HP Deskjet 970CSE Printer Review

The HP Deskjet 970CSE is a low profile printer with a samll footprint. It requires a mere 14" headroom with the top raised and a desktop area of 17" x17" is a perfect fit. The HP Deskjet 970CSE sports a 150-page two-tiered paper tray at the front. For convenient cleaning the printer cartridges automatically center in the access opening when the top is lifted. The ink cartridges automatically resume to the ready position once the top is closed.

The HP Deskjet 970CSE is a dual cartridge printer, using one C6656AN Black Inkjet Cartridge and one C6657AN Color Inkjet Cartridge. The HP Deskjet 970CSE uses the same black ink cartridge as the Deskjet 722C and Deskjet 895C, however the color cartridge differs and is the same as the one used in the HP Photosmart P1100.

The HP Deskjet 970CSE is loaded with 4MB of onboard RAM and 4K buffer, which makes for a powerful and versatile photo printing solution. The HP Deskjet 970CSE also sports some new features, such as Auto on, Auto ink calibration, low ink warning light, cancel print and unattended two-sided printing.

After many black ink tests, and color ink tests, our conclusions were as expected - excellent! The HP Deskjet 970CSE displays rich, vibrant lifelike colors, and does an excellent job at reproducing digital photos. When it comes to black printing, the HP Deskjet 970CSE provided clear, deep blacks without any noticable fading.

We carry HP Deskjet 970CSE Ink Cartridges & Refill Kits.

HP W2007v review

HP W2007v Review

Reviewed by: Rory Reid

Reviewed on: 26 July 2007

Last year, HP 'made the computer personal again'. Marketing hyperbole aside, this meant redesigning its laptops with a more consumer-friendly look and flogging them with a huge advertising campaign. This design strategy has now spilled over into HP's TFT monitors, represented here by the W2007v. It's a good-looking, zero-frills 20-inch display costing £169. Sounds ideal for anyone low on cash to splash, but does it make the grade?

Strengths
We can't fault the look of the W2007v. Its best features are its glossy bezel with curved edges, and a silver outer bezel that protrudes from the top and bottom. The power button sits alone at the top right of the monitor, rather than at the front or side of the unit. This makes it easier to find than if it were grouped with the rest of the on-screen display (OSD) control buttons, which live at the bottom right.

The screen runs at a native resolution of 1,680x1,050 pixels, which is par for the course on a 20-inch display. HP has decided to use a glossy, reflective outer glass panel, in order to improve the appearance of colours and contrast. It does this to good effect -- the monitor's contrast seems higher than its 1,000:1 ratio suggests.

The W2007v coped well in our DisplayMate tests, showing the ability to differentiate between similar colours and tones. It only slipped when it couldn't tell the difference between some different shades of pink -- a few of them just showed up as the same 'generic' fuchsia.

Getting the best image quality out of the monitor isn't too difficult. HP supplies drivers and colour profiles on a CD, and the on-screen menu is extremely easy to navigate through. The menu button is clearly labelled, and the remaining three let you cycle up or down, or select an option. It's not at all complicated compared to some screens.

HP quotes a 5ms response on the W2007v, which again is about par for the course. We didn't find any noticeable instances of blurring or ghosting during fast-moving scenes, so we'll happily recommend this screen to gamers or fans of action movies. We threw some Premier League football footage at it and were pleased to see the ball and players kept their shape even when moving quickly.

Our favourite thing about the HP W2007v, however, is its price. At £169 (including VAT), it's about as cheap a monitor as you'll find on the Internet.

Weaknesses
The reason for the monitor's low price becomes apparent when you start looking at its list of features -- or lack thereof. It's sadly lacking in connectivity, sporting only a D-Sub analogue port. Those of us with digital DVI ports on our graphics cards will need an adaptor, which isn't included in the box. Why HP left out DVI connectivity in the first place is beyond us -- this sort of omission is verging on the criminally insane.

It is aimed at the consumer market, but the W2007v lacks the bells and whistles that would appeal to Joe Tech. There's no integrated memory card reader, no integrated webcam. In fact, the only things that are integrated are the screen itself and two hidden speakers rated at a measly 2W.

