When we reviewed Antec's Sonata IV recently, we found it left a lot to be desired. Antec had updated their Sonata design, but barely, and the enclosure as a whole felt grossly behind the times. Apparently some of Antec's engineers agreed, because we have the brand new Solo II in house now and there's clearly been some serious retooling. But is the Solo II enough of a step forward, or does it still have some growing up to do?
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Whatever you do, don't mistake the Genius Wireless Pen Mouse for a replacement for a Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch graphics tablet, or even Genius' own G-Pen M609. This isn't a device for graphical artists to replicate their brushstrokes on the computer, and if you bought one thinking it was, you'd be disappointed.
What the Genius Wireless Pen Mouse actually is, is a pen-shaped mouse. Dragging the tip of the pen across a desk, we were able to control Windows pretty well. Pressing down on the nib replicates a left mouse button click, and there is another button on the shaft for right mouse button clicks.
It works rather well, with the familiar shape of a pen allowing you to get used to the new input device pretty quickly.
We found that the Genius Wireless Pen Mouse is best suited for working on large and multiple monitors, as you can move the cursor from one side of the screen to the other quickly, in a small space. You might find the Genius Wireless Pen Mouse a bit over-sensitive when you first use it, with its 1200 DPI sensor, but changing the mouse cursor speed in Windows can make a big difference.
It's a device that works well, and we can certainly see the appeal of it. It's not quite good enough to completely replace the traditional mouse for most tasks, however.
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Medion's Erazer X6813 – branded as a "gaming notebook" – might seem like an oxymoron to some.
Gaming is a traditionally immersive endeavour, and while casual gaming marches forward with the momentum of a sinister (but casual) army of men in silly hats, there are still serious games with serious budgets that offer serious escapism, if you've got the gear to render such visual finery.
Here's where the 15.6-inch Medion Erazer X6813 comes in. Like the MSI GT680 and the diminutive 11.6-inch Alienware M11x, it's designed to offer gamers the kind of frame rates they're used to on desktop machines, but on the go – at the expense of £1,000 or more.
Here's where the incongruity kicks in – how and why would you want to play such visually impressive, immersive titles in public places? Isn't that the point of notebooks, after all?
Well, maybe you're taken with the idea of using the Medion Erazer X6813 like a traditional notebook while you're on the move, working with office apps and browsing the web, then plugging its charger in when you get home and unleashing that powerful GPU on the latest DirectX 11 games. Some 'notebooks' such as Alienware's M18X throw that notion out of the window entirely, and compromise practicality for sheer performance.
Like MSI's GT680, the GPU that Medion has opted for with the Erazer X6813 is Nvidia's GeForce GTX 460M.
The GPU is an absolutely pivotal component for a gaming notebook, and while the GTX 460M's impressive architecture and performance are undeniable, Nvidia's release of the GTX 570M and GTX 580M Optimus mobile discrete GPUs shoves it down the pecking order somewhat.
Not only are the GTX 570M and GTX 580M the fastest notebook GPUs ever, but they at least promise to improve battery life, the mortal enemy of gaming laptops and notebooks.
With AMD's excellent Llano APUs already hitting shelves and offering comparative performances to notebook GPUs from an integrated graphics solution with much better battery life, Medion's Erazer X6813 comes at an interesting time in mobile gaming.
The biggest asset that Medion has given its Erazer X6813 is pure gaming performance. As the 3DMark 11 scores indicate, that GTX 460M under the hood does a sterling job with bleeding edge rendering techniques such as tessellation, bokeh filtering and advanced dynamic shadows and lighting.
The GTX 460M itself is based on the GTX 450 desktop GPU, which might be overshadowed by the GTX 460 (note the lack of an 'M') in the desktop market. It's a capable Fermi card with solid architecture.
It's not perfect, though. The chief drawback comes from the noisy fan and the hot air it chucks out. For a notebook, these are real drawbacks. MSI's GT680 is equipped with the same GPU and suffers the same problem, but as Medion's Erazer X6813 will set you back £400 less, the cash you save might drown out the fan noise somewhat.
The bottom line for the GTX 460M inside this Medion Erazer X6813 is that playing new games at max settings shouldn't be a problem, even at the screen's native resolution of 1920 x 1080.
Of course, it has help from the Intel Core i7 2630QM CPU, too. With four cores of eight threads at its disposal, and a Turbo Boosted running speed of 2.9 GHz, it's one mighty fine piece of Sandy Bridge silicon.
The downside is that although the integrated graphics processor (iGPU) in the 2630QM is capable in present day integrated graphics terms, early testing of AMD Llano chips blows this Intel HD Graphics 3000 engine out of the water.
And when the AC adapter's unplugged from the Medion Erazer X6813, you're relying on integrated graphics for rendering tasks. As is the status quo with gaming notebooks, you're only really able to make use of the notebook's full gaming performance when you're hooked up to mains power.
It's another element of the whole 'gaming notebook' concept that doesn't quite work, along with having to cart around peripherals such as controllers and mice.
