Features

• Supports All 2.5” & 3.5” SATA HDDs up to 2 TB !
• Hot-Swap Capability for Rapid Multi HDDs Access & Exchange
• Supports eSATA Transfer Speed up to 3Gbps
• Supports USB 2.0 Transfer Speed up to 480Mbps
• Windows & Mac OS Compatible

The BlacX supports both the 2.5″ and 3.5″ SATA hard drives. This covers most hard drives that you will run into while repairing computers. If you have an older computer that does not use SATA then this will not work.

2.5" hard drive

3.5" hard drive

The ability to hot-swap the hard drives is extremely useful. This makes it possible to transfer files from multiple hard drives without having to shut down the computer.

Connecting the Thermaltake BlacX to a computer is very easy. It supports both eSTAT and USB 2.0 and that should cover any computer.

Design

The design is very simple, the Thermaltake BlacX is square shaped with very few controls.

Front

The back of the box is where all the connector and the power button are found. As you can see there are connectors for power, USB, and eSATA.

Back

The only other interesting parts are on the top. On top is the hard drive slot, an eject button, and an activity light. The eject button does not do anything special expect physically lift the hard drive away from the connectors so that it is no longer connected. The hard drive slot is where you find the connectors. If you push down the lid that covers the hard drive slot you will simply see a SATA and power connector. The connectors require that the hard drive is inserted with the correct orientation. So I like to push open the lid with my finger just to make sure I am going the correct direction.

Top	Activity light

Performance

The performance of the Thermaltake BlacX is great I didn’t have any trouble using the dock at all. I did however discover one quirk with the eSATA connection that disabled the hot-swapping.

The hot-swap functionality worked really well with USB, but my eSATA does not like it. In order for my computer to recognize the eSATA connection the hard drive has to be in the dock and turned on and plugged in when I turn on my computer. I cannot necessarily blame this on the Thermaltake BlacX because it could very well be a limitation in my computer. For this reason I mainly used the USB connector.

Since USB is slower than eSATA I did have to wait longer for my files to transfer. I mainly used this dock to get access to the files on hard drives that were removed from dead computers. Since these files consisted mainly of personal documents and not large files like moves, I did not really notice the speed difference.

Support and Warranty

The warranty on the Thermaltake BlacX is only 3 years. This is a decent warranty, but having a longer warranty is certainly preferred.

Conclusion

The Thermaltake BlacX ST0005U External Hard Drive Dock is very useful for accessing files from hard drives. It has made my life easier because I no longer have to take my computer apart every time I need to get access to files on another computers hard drive. The price of the Thermaltake BlacX is also really great, it can be found on Newegg or Amazon for only $33.99. If you fix computers and need to get data off their hard drives, or if you have a bunch of old hard drives laying around, the Thermaltake BlacX is a great, inexpensive option for accomplishing your task.

Features

Up to 200X performance speed
Durable water and shock resistant housing
Compatible with Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows ME, Linux 2.4 and later, Mac OS9, X and later
Certified for Microsoft Vista Readyboost
Lifetime Warranty

The performance of the Xporter XT is what drew me in. With reported speeds of 200X (compared to what? Patriot does not specify) I was curious to see what it could do.

For those that need it, the Xporter XT Boost is covered in a thick rubber coating. This offers great protection against drops and the shock that inevitably follows a drop.

Compatibility with various operating systems is not a problem for the Xporter XT Boost. This drive complies with the USB 2.0 standard and is therefore compatible with all operating systems that also comply, which happens to be almost all of them.

The fact that this drive is certified for Vista Readyboost means that it has already met Microsofts standards for performance and reliability, lets just hope it is fast enough for the Xbox 360.

Design

When it comes to design, flash drives are probably the most boring items on the market. Most of them are small and rectangular, and the Xporter XT is no different. With dimensions of .43″ (D) x 2.9″ (W) x .75″ (H) it is actually quite large for a flash drive. I think a lot of this is because the entire device is wrapped in a thick rubber coating.

Patriot has decided to go with a bit of a rugged design for their Xporter XT drives and they say it helps prevent damage from drops and some have even had it survive accidental washings. Since this drive will be living in my Xbox 360 I really don’t need the rugged design.

Drive

Performance

Performance is the real reason that I chose this flash drive. With Patriots claim of a 200X performance boost I was hoping that it would boost the load times of the games I install on the drive.

To test the performance of the USB drive I used a small program called Disk Throughput Tester. This program tests both sequential read and write, and random read. I ran these tests multiple times to make sure the numbers I got were not anomalies. In addition to the Xporter XT I also tested a 16GB Sandisk Cruiser so I would have something to compare it to.

Sandisk Cruiser

So lets take a look at the numbers, I will start with the Xporter XT. The Xporter XT has a read speed of 31.4MB/s and a write speed of 5.4MB/s. Next is the SanDisk Cruiser, it has a read speed of 25MB/s and a write speed of 9.3MB/s. The last image is a comparison of the two. The performance looks good for both drives. The Xporter XT is slightly faster with read speeds and in the Xbox 360 I think reads will be more important than writes.ore important.

Xporter XT Benchmark

SanDisk Crusier Benchmark

Benchmark

When I finally got around to plugging the Xporter XT into my Xbox 360 I actually discovered that it was too big to fit in the rear USB slot (I didn’t want it sticking out the front). I ended up having to remove the rubber coating so that it would fit. Fortunately, the rubber cover is a solid piece and with a little effort it slides on and off.

Cover removed

Once it was plugged in the Xbox 360 ran a performance test and then formatted the drive. After it was done I noticed the drive only showed up as having 14.4GB of free space. I did a little research and found out that the Xbox 360 reserves 512MB of storage for system use.

Support

Patriot offers a lifetime warranty with the Xporter XT Boost. Now this is the kind of warranty I can really get behind, and it makes a lot of sense, with no moving parts it should last a lifetime.

Patriot also has lot of support options for those that need it. On their website you can get help via their forms, FAQs, or by contacting the company directly.

Conclusion

I am very happy with the performance of the Xporter XT Boost. The price is also good. I was able to pick up this drive from Newegg for only $43 with a $10 mail in rebate. It can also be found on Amazon for slightly more, $50, but it also has the same $10 mail in rebate. If you are looking for a great flash drive I highly recommend the Patriot Xporter XT Boost 16GB USB Flash drive.

Features

• Plug and play: no need to install software.
• Compatible for Mac, Linux, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, etc
• No battery is required.
• Backlighting: Makes text entry effortless – even in low light.
• Light weight: Only with 60 g.

One of the key features of any mini keyboard is that it is easy to setup and use. The EFO Keyboard meets that requirement by only requiring a single USB plug and no software or drivers.

Because the EFO Keyboard does not need any software or drivers, it is compatible with most operating systems, it is even compatible with most gaming systems.

The backlight is nice for when the lights are out. Often when watching TV I turn off the lights and without the backlight I would have to turn the lights back on to see the buttons.

The fact that this is a wired keyboard eliminates the need for a battery, which means there is no need to wait for the battery to charge before it can be used.

Also because there isn’t a battery or wireless transmitter the keyboard is very light weight.

Design

The front is where you find the keyboard, touchpad, and activity lights. There are 5 lights at the top of the EFO keyboard but only the 3rd and 5th actually do anything. They are for input and caps lock. The other three LEDs are only applicable for the wireless versions of the keyboard.

Lights

Lights

The touchpad is quite large when compared to other devices like this, but this gives you lots of room to move around in. Below the touchpad are two buttons which are the left and right mouse buttons.

