Corsair - Flash Voyager 64GB review

It's fair to say that in the tribe of flash drives rampaging around the shelves of e-tailers and retailers, there are few beasts that can go toe-to-toe with Corsair's latest Flash Voyager. For not only is its footprint comparably significant, there's also the small matter of its 64GB storage capacity. It's a staggering amount, which would be ample to back up certain entire hard drives. It's just ripe, surely, for a Government department to pack with lots of confidential information and subsequently lose.

That said, losing it would prove to be quite a challenge. The Flash Voyager 64GB is a chunky device that protrudes a fair bit further than your average flash drive (unsurprisingly, given what it manages to pack into its chassis). It's just a little shy of the length of a credit card and its depth means that if you have two USB ports sat on top of each other, there's going to be some major fiddling to attach another device once the Corsair has put its towel over the proverbial deckchair (Corsair, to be fair, does provide a USB extender cable in the box for this reason).

As usual with Corsair's flash range, the drive is quickly and instantly recognised by Windows - and we tried this with both XP and Vista - and the firm hasn't bundled any software on it either. We quickly put it to the test and tried to get it to copy over the best part of 40GB of documents. It took a while, inevitably, to transfer the data, and the process eventually errored. The reason quickly became clear; one 6GB e-mail archive wasn't for budging, and that meant that the Flash Voyager was FAT32 formatted as standard. A quick reformat to NTFS overcame the problem.

So off to HD Tach, then, where one of the slight drawbacks to the product became evident. For the Flash Voyager 64GB simply isn't the fastest drive on the block: in fact it's some distance from such an accolade. Sequential read speeds are fairly constant, at around 22MB/s, but the burst speed of 25.7MB/s was a fair distance below the 4MB Flash Voyager Mini from Corsair that we recently tested. That clocked 34.9MB/s and even our aged OCZ Rally 2 2GB stick managed 25.1MB/s.

But then top performance clearly isn't the selling point here, as it's quantity and reliability that Corsair is selling. Once again backed up with a ten year warranty, the Flash Voyager 64GB certainly delivers in these areas and the robust outer rubberised casing is a fair shield of protection against accidental damage.

The price, inevitably, will leave a dent and serve as an active deterrant for most. The cheapest we found it was £149.99, which equates to £2.34 per GB. That's actually not bad, but considering you can buy a 320GB Western Digital MyBook external drive for £59, you have to wonder if flash memory, at this quantity of storage, is the right way to go.

Still, there are few quibbles about the quality of the 64GB Voyager and Corsair's standards are as high as ever. But this is undoubtedly a luxurious amount of flash storage for the near future and as a result it isn't likely to find its way into too many people's pockets just yet.
£150 inc. VAT

Verbatim - Mediastation Pro review

Verbatim is the latest company to follow in the footsteps of rivals like D-Link and NetGear by entering the streaming media market. Its MediaStation Pro offers wireless streaming, a range of format support and the option of an internal hard drive to store content locally, with the version on test supplied with a 500GB capacity drive pre-installed.

A selection of connectivity includes composite, component and S-video but we'd imagine most users would opt for the HDMI connection which offers the best audio and video quality and allows playback of HD media up to 1080p.

Populating the internal drive is simply a case of connecting the device via USB and dragging and dropping files into the relevant folders. There are full-sized USB ports on the back to hook up external storage for local playback and an Ethernet port and built-in wireless to give you a choice of network connectivity.

There are no wizards to help with setup but it's still pretty straightforward, allowing you to scan the local area and select your network before entering the appropriate security code. Instead of installing a front-end on your computer to help you choose which folders to share and adjust settings, Verbatim simply requires you to share folders through Windows in the usual manner. These folders will then be accessible through the network category on the main menu using the existing file structure.

