It’s been a while since we’ve taken a look at a desktop, but we’re back with a good one, or so we think. The Aspire M5800 is the sole unit from Acer in their Prestige desktop range and boy does it stand out. Here are the specs on the M5800

* Windows Vista® Home Premium
* Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.66 GHz Processor
* 8 GB DDR3 RAM
* 750 GB SATA Hard Drive
* NVIDIA GeForce GT230 with 1.5GB Shared Graphics Memory
* Labelflash DVD±R/RW Drive with Double Layer
* Integrated Audio, 7.1-Channel speaker configurable
* 802.11b/g Wireless WiFi
* 10/100/1000 BaseT Gigabit Ethernet
* Multi-in-One Card Reader
* Front ports: 4 x USB 2.0
* Back ports: 4 x USB 2.0, IEEE 1394, 2 x PS2 ports (Keyboard, Mouse), Optical S/PDIF Port, 6 x Audio Jacks, Headphones, Microphone, RJ-11 (Modem), RJ-45 (LAN), DVI, VGA, HDMI
* Expansion slots: 2 x PCI (occupied), PCI Express x1 (available), PCI Express x16 (occupied)
* Drive bays: 2 x external 5.25″ (available), 3 x internal 3.5″ (two available)

There’s no monitor of course, but these days everyone seems to do a bit of mixing and matching on the display unit and box so that’s probably not a big problem. And the price tag rocks in at US$800 which is pretty impressive but also explains the lack of Blu-Ray and 802.11n love. But the grunt from the CPU and 8 GB of memory is probably worth it, the missing bells and whistles can be tacked on later.

Source: Acer

Featured Tags acer, desktop


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It’s been a bit quiet on the SSD front recently, mainly because those price tags haven’t dropped as much as expected. However the manufacturers plug away with new units and Corsair are no exception launching the P128 SSD. Here are the specs on the unit

* 128 GB capacity
* 2.5 inch form factor
* Maximum sequential read speed 220MB/s
* Maximum sequential write speed 200MB/s
* SATA II 3.0 Gb/s interface
* Samsung controller and MLC NAND flash
* No moving parts for increased durability
* Decreased power usage for cool and quiet operation and increased laptop battery life
* DRAM Cache Memory 128 MB
* 80g

Yeah the usual advantanges of SSD but unfortuantely still a largish price tag with Amazon offering the P128 for US$355. Still not impressed? We aren’t either.

Source: Corsair

Featured Tags corsair, SSD


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If you’re looking for a simple solution to network storage and backup then Western Digital may just have the answer with their My Book World Edition II Dual-Drive Network Storage unit. The unit comes in two capacity flavours, namely 2 and 4 TB, both of which are initially setup as mirrored RAID units to make your backup doubly safe. If you’re the gambling type or need the extra capacity, the My Book World Edition II can be unconfigured from this RAID setup to allow the full capacity to be available. Here are a few more details on the World Edition II

* backup software for scheduling automatic data backup
* act as a media server - with DLNA support for sharing music with their Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, wireless digital photo frames etc
* internet access to the drive via the MioNet remote access service and ethernet port
* talks nicely with both Mac and Windows PCs
* funky gauge to show when it’s full of zeroes and ones
* USB 2.0 port for extra capacity
* WD GreenPower Technology to suck less juice
* 166 x 160 x 99.00 mm
* 2.50 kg

Western Digital are offering the 2TB unit for US$400 and the larger 4TB version will set you back $700. Not bad for an all singing dancing networked external hard drive. We also managed to find the 4 TB big boy hanging out at Amazon for only $600.

We like the My Book World Edition II as you can probably tell - it seems to encompass all the file server requirements we can think of necessary for a home network. If you’ve invested in one of these suckers please let us know what you think.

Featured Tags external-hdd, network-hdd, western-digital


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Yes, that’s right, Curtis Mathes have unleashed a Blu-Ray Disc Player with 1080p playback and DVD upscaling for only US$100. There’s not much else to shout about but who needs more. Check out the rest of the details

* 1080p/1080i/720p output
* DVD upscaling to 720p/1080i/1080p
* HDMI vrsion 1.3
* BD/DVD/VCD/CD/CD-R(RW)/DVD+R(RW) support
* Optical digital audio outputs
* 17 x 2.2 x 10.2 inches

There you have it, nothing flash apart from the $100 price tag. There are four positive user reviews on the Curtis Mathes website for their Blu-Ray player which ends up with 4.5 stars out of five. Intriguingly either no reviewer remarked on any ‘Cons’ for the player or there was no option in the review form for negative comments. Either way, it’s still a great deal, $100 for a Blu-Ray player.