Nowhere is this problem more prevalent than with Alienware's M18X. It'll set you back a cool £2,318, for which you'll get two AMD Radeon HD 6970Ms in a CrossFireX configuration, but as soon as it's separated from its AC adapter you're pretty much relying on that HD Graphics 3000 engine again.
Plumping for 8GB of DDR3 RAM instead of the oft-preferred 4GB among system builders, Medion has ensured the Erazer X6813 offers nippy file operations and CPU-intensive tasks. You won't see a whole lot of difference in gaming performance between 4GB and 8GB, but at this price point that extra memory comes as a welcome addition, rather than an unnecessary extra outlay, as is the case with the MSI GT680.
The choice of components inside the Medion Erazer X6813 can't be faulted, and represent real value for money. Gaming performance on Alienware's M11XR3 at the same price isn't as quick, even on an 11.6-inch screen with a smaller native resolution of 1366 x 768, and while MSI's GT680 can compete in performance terms, it's much more expensive and doesn't justify that extra cash.
But there's no such thing as a free lunch. In order to ensure the Erazer X6813 lands near the £1,000 price point, there are some less than premium elements to this gaming notebook's package.
The most obvious shortcoming is the screen. Clarity isn't the problem; it's the black-and-white saturation. Lighter colours appear washed out, and forget about trying to get a true black out of this screen – you can fiddle around with brightness and contrast until the cows come home.
For anyone prepared to pay £1,099 for a notebook, this is a major sticking point. You're paying for bleeding edge graphics, but for all the hard work that the Nvidia GTX 460M puts in rendering them, if the screen can't deliver a good picture it becomes a slightly moot point. The same goes for watching 1080p HD movies. If you want a good quality display, your best bet is to make use of the HDMI output.
There are further grumbles to be had about build quality. Alienware really has this area sewn up – both the M11XR3 and M18X offer unrivalled sturdiness and a reassuring feel to their keyboards and trackpads. You do pay through the teeth for it, though. MSI's GT680, on the other hand, suffers a poor screen, flimsy keyboard and dated visuals.
The problem for the Medion Erazer X6813 is likewise, with a slightly unresponsive trackpad and flimsy keys. The visuals won't set many gamers' hearts a-thumping either, but they're at least kept restrained and offer a welcome break from tacky neons.
Battery life isn't great, either. The GTX 460M is a power-hungry card and that results in gaming times of around one-and-a-half to two hours. Again that hobbles any notion of genuine mobile gaming, but it's a malady that spreads across the market – it isn't localised to the Medion Erazer X6813.
Benchmarks
CineBench R11.5: 4.99 pts
3D Mark 11: P1812 3D Marks
Battery Eater 05: 1h20min
The Medion Erazer X6813 stands up very well against competition from Alienware and its M11XR3 and M18X notebooks, and also MSI's similarly specc'd GT680.
At the same price point, Alienware's M11XR3 falls behind in gaming performance but does offer superlative build quality and the Haile Gebrselassie of batteries. The M18X is a frankly ridiculous beast, priced at £2,318, but it's about as mobile as an OAP.
We liked
Medion has done a lot right with the Erazer X6813 gaming notebook. The crucial components are all top-notch. A Sandy Bridge CPU isn't to be sniffed at and will excel in multithreaded applications, thanks to its eight available threads.
The component that gamers really care about is the GPU, and again Medion is on the money by sticking an Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M inside the Erazer X6813.
In mobile discrete GPU terms it's just been pushed out of the limelight by Nvidia's new Optimus cards, the GTX 570M and GTX 580M, but it still has more than enough clout to generate playable frame rates from demanding DX11 games, thanks to some solid Fermi architecture.
What the GPU gives the Medion Erazer X6813 in performance, the CPU and RAM add to with aplomb, and for just over a grand the gaming performance it offers looks almost bargainous.
We disliked
The problem is, the whole notion of mobile gaming doesn't stand up too well to scrutiny. For all the fancy mobile components, as soon as you factor in battery life, peripherals and integrated graphics, it seems a tiny bit pointless – the better a notebook performs in games, the heavier and more battery-draining it becomes, making it distinctly less 'mobile'.
The MSI GT680 is really close in performance terms to the Medion Erazer X6813, but costs around an extra £400, which makes the Medion's price tag look more and more appealing. Sadly there are compromises to keep that cost down but still include such quality CPU and GPUs. The Erazer X6813's screen is the worst of the MSI and the two Alienwares, suffering from some seriously washed-out blacks and whites.
Elsewhere, the track pad doesn't always recognise your taps, and the keyboard feels light and low budget. The aesthetic in general doesn't match the gaming notebook vibe and the high-end components inside.
Verdict
So can a gaming notebook with a mediocre screen and build quality be recommended on the grounds of gaming performance alone? It all depends on how you intend to use the Medion Erazer X6813. Its uses are limited by short battery life, but it does compare favourably to other manufacturer's offerings at this price.
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Lenovo is well known for its ThinkPad range, a collection of rather serious-looking business laptops that often do their job in an efficient, if unexciting, manner.
