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While Lexmark may be known for cheap and cheerful inkjets in the domestic market, it has a very different reputation in the business arena. The company’s range of black-and-white and color laser printers for workgroups and SMBs is highly regarded. The C532dn is designed for use in the network and has a built-in duplexer, which saves paper.

There seems to be a trend in the color laser market to build printers with smaller footprints but more height. Lexmark certainly took this into account and produced a monolithic machine with the inline printing mechanism housed vertically within it. It’s even higher when you add the optional second 550-sheet paper tray.

A standard 250-sheet paper tray slides in the bottom in the traditional way, but the front of the tray folds down to form a single-sheet multipurpose feeder, which is rather unusual. The paper exits into a large tray that hangs out at the top rear of the machine. This is reflected in the paper feed tray below, which also protrudes from the rear.

The printer’s control panel contains a four-line, 16-character LCD display that could use some lighting and a less reflective front panel. There’s also a five button control ring and three more buttons on the left for entering the menu, exiting a menu option and stopping a current print job. USB 2.0 and Ethernet ports are located in a notch on the left side of the printer, making them more accessible but a bit unsightly.

The C532dn is not an easy printer to set up. It is crammed with tape, pieces of packaging and spacer sheets, all of which must be removed before it will function satisfactorily. It even has power-on diagnostics that will verify that you’ve removed everything.

The printer uses an in-line laser mechanism with separate toner and photoconductor cartridges for each color – you slide each toner cartridge into the machine’s body and insert a photoconductor drum into a corresponding assembly inside the swing-down front cover. All consumables are pre-installed in a new machine, which is why so many covers and spacers have to be removed.

The automatic software setup only installs the PostScript 3 emulation, not that of PCL 6. This seems like an odd choice as PCL is almost always faster than PostScript and there is little discernible difference in print quality between the two.

Lexmark specifies print speeds of 22 pages per minute and 21 pages per minute for black and white and color printing. Our five-page text print was completed in 24 seconds, giving a real non-draft mode black print speed of 12.5 pages per minute, and the color text and graphics job, also five pages, took 27 seconds, which is 11.1 pages per minute results. The ratio is about right, although as usual we see about half of the claimed numbers.

The print quality of this machine is very high. Text output is sharp and clear with very little spatter and good clean diagonals and curves. Color graphics are also rendered well with bright, solid colors and good text overlay, showing no text splatter or misalignment with the underlying colors.

The photo reproduction, which is usually not a strength of laser printers, is better than usual. Of the two print modes available, Normal and Best Quality, there are some slight improvements in the color palette when using the best print quality. Neither image looks particularly natural and there is slight banding in the sky portion of the image, but the overall results were impressive for a color laser.

When printing in duplex mode, the C532dn prints the first side of two sheets on both sides of the paper at the same time and pulls each one out of the output tray to print on the second side. The device is fast and efficient at duplex printing, but it’s quite noisy with all types of printing. Lexmark claims a noise level of 53 dBA, but we’ve measured it consistently at around 60 dBA, an intrusive noise level.

This printer contains two sets of consumables: photoconductor drums and toner cartridges. Black toner is only available in 4,000-sheet capacities, but the three color cartridges can be bought in 3,000-sheet and 5,000-sheet versions. You can also purchase the 20,000-sheet photoconductor drums individually or in packs of four.

Using the consistently cheapest options, we get a 5 percent black text page cost of 2.02 pence and a 20 percent color page cost of 7.92 pence. Text-page costs are slightly higher than some of the printer’s main competitors, but this is offset by color costs, which are on the lower end of the scale.

“‘Verdict”‘

This is a good color workhorse for a small office or workgroup within a larger organization. Black and color output is well above average and while a little cumbersome to maintain, it’s quick and relatively inexpensive to run.

points in detail

• print speed 8

• functions 7

• value 8

• print quality 9

characteristics

To press

The market for NAS devices has grown significantly in recent years as more and more people use them as a means of distributing multimedia content in their homes and small businesses using them as an alternative to a full fledged file server. However, there is a big gap between the most basic versions, which lack any form of redundancy or use proprietary software to interface to the device, and the much more expensive versions, which act as truly independent file servers with redundancy and extras like print servers. Well, today I’m looking at a device that’s trying to fill that gap, the HP Media Vault.

The HP Media Vault comes in two variants, mv2010 and mv2020, with capacities of 300GB and 500GB and RRPs of £249 and £349 respectively. Both versions share the same extensive list of features, including space for an additional SATA hard drive, print server support, Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, SMB/FTP/http access, and RAID-1 and JBOD.

Physically, the Media Vault is larger than most NAS devices of similar capacity and resembles a slim desktop case more than an external hard drive. This seems to make sense as it squeezes in room for a second disc and an expansion card, an integrated power supply, and the motherboard and CPU that controls everything. However, opening it revealed a less than optimal use of space and where the slot for the expansion card should be was just the solder pads on the board, so it’s really just a waste of space.