Keyboard and Cable

The keyboard is very small, but it does has a standard QWERTY layout. The buttons are also slightly raised and that makes them easy to press, but they are also very smooth. Most of the buttons have dual functions, the second function is indicated with a small number or character above the regular one. However, not everything is perfect. Normally, the F and J keys have a raised spot so that you can orient your fingers without looking at the keyboard. This keyboard does not have these, and some of the auxiliary keys are not in their normal location, so looking at your fingers while typing is a necessity. The keyboard is also lacking multimedia keys. For use with an HTPC the multimedia keys would have been very helpful.

The keyboard has a backlight function, but it needs to be turned on and off manually. To turn on and off the backlight the RF key must be pressed.

Backlight

Backlight

The bottom has the USB port, and a power switch, but the power switch does not actually work on the wired version.

USB

Because a cable is required for use, EFO included a USB cord that is 2M long. This give you a little wiggle room while using the keyboard.

Performance

So now it is time to hook it up to my computer and try it out.

Because there is no software to install, setting up the EFO keyboard is very easy, just plug it in.

Once it is plugged in, the computer will detect a new device and install any needed drivers. After that is done the only thing left to do is use it, and using the EFO keyboard is actually very easy.

As I stated above, the keys have a QWERTY layout, so it is easy to find the keys you are looking for. The buttons have a solid feel and give a solid click when pressed. I did not have any trouble getting it to work or using it.

The only big negative is having to be physically attached to my computer. Because of this I would rather just use my full size keyboard and mouse.

Warranty and Support

The EFO Keyboard comes with a 1 year warranty, and you get support through the EFO website.

Conclusion

The keyboard certainly does its job, and it does it without breaking the bank. The low price of $22 makes up for a lot of the missing features. However, if you can afford the more expensive wireless keyboard I would recommend that you get that one instead. Having to be physically attached to my computer is a real pain.

If your looking for a wireless mini keyboard and you are on a tight budget then the EFO keyboard is a great option.

Features

• Up to 8TB of Disk Capacity & Higher
• Quad interface – USB/Firewire 400 & 800/eSATA RAID5
• Four hot-swappable disk module, support 3.5″ SATA II Drive
• Removable Low Noise cooling fan ensures data integrity
• Universal Power Supply: 120-240VAC auto switching
• Unique design, aluminum enclosure finished
• Standard 3-Year Factory Warranty
• Mac OS X, Windows compatible & Linux

iStoragePro claims that the iT4UFER supports capacities of 8TB and higher. However this is not exactly true. The reason for this is because the iT4UFER uses RAID 5 and RAID 5 uses up the space of one of the drives for parity. Another issue I have with the RAID 5 is that if you ever need more capacity you must upgrade all the drives because RAID 5 requires all the drives to be identical. If you are not familiar with RAID 5 or parity here is a link that offers a bit more information.

With 4 different interfaces (USB, Firewire 400 & 800, and eSATA), the iT4UFER will work with just about any computer.

There are actually 2 fans in the iT4UFER. The first one is really small and it is in the power supply, the second is much larger and it is for cooling the hard drives. The fan is very quite and allows the whole system to be nearly silent. In the event that the larger fan fails, the iT4UFER has an alarm that will let you know, so it can be repaired.

Design

The iT4UFER clearly takes design inspiration from the Mac Pro desktops. Everything from the silver color to the large loop handles and the grill on the front, all take inspiration from the Mac Pro desktops. Even the name (lower case i) is modeled after how Apple names their products.

Front

The front of the iT4UFER is simply a door with a grill that covers the drive bays. The door has a lock, which is nice for keeping others from messing with the drives. When you open the door you see the 4 drive bays. Depending on the configuration that is purchased, it may or may not come with hard drives. The model I got (iT4UFER04T) came with 4 1TB Western Digital 7200 RPM drives preinstalled in the removable drive modules. Even if hard drives are not ordered, the iT4UFER still comes with 4 drive modules so you can install any hard drives that you want (as long as all 4 are identical).

Front

Modules in bay

There is nothing really special about the bays, but above them is a small screen with two buttons. This is the first time I have seen a screen on a storage system like this. This screen displays some basic settings and reports, however, I was unable to find anything that could be changed. I had hoped that it would allow me to change the RAID configuration or turn off RAID, unfortunately that is not possible.

Active

Below the drive bays is the power button, fan alarm silence button, and fan failure light. During my tests I never got the light to turn on (I suppose could have unplugged the fan) so I don’t really know how well the light or button work.

Power button

The back is fairly simple. At the top are the 4 interfaces. There are actually 5 ports, but two of them are Firewire 800 ports. The other 3 are USB 2.0, Firewire 400, and eSATA. Below the ports is the cooling fan and below that is the power supply.

Back

If we remove the fan from the back of the iT4UFER we can take a look at the inside and how the SATA cables are hooked up. It looks like there are 4 additional SATA ports and I hope they can be used to change the configuration of the drives. Just be careful reaching inside the case because the edges are sharp. The fan looks very easy to replace. This will be very useful when the fan eventually fails.

Fan out

Board

SATA connectors

The iT4UFER also comes with a cable for each of the interfaces. I really like it when companies provide small things like cables, because this is one less thing I have to worry about.

Performance

So how well does the iT4UFER perform? With four different interfaces it will be important to see how each one performs.

Before we can begin our testing we must install the drives and build the RAID. Lucky for me, my drives came preinstalled in the drive modules, so all I had to do was slide each one in its slot and turn it on. During the start up the screen asked if I wanted to initialize the disks. I choose yes and the screen indicated that it would take just over 2 hours.

Rebuilding

To test the performance of each interface I started by plugging in each one, one at a time. The only one I would not be able to test is the FireWire 800 since I don’t have a connection on my computer for it.

As I tested each interface I ran each test 3 or 4 times to make sure that none of the reading were way off. Below are pictures of the results of each test. As you probably guessed eSATA did the best by far, USB 2.0 was next, and Firewire 400 brought up the rear. I even threw in a performance reading from my two internal drives that are in a RAID 0. As you can see the iT4UFER even out performed my internal drives. I suspect this is because with a RAID 5 it stripes the data across three drives and with my two drive RAID 0 it only stripes the data across two drives.

USB

Firewire 400

eSATA

Internal

During all these tests the iT4UFER remained very quite. I could not hear it at all unless I got really close. The power usage also remained very low. Below are two images, one of the iT4UFER when idle, and one when I was copying many files to the iT4UFER. As you can see there isn’t much difference and even when being used the power usage is very low.

Idle

Load

Warranty

The iT4UFER comes with a standard 3-year warranty. This is good, but not great. With so few moving parts I would like to see at least a 5-year warranty. However, if anything is going to go wrong lets just hope it happens in the first 3 years.

Conclusion

Except for the fact that you are locked into RAID 5 I really like the iT4UFER. When used with eSATA the performance is fantastic. The screen is a nice addition, but I didn’t find a use for it and I could do without it (unless it let me change the RAID configuration).

The only real problem I have with this is the price. I found it online at several stores for about $650 and that does not include any drives. If you want drives you are going to pay extra. For example, if you want the same configuration that I got (4-1TB drives), those same websites tack on an additional $1000. In my opinion those prices are way too high. First off, I would never in my life pay $1000 for 4-1TB drives. These exact drives can be found on Amazon for the amazing price of $100 each, that’s nearly a third what those stores charge. Next, you may remember that I reviewed the Sans Digital TowerRAID TR8M-B 8 Bay JBOD Enclosure. It was not as fancy on the outside as the iT4UFER, it does not have USB or Firewire, and it does not have hardware RAID, but it has software support for JBOD, Spanning, RAID 0, 1, 1+0, and 5. Not only that, but the TR8M-B is only $319.99 and it supports up to 8 drives ($159.99 for the 4-bay version). So if you put it all together you could have a 4 bay enclosure and 4-1TB drives for around $600, much less that the $1,650 for the iT4UFER.