It's a basic approach but quite effective, and while files can take a little while to load we were impressed by the smooth and responsive playback. You can adjust the aspect ratio of video via the remote, search to a specific point in a file and control subtitle size, position and synchronisation. In terms of file support you'll find AVI, WMV, MP4 and MPG along with the ability to store and play back ripped DVDs directly from the hard drive.

Additionally you can store or stream music and photos and there's a good range of file support here as well, though one complaint we have in this area is that the degree of control is quite poor.

Though there are additional features like access to Internet radio, basic playlist creation and password protection for folders, it's a bit thin on the ground in terms of extras. Switching between 'music', 'video' and 'photo' views, for example, simply invokes a file format filter that removes unnecessary filetypes from the on-screen display, and to be honest we can't see any reason why you wouldn't just search via the 'all-media' view all the time.

The overly basic interface isn't particularly friendly and the remote isn't particularly intuitive, with a range of context-sensitive buttons that only work when viewing certain types of media or browsing specific menus.

Overall we were a little disappointed by Verbatim's Mediastation Pro, because while it does perform well in terms of handling media, this market is old enough now to expect to see some interesting innovations from new devices. As it stands, the Mediastation is basic and capable but ultimately rather uninspiring and, though it may still be a good solution for beginners, there are more impressive solutions available from rivals.

Verbatim - Mediastation Pro features - Verdict

The Mediastation Pro performs well enough and is fairly easy to use, but this is mostly because it's quite basic and doesn't offer a lot of bells and whistles. As a local and networkable storage device aimed at beginners with a large collection of digital media it can still do a good job, but there are better options available if you're willing to forego the option of internal storage.

Nero AG - Nero 9 review

Just like its once-rival, Easy CD Creator (now Roxio Creator 2009), Nero is an application suite no longer content to simply burn your CD and DVD discs and walk away. Instead, Nero 9 is now a bunch of applications, all well held together by the StartSmart screen.

From the aforementioned screen you can jump to all of Nero's key functions via a well organised menu system. Tabs on the left-hand side offer choices between the likes of data burning, disc copying and backing up, while the menu at the top of the screen presents more generic, task-based tab descriptions such as Rip and Burn, Create and Edit and Back Up. It's actually a thoughtful way to keep both beginners and more advanced users happy via the same screen. Each tab offers a clearly-described sub-menu and it's an easy program to navigate.

This simplicity follows when you jump into any of the suite's individual programs. The guts of how to burn a disc, for instance, haven't changed in any dramatic way in some time, and sensible drag and dropping is still the best way to put either a data or music disc together.

The software keeps the more advanced options out of your way until you want to go and find them yourself, which is never too tricky, and it packs a lot of flexibility and power under the surface (although you need to spend a little extra if you want to buy a plug-in for Blu-ray support). It's also unfussy in the way it goes about its work.

But then it was last year, too. And the year before that. And this leads to the inevitable question that surrounds Nero 9: just what's new?

Not enough, as it happens. Most of the core functionality remains pretty much the same, albeit with a bit of paint here and there. Sure, you can now backup online, should you so choose, but that's a minor addition to a suite that most people buy, surely, to burn discs. If anything, it's taken a little more out than it's put in.

There's another factor, too. The installation is easily one of the longest we've ever seen for any software product, Windows included. We installed from a download version, so there wasn't even an optical drive to read from, and it took well over half an hour on a fast dual core system. We repeated this on an E6800-powered machine with 4GB of RAM, and again, another half an hour clocked up. Why? What exactly is the software doing?

Nero 9 has attracted a fair degree of criticism across online forums from regular customers, and it's not tricky to see why. There's not much of an upgrade here, and an argument that by some measures it's a downgrade. Yet for the new customer it's still a grand piece of software that's an excellent companion on your burning adventures. £60 is a lot to ask for it, though.

Checkpoint - ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 2009 review

When ZoneAlarm released its first personal firewall it was a wildly popular security solution for home users. Since then it has been constantly refining and updating its software to stay abreast of new threats. Internet Security Suite 2009 now combines its own award-winning firewall with Kaspersky's award-winning virus scanner, so on paper at least it appears to be the perfect combination of top-level protection. You'll also find a spyware scanner, identity theft protection, anti-spam, parental controls and more, to offer a comprehensive solution.