The styling left a lot to be desired too, with a fairly thin coat of silver-grey paint covering the steel case and a thin plastic panel adorning the front. Of course, none of this matters since you’re probably hiding the box under the stairs or behind a desk.

The front bezel features a flap for accessing the additional drive bay, a USB 2.0 port, a power button, and a row of status LEDs. On the back you’ll find a power outlet, a Gigabit Ethernet port, two USB 2.0 ports, a reset button, and a cover plate for the aforementioned phantom expansion card.

After adding an additional hard drive (if required) and turning on the device, you can run the Windows-only configuration program to find the device on your network and set up default folders on your computer for you. Or, if you know what IP your network has assigned the device to, you can simply access the web interface directly – by typing the device’s IP into your browser – and start the setup from there.

After installing and launching the software, you will be greeted with the following screen.

The Start Explore option simply opens your Media Vault folder in Explorer. The second option opens a custom interface that lets you assign a drive letter (aka drive mapping) to your network folders. The third option opens the web interface configuration utility.

When you go to the Backup tab, you have the option to back up individual files, your entire hard drive, or restore your entire hard drive. The first option only opens the NTI Shadow backup utility, which is separate software that you can access from the Start menu. Likewise, the other two options simply open the NTI DriveBackup software.

NTI DriveBackup takes full backups of an entire hard drive and allows you to create a boot disk so you can recover your system drive in the event of a disaster. The data is saved as a single file that you can compress – this saves space, of course, but the compression process takes some time. NTI Shadow handles files rather than entire discs and includes a previous versions option that allows you to specify up to nine previous versions of a file to keep in your backup. Both pieces of software are very easy and intuitive to use and offer extensive scheduling options, so once set up you don’t have to touch anything – at least until you need to perform a restore.

The Help & Support tab does exactly what it says on the tin; provides access to the user guide, an online support page, a registration page, and the HP website.

Most users are happy to let the various wizards and applications do the work, but if you need to do more in-depth configuration, you’ll need to use the web-based configuration utility. This allows you to fully configure your NAS box, from changing the IP address to creating a RAID. It’s too much to go into detail about the options in this review, but I’ll give you a quick overview.

Under Shared Folders you can create/delete/modify your various shared folders. You can add password protection and set FTP, web browser, or standard network (SMB) access, assigning read-only or full access to each.

The print server function is very easy to use, just connect the printer, wait for the printer to appear in the Shared Printer section, and then add the printer through the usual procedure of your operating system. There are no settings in this section, just a list of printers and their network names.

If you have a digital media adapter, you’ll be happy to know that you can enable media streaming for each of your folders. Streaming is done using the UPnP A/V streaming protocol, so currently only unprotected files are supported. This is not to be confused with Microsoft’s Digital Media Connect, the protocol used to connect your Xbox 360 to Windows Media Player, and in fact your 360 does not recognize your shared folders on this computer.

In the hard drive settings, you can partition, format and resize your hard drives, create a RAID or JBOD. If you connect external hard drives, you can also configure them in the same way.

Network settings include changing the device name on the network, defining workgroup or user based access, and switching from DHCP IP assignment to manual settings.

If the device is running in workgroup access mode, you can only add or remove an administrator password in the user settings. If you use user-based access, you can add/remove additional users and assign individual access levels to each user as well as control their access to the configuration utility.

Finally we come to the system settings. From here you can change date/time settings, energy saving settings and perform a firmware update.

Because the Media Vault is essentially a PC running a stripped-down version of Linux, you can access the embedded Linux distribution and extend its capabilities to set up a telnet server or run a bit torrent client . However, I am not a Linux fan, so I did not test this aspect of the appliance.

I tested the drive for raw speed by running IOMeter and then transferring a 1.07GB file and folder containing 1,943 photos, totaling 497MB, to and from the NAS. IOMeter returned numbers of 23 MB/s read and 16 MB/s write speeds, while transferring large files was slower with 14 MB/s read and 10 MB/s write speeds. Finally, the many small photos were even slower at 4.8 MB/s writing and 3.7 MB/s reading. These numbers compare well to the Maxtor Shared Storage II 1TB and Infrant Technologies ReadyNAS NV, which write at 12.3MB/s and 14.4MB/s, and 25MB/s and 19.2MB/s, respectively. s delivered when reading.

“‘Verdict”‘

The MediaVault is a very successful NAS appliance that combines a first-class range of functions with excellent performance and flexibility. The bundled software is great – at least for Windows users – and the ability to customize the embedded Linux distribution makes this a true one-box-dos-all network storage solution.

As for price, I don’t think the extra 200GB that the 500GB version offers is worth the £100 premium and I’d go for the 300GB version along with a massive second drive with 750 GB decide.

However, it’s worth noting that no UK version appears to be available at the time of writing. However, customers in the US appear to be well catered for, as several stores, including HP’s online store, stock it.

Edit: This morning I received an email saying that the 300GB version is indeed available from PC World.