If you feel that the above comparison is not fair because there are too many differences, then how about if I compare it to the LaCie 4big Quadra. It has all the same connectors (USB, FireWire 400 & 800, eSATA), and it also has hardware RAID 5. However, the LaCie 4big Quadra also supports RAID 0, three backup solutions (Time Machine, Genie Backup Manager Pro, and Intego Backup Manager Pro), and Amazon has it for about $700. Even with this comparison the iT4UFER still has less capabilities and it costs more than double.

So if you are budget conscience I have a hard time recommending the iT4UFER, it is just too expensive and the functionality is limited. However, if you have money burning a hole in your pocket and you are concerned about how your hardware looks (especially if you use Mac Pro Desktops), then the iT4UFER will be perfect (just buy the drives separately). The eSATA performance was awesome and the hardware not only looks great, but it also worked perfectly.

Features

• USB BUS powered
• Manual disc eject function
• 12 cm and 8 cm disc support
• Firmware live update
• Prevents buffer under run error and enables high speed writing

When it comes to portability you cannot get much better than a USB powered device. What this means is that the only thing you need to do is plug into a powered USB port and you are ready to go. In the case of this DVD drive you actually need two USB ports.

The Manual disk eject function is no more than a small pin hole with a button inside. The button can only be pressed by inserting a paperclip, pin, or something else really small, and it causes the drive to open so you can retrieve your disk.

Support for both 12 cm and 8 cm disks is nice if you need it, but I have never needed to use an 8 cm disk and I see no reason to in the near future.

Firmware live update is another feature that is nice to have, if you need it; however, after checking the Samsung website I saw that there were no updates to the firmware. For now this feature will go unused.

The one feature that is big deal is the prevention of buffer under runs. A buffer under run is when the DVD drive writes so fast that your computer cannot keep up. This will cause the buffer to run out and your disk will be ruined. The Buffer under run protection will cause the burner to slow down so the computer can keep up.

In case you don’t already have your own DVD burning software the drive comes with some basic Nero software, including: Nero Express 7, Backitup 2, Vision 4, Recode 2, ShowTime 3 and InCD 5.

Contents

This drive supports most known DVD and CD types as you can see from the image below.

Drive Info

Design

I think the design is the single best part about this drive. The drive measures a very small 19mm(H)x141mm(W)x157mm(D).

The entire device has only two buttons, an activity light, and one mini USB port. The two buttons are the eject button, and the Manual disk eject button, which I talked about above. The activity light is just to the left of the eject button.

Front

On the back is the mini USB port and is both how it connects to your computer, and also how it gets its power.

Back

Performance

The drive is extremely easy to setup. My computer automatically detected the drive as soon as I plugged it in, and assigned it the next drive letter, which in my case is k. I didn’t have to install any software because I already had a CD/DVD writing program. Even though it comes with a cable that has two USB plugs (one for communication and the other for power) I found that I only needed one of the USB plugs. For all my tests I plugged in both just in case it affected the performance or quality of the drive.

I ran it through a couple of speed tests to see just how well it would do. The first test was with Double Layer DVDs. As you can see, even though it is rated at 8x and I used 8X media, it only achieved a maximum of 6x.

Write Speed

DVD read speed 2

The next test was with CDs. Again it is rated for 24x read and write, but only the write made it that high. The read scores were quite a bit less.

Data-CD read

Data-CD write

I also noticed some very strange wavy lines in the DVD after it wrote. Here you can see a picture of a DVD that was burned by the Samsung SE-S084B, and another one that was burned by a drive I have in my desktop computer. I am not sure what the wavy lines are, but they did not seem to affect the quality of the disk because every disk worked just fine.

Wavy Lines

DVD Burn

Quality

Warranty

The warranty is nothing spectacular. It comes with a paltry 1 year labor and parts. Support is found by contacting the company through the website or through a telephone.

Conclusion

I am very pleased with this drive. As I mentioned at the beginning, I bought this for a netbook that I was buying. It works great in every case and I look forward to using it with the HP mini when it arrives. The Samsung SE-S084B is available for about $65 on either Newegg or Amazon.

Faster Copies — 1GB in About 2 Minutes!

New DSLR Support Features: IPTC, RAW, EXIF, & Histogram

High-Capacity Hard Drive Securely Saves Photos on the Road

January 2, 2009, Las Vegas, NV – Digital Foci announced today that it is introducing the new Picture Porter 35 at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Booth #31846 (LVCC, South Hall). Picture Porter 35 (model PPR-350) is a new high-capacity portable photo manager with a 3.5-inch color screen for easy viewing; built-in hard drive with capacity starting at 160GB; and a multi-format memory card reader. The next-generation of the Picture Porter family, Picture Porter 35 provides super fast copy speeds of 1GB of data in about 2 minutes. Picture Porter 35 lets you instantly and securely save and view digital photos and video on its hard drive wherever you go. Not only does the Picture Porter 35 relieve you from worrying about limited memory card space for your digital camera, it’s also the best device to help you keep all your photos in one, easy-to-manage location.

DSLR & IPTC Support for Pro and Travel Photography

Perfect for professional photographers and travelers, Picture Porter 35 lets you instantly and securely back up photos from digital camera memory cards while on photo shoots or vacation. Picture Porter 35 supports RAW images with zoom, EXIF, and histogram data to let you examine photos in great detail from a wide selection of DSLRs. In addition, with the new IPTC support, users can also view IPTC metadata, such as headline, copyright owner, and comments embedded in the photos. For non-professional use, the IPTC support allows you to see the comments added to photos downloaded from popular photo sites (like Google’s Picasa Web Albums) as they are displayed on Picture Porter 35.

New Advanced File Management, USB-Host & Playlist Features

Picture Porter 35 gives photographers file management features that eliminate the need altogether for a PC while on the road. Users now have the ability to make selections, copy, rename, delete files, sort files by name or date, and create new folders. This allows Photographers to sort through and organize newly acquired photos while riding back in the car or plane or at any convenient opportunity.

The new USB-host function lets you connect an external hard drive to Picture Porter 35 for data access. This provides a convenient method for making secondary backups of critical photos. In addition, the USB-host feature lets you easily back up the entire Picture Porter 35 hard drive to an attached external hard drive for extra security. For personal and business use, the new Playlist feature lets users create unique photo slideshows that can be viewed on Picture Porter 35 or transferred to Digital Foci’s Image Moments digital photo frame for playback. Other features include audio and video playback, a built-in speaker, audio recorder with built-in mic, and audio and video output.

Picture Porter 35 takes the worry out of losing precious photos stored on easily damaged memory cards. Its multiple memory card slots provide direct support for all popular memory cards, including CF, SD/HC, miniSD, MS, MS Duo, xD, and miniSD (no miniSD to SD adapter needed -a welcomed feature for videographers with digital camcorders that take the miniSD format).

With Picture Porter 35’s high-capacity 160GB and larger hard drive, you can carry your collection of digital photos and video with you all the time. It’s great for presenting your portfolio for business presentations or just re-living your cherished memories with your family and friends anytime, anywhere. While viewing photos on Picture Porter 35’s bright LCD, you can rotate, zoom, pan, and play slideshows. You can also connect Picture Porter 35 to a TV or projector and share your video, photos and music with family and friends on a big screen in the comfort of your living room.