When we first laid hands on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1, we were definitely impressed. The conventional plain black design remains, but the firm body measures just 27mm at its thickest point and weighs a mere 1.8kg, making it effortlessly portable.
This is also one of the most rugged ultra-portables we've seen. Sure, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 lacks the immediate beauty of the Samsung 9 Series or Apple MacBook Air, but it's solidly built in all areas, from the impressively tough lid to the rubberised frame. We're a sucker for rubber, which helps with grip and means no pesky fingerprints.
Unlike the fragile-feeling Sony SB Series, we're confident that this 13.3-inch PC laptop can survive a drop from a desk.
Not only can the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 survive a few whacks on the move, it can also handle accidental spillage. We witnessed a glass of tap water being poured into the keyboard by a gleeful marketing bod, which made the laptop shut down to protect its vital components. After tilting and shaking it to get rid of the water, we left it a short while then tried the power button. To the marketing bod's further glee, it powered up without a whimper.
When we got back to TechRadar HQ, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1's keyboard was thankfully dry again. We spent a couple of hours bashing out a lengthy exposition and were impressed by the comfort it offered. Each key is firmly set, poking through individual holes cut in the chassis, isolation-style. Even better, they're backlit for ease of use in the dark.
It's a great board for touch typing, although the arrow keys are a little cramped and we occasionally hit the PgUp/PgDn keys by accident. Our only other complaint is the corner position of the Fn key, which indents the left Ctrl key. We often hit Fn by mistake when using Windows shortcuts, which never failed to be bloody annoying.
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1's touchpad is rather ropey, its bevelled surface proving unresponsive to our swipes and prods, while the mouse buttons are unfortunately integrated into the bottom corners. Lenovo has also built in its trademark 'nipple' pointing stick, which protrudes from the centre of the keyboard. We can't stand the thing, but others may disagree.
ThinkPad laptops always have a good range of features, aimed at business types, and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 is no exception. To the right of the touchpad you'll find a fingerprint scanner that can be used to log you into Windows and even your favourite websites. It's a good alternative to remembering passwords, if your memory is as bad as ours.
A SIM card slot at the back allows you to access the web while roaming, and you have standard built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi if you're in range of a wireless network. Other ports include HDMI and DisplayPort connections for attaching monitors or projectors, and a SATA port that doubles as a sleep-and-charge USB port, for charging portable devices with the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 powered down.
You only get 320GB of storage, but there are few laptops this slim that offer more. This should still satisfy most people, although anyone who wants to carry around a large media collection would be advised to get a portable external drive. There's also no built-in DVD drive.
Although the Lenovo ThinkPad X1's screen is rather compact, at just 13.3 inches, it's also vibrant enough to bring photos and films to life. HD movies look fantastic, and even sound great thanks to the surprisingly powerful built-in speakers.
We were particularly impressed by the wide viewing angles, and it's bright enough to make working all day a comfortable experience. Unfortunately the Super-TFT coating means annoying reflections appear when it's used outside.
One of Intel's latest Sandy Bridge processors, a Core i5 2520M running at 2.5GHz, is the brains behind the Lenovo ThinkPad X1. We expected great things from our benchmark tests, and sure enough this laptop delivered.
The whopping Cinebench score of 10918 was only recently bettered by Dell's incredible XPS 15z, which packs an Intel Core i7 CPU. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 will happily run anything you want, and last you quite some time to come. We noticed no slowdown even when running the most demanding editing suites and memory-crippling software.
Unfortunately, there's no room in the Lenovo ThinkPad X1's slender body for a dedicated graphics card. While Intel's Sandy Bridge processors do a decent job of handling image rendering, more than doubling the performance of the previous generation chipsets, it's still nowhere near enough power to play the latest games on anything resembling a decent detail setting.
Still, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 is a business machine at heart, and you definitely have enough graphical grunt to edit your media with applications such as Corel VideoStudio Pro. If you do want to kick back and relax, you'll at least be able to play older games such as Left for Dead 2 and stream HD video.
The battery uses Lenovo's RapidCharge technology, which recharges to 80% in a very impressive 30 minutes. However, we found the battery drained just as quick. If you watch a film on your hard drive with the screen turned up to full brightness, you'd better make sure it's a short one – our review unit died after just 107 minutes.
If you dim the screen and restrict your usage to web browsing or bashing out a chapter of your novel, you'll get another hour before the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 dies. It's still not massively impressive though, considering its ultra-portable status.
Benchmarks
Cinebench: 10918
3DMark 03: 7765
Battery Eater 05: 107 minutes
Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 business laptop may look familiar, but it's impressively slimmed down from previous models and also reassuringly rugged. But can this ultra-portable hold its own in an increasingly competitive market?
We liked
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1's rubberised body is solid as well as slender, and can take a few knocks or drops and come back fighting. We were particularly impressed by how well it coped with water spillage, powering down quickly and returning to normal as if nothing had happened.
The latest Sandy Bridge Core i5 technology provides stunning performance, coping with any software we threw its way. Features are plentiful, from the built-in 3G roaming support to the integrated fingerprint scanner.
