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Dell - SP2208WFP  

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"Add a little gloss to your life"

The worst thing about Dell’s new 22-inch Ultrasharp is the fact that it’s based around a TN LCD panel. I have just one last grouse and then I’m done, and then some of us are going out to see if we can buy one. The silver bezel that some love, and other hate, and the entire fit and finish exudes quality. The stand is finished in piano black, and adds a striking contrast to all the silver. A 2megapixel web camera has been cleverly into what has to be one of the slimmest bezels ever to grace an LCD to date. No ugly bulges, no protrusions, and the SP2208 WFP looks like it’s even seen the insight of a wind tunnel during its design. I do feel Dell goofed up with a glossy LCD panel rather than the matte one we’re used to seeing for one huge reason – reflection. It’s like looking into a mirror, especially with any sort of light source in the background, and I found this quite annoying during the test.

Other than this one niggle and fact that a silver bezel isn’t the best idea for any LCD (read glare), the SP 2208 WFP boasted of an intuitive menu system and good, easy to use buttons – very ergonomic. The integrated camera has excellent quality. This one featured an HDMI port as well – superb connectivity options.

Considering the fact that a similar discrete webcam could cost as much as $50, this monitor is a superb deal at $350, and the price alone makes a very strong point to purchase it. And that’s before you can even consider that it’s a good performer. I had issues with the Intensity Range Check in Display Mate where I missed out on a lot of the darker grey squares which were indistinguishable from the black background. In the reverse text tests I had had issues with bright green text on a black and grey background – the text just wasn’t visible. Color intensity was very good for a TN panel, especially the color green, which is very easy to discern. This monitor also did well in the 256-shade ramp test, where even slight gradations were noticeable – of course it cannot produce the entirely intensity gamut like an S-IPS panel, but then we didn’t expect it to.

It does well at games, and the very contrast – sensitive F.E.A.R. looked quite good – deep shadows with good variations in relative lightness and darkness of a screen. In HD movies you will notice its slightly deficient contrast, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary for a TN panel – and we’ve seen much worse.

Aside from a couple of design flaws, and the mirror –like panel, there’s nothing wrong with this monitor, you’ll hardly find a better conglomerate at the price. If you’re looking for a monitor within the range of $349, you’d have to be daft not to consider the SP2208WFP as a serious option.

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Frontier(s) Movie Review – Continued  

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Earlier in this blog, I would’ve given an intro about the movie Frontier(s). If you had carefully followed the article, you would’ve seen the trailer of Frontier(s), this summer’s rocking movie. Having said about the plot outline, I misjudged myself for a second that, you guys won’t get the pleasure of enjoying the movie in theatres knowing the plot outline. But thank god, it was not so! Many of the movie buffs and horror-movie fans, even after knowing about the story line of this movie, were filling up the theatres, making no room for the late comers to the movie. Yes, you are right; it’s all because of the way the movie is portrayed and the director’s talent to keep you at the edge of the seat all the time. This movie got into my list of “Most Awaited Horror Movies” of this year as soon as I saw the trailer. But now I think it could easily get into my list of “Scarrrry Movies”. Having said all about this Horror Movie, I need to stress one more important fact about this movie, it was about to get into the list of “8 Films to Die For” at Horrorfest 2007, but slipped the chance due to the MPAA’s rating of NC-17 to the film.

Sponsored by Sponsored by Frontier(s)

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Frontier(s) - Movie Review  

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Fans of Horror movies, here’s your treat for this summer – Frontiers(s). The film is directed by Xavier Gens (yes, the same person who had directed the Hit Video Game flick – “HITMAN”). This French movie gets into the list of some hit slasher movies like “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “Hostel” etc. Of course the movie includes high level of violence and gore. The basic storyline revolves around a group of thieves fleeing the city of Paris, picking up a refuge at a motel on the Luxembourg border presided over by the Geisler family, the degenerate rednecks of the movie. Their actual plan gets collapsed and they split up. The movie lightens up its pace after this. It’s all about the nightmare these riots undergo. The movie will give a chill down your spine after the crooks get into the life of the Geisler family who are actually neo-Nazi cannibals. The lead characters are played by “Karina Testa”, “Aurélien Wiik” and “Samuel Le Bihan”. Ever since the release of the movie on Jan 23, 2008, it’s getting some cool responses from the audience. It’s been a day since the movie has hit the theatres of U.S, but the film has got some overwhelming response and the theatre is getting filled up quickly, especially after watching the galvanizing Trailer of the movie.

Sponsored by Frontier(s)

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Chevrolet U-VA  

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‘Big’ small car which has all the right bits of ride, space and economy.

Sold as the kalos in certain parts of Europe, the U-VA is easily the smallest car ever to be sold with that chevy bow-tie badge. Famed Italdesign has ensured that the car has the right looks and is another fine example how erstwhile Daewoo had started to shed its Korean design cues for more European styling. Let’s start with the best part about this car, and that is the interior space. Yes, the car falls in the small car bracket but can easily give midsizers a run for their money when it comes to accommodating passengers. I can’t say the same for the occupants’ luggage though.