Picture Porter 35 Features:

• Large 3.5” Color LCD screen for viewing photos and video.
• Built-in card slots for instant photo backup from memory cards.
• Memory card support of CF, MMC, SD/HC Card, miniSD, Memory Stick, MS PRO, MS Duo, and xD-Picture card.
• RAW image viewing (zoom, EXIF, histogram) from DSLRs.
• Fast copy speed – 1 GB in about 2 minutes.
• Bi-directional data transfer that allows direct transfer to and from memory cards.
• Digital audio recorder with built-in mic
  • Image format support for JPEG, Tiff, BMP, GIF, RAW
  • Music format support for MP3, WMA, AAC
  • Video format support for MPEG-1, MPEG-4 SP, MJPEG
• Hi-Speed USB 2.0 for fast uploads and downloads to and from your computer.
• Supports IPTC detail viewing.
• Advanced file management features: multi-select, copy, rename, delete files, sort by name/date, and create new folders.
• Create and edit playlist directly on device.
• USB-host function: copy to/from external hard drive.
• Output to TV or projector.
• Removable Li-Ion battery rechargeable via USB or AC.
• Audio & video player with built-in speaker & earphone jack.

Available Summer 2009, Picture Porter 35 is lightweight and compact, weighing 12 oz. (with hard drive and battery), with dimensions of 5.4” (L) x 3.8” (W) x 1.2” (H). It will be available in 160GB and higher capacity configurations (MSRP to be determined). Picture Porter 35 comes with a USB cable, AC power adapter, user-replaceable rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery, earphones, video cable for RCA video output, custom designed carrying case, wrist strap, and manual. For more information, see the brochure below

Picture Porter 35 Brochure

Picture Porter 35

Picture Porter 35

emblemLOW.JPG

MouseWheel.JPG

GoldUSB.JPG

However given the Lachesis’s small size, the lower sensitivity player may have a difficult time getting a good grip when they need to reposition the mouse on the mouse pad. If you perspire, like me, the mouse can become somewhat of a “wet fish” and occasionally go flying across the room. Experiencing this exact situation gave me the opportunity to test the durability of the mouse. After 3 or 4 times of the mouse hitting the floor, combined with the occasional aggravated smash on the table, I found this mouse to be surprisingly tough for its small size. I did not notice a single difference in usability.
The 3G laser in this mouse addresses one of the key issues with lifting a mouse. The optical LED based sensors of the last generation of gaming mice could still move the cursor at 2-3cm above the pad. The 3G laser has it down to about 3mm, limiting the recoil when you pick up and put down the mouse.

3glaser.JPG

Features

The body of the Lachesis has 3 Zero-acoustic Ultraslick Teflon feet that allow for the use of very little force to get the mouse moving, decreasing the chance of over or under shooting the target. Nine independently programmable buttons line the outside of the mouse. There is also a profile button on the bottom of the mouse. The primary mouse buttons are very sensitive to pressure much like a hair trigger, which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending upon your style of play. There are 2 LED’s one placed at the mouse wheel and the other under the Razer Emblem at the back of the mouse. The one under the emblem pulsates on and off approximately every 5 seconds. You can choose to turn the pulsating off in the configuration panel if that is a distraction.

Lachesis bottom.JPG

ProfileButton.JPG

The Razer Lachesis also has a fully customizable configuration panel with a 32KB onboard memory.

Some specific points of interest are the Polling rate, Dpi Switcher, the Advanced Function Input tab and the Profile Options tab.

Lachesis Configuation panel.JPG

Lachesis Configuation panel Expanded.JPG

Every second counts in high-paced game play. The Lachesis’s Polling rate (how many reference messages are sent from the mouse to the computer per second) is maxed at 1000Hz = 1000 messages per second. This is equivalent to a reaction time of one millisecond. Setting the Polling rate at less Hz equals slower reaction time from the mouse. If you’re on a laptop not plugged into an outlet, this feature can be beneficial in conserving battery life by turning down the Hz.
The Dpi Switcher allows you to set 5 keys to different sensitivities between the range of 125 and 4000 with incremental settings you can switch to or from with the DPI settings selection shown below.

The Advanced Function Input tab is accessed by clicking the advanced functions selection located directly above the DPI Settings selection. This tab allows you to set the selected button to do any number of things including those listed on the menus below. However, using the macros feature is difficult and not always reliable. When trying to assign macros, you highlight the macros feature and any button on the keyboard you push after that will then be activated inside the box, (which includes releasing pressed keys). If you hold keys down, they’ll repetitively duplicate—not allowing you to assign it to single button activation/deactivation. The single button feature which is to the left of the macro feature, works perfectly. It is easily set up to throw grenades, cast spells, change weapons in any number of assorted ways to increase your gaming experience for all fast-paced FPS’s (First Person Shooter) and RPG’s (Role Playing Games).

Lachesis Configuation panel Button options.JPG

Lachesis Configuation panel DPI options.JPG

The configuration panel of the Lachesis allows for 5 fully customizable profiles. The Lachesis lets you independently program each of the 9 buttons differently for each game. The Profile Options Tab allows you to set a profile to be activated when a game executable starts, giving you the ability to instantly change to your optimum settings for any game. You can also manually control the profile settings in case you want to set them up for multiple vehicles or weapons in one specific game. The Master Guide that comes with the mouse goes into more detail about all of the setting capabilities. Coming in three colors; Wraith red, Phantom white, and Banshee blue there is a Razer Lachesis to fit almost any PC system.

Lachesis Configuation panel Advanced Funtions.JPG

Lachesis Configuation panel Advanced Funtions1.JPG

Lachesis Configuation panel Advanced Funtions2.JPG

Lachesis Configuation panel Advanced Funtions3.JPG

Functionality

I have found one of the biggest advantages that the Razer Lachesis gives in games such as Battlefield 2 (BF2) and Crysis is that you can program the individual buttons and profiles to meet any of your in game situation needs. Games such as BF2 and Crysis have many different vehicles and abilities, that far exceed the number of buttons on any mouse. This usually requires you to sacrifice one of the fingers you are using for movement, (usually on the W, A, S, D keys), making it more difficult to juke (dodge) oncoming vehicles and bullets. As an example, to solve this challenge with the Lachesis, in BF2 I programmed profile 1 on the 4 and 5 buttons using the advanced function selection single key option shown below, to “E” (enter vehicle) and “Z” (prone/lay down) allowing me to juke and bunny hop (jump then lay down repeatedly) through the enemy lines and steal their tank(s).

bf2Trooper.JPG

The tanks in BF2 have a slower turret spin speed than your character making it seem like you just lost half your DPI. When I got in the tank, I changed to profile 2, (as shown below), setting the DPI from what was 1750 to 3500 changing the “Z” (prone/lay down) setting, which doesn’t do anything while in a tank, to “X” (deploy smoke grenade).

bf2Tank.JPG

Using the Lachesis in this way gave me a clear advantage. I earned 120+ points when the average was 60-70 points a game. The Lachesis can be programmed similarly for Crysis. However, Crysis has 5 additional commands for bonus strength, speed, armor, invisibility, and weapon add-ons. These are normally set to keyboard keys and are selectable through holding down the universal scrolling button. I like to set these to the Lachesis buttons 3, 4, 5, 8, and 9 decreasing the time it takes to use them while allowing me to juke.
The effectiveness of the easily pressed primary buttons, Teflon feet, light weight, 1ms reaction time and high sensitivity became apparent in games such as CSS (Counter Strike Source) and COD4 (Call of Duty 4) is another benefit of the Razer Lachesis. In these games the last man standing is usually the first man to shoot. Because you have a high probability of dying from only one bullet,(compared to BF2 and Crysis which takes an average of 7 bullets to kill), the ability to get your crosshairs on your enemy and let the bullets fly is paramount. In these games the proof is in the results. I averaged a 3.00 KDR (3/1 kill per death ratio) where the pros normally get a 2.50 KDR.