We loved the Lenovo ThinkPad X1's vibrant 13.3-inch display, with its rich colours and excellent viewing angles, while sound quality is surprisingly strong from the built-in speakers. And all this comes in a slim and light package that can be carried around everywhere you go.
We disliked
The lack of dedicated graphics on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 is a shame, but you can still watch HD films and run media editing suites. More of a sin is the battery, which dies in less than two hours when watching films on the move.
Although the backlit keyboard is well-sized and comfortable to use, the indented Left Ctrl key made using Windows shortcuts a real pain. We also found the Lenovo ThinkPad X1's touchpad awkward to use at times. It's not as responsive as we'd have liked, and the integrated mouse buttons are a downer.
Finally, if you want an ultra-portable laptop for working outside, bear in mind the reflective glossy screen coating.
Verdict
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 presents a tantalising combination of impressive power and ruggedness that should appeal to anyone seeking a regular travel companion. Just don't expect it to last long without a power socket.
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The Verbatim Store 'n' Go USB 3.0 External SSD has a relatively small storage space of 32GB. This is not an external hard drive for storing thousands of digital photos, movies and music.
For backing up important office documents, the 32GB should be plenty of space. If it's not, you can also get 64GB and 128GB versions, with slight increases in speed the larger the capacity.
The physical size of the Verbatim Store 'n' Go USB 3.0 External SSD makes it much easier to carry around and plug into different computers than a standard external hard drive. The convenience of an external hard drive this size cannot be overstated.
Of course, with small sizes comes great responsibility – a drive this size could easily get lost. However, it won't look out of place plugged into a media centre PC in your front room, or attached to a router as a NAS device.
As far as speeds go, the Verbatim Store 'n' Go USB 3.0 External SSD took a very good 18 seconds to transfer our 1GB test file, and scored an average write speed of 60.11MB/s and a read speed of 129.06MB/s in our benchmarks when plugged into the super speed USB 3.0 socket.
This is a performance that puts most USB flash drives to shame.
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The Xebec Tech M-touch Mouse isn't your average peripheral, but more of a hybrid of a traditional mouse and the multi-touch track pads you find on laptops. It's certainly an ambitious device, although it doesn't quite pull it off.
The top of the mouse is completely flat. There are no buttons, but if you click the top right side you get a right mouse click, and the top left provides a left mouse click. Instead of a middle scroll wheel you drag your finger up and down the surface.
When we tried this, it exposed a flaw – it can be difficult to drag your finger across the surface without moving the mouse as well. Using the scroll wheel – and the two buttons, for that matter – on standard mice is so much easier.
Things aren't made any easier by the fact that the touch-sensitive parts of the Xebec Tech M-touch Mouse don't cover the entire surface, and there's no indication where the touch surface begins and ends. We found ourselves fruitlessly clicking parts of the mouse that weren't responsive.
The Xebec Tech M-touch Mouse looks very nice, but is it worth struggling with it when an uglier mouse will do the job much better?
The size and shape of the mouse is also quite uncomfortable to use, and while the 1000 DPI sensor makes it perfectly responsive, it really feels like this is a product where aesthetic choices have been made at the expense of function and comfort.
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Although the SteelSeries Spectrum 5XB gaming headset is compatible with PCs, and is perfectly good at playing music, it really comes into its own if used when playing games online on Xbox 360.
In games where communicating with teammates is essential, this is a fantastic headset.
Not only does the unobtrusive microphone (similar to the SteelSeries Siberia V2's mic) pick up voices incredibly well, the SteelSeries Spectrum 5XB comes with the SteelSeries AudioMixer. This is an inline remote with two volume controls – one for voice and the other for game audio. It connects to the Xbox 360 controller, so you don't have to move your hands far to adjust the volumes.
When using these headphones online, we found the ability to alter these two volumes on the fly incredibly useful – it can make a real difference in competitive team-based games.
The excellent comfort of the headphones meant that we didn't feel uncomfortable, even during the longest online matches.
The sound quality is good enough, but it has neither the depth nor the 5.1 surround sound positioning of its competitors.
The real selling points of this set are the SteelSeries AudioMixer and Xbox 360 compatibility – if you're a serious gamer, then the SteelSeries Spectrum 5XB can really help improve your game.
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There's no debate, really: the original Yeti, unleashed last year, is the best USB microphone going. We gave it a well-deserved five star review and since then it's dropped to an average price of under £100.For such an accomplished mic, that's frankly astonishing.
The Blue Microphones Yeti Professional version doesn't actually mess with the formula at all.
It has the same proprietary three capsule sensor with on-board gain control. It has the same quartet of operating modes, making it suitable for close-range, conferencing, stereo or mono recording.
It carries the same old-school looks, this time with a matte black finish to the body. And it's equipped with the same two-way USB interface which features the same latency-free headphone/Mac output monitoring.
It's still as compatible and straightforward as its older sibling where it counts. The big change that's been made in the transition from standard to professional is the addition of a stereo XLR jack, which means the Yeti Pro can be hooked up to any industry-standard mixing console and used as a standard condenser mic.