Source: Curtis Mathes

Featured Tags blu-ray-player, curtis-mathes


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Almost two years ago, we showed you the SATA HDD Stage Rack which takes zeroes and ones from any old 3.5 or 2.5 inch HDD drive and feeds them to your PC. Bringing things up-to-date, Brando have launched their HDD Multimedia Dock which handles said HDD drives and can pump out HD media through it’s HDMI output. That’s right, the Multimedia dock will hook up straight to your HDTV without a PC. Oh yeah, it’ll still hook up to your PC via USB too.

* Handles 3.5 and 2.5 inch SATA HDDs
* USB 2.0 connectivity
* Handles MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX 3.11/4/5 and XviD video formats
* Handles mp3, wav, aac and wma audio formats
* AV, YPbPr, HDMI (576P/1080i) outputs
* CX/5.1H audio output
* 130 x 120 x 68 mm (without HDD)
* 453g (without HDD)

And this little sucker can be yours for only US$79, not a bad price for a very handy little unit.

Source: Brando

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Well not quite, there’s nothing official yet apart from a webpage on the US Cellular site touting the Samsung Code aka i220. However we’ve got to say that the Code is damned ugly, it looks like the designer wasn’t too sure what layout to have on the front of the unit and has ended up with a mixture of everything. If you haven’t moved on already at the sight of the i220 here are some more details on the unit

* Windows Mobile® 6.1 Standard Edition
* Full QWERTY keypad
* 2.0 MP camera
* Bluetooth® 2.0 connectivity
* Plays nicely with MIDI, MP3, AAC, WAV, WMA, QCLEP, AU, AMR, RA audio formats
* Plays nicely with H.263, MPEG4, WMV, H.264, RV cideo formats
* 320 x 240px res display
* 4.61″ (H) x 2.3″ (W) x€ .54″ (D)
* 3.6 ounces
* Up to 32 GB of expandable memory
* 12.5 days of standby time
* 6 hours of talk-time
* Software includes Internet Explorer® Mobile & Office Mobile

Some nice specs we must admit, but unfortunately no price tag yet nor launch date so we’re a bit surprised to see it on the US Cellular website, but there it is in all its, err, glory. Yeah, it is ugly isn’t it?

Source: US Cellular Samsung Code

Featured Tags cellphone, samsung, us-cellular


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Even Sager actually avoid calling the NP9280 a notebook or laptop preferring the ‘desktop replacement’ moniker. And they reckon it’s the world’s most powerful ‘desktop replacement’, whilst we aren’t too certain about that, it’s specifications still make your eyes pop out and your wallet tremble with fear - squeezing i7s into a laptop isn’t going to be a cheap process. Anyway for the brave here are the specs on this desktop, err, laptop

* Intel® Core™ i7-920 Processor (2.66GHz) 8MB L3 Cache
* 17 inch WUXGA LCD (1920 x 1200)
* Nvidia GeForce GTX 280M Graphics with 1GB DDR3 Video Memory
* MS Windows® VISTA Home Premium 32/64-Bit Edition
* 3GB Triple Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 3 X 1GB
* 250GB 5400rpm SATA 300 Hard Drive
* 8X DVD±R/RW/4X +DL Super-Multi Drive & Software
* Intel Wi-Fi Link 5300AGN - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN Module
* Internal Bluetooth V2.0 + EDR Module
* Smart Li-ION Battery Pack (12 Cells)

That little lot will set you back a cool US$2350 so we’ll give you a moment to recover … not cheap but what did you expect for i7-920 processing power. The Sager NP9280 certainly packs a powerful punch and just for fun we maxxed out the unit too. Ending up with a total of $5474 which gave us Intel® Core™ i7-975, Vista Ultimate, 12 GB memory, 160 GB SSD and a Blu-Ray reader. Strangely no space shuttle tiles were included to protect your legs from the heat the Sager NP9280 will pump out. And just to make sure all that heat does easily escape, there are no less than four cooling vents on the underside of the unit. We like the NP9280, we’re just not convinced anyone will actually buy it, so if you have let us know what you think when you’ve let your legs cool down.

Source: Sager NP9280

Featured Tags laptop, sager


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