and the history option provides a full view of incoming and outgoing calls, missed calls and voicemails. Searches for Skype users can be performed and, if allowed, added to your contact list. The Services option shows your credit status and remaining time and if you have purchased SkypeIn you can view your dialed number and subscription status.

“‘Verdict”‘

NETGEAR delivers an innovative communications product that seamlessly integrates Skype and PSTN functionality into a single solution. We were impressed with how easy it was to install and use, making it ideal for home users and small businesses who want the cost benefits of Skype plus access to landline calls from the same handset.

The web interface for the base station is pretty basic but offers a lot of network information.

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Three types of Internet connections are supported, with DHCP being the easiest to use.

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You can set up and monitor your Skype account from both the handset and this page.

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The System page only provides options to update the system firmware.

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You can protect the management interface with a password and reset the base station to factory settings.

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In the middle of last year I reviewed the M600i, Sony Ericsson’s attempt to take the UIQ platform out of its clunky “P” series smartphone shell and into something for a wider audience.

Now I have the tri-band, 3G W950i in my hands. Like the M600i, this is a slimline phone. It’s 106mm high, 54mm wide, 15mm thick and weighs 112g and packs quite well in your pocket. Its deep purple finish, which Sony Ericsson calls Mystic Purple, looks brown under certain conditions. It’s distinctive, although I’m not sure I like it.

Again it’s an attempt to widen the audience for UIQ, this time for music lovers, and its standout feature alongside the Walkman branding and music playback capability is that it offers no less than 4GB of flash memory.

That’s a lot of storage for a phone, and as much as you get on the mid-range iPod nano. Unusually for a mobile phone, however, there is no option to expand the internal memory with flash memory cards. If you’re using Sony Ericsson’s included Disc2Phone software or simple file transfer to transfer tracks to the handset, then that’s good for you. But in my world neither is as convenient as using memory cards to put music on a phone.

Battery life is very important for a phone that doubles as a music player. The M600i did fairly well here, delivering more than ten hours of music from its own speaker, forcing the screen to stay on.

Unfortunately, the W950i fared less well, giving me a minute less than seven hours of music, again with the screen on. That’s disappointing compared to what you get from standalone players.

Volume and quality through the speaker were also quite good and loud. You can view album art and assign a “mood” to tunes. The choices are happy, sad, energetic, relaxed, and no mood. I like this idea a lot. There’s an FM radio that can set its twenty presets automatically, or you can set them manually.

The headset comes in two parts. The part that connects to the phone contains the FM radio antenna, microphone for voice calls, and a diamond with controls for playback and system volume. In addition, there is a 3.5mm jack that allows you to plug in the included earphones or your own headphones.

Unfortunately, the bottom part uses the same slot on the phone as the power jack. So you can’t listen to music while charging the battery.

I said right at the start of this review that the W950i is 3G, so you might expect video calls to be part of the deal. Not correct. There is no front camera and by the way there is also none on the back. No video calls, no still image capture. At least 3G users will find the web browser capable. I particularly like the fact that you can switch to widescreen to see webpages better.

Overall the screen is very good. It measures 2.6 inches from corner to corner, delivers 240 x 320 pixels and 262,000 colors. It’s bright, clear and alive. It is touch sensitive as UIQ demands.

UIQ itself is a solid and capable smartphone platform. Diary and to-do list management with PC synchronization, notes, mobile email, sound recorder, the aforementioned web browser and RSS reader are all included. They sit alongside features like a stopwatch, calculator, unit converter, and timer. In addition, there are more entertainment-focused things like TrackID. This captures snippets of songs from the radio or other source and compares them to the Gracenote database, which tells you what you’re listening to in a text message.

There’s certainly plenty to lure, but the day-to-day use ergonomics aren’t the best. The W950i has a flat number pad. Small knobs in the middle of each “button” area make it easier to use than some, but it’s not as comfortable or as quick to use as real buttons. Texting was certainly a slower business than usual. On-screen handwriting recognition and a typable keyboard help a little, but you’ll need to use the W950i with two hands to reap these benefits and work with the included stylus. Both are not as quick to use as a good number pad.