This really solves the big deficiency of the original model; attempting to run a jack through its headphone monitoring port and hook it up to a desk was awkward at best.
Here you run the included Stereo XLR to 2x XLR cable directly into two mono tracks, switch on phantom power, and you're done.
But that luxury comes at a price. Shop around and you might find the Yeti Pro for £210, over twice the price of the original, which stings a bit for the addition of a single feature.
Podcasters who have made the jump to a mixing desk will rejoice at the flexibility on offer: the consistency afforded by the ability to take the same mic you use in the studio out on the road is not to be sniffed at. But that XLR socket is going to be wasted on most of us.
It's the one thing that was missing from the original; now all that's missing is a drop to a reasonable price.
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Move over NetNewsWire – there's a new champ in town. Yes, that's how highly we regard Reeder, which has found its way to the Mac after cementing itself as a leading RSS reader for iPhone and iPad.
Read TechRadar's Reeder for iPad review
On entering your Google Reader details (required for the app – an account is free if you don't already have one), your feeds are displayed at the left of the three-pane interface.
The second pane houses the current feed's articles list and the rightmost pane displays the current article. If you don't like the default setup, you can fiddle to your heart's content, amending sync frequency, font size, clickable toolbar icons, and a ton of single-key shortcuts to important actions.
The shortcuts are important; they enable keyboard users to navigate Reeder with speed – useful when you consider how it places a firm emphasis on single-item focus, unlike NetNewsWire's tab-based approach.
Trackpad users are also catered for, if you want to have swipes and pinches perform actions.
If there's a negative side to Reeder, it's that the interface looks and feels a little alien. It still broadly follows Mac conventions, but more conservative Mac users might feel a little lost (and some holdovers from iOS-style design seem superfluous, such as the two-pane iPhone-like 'Minimized' mode).
But such quirks aside, there's really nothing to dislike here: Reeder is efficient, dependable and offers great clarity in its presentation of articles.
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Long thought to have been abandoned by its developer, The Hit List suddenly appeared on the Mac App Store early in June.
When the app first entered its public preview, back in January 2009, it quickly became a favourite of many. Lightweight, intuitive, powerful and yet less complicated than some similar applications, it makes getting through your to-do list an elegant and enjoyable experience.
Among the features that really put The Hit List on top is its tabbed view, which allows you to open individual lists, tags or folders in separate tabs.
You can focus in even further by switching to Card View, which shows one item at a time; it's also great if you need to add notes to a task (including dropping in files and reference materials).
As with many other task management apps, you get a quick entry window so you can add items from anywhere without needing to foreground the app. There's a clever timer if you need to track exactly how long you spend on a task or project.
Tagging uses a quick text-based system (just append /tag after your task for a general tag, or @tag for location-based tags). And, best of all, The Hit List is full of handy keyboard shortcuts, making it easy to use for those who like to keep their digits in the loop at every step.
In such a busy section of the app market, it's hard to stand out. We think The Hit List does just that. Its accompanying iPhone app is well designed, and the sync system, though a tad costly (around £12 per year) is quite brilliant.
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Corel Painter has long been the pro choice for digital painting, thanks to its amazing natural media feature set that accurately replicates the look and feel of traditional materials such as paint, pencils, gouache and, well, you name it really; if you can use it in real life you can simulate it in Painter.
In recent times, it has had a number of high-quality competitors – ArtRage and the excellent SketchBook Pro to name but two – so what does version 12 bring to the table to help artists achieve their best work yet?
Quite a lot, as it happens. The first thing you notice is the new interface. It's not a major change, but the app feels slicker and more intuitive. You can, from the welcome screen, now choose a workspace preset depending on what you're using the app for – concept art, illustration and so on.
Painter then loads the panels that are associated with that particular workflow. It's nothing new but it makes customising Painter a lot easier. You can also add a paper texture and set up document presets from the welcome screen.
Other workflow enhancements include enhanced layer and colour preservation when switching between Painter and Photoshop; and a High Quality display mode, giving you a view of how your image will print when zoomed right in (rather than displaying pixels).
There's also enhanced brush library management and a new Temporal Colours palette, it being a simplified HSV wheel that floats above your document.
But enough of the workflow – what are the creative tools? Well, most notable are the new Mirror and Kaleidoscopic Painting modes.
The Mirror mode enables you to paint in perfect symmetry across a number of planes. You can change the amount of planes and their position. This tool is great for quickly sketching faces and the like, meaning you only have to draw one side before refining.
The Kaleidoscopic mode is a little more bizarre: you specify a number of planes and then have your artwork reflect in the segments between the planes. We're not sure you'll use it that often, but it is a lot of fun! Being able to clone from multiple sources is also a nice addition.
A new Painter release wouldn't be complete without new brushes though, and thankfully Painter 12 has some great additions. Firstly, the whole engine has been speeded up with multicore support, meaning brushes are faster.
There's also 'Computed Circular brush controls'. This means brush properties are calculated rather than being a bitmap – and you can, in the Computed Circular brush control panel, specify the tip profile of certain brushes. This enables you to change dab opacity and hardness, which controls the colour density at the outer edge of the dab. It's all behind-the-scenes stuff that speeds up Painter and makes it a much more enjoyable app to paint with.
