Where netbooks go, their deskbound nettop brethren eventually follow, and as NVIDIA’s Ion GPU has made its impact on the graphics capabilities of budget ultraportables, so it has its sights set on compact desktops too. ASRock and NVIDIA worked together on the ION 330-BD, a Blu-ray toting nettop that pairs Intel’s Atom processor with NVIDIA’s ION platform, and sent one over to prove to SlashGear that just because the footprint is small, it doesn’t mean the performance is too.
Nokia World is just around the corner, and the tech world is already gaping at some of the company’s more unusual devices. SlashGear, though, have already been living with some of the Finnish company’s more mainstream handsets, those which will probably sell far more than flagships like the N900, in the shape of the Eseries E52 and E55. Differentiated primarily by an unusual, half-QWERTY keyboard on the E55, they both promise lengthy battery life and smartphone strengths in a compact form-factor. Check out our full review after the cut.
Ask any Mac owner and they’ll likely tell you the Apple allure is a game of two halves: the reassuring hardware and the slick, consistent OS. Apple is finally delivering their latest version of OS X, v10.6 Snow Leopard, adding a new coat of polish to the company’s software prowess. SlashGear has been testing out Snow Leopard over the past few weeks, and we’ve found that perhaps its most satisfying aspect is that it upgrades things both visibly and less obviously, rather than one or the other. After the cut, why 64-bit matters, how Apple have streamlined the way you interact with your data, and why Snow Leopard might just be the bargain of the year.
Lenovo’s growing Idea-series of notebooks and desktops is joined by this, the IdeaCentre C300. A range of budget all-in-ones, the C300 packs a 20-inch display, DVD drive and serious levels of storage and RAM; however they also adopt Intel’s low-power Atom processors. Disappointing mismatch, or bargain second machine? Check out the full SlashGear review to find out.
Back when we reviewed the first Nanovision MIMO USB monitors, the UM-710 and UM-730, we wondered whether price and niche appeal would see them a passing fad. The proliferation of roughly 7-inch USB display rivals in the intervening months would seem to suggest that fear was unfounded, and indeed Nanovision are back with their second generation of companion monitors. Now narrowed down to two units – the basic MIMO 710-S and the touchscreen MIMO 720-S – we’ve had the finger-friendly model on our desk for the past week. Check out the full review after the cut.
It’s probably fair to say that we haven’t been particularly impressed with what we’ve heard about Acer’s Aspire One 751. The phrase “pretty but dumb” has been muttered more than once, an aesthetically pleasing machine but one lacking in processing power. So when Acer offered us the latest version, the AO751h-1522, we jumped at the opportunity to see how it holds up to our own exacting standards. Check out the full review after the cut
You could talk for ages about where the Plantronics Discovery 975 fits into the company’s range, but the simplest explanation is that the Voyager PRO and Discovery 925 had a baby and it’s the new prodigal son. Combining the audio excellence of the Voyager PRO and the nifty charging-case of the Discovery 925, find out why we rate the Discovery 975 so highly after the cut.
Backup remains a guilty chore many people avoid, and yet plenty of us are already carrying around a potential backup device. Most people don’t think of it that way, but your iPod is a huge chunk of storage just waiting to be repurposed as a portable hard-drive. Clickfree sent over their latest easy-backup system, the Transformer for iPod, for SlashGear to take a look at.
A reasonably stylish all-in-one with a sub-$400 price-tag and 18.5-inch widescreen display: too good to be true or bargain of the century? The eMachines EZ1601-01 poaches Intel’s trusty Atom processor for some desktop duty, offering a squint-free LCD and full-sized peripherals. SlashGear have been testing it out.
Earlier this year we covered the launch of HP’s latest Intel Nehalem-based workstations, and soon enough HP had a Z400 test unit for us to try out. The entry-point to the new range, the Z400 misses out on some of the more innovative design features of its bigger siblings, but arguably the most important thing – the Xeon processor – is there front and center. Read on for our benchmarks and impressions.
SlashGear Japan