You may not have guessed it, but Leonardo Da Vinci, Aristotle, Mahatmah Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Mozart and the good me have something in common. Yes, like these famous people, I’m left-handed and like them, I’ve always been frustrated by the lack of a computer mouse designed specifically for the way we work. Leonardo, Albert and I always had to look with envy at the carefully sculpted, beautifully contoured mice that right-handed people have always had, while we left-handers either had to live with boring, unsculpted mice or suffer crooked hands.

It’s been taking a hell of a long time, but Logitech has finally made an effort to remedy the situation. Maybe that’s because Logitech’s CEO is left-handed himself. So if he made sure I greet him with my left hand.

The MX610 Left-Hand Laser Cordless was first announced at CeBIT in 2006, but it took me so long to actually get one from Logitech. The left mouse is an exact mirror image of the right-hand version of the MX610, which debuted in early 2006, which we never actually got to see, so aside from being left-handed, it’s worth checking out here.

The mouse is a pretty good looking device with a silver, gray and black finish and most exciting for left-handers, it has plenty of sexy curves, something we’ve been starving for when it comes to mouse movements. There are seven buttons on its surface, all of which fall neatly under the reach of the index finger and thumb.

At the heart of the MX610 is a laser rather than an optical LED sensor first introduced by Logitech on the MX1000. This means the mouse doesn’t have the red light that optical mice have at the base, but more importantly the laser is much more sensitive than LEDs, potentially allowing it to work on more surfaces than optical mice. I used it primarily on my mouse pad, but it seemed perfectly happy on my desk’s wood grain. The mouse has a resolution of 800 dpi, which is good, but not as good as the 2,000 dpi that some dedicated gaming mice offer.

The mouse communicates with the small dongle over the crowded 2.4GHz frequency, and some users have complained that the mouse is prone to communication issues as a result. I plugged the dongle straight into my monitor’s USB port, so there was very little distance between the two and actually a line of location. So it’s hardly surprising that I haven’t had any problems like this. If your USB ports are only on the back of the PC and you’re having trouble, a USB extension cable could be the solution. It doesn’t come with one, but there is a PS/2 to USB converter so you can use the mouse without occupying a USB port if you don’t have an spare.

The 2.4 GHz frequency also allows the mouse to receive and send information from the PC – Logitech speaks of a smart mouse. It knows when the PC is on standby or off and can shut itself down, which is very useful for saving energy. This is important as Logitech only claims a three month lifespan and the MX610 runs on regular AA batteries rather than a built in rechargeable battery with stand. So you need a spare set of AA in case the battery runs out. However, you have enough warning to buy a new set if you don’t, as there’s a light on top of the mouse that shows when the power is low and the SetPoint software will let you know as well. If you leave your PC on all the time, you can manually turn off the mouse with a button and power indicator on the bottom of the device.

The mouse can not only detect the state of the PC, but also when you have received an email or a message from a chat client, with the former slowly blinking amber and the latter blue. The lights are also buttons, so you can just press them to bring up the respective application. This functionality is available through Logitech’s SetPoint software, but the downside is that it’s limited to Outlook Express, Outlook and MSN Messenger, or Yahoo Messenger. This was fine with me as I use Outlook and MSN on my work computer and I found it very useful to be able to use the mouse to launch the messenger without having to go to the taskbar. However, I also use Thunderbird for my personal email and it just isn’t supported, which is a shame. If you’re using another chat client like AOL IM or Trillian, this feature doesn’t work either, which is disappointing.

If you don’t want the light flashing on every spam that hits your inbox, you can use SetPoint software to manually filter messages to the messages you want. SetPoint also allows you to map the function of each key to your liking. You can do this on an application basis, so you can customize how the mouse works in your apps, which is a good thing. If you don’t see an installed app in the list, you can add it by selecting Manage programs. What I don’t understand is why the software doesn’t have an option that lets you apply the same settings globally. I wanted to map cut and paste to the side buttons in all apps, but had to go into each program and do it manually – a real chore.

The top two buttons are also set fairly high on the bulbous part of the mouse, requiring you to remove your thumb to reach them, which is a bit awkward. There are volume up/down and mute buttons on the front of the mouse. Being able to control the volume in this way without having to switch to the keyboard is great, although I found I had to reach down a bit to reach the volume up button on the front. The side buttons, which default to forward and back, are conveniently within thumb reach. Of course it all depends on hand size, but in general I found the feel to be good, if not quite as good as the MX Revolution (although of course the limitation with this mouse is that it’s right-handed, so I couldn’t use it ).

Besides the usual scrolling and clicking, the mouse wheel can also be moved from side to side, which is useful for web pages and Excel. I found that it didn’t click as easily as my regular Logitech wired mouse, and I’m working harder to get it to do that. I also had to change the setting in the SetPoint software that defaults the middle button to a zoom function, which I found a bit strange – clicking is much more useful (e.g. wheel-clicking links in Firefox to get a link to start in a new tab).