Technical Specifications

4000dpi Razer Precision 3G Laser™ sensor
32KB Razer Synapse™ onboard memory
Nine independently programmable Hyperesponse™ buttons
1000Hz Ultrapolling / 1ms response time
On-The-Fly Sensitivity™ adjustment
Variable true dpi setting adjustments in increments of 125dpi
Always-On™ mode
Ultra-large non-slip buttons
16-bit ultra-wide data path
60-100 inches per second
Ambidextrous design
Scroll wheel with 24 individual click positions
Zero-acoustic Ultraslick™ Teflon feet
Gold-plated USB connector
Seven-foot, lightweight, non-tangle cord
Approximate size: 129mm (length) x 71mm (width) x 40mm (height)
Price: $ 79.99

Pros & Cons

Pros

Fast and accurate
Ambidextrous
Independently programmable buttons/profiles
“Drop dead gorgeous”
Durable
Profile Options tab
Controllable polling rate
Custom sensitivity settings from 125 to 4000 DPI

Cons

Expensive
Not for low sensitivity gamers
Macros extremely hard to assign and use

Conclusion

The Razer Lachesis is light weight, powerful and durable for the high sensitivity gamer. This mouse will make it easier to get frags, even though the Lachesis comes in at a pricey $79.99 it is well worth it if you are a heavy FPS and/or fast paced RPG gamer. I give the Razer Lachesis a 9.5/10.

Features

• Backup files in one step
• Boot directly from device if computer crashes
• Compatible with Windows Vista, XP and 2000
• Available in four storage sizes, from 3.5 GB to 31.5 GB

The ability to backup files is very important to anyone that has important documents. Making the process really easy is also important. With Back in a Flash you only have to click one button to start a backup.

With a built-in operating system you can boot directly to the Back in a Flash device if your hard drive ever fails.

Back in a flash comes is several sizes, including 3.5GB, 7.5GB, 15.5GB, and 31.5GB

Design

There is not much to say about the outside design of the Back in a flash. It looks just like a standard USB memory stick. However, it is what’s inside that matters. The one I got is a pre-production model so the final versions may not look like this.

IMG_0678.JPG

Inside this drive is a Windows based backup program, and an operating system. Your probably asking what the Operating system is for. Well, a backup is only good if you can get to the files when you need them. If your computer hard drive has failed and you need to get to your files, you can boot directly off the USB drive and use the built-in operating system to get to your files. The operating system is a fully functional Linux distribution with OpenOffice so you can open your backed up files.

Performance

The backup software works really well, as long as you have enough space. After inserting the Back in a Flash device I ran a full backup. I did not want to wait for the backup to complete because it could take a long time, so I left it alone and went and did other things. When I got back a couple hours later the backup had completed and closed automatically; however, when I looked on the drive for the backup I could not find it. I checked the log to make sure it did not have any errors, and according to the log it completed and saved successfully; however, when I looked for the backup it was not there.

No Backup Zip

log.bmp

When I tried to start another backup the screen that came up had an error on it, this was my first indication that there was a problem. The error only listed a number and I had no way of knowing what that number meant so it was not helpful. I tried to close the screen by clicking the X, but nothing happened. I actually had to click the start button to start a new backup, and then I could click the X to close it.

Error 507

Finally, after searching around for what might have caused the problem I found out that I had too many files for it to backup. It is really bad that the software didn’t tell me this up front. At first I tried to find a way to tell the software to exclude some files, but that ability does not exist. So I had to delete a few files and try again. For a normal user, deleting files would not be an option, because I am using test files and a test machine I didn’t mind. After deleting some files the backup finally finished and saved. After completing a backup I was able to use the software to view the backup and the files inside.

Backup

Backup 1

Backup 2

The software that is used to interact with the backups is not exactly feature rich. When you choose to view backups you are presented with a simple window that lists all the backup zip files. The intention is that you would click on one of the zip files and then find the file that you want to restore; however, this may not be very quick or easy because you have to keep clicking on directories until you get to your file. If you happen to click on the wrong zip file then you have to start completely over. If you have been running backups every night for a month, you will have 30 zip files to go through. Also, when you click on the zip file to open it, the initial load takes a long time — mine took about 30 seconds. I would recommend to the Back in a Flash people that they take a look at a review I did a couple of years ago. The backup software that I reviewed had a much better interface and it was a lot easier to navigate and find files that you were looking for. It was called Backup4all and I included lots of pictures of the interface when I did the review.

backups.bmp

Compression on the backups is almost non existent. My 3.91GB of photo’s, MP3′s and Text files turned up as a 3.90GB Zip file when the backup was done.

The other problem I see with the Back in a Flash is that it can only be used on a single computer and will get filled up quickly if you add or change a lot of files frequently. How many people only have one computer? I have 5 computers and it would not be very economical to buy a separate backup device for each computer, especially since each computer has several gigs of data that would need to be backed up. That is why I use a Windows Home server to manage all my computers and the nightly backups. However, if I am on vacation or on a business trip I would not be able to use my Home Server and that is when a device like the Back in a Flash would be useful.

Keep in mind that the Back in a Flash comes in three sizes, so pick a size that will give you a lot of growing room. It will be cheaper to get one that is bigger than you need, than to buy a second one.

If your hard drive fails you can boot directly to the Back in a Flash with the built-in Operating System. Using the built-in operating system is very easy. It is a version of Linux that uses an interface that is very similar to Windows. It also has a full copy of OpenOffice installed so you can access all your documents. This is a really great and unique feature in case your hard drive fails, and I have not seen any other backup devices offer the same capability.

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Warranty and Support

The Back in a Flash devices come with a two year warranty. However, because there are no moving parts, this should last a really long time. I know that USB drives like this can only be written to a certain number of times, so eventually the memory will fail, but if taken care of it should last a long time.

Support comes in several different ways. First is through an online manual, second is an online FAQ, and third is an email address. I could not find a phone number or any kind of forum to get support. I would encourage Back in a Flash to quickly implement both of those additional support methods.

Conclusion

Back in a Flash has a lot of potential, but as it currently stands it needs a lot of work. The company really needs to work on the interface and make it easier to navigate, make the error messages more meaningful, and do a little more to notify the user when they have too many files or when the Back in a Flash is full. Back in a Flash would work for someone always on the road, no other way to backup their files. Also, if you have more than 31.5 GB of files to backup, you are out of luck. I would suggest that Back in a Flash load its software on a portable USB hard drive so that it can provide the same functionality, but offer a lot more storage. If all else fails you can buy some stand alone backup software like I mentioned above, and just have it save to an external hard drive. As always compare prices before purchasing.

Features

• 1.8″ Anti-Scratch True Color Screen displays over 65,000 colors
• Supports MP3/MP4/WMA/WAV/AMV(video)
• USB Flash Drive
• Up to 8 Hours Playback Time with Built-in Rechargeable Battery
• Store and view music, movies, photo, and text files
• FM Radio and voice recording capabilities

The V-Bop is perfect for someone who doesn’t need a lot of storage space for their media, but wants a little bit more than just a music player. The media player is available in sizes of 1 to 8GB of Flash Memory. However, what the player lacks in available memory it surpasses in quality and versatility.

The video and picture display allows for crisp clarity and depth that fits in the palm of your hand. The software included with the player allows for easy conversion of video files to AMV format, which are then capable of being played on the video player.