Unsurprisingly, HP hasn't done anything fancy with the hinge mechanism either. The screen can be tilted back and forth but there's no height adjustment. Anyone keen on having the most ergonomic typing position may have to consider placing the monitor on a pile of books to bring it up to eye level. Or lower the height of their chairs a few notches.

Our final gripe is with the pre-set display modes. Pressing the + button on the front panel brings up the Quick View menu, which lets you cycle through modes optimised for movie, photo, gaming, text and a custom mode. These seem to make very little difference and will probably end up being ignored by most users.

Conclusion
The HP W2007v is a good looking, solid-performing 20-inch monitor. It has almost nothing in the way of extra features, but it offers better picture quality than the Dell E207WFP. If you're in the market for something very cheap and definitely cheerful, look no further.

LG Flatron L245WP Review

LG Flatron L245WP Review

This LG display is aimed at those who want more desktop real estate, 'Full HD' support and to make their PC-using neighbours jealous. It purportedly has more bells, whistles and tricks up its sleeve than equivalent monitors -- plus it's made by the people who bought you the ultra-stylish LG Fantasy series. But is it really as good as it seems?

Strengths
Like most 24-inch monitors, the Flatron L245WP is a welcome sight on your desk. In particular we like the thin screen bezel and the glossy, piano-black base section, which lets you rotate the monitor on its horizontal axis. As a bonus, the rear hinge lets you flip between portrait and landscape modes.

There's an impressive array of inputs on the L245WP. It has HDMI, composite and D-Sub, which cover most of the popular input formats you might need in a monitor. The screen has an integrated USB hub that provides two USB ports on the left, along with a headphone jack so you don't have to rely on a headphone extension cable trailing to your desktop PC.

LG has chosen not to use the touch-sensitive control buttons seen on the Fantasy series, instead opting for mechanical buttons located on the underside of the bottom-right bezel. These are clearly labelled on the forward-facing part of the bezel, and the on-screen menu system is fairly logical to navigate.

Image quality on the L245WP is stunning. After putting it through its paces in DisplayMate, we have to conclude this is one of the best monitors we've come across. It was able to differentiate between subtly different dark and light tones, and its colour reproduction is about as good as we've seen.

Video playback was impressive, too. We fed it Blu-ray and HD DVD flicks from a PC using LG's own Super Multi Blue GGW-H10N player and we couldn't find much to fault. It looks about as good in motion as it does displaying static images, with vibrant colours and little blurring to speak of.

Movies encrypted with HDCP encryption also played fine, which is reassuring -- there's nothing worse than getting an error message because your monitor doesn't support copy-protected video.

Weaknesses
Why on earth LG only bundles a D-Sub cable is a mystery. You're already paying hundreds of pounds for the screen, so it surely can't have harmed the company's fortunes to include an HDMI cable, or at the very least a DVI cable with an HDMI adaptor.

The L245WP's Picture-in-Picture mode lets you watch video from two sources simultaneously. As handy as this is, it's not ideal for watching HD movies while you tinker with an Excel spreadsheet. The video window has a tendency to tear, or become jerky, which can reduce your enjoyment somewhat.

Our final gripe with the L245WP is minor. The screen has a tendency to wobble on its hinge when provoked. Luckily this only becomes an issue if you live in an earthquake zone, or if your desk is physically joined to that of a hyperactive colleague.

Conclusion
The L245WP is a fantastic monitor. It's not cheap, sure, but it delivers excellent image quality, is attractive to look at and has the advantage of being fully HD Ready.

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Kate Macefield

iBall ultraslim USB pen drive

Ball has recently launched a ultraslim USB Pen drive / Flash drive which is equipped with high speed USB 2.0 interface for ultra-fast data transfer.

Available in 128MB, 256MB, 512MB & 1GB storage capacity, the iBall ultraslim USB pen drive weighs only 3 grams and measures 43 mm x 17 mm x 4.6 mm (L,B,D) in size.