Of course, many people will wonder how good the mouse was in games. I tested with short sessions in Day of Defeat: Source, Counter-Strike: Source and a bit of Half-Life 2 single player. I found that most of the time I needed some practice, but I was content that the mouse wasn’t really the problem with my lack of success. I still feel that die-hard Twitch gamers are better served with a faster dpi mouse, which means left-handed users are wired. However, if you’re more of a casual gamer, the MX610 is acceptable.

Actually, a contoured mouse felt a bit unusual to me, but I quickly got used to it. Although I use mine on the left side of the keyboard, I’ve always kept the left and right click keys around in the normal way. With this mouse, however, I felt comfortable actually toggling it since the index finger is faster for those left clicks.

“‘Verdict”‘

It might not be perfect, but having not had the luxury of using a contoured mouse before, I have to say that I’ve been very happy with the left-handed MX610. Economies of scale inevitably dictate that the left-handed version will be more expensive than the right-hand one, but luckily it only costs a few pounds more. I can happily recommend the MX610 for left-handers, and not just because there is no other way.

While it’s entirely possible to have surround sound for your PC, the reality is that most people find it far too impractical. Unlike home theaters, desktop PCs generally live where there is room for them, and arranging the various speakers and hiding the cables is a chore.

As a result, many people prefer 2.1 systems, which benefit from being small, affordable, and easy to set up, and many companies produce a range of systems of varying quality. Sony is just one of those companies and has sent us a set of their new 2.1 speakers, the SRS-DZ10s, which are available for a not inconsiderable £85.

At first glance, the SRS-DZ10 look quite unusual; The tubular subwoofer in particular is a unique component. However, as a set they are undeniably stylish with a supremely elegant brushed aluminum finish and satellites that are elegant in their simplicity. The sub’s unusual design is designed so that you can place it horizontally or vertically on your desk, but why you’d want to do that rather than keep it under a desk is beyond me.

From a technical point of view, the set delivers a total of 37 W, with the two satellites delivering 6 W each and the sub delivering 25 W. The set is also magnetically shielded to prevent noise interference and damage to your monitor if you’re still using a CRT.

The satellites measure 63 x 143 x 63mm, while the Sub, with its rather bulky shape, measures 374 x 149 x 183mm. The set also comes with a control center for adjusting volume and bass levels – this device has two input sockets, so you can connect an MP3 player along with a PC or notebook. Finally, there’s a headphone jack on the front of the control center for easy access.

Consisting of two small drivers, the satellites have the typical Sony look and feel of quality products. If you want speakers with a bit of style and panache then the SRS-DZ10s are certainly worth considering, and while the sub is an acquired taste it’s at least: a) hideable and b) eye-catching.

While 2.1 channel speaker sets offer many benefits, there are challenges to overcome. Because you’re separating the high and low range with two different sets of speakers, getting a balanced sound is often a problem. one that the SRS-DZ10 often fails to solve.

That’s not to say they’re poor quality speakers, they aren’t, but they’re not quite as versatile as one would like. For music they are certainly very crisp, especially in the upper range, but at times percussion can sound quite grating and even get annoying at times.

Of course, sharpness and clarity aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but balance is always important and that high-end clarity isn’t matched by a strong mid-range. Turning up the bass does mitigate the problem somewhat, but never balances the sound enough, as the bass is quite harsh at high settings and the midrange tends to be anonymous.

The lack of mids is particularly noticeable when watching films and videos, the voices sound rather distant. The speakers didn’t get along too well with action scenes either, although the high-pitched tone again spoils the overall impression.

The lack of midrange performance is also noticeable when listening to music at low volumes, where once again the percussion dominates to the detriment of everyone else.

Predictably, this problem carries over into games where shots sound very tinny and unconvincing. While these speakers are certainly primarily intended for music, it’s still important to be versatile, especially if you’re paying a moderately sized sum for a 2.1 set.

Luckily there are some positives as the set creates a nice spatial effect that fills spaces well. This makes them a good choice for casual music listening in the living room when connected to a notebook or even an MP3 player. This at least partially makes up for the shortcomings in the balance, and it’s certainly much less noticeable when the sound is given more time to mix.

But even with that caveat, the SRS-DZ10s are in a difficult position considering what you can get for the same price – or even less. For £50 you get the excellent Logitech Z3s, which are still excellent value for money, and their replacements, the Z4s, are also available for around the same price.

Alternatively, for around the same price, you can pick up the Acoustic Energy Aego M speakers that Benny tested late last year, which featured musical fidelity. As an added bonus, they also offer an option for a third center speaker to create a 3.1 channel setup ideal for watching movies on your PC.

“‘Verdict”‘

Though stylish and eye-catching, the SRS-DZ10s don’t deliver a compelling overall performance. The music playback is mixed with rather weak mids and exaggeratedly powerful highs. They are also not really suitable for films and games. They’ll do a reasonable job for the style-over-substance consumer, but there are plenty of alternatives that offer superior quality and better value for money.

I think we all owe the crackdown an apology.

First of all, it was branded as a basic GTA clone, albeit one with interesting cel-shaded graphics. Then it was seen as the kind of lightweight expense that needed bundled access to a Halo 3 beta to ensure it flew off the shelves. Well, it turns out we were wrong on both counts.