In terms of new brushes, there's Gel brushes, enabling you to tint an image's underlying colour (with blending mode controls); six new digital airbrushes; and Real Watercolour – these simulating working with a watercolour brush, paper, pigments and a glass of water.
And they are great – you can adjust paper texture settings on the fly and even specify wind settings to determine which way the paint will flow. They are a joy to use and add another dimension to your creative toolbox. There's also Real Wet Oils, to which you can add solvents to thin and create washes, and so on.
Overall, Painter 12 is a great update. And a must for anyone serious about digital painting.
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Sooner or later, everyone wants to do more with their photos than iPhoto allows. FX Photo Studio Pro is potentially the next step, offering editing tools as well as 159 special effects.
FX Photo Studio Pro's interface is simple, easy to use – but also fun. Just drag and drop an image onto it and the program will give you a scrolling set of effects. Click on one to see the 'before' and 'after' versions next to each other and a palette offering you customisation options. Click on the green 'Apply' button to apply it, then continue adding as many effects as you want.
There are also tools for cropping and rotating the image that are just as easy, if not easier to use as iPhoto's.
And there's an Adjust section for changing colour balance, levels, sharpness, noise, shadows and highlights, as well as the usual brightness, contrast, and so on.
You can save the image in formats including raw, JPG, TIFF and CR2, or share the image on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter or Flickr. You can also share a combination of effects you've used as a 'Preset' – a simple code to type in to recreate the complete set.
FX Photo Studio Pro is a fun, easy tool to use. Many of its 159 effects feel like they're there to bolster the set, rather than because anyone would use them. But there are some decent ones in there.
Still, at nearly £25, it's an expensive app that's halfway to the price tag of Adobe Photoshop Elements. While it's worth considering, do so carefully.
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Mention Nisus Writer to a Mac user of a certain vintage, and they're likely to go all dewey-eyed and start muttering things like "Remember Compact?" and "Lovely macros!".
It's a powerful word processor with a long and illustrious heritage. The move to OS X a decade ago, however, meant that the developers had to go back to the drawing board. They regrouped and brought out Nisus Writer Express, a simple word processor (more a souped-up TextEdit than a cut-down Word, and none the worse for that) then introduced its big brother, Nisus Writer Pro.
And now we have Nisus Writer Pro 2, which adds more features and further consolidates Nisus's position as a credible alternative to Apple's Pages and Microsoft Word, even for power users.
In fact, while you can treat even Nisus Writer Pro 2 as 'TextEdit with knobs on', you could argue that it's actually a far more powerful and flexible word processor, and one that can be better customised to suit your particular needs and style of working, than the behemoth that is Word. It's clean, fast, stable and can be personalised in many ways.
Nisus's traditional strengths are there too – its crazily powerful Find and Replace, and its macro system, to name just two. But there are lots of new features to tempt upgraders and new users alike.
It gains support for Track Changes, making it easy to collaborate on documents, add comments and review changes made by other team members. It's not without fault: though it can happily open DOC and DOCX formats so you can share files with Word-using colleagues on both Mac and PC, it converts them on opening, forcing a slightly awkward round-trip if you're pinging the same document back and forth. (Nisus's default file format is the widely supported RTF; annoyingly, while Word opens RTFs with Track Changes turned on, Pages only seems to accept Track Changes in DOC/DOCX.)
Writer Pro 2 also adds some simple drawing tools – shapes, lines, floating text boxes – in a nod towards basic desktop publishing abilities. It would be foolish to think of it as a DTP package, however; Pages is much better for DTP, though it's a weaker word processor than Writer Pro 2.
One small but welcome feature is an easy way to add special characters to your documents. You can customise one of the panels in the Tooldrawer to suit.
As well as some additional formatting and style options such as paragraph-level borders, shading, and document watermarks, this new version builds on its predecessor's rich tools for building structured documents by adding the ability to export PDFs (with clickable links for cross-references, tables of contents and more) and EPUB. You'll need to tinker to get the EPUB export right, such as for viewing/selling on iOS's iBooks app; nevertheless, it's good to have the option.
It's a very different beast to apps such as iA Writer: it has similar complexity, power, and flexibility to Microsoft Word, with none of the bloat or – to some – irritating automation.
If you write long or complex documents, collaborate with others, or just want a clean, elegant word processor that you can customise to suit how you work, you should at least try the demo of Nisus Writer Pro 2 on your MacFormat disc.
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There aren't many science guys out there who'll argue that humans evolved to sit at desks, typing away at keyboards and bathing themselves in the glow of monitors. In fact, recent studies claim this lifestyle is extremely bad for you and you should at the very least take regular breaks from your hallowed sitting position.
BreakTime is an app that can give you these reminders and, optionally, force you to step away from the keyboard.
In use, BreakTime reminds us a lot of The Iconfactory's Take Five: after you define time settings (for gaps between breaks and length of breaks), the app gets out of your way. Then, 10 seconds before a break is due, a sleek countdown window appears under BreakTime's menu-bar item.