Movie Main

Full view

The music player itself has better than average sound quality with a built-in equalizer for customizing the way the music should sound including choices between natural, rock, pop, classical, jazz, soft and DBB(Dynamic bass boost). Amazingly, the player also allows you to change the tempo of the songs. With the replay function one can specify how long of a gap is heard between songs, whether one or all songs are repeated in the specified folder, and the number of repetitions for each song or folder.

Music Equalizer

When you don’t want to play videos or listen to the music you’ve downloaded then there is an FM radio in Normal and Japan Band available for updates on news, sports, weather, and local radio stations. Also, for the student or professional there is a voice recorder for recording lectures and meetings.

FM Radio Menu

FM Radio

Voice Folder #2

The e-book reader is capable of viewing txt formatted files. The reader has the option of using either manual or auto play. Under the auto-play function, a reader can select a speed of 1 to 10 for the rate the page is flipped.

E-book Main

E-book Text

Design

The V-Bop comes packaged in a durable clear plastic box with a display cradle on top which is great for storing the player safely. Also, multiple sets of headphones with various sized interchangeable ear pieces, a protective box for the headphones, USB charger for the computer, a wall charger, and a protective skin are included.

Player and Headphones

Full contents

The player itself fits nicely in the palm of your hand with its slim design. The front is made of a durable plastic, and the back is stainless steel. Videos, music and text files are seen through the screen. The detachable USB port ensures that the player itself would still be usable if the USB plug were to break, unlike many players where it is built into the device itself.

Fits in hand

The front menu is simple for ease of use, and allows for menus to be viewed in 17 different languages.

Welcome

Language setup

The headphones has superior surround bass sound and include three different sizes of cushions for custom fit. They also come in a special protective case.

Performance

The main thing I wanted out of a media player was durability. I have had several others, one of which was destroyed when the USB port broke while plugged into a laptop computer. The other one was made of a cheap plastic that was easily dented or scratched. I immediately was impressed with the high quality of the materials used to make the V-Bop.

Since I mainly was going to use my media player for short walks and workouts at the gym the storage capabilities weren’t as important to me. However, I was quickly attracted to the added capabilities of using my media player to view videos, ebooks, and record lectures.

Once plugged into the computer, transferring files to the player is as easy as dragging and dropping them into the menu. Video is a little more complicated in that video files need to be converted into AMV format to be played. However, the player includes the necessary software for the conversion, and the companies website and text file included with the software gives all the instructions necessary.

When I bought the player it did take me a few hours to figure out how the menus worked. The instructions included with the player are very brief. However, more instructions are available at the companies website. Overall, given the quality of the diverse functions available with the player it was easy for me to look overlook this one inconvenience.

I learned very quickly that it’s not a good idea to experiment too much with the language options in the setup, unless you are familiar with those languages. It took me a good twenty minutes of trial and error with various languages to get it back to English so I could tell what I was doing.

The 8 hours of playing time available on the charged battery was handy when I needed entertainment on a long car trip.

Warranty and Support

The V-Bop includes a 1 year warranty if the player becomes defective because of improper workmanship or material during the warranty period. The warranty doesn’t extend to accessories, batteries, and to parts wearing out due to normal wear and tear. Support is available on the company’s website at http://www.visual-land.com/.

Conclusion

The V-Bop player is a fantastic product that blows away many of its competitors on the market right now and can do much, much more than the same priced ones. It’s extremely durable and functions are fairly easy to figure out. The V-Bop does what most media players cannot. The price is the one thing that should not be overlooked in that the V-Bop is around the same price or slightly cheaper than its competitors that play only music.

Mice and USB may not be the most exciting computer hardware, but they are very necessary pieces of hardware. Saitek has been making mice and other computer peripherals for a very long time and they have always done a good job.

Features

• Precision optical technology – 800 dpi
• 3 buttons and rubberised scroll wheel
• Designed for left- and right-handers
• 4 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed ports
• Powered through USB cable – no external power required

As laptops get more popular peripherals for them will also get more popular. Mini mice and hubs are great because you can easily fit them in a bag and not worry about them taking up a lot of space.

Compare

The notebook mouse comes in 19 different colors and the USB hub comes in 11 colors. Many of the colors for the mouse are the same for the Hub, so if you want, you can get a matching set that matches your laptop or computer.

Design

Both the mouse and the hub share a very similar design. They are the same color and they are very small. The mouse is not only a great size for notebooks, but also for people with small hands like children.

Top

Hub

Both the mouse and the hub light up when they are plugged in. The mouse lights up around the edges and around the scroll wheel with a light blue color. The hub has a small light on top that switches between blue, green and red.

Light

Blue Light

The USB plugs go around the outside of the HUB. The bottom of the hub stores the USB plug.

USB Ports

Bottom

Performance

The mouse and hub both performed just as I expected them to. With an accuracy of 800 DPI the mouse probably would not be the best for gaming, but it works great for using programs and surfing the web.

Warranty and Support

Saitek provides a decent two year warranty on all of its products. Considering how much you will probably be using them, if something is going to go wrong then it will probably happen before the two years is up.

Conclusion

While mice and USB hubs are not glamorous, they do serve a very important function. These work really well and are comfortable to use. I feel comfortable recommending them to anyone looking for a portable mouse and hub. As always compare prices before purchasing.

Gamepads are all around, but their main purpose is for gaming. Because there are so many gamepads they need to have some kind of feature that sets them apart. The MaxFire Grandias features dual motors for real vibration effects, Macros and Turbos.

Features

• Dual motor provides real vibration effects for hits, explosions or crashes.
• Provides 8-way D-Pad/action buttons and the ergonomic design delivers the ultra comfort playing experience.
• Macro function for setting sequence of movements and anybody can do trick moves with one touch of the control button.
• Analog direction sticks for easy and advanced control.
• Turbo button for auto repeat, great for shooting and action games.

With dual motors to provide the feedback you will feel things on the right, left or both sides of the controller. This provides a little more realism to the effect.

The Macro feature has three levels of the function so you can combine buttons and repeat the critical movements as often as you like. The macros are stored in buttons 5-8 so you can only have 4 at a time, but you can store up to 15 steps in each macro. The possible steps are endless. You can even control the speed of the macros. Unfortunately, there are no profiles so you cannot have different setups for each of your games.

The Turbo feature is similar to Macro except that you can only have one button as turbo at a time. You can also control the speed of the turbo button.

Design

The design of the MaxFire Grandias is fairly basic. From the looks of things it is very similar to other controllers of its type. The controller is slightly larger than the Logitech ChillStream Gamepad that we reviewed a couple of months ago.

The top of the controller is where the majority of the buttons are. There are a total of 9 buttons, one D-Pad and 2 analog sticks on top of the controller. Only 4 of the buttons will be used regularly during gaming, the other 5 buttons are turbo, select, start, macro and mode.

Top

The front of the controller has another 4 buttons.

Front

Performance

Testing a controller is fairly easy. I loaded up a game and started playing. As long as the game supported controllers like this one it worked without a problem. I even setup a couple of macros and used the turbo button without problems. It takes a little while to get used to the macros, but after a while they can can be useful. The rumble feature is nice, but it could be improved. Even though there are two motors it feels a lot like there is only one. It would be nice if the motors were more independent so they could provide a better feel. I suppose the game software would have to be written to support the two motors. The one thing I did have problems with is shooter games that require very precise movements for aiming and such. The analog sticks have a bit of a dead zone that makes it so precise movements near the center of the stick do not register.

The software provides a couple of pages where you can test the buttons and effects of the controller. The first page is the button and analog stick page. The second page is the effects page and as you move the left analog stick it makes the controller vibrate.