When you use the music player, three orange control buttons light up between the number pad and the screen. One plays and pauses tracks, one lets you skip forward between tracks or within tracks if you hold it down, the third does the same job of going backwards. These disappear when you exit the music player. There’s also a dedicated Walkman “button” that’s always visible and launches the Walkman software, and another play/pause button – a real one this time – on the right edge of the case, next to a volume rocker.

A wheel on the left edge of the case offers vertical scrolling and pressing to select a function. Movement through on-screen lists (e.g. lists of options or applications) registered a little later than expected, and there’s an irritating aspect of freewheeling, so when scrolling the wheel quickly it kept rattling after a list item or two after I it had stopped moving it. Slow scrolling was the only way around this, and it took a bit of self-discipline to accomplish the otherwise simple task of making the right choice from a menu every time.

Below the scroll wheel is an excellent back button. Short presses scroll back through the screens, long presses take you straight back to the home screen.

Icons that can be tapped on the screen are often simply too small for your finger to hit them accurately. Just one example are the three buttons for quick access to the repeat, shuffle and equalizer functions on the music player’s main screen. You’ll need fingernail precision or the included stylus to get them spot on. The real annoyance is that there’s room in the screen design to make all three much larger.

Some icons are tucked so far into the corners of the screen that I almost wonder if Sony Ericsson is joking at my expense or, less paranoid, if they’ve done a lot of usability testing.

I haven’t come across a phone that can replace my Sansa e280 (Gordon has reviewed the very similar but lower spec e260) and was wondering if the W950i could be it. It is not.

I also don’t think it will appeal to existing fans of Sony Ericsson’s Walkman phones. This leaves smartphone fans who want good music playback as a possible target. Smartphone fans can be demanding customers, and the difficult user interface, poor battery life for music playback, and fiddly number pad can’t do the W950i any favors to meet their needs.

It’s all a bit unfortunate. I am sure that UIQ is a strong operating system. If you’re willing to put in the effort and learn how all the little tricks work, then the W950i is a capable, competent, and ultimately useful phone. However, there are a lot of irritations and I just don’t think many people will be willing to bother.

“‘Verdict”‘

The W950i’s 4GB hard drive is a decoy, but it’s overly complicated by a poor user interface that won’t satisfy either music or smartphone fans.

How we test phones

We put every cell phone we test through its paces. We use industry standard tests to properly compare features and we use the phone as our main device during the review period. We will always tell you what we find and we never accept money to rate a product.

Learn more about how we test in our Ethics Policy.

Used as our main phone during the period

Verified against respected industry benchmarks and real-world tests

Always has a SIM card installed

Tested with phone calls, games and popular apps

points in detail

• Ease of use 6

• value 7

• functions 8

General

battery

camp

Just like buses, photo viewers seem to come in pairs. Barely a week has passed since I checked out the 9-inch Philips photo frame and while I admired the features and quality, you had to pay a premium to enjoy them.

Today we’re showing a 7-inch Bluetooth photo viewer from Parrot, and late last year Benny tested the original Parrot Bluetooth photo viewer. It was a commendable effort at the time, but it came at a prohibitively high price and lacked a number of fundamental features. Has Parrot learned from its mistakes?

First impressions are that the 7-inch version is very close to the original aesthetically. It may be considerably larger – the original had a tiny 3.5-inch screen – but for all intents and purposes it looks exactly the same. Parrot sells the viewer in a number of finishes including: Natural Oak, Alezan, Black Salamander, Brown Salamander, Black Ivory, Cardinal Red and, for the absolutely tasteless, Zebra.

Our test sample has the Black Ivory finish, which seems to be the least offensive of all the paint finishes. It’s by no means as stylish as the Philips, but the white stitching on black leather has a homely feel that’s not uncomfortable. In terms of looks, I’d still go with Philips every time – and that goes for all the different styles available too.

Dimensionally, this 7-inch version is certainly larger, although the screen isn’t quite as big as advertised, as it’s actually 6.5-inches diagonal. The overall dimensions are 222 x 176 x 22mm and the device weighs 490g.