Setup is pretty fast and easy and the first thing that users of previous versions will notice is that the interface has had a bit of a refresh. Considering it was starting to look a bit dated this is not before time, and you'll now find a 'one-click' solution button on the main overview page that'll walk you through updates, scans and other tweaks to help you get the most from the software. From here you can view quick statistics on blocked intrusions and detected malware and access additional services such as identity protection and threat information at the SmartDefense Center.

Components are split up individually on a selectable list on the left and browsing through these reveals that while the revised interface is well received, most changes are in fact cosmetic and the same old slider control and tabbed settings structure exists underneath. This isn't a bad thing, since users have the choice of either making quick adjustments to security levels or getting their hands dirty with fine-tuning, so it's a suite that will appeal to both beginners and more advanced users.

While scans took a little longer than we'd have liked, in general performance was good and the software shouldn't have a noticeable impact on system overheads. It also uses minimal system memory during scanning and general operation, a tribute to the efficiency of the firewall and Kaspersky's antivirus tools.

The latter consistently scores the highest marks in Virus Bulletin's extensive tests and was given its VB100percent award, reserved for software that detects and cleans all current active threats. The firewall is also extremely capable and still up there with the best in the business, so from a security and usability point of view ZoneAlarm certainly seems to tick all the boxes.

Despite these distinct advantages it's not perfect, and one rather frustrating issue is that the suite doesn't include secure browsing, so you won't find protection against keyloggers, phishing sites and other online threats. It's not difficult to work out why browser security has been left out here since ZoneAlarm Forcefield does all this for you and when 'scanning' for holes in the security of your system you are notified of this and pointed in the direction of the Forcefield product page.

ZoneAlarm is a bit cheaper than most other security suites on the market but considering most others offer this sort of protection for free, the advantage is negated when you realise you have to spend around £20 extra for browser protection. Many other suites also offer additional features such as data backup, optimisation and cleanup, so while the level of security you're getting from ZoneAlarm is good, it's comparatively quite expensive.

Checkpoint - ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 2009 features - Verdict

Despite the lack of browser protection and the kinds of extras that rival packages are starting to offer at a comparable price, ZoneAlarm's firewall and anti-malware combination is second to none, and for a pure security solution it's an excellent choice to protect you against the latest threats and safeguard your computer against intrusion.

Epson - EB-W6 review

Epson's extensive range of projectors covers all areas of use, from home cinema and TV projection, to business for meetings and presentations, to classroom projectors designed to liven up school lessons. The EB-W6 is aimed at the last two of these and not as a home cinema projector, though in fact it's quite capable of projecting DVD and TV signals up to its native resolution of 1,280 x 800 (WXGA).

As projectors go, the EB-W6 is medium size, decked out in white and grey and with a deeply inset lens. The sliding lens cover also kills the video and audio output and the projector needs no lamp cool-down time, so you can unplug it to turn it off, if you need to vacate a room quickly, for example.

Controls on top of the case include a quick manual scan of available inputs, but the device picks up most video sources as they're plugged in. One of the main innovations of the EB-W6 is its ability to connect both video and control signals through a single USB cable. You don't need a VGA or HDMI header, though both are provided. Instead, you can use a simple USB 2 lead, for connection to just about any laptop which has a key sequence to switch from its LCD screen to an external monitor.

When the external monitor sequence is pressed, the projector detects it has been polled and downloads a driver to the connected notebook. It then duplicates whatever's on the internal screen. Don't try to run video this way, though, as there isn't the bandwidth to run it smoothly. But it's ideal for slideshows and PowerPoint presentations.