Test Page

Effect Page

Warranty and Support

The Genius MaxFire Grandias comes with a 1 year parts and labor warranty. Everything seems solid on the controller, but will all the button mashing you will be doing in your games it is possible that a button will stop working. Hopefully, if it is going to happen, it will happen during the warranty period.

Conclusion

I really like the features of the controller. There are certainly controllers that have more features and are even smaller. I would recommend that in the next version, that Genius shrinks the controller so that it fits a normal sized hand better; however, I don’t think you will have trouble with it. You should be able to pick this up for about $25. As always compare prices before purchasing.

Features

• You choose the level of censorship
• Works With 1000s of Movie Titles!
• Progressive Scan, Component Video, S-Video, Composite Video
• DVD-Video (NTSC, PAL), DVD+R, DVD+RW, CD-R, CD-RW, MP3 CD, JPEG picture CD, Kodak Picture CD
• Optical and Coaxial Digital Audio Output

When DVDs first came out, one of the benefits of the digital format was that it may be possible to have multiple versions of the same movie on one disk. This would have allowed studios to have movies with multiple ratings on the same disk also. One of the reasons for this would be to provide a more family friendly version of some movies. Since this has not happened, some other companies have taken it upon themselves to make it possible to filter your own DVDs. ClearPlay is one of those companies. The only way you can get ClearPlay is built into DVD players.

The ClearPlay DVD player is unique in many ways. First, as far as I can find, this is the only method available for automatically skipping scenes and language that you might find offensive. Second, the method that ClearPlay uses to filter content is only available if you have a filter for your movie loaded into the DVD player. Third, the software is completely customizable and allows you to decide the level of censorship for each of your movies.

If you don’t have the filter for the movie you don’t have to worry about the movie not playing. You can play any movie in the DVD player, but if you have the filter it gives you the option of playing the movie filtered. Another nice feature on this DVD player is that you can block out certain ratings that you don’t want played without a filter. For example, if you have a rated PG-13 movie, but you don’t want the kids watching it without the filter, you can set the setting and a password and you are good to go.

Blocking

Because the filters are set to skip specific scenes it needs to be calibrated to a specific movie. So you not only have to make sure you get the right filter for the movie, but you must also make sure it matches the version of movie you have. For example, the pictures below show the 3 filters for Spiderman 2. The first one is for the Full Screen version, the second one is for the 16×9 anamorphic version, and the third one is for the 16×9 special edition version.

Spider-Man Filter 1

Spider-Man Filter 2

Spider-Man Filter 3

There are several options for getting filters. The DVD player normally comes with lots of filters and a 1 year subscription to the download service. You can then purchase a yearly subscription which allows you to get every filter they make during that year. This will set you back a tidy $79. If you don’t think you need that many filters you can go for the $7.95 a month plan. There are also multi-year plans that you can purchase if you are interested in saving money.

When you choose which plan you want you are able to download the filters immediately. From there you can either burn them to a CD or, new to this model, you can load them onto a USB stick. When you place the CD or USB stick that has the filters in the DVD player, you are presented with a menu that lets you add and delete filters. This is a really tedious task, especially if you have a lot of movies. Each DVD player can hold several thousand filters at a time, which means that even if you have a really large DVD collection you won’t have to swap out filters very often.

A lot of parents may be interested in this DVD player because they think it will clean up all their movies and make them suitable for their children. Be warned you should not rely on the ClearPlay filtering to make every movie suitable for children. On the ClearPlay website there is a disclaimer. It reads “Even with filtering turned on, all movies are not appropriate for all audiences.” Sorry parents this is not a blank check to let you kids watch whatever they want, you still have to pay attention to what movies your children watch.

The DVD player packs several nice features as well. Progressive Scan output will help make sure you get the best quality video, Digital Audio out will allow this DVD play to deliver exceptional sound and the ability to play back DVD, CD-R/RW, SVCD, mp3 and WMA means that most movie formats will work just fine in this player.

Design

On the outside this DVD player looks just like every other. It is very plain with a few buttons. On the back you have the standard outputs for video and audio. There are two audio outputs and three video outputs. The audio outputs consist of one digital audio output and one set of analog audio outputs. For video you can choose S-Video, a single composite video output or a set of YPrPb (Component) video outputs. The only downside to the outside of the DVD player is that the power cord is not removable and there is no HDMI port. The front right has a little door that when flipped down will reveal a USB key and an SD/MMC card reader.

DVD Player

Connectors

Buttons

USB Cover open

All the other design aspects are inside the DVD player. The menu system design is laid out reasonably well and can easily be navigated using the remote.

When you first turn on the DVD player you will probably want to install some filters. I highly recommend that you put the USB stick of filters in your computer first and update it to the latest filters. The DVD player comes with a one year subscription and when you put in the filter stick you will be prompted to install some software that will allow you to download those filters. During the download of the filters you may also get a firmware update if one is available. When you put the USB stick in the DVD player you will be given an alphabetical list of filters that you need to navigate through to find the one you want. Once you find it you can easily choose to add it as long as you have room. If you have already filled up the internal memory, then you will need to remove some filters before you can add more.

Setup

Login

Insert USB

Media Type

Download Filters

Upgrade

There are many more options that you should also look at. The parental control filters are where you set the level of filtering that you want, the rating limit for the DVD player, and the password. In order for the ClearPlay filtering to work you must set a password. This makes it so that someone else cannot turn off the filtering without knowing the password.

The ClearPlay settings will take you to where you can choose the level of filtering that each movie will get. There are 12 categories; this is up from 4 in the previous models, and 4 filter settings for each filter. There are a total of 48 different filter options. The categories are Violence, Sex, Nudity, Vulgarity, Bloodshed, Substance Abuse, Blasphemy, Disturbing, Bigotry, Dishonor Parent, Dishonor Flag, and Mushiness. Each category will allow you to choose No Filtering, Least Filtering, Medium Filtering, and Most filtering. With these options you can custom tailor this DVD player to filter only the things you find questionable.

Filter Categories 1

Filter Categories 2

Filter Categories 3

Filter Settings

Managing filters is not that big of a deal. With the extra storage space in this new DVD model and the added USB port, managing filters can be really easy. My favorite way to load filters is not going through the huge list of movies and trying to remember which ones I have. I just wait until I watch a movie andif the filter is not loaded, I put the USB key in its port and the DVD player will automatically load the filter if it is on the key.

There is also a Display menu which will let you choose how you want the movie to be shown on the screen. You can choose to have movies shown in 4×3 letterbox, 4×3 standard, or 16×9 widescreen. You can also choose to have a screen saver turn on when there has not been any activity on the DVD player. The screen saver only comes on when you are in the menus or when a movie is paused. Switching to progressive scan is not as difficult as the last model, but you must make sure the output is set to component and then turn on Progressive Scan.

Display

Video Output

Progressive Scan

The Sound menu is like the Display menu in that you can choose several options for how you want the movie to sound. It has options like Sound Logic and Virtual Surround. Both these can be either on or off.

Sound

The Languages menu lets you choose what language you want the DVD players menus, Disk menus, Audio and Subtitles to be in.

Languages

Language Settings

The remote is a fairly full featured universal remote. It is able to control your TV, VCR and DVD player.

Remote

There is another menu that you can access. This one is accessed while the movie is playing. This menu does not give you any new functionality, but it will let you change some things on the fly. Some of the options that you get with this menu include the angle, audio, bookmark, chapters, play mode, subtitles and screen fit. This menu appears at the top of the screen when a movie is playing.

