Thursday, October 09, 2003

Daily mailbox: Bjorn3d, MetkuMods, TrustedReviews, Designtechnica, OCW, EOC — Cormac @ 18:32 

Bjorn3d Reviews the Biostar iDEQ 200N SFF System

"All the power and drive cables are neatly placed out of the way, cable-tied and strapped up all around the case. The IDE / FDD cables are flat ribbon cables, but they have been folded and taped with special tape so they are very small and neat, reducing clutter and helping airflow. So, basically all you need to do when you receive your case is add the CPU, RAM and drives, no routing of cables or wires is necessary. I really liked this because when it comes to case wiring / tidiness I´m a bit of a neat freak. It saved me from having to do some work! Always a good thing."

Read more at Bjorn3D.

Nokia 6610 Mobile Phone reviewed @ MetkuMods

"The layout is elegant and minimalistic, but very different to the earlier 6000-series, which may or may not make one wonder. I feel this looks more like some relative to the 7000-series. The black covers don´t look the best on this phone — I think the white ones are most stylish. But this is a matter of taste. Of course, you can always get more Xpress-onTM covers."

Read more at MetkuMods.

Yamada H8420 5.1 Speaker Set reviewed @ MetkuMods

"I think that H8420 is suitable home theatre system. It is at its best on 5.1 DVD soundtracks but stereo mixed music tracks aren´t so good. Taking into consideration low price and quite rich features I think Yamada H8420 is a very good purchase. Heavy and metal music listeners should however look elsewhere."

Read more at MetkuMods.

TrustedReviews reviews ATI All-in-Wonder 9600 preview

"There´s no denying that the 9600Pro AIW will make a great 3D graphics card for the majority of consumers, but pure performance has never been what the AIW range of cards are about. The increased clock speed of the All-in-Wonder does place it slightly ahead of a standard Radeon 9600Pro card, but it´s not likely to be noticeable in everyday use. That said, the Samsung memory chips on the reference board were rated at 350MHz, so there is some leeway to push the All-in-Wonder a little further if you´re power hungry."

Read more at TrustedReviews.

Designtechnica reviews the Samsung 173T 17" LCD

"The 173T does not offer any technological improvements over its predecessor, the 172T, so you will need to decide if it is worth the $100 increase to step up to a higher contrast ratio on an older model. The Syncmaster 172T offers higher a contrast ratio (700:1 over 450:1) than the 173T, a better looking and more adjustable base and can still be found for under $600. In fact the 191T, Samsung´s 19" LCD from last year can be had for a mere $20-$40 more than the 172T. But what the 173T does offer over other 17" LCD monitors in its price range is both analog and DVI inputs. Business users will love the features and functionality that the 173T has to offer and once the 172T becomes unavailable the 173T will be the best 17" monitor in its class."

Read more at Designtechnica.

OCW Exclusive Review: BIOSTAR IDEQ 200P Athlon64 SFF Box

"We have seen a number of Athlon 64 board reviews on OCW. ALi M1687 Reference board, Gigabyte K8NNXP (nForce3), Gigabyte K8VNXP (K8T800), BIOSTAR K8VHA Pro (K8T800). All of them are mainboards only. This time round, we are going to take a look at something different, the BIOSTAR Athlon 64 Small Form Factor Box- iDEQ 200P."

Read more at OCWorkbench.

Samsung 173T 17" LCD Flat Panel Display @ EOC

"LCD monitor technology has come a long way since it was first introduced, gone are the days of only being able to see the screen dead on, and washed out looking colors. Current LCD monitors like Samsung´s 173T have a large available viewing angle and rich colors."

Read more at EOC.