| Nishubuki Pocket PC | |
| Small it is | |
| t first glance what strikes you is the size. This pocket PC is just 10-inch by 7-inch and weighs around 1.5 kg. But within the small look, it packs in some weight. There's a P-III 700 Coppermine processor, 128 MB RAM, and Intel i810 board, which has the onboard sound and display. The other cool feature you notice is the foldable keyboard and the touchpad that serves as a replacement for the mouse. The CD-ROM bundles separately and, in fact, is bigger in size than the actual unit itself. The unit however, does not come with either the monitor or network card. The absence of the latter is kind of surprising since nowadays most PCs tend to be networked. In the benchmarks it performed similar to a desktop model with the same configuration. In the Winstone 99 test, the score was above average, though it reported slightly below average scores in the Content Creation test. It isn't therefore the best system for running graphics-heavy software. Even in Quake III normal at 18.3 fps, the scores were below normal. The only real area in which it scores is the size. |  |
| Specifications: | |
| P-III 700 Coppermine, 128 MB RAM, Intel
i810 board Dimensions: 10x7 inch Weight: 1.5 kg |
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| Benchmarks: | |
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24.1 in Winstone 99 + Small and sturdy |
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| Contact: Nishubuki Computer System | |
| Phone: 022-5825965 Price: Rs 66,666 |
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| Verdict Box | |
| Performance: 4 Build quality: 4 Value for money: 3 Feature: 3.5 Overall: 3.5 Verdict: B+ |
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| ZIPCD-650 USB | |
| Elegant but average | |
| This elegant-looking CD-writer from Iomega sports cool
colours and has a sturdy build. Strangely enough, we did not receive
a user manual with this pack. The stated speeds are 4x record, 4x
write which can go up to a maximum of 6x write. It took 826 seconds
to complete the error correction test, which is quite a lot of time.
The plus point was that it did not detect any errors but if you have
a scratched disc then it might take some time to read the drive or
you might experience frame skipping while watching a damaged VCD.
The recording time (time taken to burn the CD-R) and writing times (using CD-RW as a media) at 19.02 minutes and 20 minutes, respectively, were normal and at par with any IDE 4x writer. However, it was able to erase the data on the disc quite fast at 19.50 minutes, which is quite good when compared to other writers that take around 38 minutes. The USB interface makes the installation easy and fast and is of great help if the drive has to be moved around the office. The main advantage of using a CD writer with a USB interface is that the drive gets detected instantly and you can hot plug it, meaning that you do not have to shut down your machine to plug it in. But if you are looking for a write speed greater than 6x, then don't go in for a CD drive with a USB interface as it cannot go over 6x write speed (those with an IDE interface can offer you write speeds of up to 16x). |
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| Specifications: | |
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Speed: 4x record, 4x write (6x maximum) |
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| Benchmarks: | |
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826 seconds to complete error correction test |
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| Contact: Neoteric Infomatique | |
| Phone: 022-4172600 Fax: 022-4163679 E-mail: sales@neoteric-info.com Price: Rs 15,950 |
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| Verdict Box | |
| Performance: 3 Build quality: 4.5 Value for money: 4 Feature: 3 Overall: 3.5 Verdict: B+ |
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| PLEXTOR Px-W8432Ti | |
| Slow starter | |
| This CD-rewriter from Plextor is the slower model and gave average performance in most of the tests. However, it didn't do too well in CD Winbench 99 and reported scores way below average. This obviously means that the drive is not that well-suited for use as a CD-ROM. It took 18.57 minutes for recording at 4x speeds and this decreased to 9.47 minutes at the maximum speed of 8x, which is quite normal. Even in the copying and opening image files test, it gave average scores making it more ideal for the home user who doesn't burn CDs on a regular basis. The drive came with a manual and audio and data cable along with Nero burning software and Plextor Manager 2000. |  |
| Specifications: | |
| Interface: IDE Speed: 8x write |
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| Benchmarks: | |
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418 in CD Winbench 99 + Good build quality |
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| Contact: Zeta Technology | |
| Phone: 022-4102277 Fax: 022-4102288 E-mail: tejas@zetaindia.com Price: Rs 11,000 plus taxes |
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| Verdict Box | |
| Performance: 3 Build quality: 4 Value for money: 3.5 Feature: 3 Overall: 3 Verdict: B+ |
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| Epson Stylus Color 680 | |
| Good, economical choice | |
| The latest range of Epson printers now come with 2880
dpi capability Considering its speed and price, the 680 is targetted
at the home users. The printer comes with an attractive flexible tray
that folds over the printer and doubles as a dust cover when the printer
is not in use. The printer driver comes with Photo Enhance 4 that
automatically optimises colour output and enhances the quality of
Web graphics, digital photographs and other digital images. Unfortunately,
as compared to the 880, it made a lot of noise. The input buffer memory
was also only 32 KB as compared to the 256 KB of the Stylus 880. In the benchmarks, it took 12 minutes 50 seconds to print the standard A4 size photograph, which is quite slow. The text document only took 21 seconds and 1 minute 45 seconds in draft and quality mode, respectively. The quality of the printouts were quite good. |
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| Specifications: | |
| Print resolution: 2880 dpi Interface: USB/Parallel Printer buffer: 32 KB |
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| Benchmarks: | |
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Printing A4 size photograph: 12 minutes 50 seconds + Good quality |
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| Contact: Epson India | |
| Phone: 022-8257286 Fax: 022-8267287 E-mail: minu@epsonindia.com Price: Rs 10,500 Cartridge price: Black Rs 1,150, Colour Rs 1,160 |
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| Verdict Box | |
| Build quality: 3.5 Performance: 3.5 Features: 3.5 Value for money: 4 Overall: 3.5 Verdict: B+ |
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| EPSON STYLUS 880 | |
| Quality with a fine print | |
| This is the first printer that claims to give 2880
dpi on premium glossy matt paper. This is one printer that comes with
the ability to print on posters as well as on continuous sheets by
adjusting some settings in the printer driver. You cannot directly
select the resolution you want to print at but you can change the
quality of printouts based on the paper selection and printing modes.