The engine is a 1150 cc unit that delivers 75 bhp. For a car this size, it’s underpowered. But where it loses in outright acceleration, the U-VA makes up in terms of fuel economy and drive-ability. The gear box is one of the est among the current Chevy specimens on our roads. The U-VA comes in three variants. We quite like the 1.2 LS model. It’s the value-for-money package. There are also optional gizmos that can be got at dealer level. These include 14-inch alloys, rear spoiler, MP3 music system and superbly effective ABS.

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In-house Director  

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CyberLink PowerDirector 6

The advent of affordable HDV cameras has given rise to a number of prosumer centric software and hardware. Now, users can easily produce a good quality movie or a holiday video with just their computers and a handycam and share it with their friends on their iPods and PSPs or even show them across the world through websites like YouTube. Cyberlink has recently updates PowerDirector with a new version that supports H.264 encoding and direct uploading to YouTube. It also has an easy-to-use DVD menu designer, a Slide Show designer, video overlay and PIP options, and new easy-to-use tools such as Magic Style, Magic Music, Magic Clean, Magic Cut, Magic Fix and a movie making wizard called Magic Movie.



The Magic Cut automatically edits video based on criteria like dialogs, pans, zooms, movement, or duration of scenes. There is Magic Clean that corrects levels; manages white balance, color adjustment on images, and video; and applies noise reduction when used on audio. Magic Fix can clean up red eyes and stabilize video taken with jittery hands. There is also Magic Style that converts slideshows to pan/scan type stylized videos and Magic Music that provides stock music that can be fitted to the user's video.

For: Lots of features at a low price, easy to use.
Against: Very basic controls.

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Icy Dock MB664US-1S  

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"The coolest external enclosure you would’ve ever seen!"

Finally, Icy Dock gets it right. It would’ve seemed impossible, but no one could deny the fact that we have reached an apex of technology in the exciting world of external storage. Icy Dock’s MB664US-1S external hard drive is an absolute top performer. It’s indeed a highlight of functionality and form, a glorifying beacon that serves as an example to every competing product that we would have come across. It is the steel-colored Lancelot of an external storage that needs the kind of friend you hope your hard drive keeps for the entirety of its life span. With the MB664US-1S, your data will stay safe, speedy, and easily swappable. The MB664US-1S connects to your computer using either the nighantiquated USB protocol or fresh and speedy eSATA. Speeds for the two are just as fast as they could be. The MB664US-1S doesn’t hamper performance in the slightest, as eSATA speeds were nearly identical to the figures we received when we connected the drive directly to the motherboard. That’s the kind of performance we like to see from an external enclosure. But eSATA and USB are hardly new features for an external device.

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On Nero CD-DVD Speed  

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This nifty, free utility is the secret to our optical drive reviews

When testing hardware, it’s critical to eliminate as many variables as possible. That’s why when I review optical drives, I eschew the applications that come with the drives and turn to Nero CD-DVD Speed. The utility comes bundled with the Nero ToolKit Utility Suite, but it can also be downloaded for free at www.cdspeed2000.com. It’s updated on a regular basis to keep up with new hardware, and it supports all types of CD, DVD, Blu-ray, and HD DVD media. In the course of evaluating a drive, I’ll first use Nero CD-DVD Speed to create a data disc. As the utility goes about filling the disc, a graph displays the drive’s progress—what percentage of the disc has been filled, at what speed the data is being written, and even the write speed in relation to the disc’s rotation speed. Once the write is complete, I conduct a read test, and following that, Nero generates a report detailing everything from average read/write speeds, to seek times, to spin times, to CPU usage, In other words, a very thorough picture of a drive’s abilities. I’ve found that often the software that comes bundled with a drive yields slightly better performance than Nero’s app does—a Blu-ray drive might write to BD-R at +/- 46 minutes using CDDVD Speed and +/- 44 minutes using Cyberlink’s software. But my verdicts are based on the relative performance of the hardware itself, and I can only determine that by using the same application across the board. And, the big benefit of CD-DVD Speed is that it offers an amazing amount of granular detail.

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Maruti Wagon R  

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Maruti’s answer to the Hyndai’s tall boy, but not quite as versatile.

A tad tinny but looks very much a clever city car. Useable and practical too. Drives well, but handles okay thanks to its inherent tall-boy proportions. The 1.1 litre engine on offer is a decent until although initial acceleration is a bit sluggish. Fuel economy is as good as any Maruti. The tall-boy design is not the most confidence inspiring and it just worse as you build up momentum. Ride, however, is quite complaint and it very manoeuvrable around the city. The reason revisions are more like botox-injections but what the heck, the car looks good.