There are also sockets for an SD card and USB memory drive and, using the top panel controls or the supplied remote, these can be searched for any graphic files, like JPG and TIF. The projector then automatically displays a screen of thumbnails so you can select images for a slideshow.

Image quality is sharp and colours are vivid, thanks to Epson's 3LCD technology, and the lamp delivers 2,200 lumens with a contrast ratio of 2,000:1 and a wide screen, 16:10 aspect ratio. The lens isn't particularly short throw, needing up to 2.3m for a 60-inch screen, but the lamp only takes 170W and is rated at 3,000 hours, or 4,000 on low brightness. The EB-W6's three feet have a fast action tilt at the front, but adjusting for sideways alignment involves stiff and awkward rear screw feet.

Kalypso Media - The Political Machine 2008 review

With the media in an Election frenzy as the American people decide whether they favour Obama or McCain for the nation's top job (though by the time you read this they will have made that decision), Kalypso Media has chosen the perfect time to bring out a strategy game that will allow you to guide your own preferred candidate to the White House. And there's more to it than that, too.

If you follow the quick but thorough tutorial guides, you'll soon be prepared to take part in one of three optional gameplays: Quick Play, Campaign and Multiplayer. Quick Play is the most fun because you can choose your candidate and your opponent, whereas Campaign decides your opponents for you (which will be drawn from Presidential hopefuls past and present). You can even design your own front runner's physical appearance as well as their gender, their Home State, their party and most crucially their basic statistics.

These statistics become increasingly important when deciding what actions to take in each state, as they'll cover aspects like your stamina, fundraising abilities, charisma, good looks (or lack of them!), intelligence, credibility, how much the media like you and how much you appeal to minorities or religious groups. You'll inevitably want to play the main 2008 Campaign scenario first but there are fun alternatives that include the 1860 Presidential race, a futuristic election set in 3008, an evil alien planet election and a mythical European nations scenario.

Gameplay is turn-based and is a bit like Risk. You move your candidate around the map of the USA, assessing from the data in each state whether it's better to make a speech on key issues, take out media ads or upgrade your election HQ. Winning a state's votes for the electoral college is more important than winning just the popular vote and raising your awareness may be more important than just raising campaign funds. As the game progresses the map will gradually change colour according to which candidate captures which state.

In keeping with modern elections you can bring in specialists to help you, both dirty tricks agents such as Smear Merchants, Intimidators, Hecklers and Fixers as well as ratings boosters like Spin Doctors, Fashion Consultants, Hollywood Friends and Cheerleaders. Endorsements can be sought from major special interest groups such as the gun lobby or women's groups. Random events will also be included such as Activists and Scandal Mongers and periodically you'll be invited for a media interview where you'll need your wits about you to avoid any serious gaffes.

Although the graphics are fairly basic the gameplay is sufficiently engrossing and varied to keep your interest. However, the music is irritating to the extreme and there's no meaningful depth to any decision-making.

Corel - VideoStudio Pro X2 Ultimate review

The video editing software market is pretty much split into two categories. There's the real high-end, professional editing software like Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro and then you have your dumbed-down home editing suites like Adobe Premiere Elements, Final Cut Express or Corel VideoStudio Pro X2.

There's nothing wrong with these more concise, consumer-led bits of software. After all, why splash out nearly a grand for a piece of software when you're only going to use a small portion of the features? When you are making creative home movies you want the process to be quick and enjoyable, and if you can get a more basic editing suite for a fraction of the price of the big boys, then all the better.

When you look at the titles ‘Adobe Premiere Elements' or ‘Final Cut Express', what do you notice? The word ‘pro' has been cut from the title and replaced with something that insinuates a mere essence of its larger counterpart. Corel, however, has an annoying habit of leaving the word ‘Pro' in. For Corel, what matters is that you can create professional looking and sounding videos: how you got there doesn't matter so much.