The Parrot has a screen with a resolution of 720 x 480 and can display up to 262,144 colors. There’s also a motion sensor internally, and the viewer automatically adjusts the images to portrait or landscape orientation.

Viewing angles, which are certainly important in these types of products, aren’t too much to write home about. Horizontal viewing angles are acceptable in landscape mode, but they are particularly poor vertically, which is a problem in portrait mode.

Fortunately, average viewing angles aside, it’s a fairly decent screen that looks bright and sharp even when sitting next to the Philips photo frame.

Unlike the Philips, which has a built-in stand that rotates, the Parrot Photo Viewer relies on a metal rod that screws into the back of the device. As this is tactically placed in a corner, it can be set up in both landscape and portrait modes, but it’s not a particularly stable solution and the viewer is easily knocked over by a slight bump or hit.

Just like its predecessor, this is a Bluetooth-enabled photo viewer, and it’s certainly a feature worth praising. Like many others, I enjoy taking photos with my mobile phone – often snagging amusing headlines from newspapers while buying lunch at Sainsbury’s – and transferring photos to the Photo Viewer is a very simple process.

After finding the photo viewer, all you need to do is enter 0000 as your PIN and you can start sending pictures to the device. The Photo Viewer uses Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and has a range of ten meters, so you shouldn’t have too many range issues.

Of course, you can transfer photos with almost any Bluetooth-enabled device, regardless of whether it is a mobile phone, PDA, notebook or PC. Unfortunately, Parrot didn’t have the foresight to include a USB Bluetooth module for those with PCs or notebooks without built-in Bluetooth, and this would certainly benefit PC users who are less likely to have Bluetooth.

Of course, you could buy one separately – and Parrot is just one company that makes things like that – but a bundled Bluetooth adapter wouldn’t have increased the cost all that much, and it would add a lot of value right out of the box.

This isn’t the only oversight either, as Parrot has – once again – decided not to include memory card slots. Its dedication to all things Bluetooth is admirable, but there are several very strong arguments for having memory card slots on a device like this.

It’s not hard to imagine that the vast majority of people would simply want to snap photos from their camera’s memory card and place them straight onto a photo viewer. Since Bluetooth is the only available connection, you have no choice but to transfer photos to another device first. an unnecessary impertinence.

It’s not all bad for the Parrot Photo Viewer, however, and it has at least addressed one problem common in this market – stingy internal storage. There is 128MB of internal memory that can store about 500 photos at a time.

This is a significant improvement over the Philips Photo Frame range, which only has 18MB of internal storage – although the Philips memory card reader certainly mitigates this problem considerably.

For most purposes, however, 128MB is probably sufficient, so you don’t have to worry too much about running out of space for your photos.

However, the Parrot Photo Viewer’s main saving grace is its user interface. There are three navigation buttons on the back, including two triangular movement buttons and a circular menu button. These are nicely located and it’s very easy to tell each button apart just by touching it.

The menu button displays a series of icons at the bottom of the screen that you can use to rotate and select images, adjust slideshow options, arrange and delete images, or make other settings.

It’s not as feature-rich as the Philips, but that makes it easy to use and is certainly a factor worth considering. Unfortunately, one very useful feature is missing: albums. While you can arrange the order your photos appear in, you can’t organize them into albums, and that’s a disappointing flaw.

It retains a few more features you’d normally expect, with a standby mode to turn the device on and off automatically – of course there’s a clock for this feature to work, too.

With all this ease of use, however, it’s hard to resist the fact that you can get the 7-inch version of the Philips Photo Frame for £120 – only slightly more than this 7-inch Parrot Photo Viewer. And for that money you get all the features of the 9-inch photo frame, including the memory card reader, which the Parrot lacks.

“‘Verdict”‘

While the Parrot Bluetooth Photo Frame has its perks, the lack of a memory card reader and less appealing design pale in comparison to the more stylish, better-equipped Philips Photo Frame. Bluetooth is a fun handy feature, but you’ll have to want a photo viewer specifically with Bluetooth to pick this over the Philips.