Sear arrangements allow a variety of possibilities but the boot is miniscule. Four is a full house but with plenty of air for the hair. The recent revisions apart, build quality continues to feel tinny and the plastics on the interiors leave much to be desired. Equipment levels are basic. Even the top-of-the-line Vxi lacks all power windows, but there is an automatic ‘box version on offer. Safety choices include airbags and ABS on all variants. The Wagon R is cheap to buy and run plus, now there is the option of LPG too and is available in Lx and Lxi equipment levels. So here’s a car that’s decent value for money, is cheap to run and suits your various needs. Overall, a useful family car and urban commuter. Practical but could do with better interiors.

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SONY - BDU-X10S BD ROM Drive  

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"Affordable at last"

With five times the storage capacity of a DVD, Blu-ray stores HD movies which you can watch on a home theatre system using a BD-ROM drive such as the Sony BDU-x10s. It also lets you access heaps of data stored on a single 25 GB BD Disc!

Features:
Sony BDU-X10S – the first internal BD ROM drive that I’ve had my hands on – has a SATA interface and a buffer size of 4 MB. In addition to blu-ray discs, the drive reads all types of CDs and DVDs. It plays commercially available Blu-ray HD movies, and playback BD-R and BD-RE media. The drive comes with a molex-to-SATA power cable, SATA cable for data transfer, driver disc, manual and a spare tray cover.

Performance:
The performance was evaluated by measuring the read speeds of single layer BD-R, DVD and CD. There’s no doubt that Blu-ray has advantages such as playback of HD content, but the read speeds aren’t any faster than DVDs and CDs. For instance, copying 21 GB of multiple files onto a 10,000 rpm hard drive took more than 45 minutes. So, if you want to copy the entire contents of a disc, you can’t take a nap for an hour, while it is copying data. Nonetheless, with BDU-X10S, you can conveniently access archived data. It can read up to 25 GB of data, which translates into a whole lot of DivX movies or thousands of MP3s. Now that 50 GB DL discs are expected anytime soon, imagine the amount of data that can be archived.

Verdict:
The BDU-X10S is a good solution for referring to huge data archives and copying them from Blu-ray media. It’s much cheaper than a BD writer, so you do not have to shell out a lot of money to simply watch HD movies on your home theatre.

For: Reads all formats, good performance, and reasonable price for viewing HD content.
Against: Reading huge amounts of data is time consuming.

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Maruti Swift  

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The best maruti ever, Looks fab, drives well, has a great engine and is good quality.

Only average space, though, and practically. A great all-rounder. The tweaked Esteem engine in the Swift is a delight to rev. Yet, it manages to not drink too much. Refinement is also top-notch. To top that, the gearbox is sporty and positive. The car handles well, but push it too hard and it will snap. Steering is responsive and offers good feedback. Ride at the back, however, is harsh.

One of the other major down-sides in this fabulous car is the lack of a comfortable fifth seat and the small windows, which make it claustrophobic. One of the better built marutis, the Swift feels well put together, but the plastics could have been better. Yet, equipment levels are phenomenal for the price segment it belongs to. ABS, airbags and alloys are standard on the top-of-the-line ZXi. The VXi, which is the middle variant level, offers equipment levels comparable to cars which fall in the higher price bracker. The frugality of the engine, despite its sporty nature, is also a boon.And now there is the added allure of the super efficient multi-jet diesel powertrain. Yummy.

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Maruti Alto  

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India’s best seller is a fine car if you are on a budget.

The real modern budget car – cramped but solid with good street cred. Looks better with new larger grille. Like its cheaper sibling, there’s only the frugal 796cc three-pot. Performance is not bad, and refinement is ok. Needs more low-down torque – it wheezes up hills. Five-Seed gearbox is decent.

Driving it is nimble business. And it rides fairly well on our roads, for its size. The steering is very light too. Space, however, is awful, especially in the rear. Seats are comfy, but again, are good enough for four people only. Boot is cigarette-box sized. Build Quality feels miles ahead of the tangy 800. The thick C-pillar must help a fair bit. Not terribly rattle-prone, and the cabin feels solid enough if not high quality. So, safely is better than the 800.

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Maruti 800  

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It’s cheap. Doesn’t break down often and doesn’t drink much.

Ancient? Yes. Crude? Somewhat. But, amazingly cheap, performs quite well and has space for four. Refinement levels aren’t very high but the 796cc three-cylinder engine has proven to be efficient, reliable and reasonable in our stop-start city traffic, albeit with high dosage vibrations. Interestingly, it drives reasonably well, and it’s easy to punt through traffic, even without power steering. Brakes could be better. You’ll realize this once you grow out to something else.

Coming to space… actually, it’s quite ok, if you don’t get too ambitious. Two in front, two slim, bendy people in the back. What do you expect about build quality? It hangs well together, doesn’t break down. Rattles a fair bit over the kilometers, but it’s not too bad. Don’t sit on the bonnet.

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