When you load up VideoStudio Pro X2 you're given the option to delve straight into the video-editing suite, be taken through the process using the Movie Wizard or use the ‘DV to DVD Wizard'. This second option is designed specifically for those who have never dabbled in video editing before and offers a clear and intuitive workspace without the fuss of a complicated timeline.

For this review we were more concerned with the full-featured VideoStudio Editor. On loading up VideoStudio the interface could look a little daunting to those with little experience of editing. However, after a short tour around the main windows, tabs and drop-down menus it's pleasing to see that the set-up is pretty user-friendly. It also looks very familiar. Since Corel's acquisition of Ulead, the core essence of the suite hasn't changed much from the Corel Ulead VideoStudio 11 days.

The basic interface is made up of a timeline, your media library and a preview window. The main window is kept pretty sleek and fuss-free thanks to a series of tabs letting you change your view between ‘Capture', ‘Edit', ‘Effects', ‘Overlay', ‘Title', Audio' and ‘Share'. You can import your media files easily enough using the upper toolbar. However, it's also possible to drag and drop any video files you want to include into your ‘rushes' straight into the Library.

The principle for making your movies is the same as in the previous Ulead version, or indeed any timeline-based video software. By dragging your video rushes or audio clips into the timeline below you can construct your movie with split-second precision. Smooth transitions are made possible with VideoStudio's auto clipping, or alternatively you can carry out a Single Clip Trim to take out individual cells before you place them into your timeline.

There's a pretty wide selection of basic intro clips, audio samples and frame transitions available in the library to start off, meaning you can get going pretty much straight away. However, these aren't named or sorted by category, so you either have to waste a lot of time before you edit in going through the thumbnails, previewing their content and editing their tags, or go through the entire selection every time you need new content.

Once you get into the swing of things, making your video is satisfyingly simple. The timeline is quick to edit and you can easily chop and change scenes or audio without too much fuss. We managed to create a fun, creative, 2-minute video complete with soundtrack in about 20 minutes.

One thing we did notice, however, was that audio seemed to go missing for newly added video with a soundtrack on immediate playback. However, after playing back the video for the second time the audio reappeared and all glitches were fixed, so this seemed to be a bug in the program.

Some of the key changes since Ulead VideoStudio 11 concentrate on the Export options. If you want to share your movies with the world then the new, easy YouTube uploading option allows you to sign into your YouTube account and encode your movies in FLV whilst remaining within Video Studio X2. You can also add details like ‘tags' or change privacy options straight from here. Apple iPhone lovers will also be pleased to see new support for their device.

Rendering speeds have been stepped up a notch as have the possibilities for HD work, specifically improved capture and import features from AVCHD, Blu-Ray Disc and JVC HD camcorders. For that full, high-def, surround sound experience there are some excellent audio options available using the Surround Sound Mixer. Plus, if you want to get creative with video effects there are also new freehand draw features to add to the Chroma Key effects.

Bundled in with Corel VideoStudio Pro X2 Ultimate is WinDVD 9 Plus Blu-Ray, DVD Copy 6 Plus (for converting video to play on devices like your iPod, iPhone or Zune) and Steinberg WaveLab LE 6 Audio Editor. So be warned: you're going to need quite a bit of free disk space available to install the entire set, not to mention a compatible optical drive to make use of the HD functions.

Corel - VideoStudio Pro X2 Ultimate features - Verdict

Corel's VideoStudio Pro X2 Ultimate offers some great editing opportunities at a reasonable price. Despite the ‘Pro' tag, making an enjoyable, professional looking video is a possibility even for the complete novice. The Movie Wizard option is good for introducing users to the basics of video-editing before they venture into the full suite. Some of the included library assets are a little tacky and there are no clear categories or tags to help find suitable material quickly. Rendering times are reasonably quick and the new export features (particularly for YouTube) work well, especially with in-program log-in and uploading. If you aren't too fussed on sharing your files then you can save yourself a few pennies by seeking out the old Ulead software or indeed, Adobe Premiere Elements, as there's nothing radically different here in set-up.