The first is just nonsense. Unlike, say, Saint’s Row or Scarface, Crackdown has none of the usual gang banging, pimping, dealing tosh. It’s played in third person, involves cars, and takes place in an urban open-world setting, but that’s where the comparisons end. And while the Halo 3 beta is a definite bonus, Crackdown doesn’t need it to grab our attention. This is a game that can proudly stand on its own two feet.

Maybe one day we can play an open world game without mentioning GTA, just as we don’t necessarily mention Command and Conquer or Doom now when a new RTS or FPS comes out. For now, instead of thinking about GTA, you could consider two more sensible points of comparison. First, last year’s Just Cause, both for its assassinations and the way you get around was part of the fun, and second, 2005’s Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. Why the latter? Because it’s probably the most successful game to include superpowers in an open world, and because those superpowers help make that open world fun. All of this applies to Crackdown.

Confused? Here is the facility. You are a genetically engineered super cop unleashed on a city teetering on the brink of social collapse. Three gangs roam the streets, each claiming a certain part of the city. Eliminate the gang leaders and you can restore peace, but it won’t be easy. To stand any chance of bringing down the three kingpins, you must attack their lieutenants one by one, tracking each one to his or her hideout and making sure you incapacitate them permanently.

And that’s basically it. There’s no storyline, no cutscenes to wade through, and no missions as such, just gameplay. You won’t even know who and where your targets are until an up-close intelligence briefing appears. This means that you are basically free to wipe out the twenty-one key villains in any order and however you want. The catch is that while you can try whoever you want, when you want, your odds won’t always be that good. On your first try, the game’s excellent commentary – a mix of online help and cutting observation – will show you your predicted odds, and the game will cheerfully recommend you come back later if you need to, when you’re better equipped to tackle.

In other games, that might mean heavier weapons or armor, but here it means enhanced abilities. You start out with skills in five categories – Agility, Strength, Driving, Explosives, and Marksmanship – and by attacking the gangs in appropriate ways or collecting specific markers, you’ll collect upgrade orbs that will eventually enhance that power. As the game progresses, you will become better at targeting and locking on to enemies at a distance or on the move. make enormous leaps and scale the sides of the tallest buildings, leaping from ledge to ledge; Pick up blocks, containers and even cars and throw them at attackers and much more. In the beginning you can wade into a group of enemies and bang out their lights, but five hours later you’ll be beating them halfway down the street before their freshly hewn butt hits the pavement.

Not only is that an excuse to show off the game’s Havok-based physics – although it certainly does a fantastic job – it really opens up the whole experience. Once you win the first upgrade for your acrobatics, the whole city turns into one giant platform game. The buildings are not only meant to look impressive and give a sense of massive size, although they certainly do; The entire cityscape has been cleverly designed to challenge your jumping skills. You’ll soon be scanning the rooftops for more Agility Upgrade Orbs, knowing that if you can’t quite make it there, it’s only a matter of time.

In addition, there are many side missions to help you level up, such as: B. Driving challenges and daredevil rooftop races where you dash from point to point with breathtaking abandon. If you thought Just Cause had any thrills left, Crackdown makes it look coy. Cleverly, you might also notice that this all means that the game rewards you for doing what you love to do most. As you wade into the gangster headquarters, throwing grenades and spitting bullets, you’ll soon fill up the upgrade meter in the Marksmanship and Explosives categories and get better at them. If you’d rather acrobaticly find your way back, you’ll earn upgrade points for doing so.

It might not have worked if these ideas weren’t executed so brilliantly, but they are. The controls are smooth, with responsive, quick movement, and melee and aiming capabilities that put other open-world games to shame. In a way, it’s a compliment that driving is probably the least compelling aspect of the game. The handling model is fantastic and there’s an excellent choice of vehicles, but why bother with something as prosaic as driving when you can leap over tall buildings with just a few jumps?

Over time, the game boils down to figuring out the locations of the various bosses and sub-bosses, working out a logical order, and then trying to find a weak point. Along the way, you’ll also snag supply points, which are handy places to drop off weapons, move around instantly, and — most importantly — respawn if large numbers of gang members beat you into submission.

Now it has to be said that the actual encounters sometimes lack drama – the bosses are almost always lurking on a rooftop or in a compound surrounded by gang members, and while the AI ​​isn’t bad, it’s hardly the stuff of FEAR, which the game encourages to create your own set pieces. One minute you might be dizzyingly climbing a lighthouse, the next you’re single-handedly storming an island hideout. With bullets and bodies flying everywhere, fuel barrels and grenades exploding in every direction, and you hurtling headlong through the middle, games just don’t get any better.