You can use a slider to delay the break, if you wish; otherwise, the screen dims and the BreakTime countdown begins, signalling your window of opportunity to grab that cuppa.
Using the app's preferences, you can optionally have it 'enforce' your break by disabling the Mac OS X app switcher and any early use of the countdown window's Done button.
If you're insanely busy, there are escape paths - the window has delay timers of its own (for one, five and 15 minutes), and you can always quit the app using Command+Q.
We really like BreakTime - rather like Take Five, BreakTime does a simple thing really elegantly, with very little intrusion. It's also light on the system and light on your wallet, and it's therefore pretty much perfect for anyone who rarely remembers to take regular breaks from office tasks. And we bet that's most of you.
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Most external hard drives suffer from two main problems, especially when they are used for backing up important files.
The first problem is protection. Unless the external hard drive uses solid state technology, it contains moving parts that can easily be damaged if the drive is dropped - disastrous if the drive contains important information.
The second problem is speed - backing up entire hard drives to external drives can take ages, and the length of the process can put off many people from backing up regularly.
The Transcend StoreJet 25M3 overcomes these problems admirably. It is encased in three layers including a shock absorbing silicone shell, and reinforced outer case.
It has been drop-tested to US Military standards, and it shows. This is a seriously sturdy hard drive that can take most knocks and drops - ideal if you often take your external hard drive travelling with you.
The second problem - speed - is circumnavigated here by the StoreJet 25M3's USB 3.0 compatibility, which gives data transfer speeds of up to 5GB/s - comparable with internal drives.
A 'back up' button on the outer casing makes the process even quicker.
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If you're serious about PC gaming then a decent 5.1 surround sound setup is essential.
It doesn't just help with immersion - although being surrounded by ambient noise certainly helps draw you into the game world - but it helps you pin point enemies as they hide around corners or sneak up behind you.
Most sets of 5.1 headphones can be hit or miss, but the Snipa Sonar 5.1 Championship works really well.
The eight individual drivers in these headphones give much better audio placement that other sets that reply on virtually recreating surround sound effects though stereo speakers.
You can alter the levels with the inline remote control, or use the supplied software for greater control over each speaker.
Using this software is recommended to calibrate each surround speaker to get the best possible effect. It's also a good demonstration of how well the surround sound works.
The bass is particularly strong with these headphones, and explosions can leave you feeling like you've hit your head. Luckily the headphones themselves are very comfortable to wear, so any discomfort you might experience is more likely to be down to volume, not ergonomics.
It's a very impressive experience, and while it's still no match for a full 5.1 speaker arrangement, it comes close.
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The Thrustmaster F1 Wireless Gamepad has clearly been designed with racing fans in mind. It certainly looks the part, and it's an official Ferrari product.
Unfortunately looks aren't everything and the product itself feels a bit cheap and insubstantial, a far cry from the quality and precision of cars bearing the Ferrari logo.
It's the buttons that let the Thrustmaster F1 Wireless Gamepad down, as they don't offer the same solid resistance that you get from some of the better gamepads.
The feel of a gamepad is so essential that it is such a shame that the Thrustmaster F1 Wireless Gamepad is let down by this.
In other respects this gamepad is very good. Its shape is modelled on Sony's DualShock controllers, and while it might be a design that isn't to everyone's taste it works perfectly well here.
It's also wireless and compatible with both the PC and PS3, and if you look around you can find it for a bit cheaper than Sony's official controller.
You can also configure the buttons for better control, although two of the buttons (R2 and L2) are positioned in a place that makes them uncomfortable to use, therefore making them all but useless.
Related Links Read more...I remember standing in the audience of Samsung's CTIA press conference as it announced, for the first time ever, pricing and availability of its unreleased Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9 before shipping. The smartphone (and early tablet) industries have gone this long without having to really compete based on price, mostly because in North America the carriers subsidize much of the cost. If every device costs $199 under contract, why get carried away with details like how much it actually costs?
The Galaxy Tab however was playing in a different space. While Apple ultimately caved to the pressures of carrier subsidies with the iPhone, the iPad remains completely unsubsidized and its followers buy it by the millions. The magical price point is $499 and it was at Samsung's CTIA press conference that it announced it would be matching Apple's $499 price point, and even dropping slightly below it for the 8.9-inch version.
At the time it seemed like a bold move, enough to give Honeycomb the fighting chance it needed. The Galaxy Tab would be thinner and lighter than the iPad 2 but competitively priced as well. This wouldn't be another Xoom.
Then ASUS showed up. At $399, the Eee Pad Transformer not only offered a different usage model to the iPad and Galaxy Tab, it brought a lower price tag as well. Availability has been slim thanks to component shortages, but with the Eee Pad selling for $399 the Galaxy Tab at $499 all of the sudden seems overpriced.
Based on specs alone you'd be right. Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 has the same NVIDIA Tegra 2 tablet SoC inside, 1GB of LPDDR2 and 16GB of NAND on-board. You get a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 PLS display and 802.11n WiFi support.