The stylish tiny USB mass storage flash drive features high-speed USB 2.0 interface which enables reading speed of 10MB/sec (Max) and 8MB/sec (Max) writing speed and is compatible with all IBM compatible PC, notebook with USB interface running Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, XP, 2003, Max OS 9.1, and Linux 2.4x or above.

In addition the USB drive is also supported by Apple Macintosh PCs with Mac OS 8.6 and above. The iBall flash drive does not require any drive installation for Microsoft windows XP OS.

Philips SA1115 MP3 player

Philips SA1115 MP3 player, available in India, is a ultra-portable MP3 audio player having candy bar type design with tiny LCD screen and it offers support for standard music file formats and features integrated equilizer presets, built-in FM radio and 8 hours of battery life.

The Philips SA1115 MP3 player sports a tiny 32×128 pixels, 2 lines, LCD screen with greener background lighting and it supports MP3, WMA & WAV audio formats. MP3 bit rates includes 8-320 kbps and VBR and MP3 sample rates ranges supports 8, 11.025, 16, 22.050, 24, 32, 44.1, 48 kHz. WMA bit rates includes 5-192 kbps and WMA sample rates supports 8, 11.025, 16, 22.050, 32, 44.1, 48 kHz.

The MP3 player also sports integrated equilizers with 4 presets viz Classic, Jazz, Pop, Rock for easier customized music playing and other features include a built-in FM radio with station memory, digital Voice Recording in WAV format, and the device can also be used as standalone swapable USB mass storage device.

iBall MP3 Players

iBall has recently introduced in India its portable MP3 player, Pendulum, which offers high quality MP3/WMA audio media player with FM Radio and direct recording.

The iBall Pendulum portable MP3 player supports MP3, WMA & ASF playback with bit rate from 8Kbps to 320Kbps. The gadget also comes with built-in FM radio tuner with 20 station presets and offers option for direct recording from FM tuner.

In addition the iBall Pendulum MP3 player also offers facility of direct Voice Recording in digital format with support of multi-bit rates ranging between 8Kbps & 32 Kbps allowing voice recording on 256-MB memory of up to 72 hrs at 8 Kbps and up to 18 hrs at 32 Kbps bit rate.

Kodak EasyShare Z-885 Digital Camera

Kodak EasyShare Z-885 Digital Camera - Black

8.1-megapixel: Get stunning pictures and quality prints at sizes up to 30" x 40". More pixels means you can crop and enlarge at will and retain great quality.

Zoom: Get incredibly close to your subjects with the 5x optical zoom lens and 5x advanced digital zoom for a total 25X zoom.

2.5" LCD: The large, full color high-resolution indoor/outdoor display allows you to view brilliant, sharp images even in direct sunlight.

Color science: No matter what the lighting conditions you'll get rich colors thanks to the exclusive Kodak Color Science chip. Each time you click the shutter, the camera performs an instantaneous and advanced analysis of collected scene data to identify and adjust multiple factors that influence and improve picture quality.

Digital image stabilization: This in-camera software automatically minimizes camera shake or subject movement to deliver a clear picture.

High ISO mode: This camera automatically selects from ISO 80 to ISO 3200 based on lighting conditions. With high ISO, you can capture details in low light or fast action situations.

Perfect Touch technology: Make your pictures as vivid as the moment you took them. Print better, brighter pictures using Kodak's Perfect Touch technology.

EasyShare button: Print, email and share all of your pictures with the touch of a single button.

Video mode: You can catch all the more of the action while using less memory with MPEG-4 compression. Record VGA video (640 × 480) at 30 fps with sound and enjoy advanced features like audio capture, playback and on-camera video editing.

Manual and custom controls: Turn your creative vision into reality with a palette of advanced program, aperture priority, shutter priority, and manual controls.

Multiple scene and color modes: The Z885 has a scene mode for almost any situation. You'll get the shot you want, the way you want it with one of several scene modes.

Memory: This digital camera comes with 32MB of internal memory. Get the most out of your camera by adding a 1GB or larger MultiMediaCard, SD or SDHC memory card. How much memory do you need?