The printer comes with one black cartridge and another colour cartridge
that contains three colours. It came with parallel as well as USB
interfaces, though the cables were missing. It was one of the most
silent printers that we tested, and the ink also dries itself quite
fast. In the benchmarks, the test document took 28 seconds in draft mode and around a minute in quality mode. In the latter mode, we got near laser quality, and the printer even reproduced 2-point size text on a black background in a readable mode. It took around 4 minutes to print the A4 size photograph and, barring some white areas, was of photo quality. |
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| Specifications: | |
| Print resolution: 2880 dpi Interface: USB/Parallel Print buffer: 256 KB |
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| Benchmarks: | |
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Printing A4 size photograph: 4 minutes + Noiseless |
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| Contact: Epson India | |
| Phone: 022-8257286 Fax: 022-8267287 E-mail: minu@epsonindia.com Price: Rs 21,800 Cartridge price: Black Rs 1,150, Colour Rs 1,160 |
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| Verdict Box | |
| Build quality: 4 Performance: 4 Features: 4 Value for money: 3.5 Overall: 3.5 Verdict: A- |
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| SHARP AX-20 | |
| It's the thinnest one | |
You don't get laptops smaller than this. It is less than 1 inch thin and weighs just 1.6 kg. Thus, it's quite convenient for those who are always on the move. It comes with a P-III 600 MHz mobile processor with SpeedStep technology, 64 MB RAM, 12 GB hard disk, 12.1-inch XGA display, ATi Rage Mobility graphics chip, Ethernet card and in-built 56 Kbps modem. In spite of the impressive feature list, in the benchmarks it gave below average scores in both Business Winstone 99 (20.1) and Content Creation 2000 (18.7). This indicates that the system will come under strain even when applications such as Microsoft Word or PowerPoint are used. On the graphics side, it gave 11.1 fps in Quake III, which indicates its support for OpenGL. The score is quite okay but then there won't be many people using the laptop for gaming. |
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| Specifications: | |
| Processor: P-III 600 MHz RAM: 64 MB HDD: 12 GB Display: 12.1-inch XGA display with ATi Rage Mobility graphics card Features: In-built Ethernet card and modem |
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| Benchmarks: | |
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20.1 in Winstone 99 + Light and sturdy |
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| Contact: L&T | |
| Phone: 022-6541331 Price: Rs 1,82,000 (without CD-ROM) |
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| Verdict Box | |
| Performance: 3.5 Build quality: 4 Value for money: 4 Feature: 4 Overall: 3.5 Verdict: A- |
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| SONY VAIO PCG F520 | |
| Disappointing touches | |
| This laptop was a disappointment. Firstly, it neither had any software bundled with it nor was there any manual. The build quality was also not impressive. It reported a low score of 16.4 in Content Creation, which indicates that the notebook isn't even suited for just office applications. However, the battery uptime was average at 1 hour 26 minutes. Quake III didn't run because of the absence of OpenGL support. It sported a Pentium III 500 MHz processor with 64 MB RAM, 6 GB HDD and also came with the floppy and CD-ROM drive. An in-built modem and 13-inch display with support for a maximum resolution of 800x600 and S400 port for high-speed audio and video transfer completes the package. Overall, this is quite a low-end notebook. |  |
| Specifications: | |
| Processor: P-III 500 MHz RAM: 64 MB HDD: 6 GB Display: 13-inch |
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| Benchmarks: | |
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16.4 in Content Creation 2000 + 13-inch display |
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| Contact: Panatron | |
| Phone: 022-6396656 Price: Rs 1,17,000 |
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| Verdict Box | |
| Performance: 3 Build quality: 3 Value for money: 3 Feature: 3.5 Overall: 3 Rating: B |
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