Of course, not everyone will agree. The look, for example, is firmly against the current trend towards photorealism, although I think the combination of cel shading and applied detail – reminiscent of a dark sci-fi graphic novel – suits the style of overpowering action much better than that Gears of War approach. Some don’t like the lack of structure, find the plot repetitive, or complain that it doesn’t last long enough. Well, maybe this isn’t an epic of GTA proportions, but I can only imagine that those who cracked Crackdown in less than eight hours a) really blew it and b) missed a lot of fun in the process. The action only repeats if you do the same thing on each boss. Take your time exploring your skills and the game will constantly surprise you by catering to almost every whim. This isn’t the kind of game that propels you from climax to climax like a symphony. It’s a game where you improvise, play – just want to have fun.

And in that respect, it’s arguably better than any game I’ve played this year. If you want proof of how well it handles everything, all you have to do is look at how it integrates live games. A smaller game would have built in a lazy collection of deathmatch or capture-the-flag modes, but Crackdown implements a drop-in drop-out co-op mode where you can decide to play your single player game with friends or even leaving strangers open to join or request participation in another player’s game. That kind of generous spirit sums up the game as a whole. It’s like saying, “You’re having fun, why not share it?”. Needless to say, any game with this much auto-throwing, acrobatic, high-explosive action is a must-play with a mate, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the sheer silly joy of blowing things to pieces keeps that playground open at some point .

So let’s give Crackdown a big pity and thank the heavens that it’s out. It’s not deep, particularly deep, or overly revolutionary, but it never fails to entertain in the most wonderful, big-hearted way. That makes it the first must-have 360 ​​game of the year for me.

“‘Verdict”‘

A whirlwind mix of superhero and open-world gameplay, it’s a 360 must-play, even without the Halo 3 Beta invite. cracking stuff.

characteristics

Where would you be without a USB stick? Seriously, if you don’t have one, you must be some kind of insane lunatic still blown away by the invention of the digital watch. There’s simply no easier way to carry important files around, and with flash memory being so cheap, there’s little excuse not to have one.

Because of this cheapness, USB drives cost 100 cents, and normally we wouldn’t bat an eyelid when a USB flash drive lands on our desks. But in this case we were intrigued because this 1GB drive from Kingston boasted “Enhanced for Windows ReadyBoost”.

So what is ReadyBoost you ask? It acts as an extension of Vista’s SuperFetch feature, which loads frequently used files and programs into system memory so that they load significantly faster than if they loaded directly from the hard drive. As a result, Vista is much better at taking advantage of large memory configurations greater than 2GB, and power users will surely reap the benefits.

ReadyBoost does almost the same thing as SuperFetch, albeit with some limitations because while flash memory offers excellent access times, it’s still much slower than a hard drive for transferring larger files.

Still, there are some benefits, and ReadyBoost uses compatible flash memory to cache system files and the system paging file to provide some sort of performance boost.

Note that you cannot use old flash memory for ReadyBoost. To avoid performance degradation, you must use flash memory that meets certain minimum requirements. If you are using a USB flash drive, it must be USB 2.0, while each memory must support 3.5 MB/s for 4 KB random reads and 2.5 MB/s for 512 KB random writes.

This applies to any flash memory you use, and you can also use memory cards like Secure Digital and Compact Flash. Each storage drive must also have at least 64MB of free space, and you can use up to 4GB of flash memory for ReadyBoost.

The USB flash drive Kingston sent us is 1GB, and the company claims it exceeds data transfer requirements. Aside from the ReadyBoost certification, it’s a very typical and completely unremarkable flash drive. It looks just like any you’ve seen or used in the past, and it’s not rugged enough to survive being run over by a car or some nonsense like that. It’s just some plastic; nothing to get too excited about.

Setting up ReadyBoost is an extremely simple case of inserting a compatible storage device into a Vista PC and then, when prompted, selecting the option to use it for ReadyBoost. By going to the device’s Properties dialog box, you can select the amount of memory you want to allocate to ReadyBoost, allowing you to choose to keep some memory for storage if you wish.

To test the validity of ReadyBoost and see if Kingston ReadyFlash would improve performance, we first ran PCMark’s HDD tests on a notebook running Vista. Since notebooks are generally less powerful and more difficult to upgrade, they are the most likely candidates that could benefit from ReadyBoost, making this a real test.

The notebook in question was the Asus U1F recently reviewed by Riyad, which has an Intel Dual Core U2400 clocked at 1.06 GHz, 1 GB of system memory and a 60 GB hard drive. Riyad noted in his review that he found it quite sluggish on Vista and suggested that potential buyers should specify 2GB of RAM when purchasing. Does ReadyBoost have an effect?

First, the PC Mark tests suggest that this is certainly the case. We ran the hard drive tests again without ReadyBoost and got a score of 2310, and subsequent tests showed significant improvements when the USB device was plugged in and scheduled for caching.

With the full 1GB used, the score was 3106, which is 796 more than the score without ReadyBoost. Further testing returned results of 3017 at 880MB, Windows’ suggested memory usage, and 2680 and 2600 when using 512MB and 256MB, respectively.

Although PC Mark tests are more of an indicator of performance, these numbers suggest that there is certainly a significant amount of additional performance to be gained when using ReadyBoost. In addition, the notebook was noticeably faster in general use when loading programs. That’s not to say it was a revolutionary improvement, but it was noticeable enough to be worth checking out.