Where Samsung gives you something more for your money is in build quality and form factor. While Eee Pad Transformer feels surprisingly good for a cost reduced tablet, it doesn't feel nearly as slim or portable as the Galaxy Tab 10.1. It's no wonder Samsung went back to the drawing board on this one, the result is something that in many ways feels better than the iPad 2.
]]> Read more...Today has been a long time in coming; we first heard about Llano way back in 2008, but even then the target date was 2011. Even so, AMD has been hurting for a compelling mobile platform since… well, since ever. Even in the glory days of the K8 platforms, AMD never had a great mobile strategy, a fact that Intel capitalized on with the launch of Banias and the original Pentium M Centrino platform in 2003. Presumably the goal of most laptops is to actually work well as mobile computing platforms, and prior to 2011 the best AMD could do was compete on performance and price, with battery life (e.g. actual mobility) never quite keeping pace with the times.
Earlier this year, AMD launched Brazos, their low-power alternative to Intel’s Atom ecosystem. It boasted better performance and much better graphics than Atom, with battery life that checked in at a respectable 8+ hours for a moderate 56Wh battery. Of course, there are Intel laptops that can provide battery life that’s very close to Brazos with general performance that’s 3x faster, so Brazos isn’t a panacea.
Enter Llano, the mainstream alternative to the low-power Brazos that brings AMD’s APU A-series to market with a much faster CPU and GPU. Llano is also AMD’s (GlobalFoundries’) first 32nm CPU, which brings AMD back to parity with Intel in terms of process technology. The process shrink should bring lower power requirements, smaller die sizes, and better performance. Add in power gating, Turbo Core, and expected pricing starting at $600 for quad-core laptops and the A-series starts to sound quite compelling. So just how good is Llano, and can AMD finally start to steal more of the mobile market from Intel? Let’s find out.
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You know that moment where you're sitting at the tiny desk your landlord provided, enduring the sickly warm vibration of your PC pressing against your thigh, knees firmly clamped together, feet bound hopelessly in cables, thinking, 'I'm unhappy with this'?
Well, you could always go and get a bigger desk I suppose, but that's letting the space-hogging PC win. It'll never respect you after that moment. The other option is to buy a PC like this, the catchy SH67H3 from Shuttle.
The system we have here is built by Ambros, and though the component choices are entirely customisable online, this particular spec falls into the 'gaming PC' category.
Smaller form factors than the standard ATX carry a reputation for being inappropriate for serious gaming. Overheating and lack of room are common concerns and, while not entirely unfounded, they are a bit outdated in today's market.
We saw a Shuttle PC with an X58 motherboard capable of keeping the i7 990 EE chip at sensible temperatures only last issue, which should shush anyone hating on mini-ATX. Small things come in small packages, as the saying goes. Wait, what's the saying?
So here we have a DirectX 11 gaming PC with a Sandy Bridge processor that's roughly the size of a toaster. In the graphics card department, Ambros has appointed the GTX 460 head of operations. The advantages of this are twofold; it's a compact card compared to beefier Nvidia and all decent AMD GPUs, and offers great value in its Fermi architecture and clock speeds. It always did run a little hot, though.
Happily Shuttle is a bit clever at cooling solutions in tiny spaces, and we didn't see load temperatures exceed 60°C in either CPU or GPU readouts.
The GTX 480 has similar pros and cons, but to greater extremes – the GTX 460 is as good a card for this diminutive system as any, then. Don't even think about SLI arrays further down the line though; this isn't the system for multi-GPUs.
i5 with my little eye
The stock Core i5 2500K is no surprise either. The H67 chipset is on the one hand more appropriate for diddy systems as owners are unlikely to harbour overclocking ambitions and might well use the system for video editing, making use of the quick-sync hardware-accelerated video conversion.
To that end, however much ground the GTX 460 concedes to fresher cards in gaming, it's still super-powered for handling video and image manipulation tasks. For all its compactness though, the price is high, and value is low if you're looking at the SH67H3 as a gaming PC.
We have also reviewed the Chillblast Fusion Rocket, which sports an i5 2500K overclocked to 4.5 GHz and an AMD HD 6950. How this reviewer fawned over it. The price? £750. That's £115 cheaper than this mini PC, and the Chillblast pwns it in all performance categories.
Benchmarks
CPU performance
Cinebench R11.5 Points: Higher is better
Shuttle SH67H3 - 5.14
Fusion Rocket - 7.12
X264 v3.0 Frames per second: Higher is better
Shuttle SH67H3 - 27
Fusion Rocket - 36
DirectX 11 tessellation performance
Heaven 2.5 Frames per second: Higher is better
Shuttle SH67H3 - 18.21
Fusion Rocket - 21.7
DirectX 10 gaming performance
Just Cause 2 Frames per second: Higher is better
Shuttle SH67H3 - 26.45
Fusion Rocket - 39.69
This means the only ace this machine has up its sleeve is the size. If such a compact machine is an absolute must, consider it. Anyone with more space can look elsewhere.
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