Price: $98
Website: www.plantronics.com
In terms of design, Plantronics Backbeat Go
Bluetooth headphones are a masterpiece of understated simplicity - two in-ear
buds and a flat, tangle-free cord connecting them. That’s it. It’s only when
you look closer that the small control panel on the cord becomes visible.
Pairing was simple across a variety of phones and call quality impressed very
little wind noise at all and good voice clarity. Music reproduction was solid,
but for good boss you’ll need to ensure that the ear plug ¡s the right size
(there are three in the box). Simple controls and a hidden micro USB port for
charging round out the package. They could use more battery life - four hours
doesn’t quite feel enough for a long commute.
They
could use more battery life - four hours doesn’t quite feel enough for a long
commute.
Inno3d Geforce Gt 640
Price: $120
Website: www.inno3d.com
The cheap end of the video card market is
under more and more threat with each generation of CPU that gets released, but
it ¡s still a hotly contested area for both Nvidia and AMD. The GT 640 marks
the debut of Nvidia’s latest Kepler architecture ¡n the budget space, with 384
CUDA cores running at 900MHZ. This sounds impressive, until you realise that
the top-end GTX 680 has 1536 cores, and that the GT640 locks the dynamic speed
boost seen on the top-end cords.
In practice, it delivers worse gaming
performance than AMD’s competing Radeon HD 7750 GPU. Which at this port of the
market makes it hard to recommend. If you can find it cheap, then it could well
be a good enough solution for light gaming, but it just reinforces the need to
look o little higher in the product lines (or try and find cheap models from
last generation) if you want a graphics cord capable of competent gaming
performance.
This
sounds impressive, until you realise that the top-end GTX 680 has 1536 cores,
and that the GT640 locks the dynamic speed boost seen on the top-end cords.
Sony Internet Player With Google Tv
Price: $349
Website: www.sony.com
Before we begin we need to note that we
looked at o US model of the Internet Player and as such it doesn’t accurately
reflect the local version in terms of services, so for this brief we’ll look at
hardware and do a full review when the local version is available. Easily the
highlight of the Player is the excellent remote - a full QWERTY on the flip
side and a trackpad on the front, making browsing via the built-in Chrome
browser an enjoyable experience. The Player itself has a sturdy feel and,
impressively, has both HDMI In and Out, letting you use it to connect a set-top
box or PVR and then watch through on app, letting you get all the Sony
functions as an overlay. Set up and network detection was simple, but it’s
difficult to properly score this until we see the full range of apps and
services - but watch this space.
Sony
Internet Player With Google Tv
Azio Mech4 Levetron
Price: $130
Website: www.aziocorp.com
Mechanical keyboards are everywhere
nowadays and we have been seeing some fascinating takes on the design over
recent months. The Levetron Mech4 from Azio is one such keyboard, designed as a
reasonably priced model with Cherry MX Black switches. But it is a couple of
modular addons that really impress.
The first is a detachable number pad, with
can be completely removed or plugged into either side of the keyboard, much
like Microsoft’s Sidewinder X6. But the other nifty addition (not shown in the
photo) ¡s an array of six macro buttons that mount to the roil along the top of
the keyboard and can be positioned where you find it most comfortable. This
does block out the function keys, which is annoying even if you need access
while gaming, but ¡t positions the macro buttons in a much more useful position
than most keyboards. While the construction feels a little cheap, as a keyboard
it is a joy to game with, and the modular nature of the keypad and macro
buttons alone make it stand out from the crowd.
Azio
Mech4 Levetron