As another indicator, we decided to run a quick and easy test on our gaming machine, which is equipped with a slightly more powerful AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 Dual Core 2.63 GHz CPU and 2 GB Corsair Pro Series RAM.

We measured how long it took to load a game file from Oblivion and compared the times when using 1GB of ReadyBoost cache to none at all. After running the test multiple times, we found that ReadyBoost reduced load time by just under 15 seconds on average, an impressive return on a £13 investment.

Over time, you’ll surely notice this kind of difference, and we’d love to see if ReadyBoost has a similar impact on in-game loading, although that’s a little harder to test.

“‘Verdict”‘

It appears that ReadyBoost does indeed work, and the Kingston 1GB DataTraveler ReadyFlash drive is an excellent and dirt-cheap way to boost Vista performance. Ideally we’d like it to be smaller, as we already know Kingston can make much smaller USB flash drives, but other than that it does a good job.

I should imagine there aren’t many digital photographers who don’t run out of space every now and then; The dreaded card full symbol is enough to get anyone muttering a few swear words to themselves. Luckily, Epson has come to the rescue with a handy little storage viewer that fits in just about any camera bag. Now there’s no need to panic when you’re down on those last few megabytes of disk space!

The P-5000 is a versatile, fairly well put together package that goes beyond a simple image viewer. It offers a variety of card formats, video and audio capabilities, and a respectable list of handy features, including a gorgeous HD LCD screen, a fast 80 gigabyte hard drive, a rechargeable Li-On battery for long life, and a high USB High-speed 2.0 connection for comprehensive storage and management functions for PC and Mac operating systems.

Physically, the device is intuitive to use, comfortable to hold as most of the work is done with the right thumb. The two memory card slots are usefully placed on the top for easy access along with the headphone jack. The rest of the connection hardware is under flush-fitting rubber tabs on the left edge. These consist of an A/V output, two high-speed USB2.0 ports, a power supply socket and a reset button. An interesting point is the placement of the speaker. Unfortunately, it’s on the underside and nestles neatly within the confines of a remarkably soundproof rim. If you want to enjoy movies or music, you need your headphones. The 4-inch, 640×480 resolution screen is probably one of the nicest I’ve seen on a device of this size. Using low-temperature polysilicon TFT technology, the quality of this display is superb, colors are warm and well-defined, while grayscale has excellent contrast and sharp, crisp edges.

The range of media supported by the P-5000 is impressive overall, but leaves a little to be desired on the photographic side. It loads JPEG and RAW files with ease (with limitations, see specs), but surprisingly there’s no support for TIFF files, or any other still image format for that matter. Video formats, on the other hand, include most MPEGs, DivX, AVC, Windows Media Video, Motion JPEGs and even the new H.264 format.

On the audio side, there is the standard MP3 and AAC, as well as Windows audio. Memory card support is limited to two slots, one Secure Digital and one Compact Flash. However, in fact, you can use SD/SDHC, Multimedia, Compact Flash and Microdrive formats. Other cards can be used, but only with an appropriate adapter. The only limit is the multimedia card, which is limited to one gigabyte.

To get an accurate picture of the comparable speeds, I ran a series of read/write tests, the results of which are shown here. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed with the result. Granted, there’s not a lot in it as you can see, but if I were to spend anything under £500 on a dedicated machine like this I’d expect at least similar results to what I get from my home PC or laptop. The tests included reading and writing half a gig chunks of data, one with numerous small JPEG files, one with several large video files, and another with an average mix. I didn’t expect a huge difference between the two considering they do the same job in both cases, transferring data to and from a hard drive and a memory card.

However, the data speaks for itself, the P-5000 performed slower in every test, with the exception of the Microdrive, which wrote faster in all three tests. Unless you’re too concerned about access times or don’t have access to a computer these numbers won’t tell you much, after all they’re just for comparison, but since you can’t get a decent laptop for much more than the cost of the P- 5000 it is worth considering.

This brings us straight to general connectivity. The device features two high-speed USB ports that can be used for a variety of tasks. The first, a “host” connection, is used to connect a computer or camera. The second connection, “Device”, is for using a PictBridge printer or an external storage device. Which is odd, because surely the P-5000 IS an external storage device? To use the computer support, you need Windows 2000 Pro, XP Pro, XP Home or Mac OS X (10.2 or higher). The software itself does not come on a CD-ROM as expected, but as an executable file on the unit’s drive. After some tinkering I got the application working. It does what it says on the box, transfers files. It has no notable features, certainly nothing notable.

The control system for the P-5000 is similar to the software, reasonable and functional. It consists of clear, text-based menus that include: My Music, View Rated Files, My Videos, My Photos, Backup Files, Memory Card, USB Devices, and Settings. Most entries are simple folder navigation menus that give you access to files. Videos and still images are all displayed as thumbnails and highlighting and pressing OK displays that image or video. The Memory Card option allows you to back up or browse an inserted card. It would have been nice to have seen a little imagination in the design, but it does the job. Just.

“‘Verdict”‘

There’s no doubt that the P-5000 is a handy, versatile viewer that performs well enough. Its hardware is up-to-date and powerful, uses fast USB 2.0 technology and supports the most common card formats. The heart of the machine, the screen, is beautiful, sixteen million colors in high definition look really good. The video is smooth and crisp, with an excellent choice of formats. Audio is the same, nice and clean with a good frequency response. I would have liked to see more photographic formats, especially TIFF. What really lets the device down in my opinion is the software, both the OS and the PC/Mac software could be so much better. If as much effort had been put into the OS as into the hardware, it would be a whole different beast.

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It’s been over a year, but Freecom has finally added wireless capabilities to its neat little desktop NAS appliance, the FSG-3 Storage Gateway. We first looked at the Storage Gateway in 2005 and were very impressed with the range of features on offer. The wireless model offers essentially the same features, but now includes an 802.11g wireless access point.

The gateway uses a standard ATA drive with four models available ranging from 160GB to 500GB. It offers shared network storage via CIFS/SMB or FTP, so Linux or Macintosh systems must access it via one of those protocols as it doesn’t support NFS or AFP. Four USB 2.0 ports are available and can be used to connect other external storage devices or printers for sharing. Unfortunately, Gigabit Ethernet isn’t on the menu, as the gateway still only offers four switched Fast Ethernet ports, one of which is dedicated to WAN tasks.

Internet access can be provided to all users simply by connecting an ADSL or cable modem, and the gateway offers firewall protection. Four connection modes are available, supporting PPPoE and PPTP along with dynamic and fixed IP addresses. Using dynamic addressing, we plugged in a simple intelligent ActionTec ADSL modem and had internet access in seconds. In addition to the USB variant, the gateway also offers an eSATA connection for connecting external hard drives via a high-speed connection with 3 Gbit/s.

When we looked at the default gateway, eSATA devices were very few and far between, but things have improved since then. Freecom offers its own Hard Drive Pro models with eSATA interfaces, and Seagate also has a range of external drives. The gateway must be powered off before adding an eSATA drive, which must also be preformatted as FAT32 if you want read and write access. A great idea, but if you’re sharing an eSATA drive over the network, any speed benefits are lost as the Fast Ethernet switch just chokes off its performance potential. In fact, Seagate’s drives are primarily aimed at connecting directly to a PC, as they come with a PCI eSATA card (see our Seagate eSATA drive review).

Installing the appliance doesn’t take long, as the included FSG wizard finds the gateway on the network for you. The web management interface has been redesigned and, while still somewhat basic, offers easy access to all features. Shared folders are easy to set up and security options have been improved as you can create users and groups and set whether they have read-only or read/write access. Storage usage can be controlled by assigning quotas in MB or GB to selected users.

Performance over CIFS has improved over its predecessor with a 690MB video file written to the gateway from a Supermicro 3.2GHz Pentium D system on the LAN in 130 seconds at an average of 5.3MB/s , not improved. As expected, read performance was slightly better when copying the file from the gateway at a speed of 6.5 MB/s. These speeds are roughly equivalent to most single-drive desktop NAS devices using Fast Ethernet ports. Wireless file copy performance was uninspiring when the same test file was copied from a Fujitsu Siemens LifeBook equipped with a Proxim 802.11g wireless PC card in 356 seconds at an average of 15.5 Mbps.

A big bonus of the Gateway is the sheer variety of features to play with. It offers an email server that allows you to set up your own internal email addresses without the need for an ISP. The FetchMail utility can be used to fetch email from an external server and assign it to selected local accounts on the gateway. The main point to note is that the appliance uses DDNS and as noted in the manual you may find that many mail servers consider email from these types of addresses as spam. You don’t get much help setting it up, but the appliance uses the TwonkyVision MediaServer v3.1 to distribute multimedia content to UPnP devices.

The bundled Acronis True Image software allows you to back up disk images to the appliance, although this is the OEM version that only allows imaging and restoring entire disks. For around £20 you can upgrade to the full version, which adds features like scheduled and incremental backups. The appliance runs MySQL so it can manage a database, while the Apache web server can serve your own web pages to the internet over HTTPS. The same applies to FTP services, while port forwarding can be used to open access from the Internet to specific PCs. Wireless security extends to WEP and WPA/WPA2 encryption, and an access control list uses client MAC addresses to block or allow access to specific systems.

“‘Verdict”‘

A compact NAS device that offers a full range of features at a reasonable price. Performance is on par with similar devices in this price range and security has been improved over the previous model, although documentation could be a little more helpful for many services.

Quotas can be applied to local user accounts to control storage usage.

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Security has been improved to allow the application of read and read/write permissions.

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The appliance had no problems identifying USB storage devices and printers during the test.

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With the integrated mail server, you can retrieve emails from an external server and forward them to gateway user accounts.

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Noise levels are unremarkable, but don’t go for “hot and quiet” if you value your hard drive.

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