ClearPlay will sometimes offer upgrades to the firmware and they are normally applied when you download new filters. In case you want or need to apply a firmware upgrade manually, you will need to get the DVD player to the main menu and press 7-6-0-1-9 on the remote. Once the numbers have been pressed the upgrade screen will appear. You can check the ClearPlay website to see if your firmware is the most recent. If you don’t have the most recent you can download the newest firmware for free from the ClearPlay website. If you ever want to wipe the memory you can type 9-0-2-1-0. This will clear out all your filters and updates, but it keeps your settings. To reset the player to factory defaults you need to type in 7-6-4-1-9. This will get rid of all your settings.

Upgrade

Performance

The actual performance of the movies is great. The editors at ClearPlay try hard not to interrupt the story line of the movie when designing filters. There are obviously some movies that will probably never get filters. Those types of movies are of such a nature that the movie cannot be edited without removing the majority of the movie like NC-17 and X rated movies.

When watching a movie you will notice when the filter kicks in. You will either notice that the audio has been muted or that a scene abruptly ends. For example, during the hospital scene in Spiderman 2 where the doctors are working on Dr. Octavius, you will see them discussing what happened and what they want to do, but as soon as the arms start moving you are skipped to just as Doc Ock is exiting the hospital. Another example is in X-Men 2, when the soldiers attack the school and Wolverine starts fighting. Anytime he goes to stab a soldier it skips.

The filters are not perfect. There are times when instead of filtering a single bad word they will get either a couple words before or after. I noticed this the most when the person being muted was speaking quickly and it may have been difficult to get the single word. There are also times you may find something that is not filtered. There could be many reasons for this, but ultimately you are relying on the editors at ClearPlay to decide what is acceptable and what is not.

There are many who will say that it filters too much. The great thing about this is that you can adjust it to your liking. If you are not offended by violence then you can easily turn all the violence filters off. If you want to watch a movie unfiltered, then turning off the filters is also very easy. This device puts you in control of what you watch.

There is a little inconsistency between some movie filters. For example, during X-men 2 when the soldiers first enter the school they shoot a boy with darts, this is not filtered out. Also when the first soldier enters the kitchen and fights with Wolverine he starts shooting up the place, this is not filtered. These are both examples of violence that may be objectionable to some people. There are also several other places in X-men 2 that didn’t seem consistent and remove vital parts of the story. For example, when Mystique is in Strykers office looking up the files she is in her natural form which is basically naked and painted blue. I can see them keeping this because it plays a major role in the plot, but another scene where Mystique injects a guard with iron is deleted. This is also another major part of the plot. You have the choice to show the guard scene, but you do not have the choice to edit the Strikers office scene. I would think the ClearPlay editors would be better off erroring on the side of over filtering and then let the users turn off the filtering for the parts they don’t find objectionable.

Warranty and Support

ClearPlay offers a terrible warranty. The warranty for the DVD player is 90 days exchange; 91 days to 1 year reduced-cost exchange. I could not find any way to upgrade the warranty. As far as I could tell buying one of the filter plans does not extend the warranty on the DVD player, they only give you access to the ClearPlay Filter Library. All the plans give you access to the entire filter library, but the monthly plan only allows you to download 15 filters at a time. The one, two and three year plans give you access to the entire ClearPlay Filters Library and you can download as many as you want. The one year plan gives you two months free, the two year plan gives you six months free, and the three year plan gives you a whole year free.

Conclusion

Some of the pain of managing filters should be alleviated with the introduction of the new DVD player with the USB drive. I am sure they will continue to innovate and make things easier. If you have a small DVD collection, then managing filters will not be that big of an issue. If you have a huge DVD collection then the initial loading of filters can take a long time. Keep that in mind as you consider this DVD player. Despite the filter management problems, I felt like the product did a fairly good job. The technology is sound and very configurable, and until Hollywood decides to offer multiple versions of movies, this may be the best alternative. Now we just need movie studios to start selling the TV versions of movies and we won’t have to worry about filtering the movies on our own.

Update 09/02/2010: I recently signed up for a month to month filter subscription so I could get the latest filters. My plan was to cancel after the first month because I didn’t want a reoccurring subscription fee. So at the end of the month I wrote Clearplay to let them know I wanted the reoccurring fee canceled. The response I got back was very surprising.

The email started out pleasant, but right in the middle they said “Are you aware that if you cancel the account, as per the Terms and Conditions and License Agreement, you would have to delete the filters off your filter stick. In order to use the filters, we do ask that you maintain an active account.“

To me this is crazy. I paid for a month of their service, and Clearplay doesn’t have any restrictions on how many filters can be downloaded, so the assumption is that for that month I have unlimited access. No where in the signup, download, or other pages does it say that if I don’t maintain a subscription for life then I loose the right to use the filters. So what if I had been a customer for 10 years and then fell on hard times and had to cancel my account? All that money I spent for the last 10 years is a waste and now I loose all the filters I had paid for? This really isn’t a good way to treat customers.

I immediately wrote back and informed Clearplay that I will no longer be doing business with them and I can no longer recommend their service. That is too bad because I think they are doing a good thing, but their tricky terms are written to hurt their customers, and I cannot support a company that hurts its customers.

BTW, I looked up their Terms (last updated on: 12/02/2008) and I could not find anything about having to delete filters, so maybe this was an overzealous customer support agent, or maybe they have not updated their website. So far I have not gotten a response to my email.

USB drives are normally just plain little devices without a lot of doodads. USModular has changed that by adding a light and pen.

Features

While everyone else is going smaller and smaller with their USB drives, USModular is getting bigger and I am not talking about storage space. The USModular Handy Drive is the largest USB drive I have ever seen. The larger size may not be a bad thing. One of the biggest complaints about small USB drives is that they are easy to loose.

The bigger size is not all empty space, USModular has taken that empty space and filled it with an LED flash light and a ball point pen.

USB and Pen

Design

The Handy Drive is not all bulk. The size of the Handy Drive is about 1/2″ X 1 1/2″ X 2 3/4″. There is one slider on each side, the left one for the USB drive and the right one for the pen. The button on the top is for the light. On the back is a loop for a key chain or something.

Handy Drive USB

Handy Drive Pen

Handy Drive Light

Handy Drive Light on

The Handy Drive comes in sizes ranging from 128 MB to 4 GB. The price for the 128 MB version $19.99 and it goes up from there. I have seen the 1 GB version for as little as $29.99.

Performance

All of the Handy Drive’s features work just they are suppose to. The USB drive itself is not the fastest that I have ever seen, but you can easily use this drive to store your files. Because of the size of the Handy Drive, using the pen is not the easiest thing to do. You will eventually find a comfortable position, but it is not as easy to hold as a real pen. The pen also does not have a lot of ink and it may be difficult to replace, so once you run out, a portion of the Handy drive will be useless. The light is small and does not put out a lot of light, but it is enough to light up a car key hole, or lighten things up a bit in a totally dark room. If there is any light at all, then the Handy Drives light will not work very well. The light runs off two small batteries that unfortunately do not get charged up when you have it plugged in to a USB port. You can however replace them by opening up the case and putting new ones in.

Warranty and Support

USModular provides a one year warranty. I could not find out any more information about the warranty, but I doubt it covers the batteries or the ink in the pen. So if you run out you are out of luck.

Conclusion

This USB drive is definitely unique, but I am not sure it will meet the needs of very many people. Once the ink runs out of the pen and the batteries die on the light, and you don’t replace them, you are left with nothing but a huge USB drive. If you are one who loses USB sticks a lot, then you could use the extra size and key chain loop to make it easier to find. On the other hand, a lot of smaller USB sticks now come with key chain loops so you won’t lose them. If you don’t lose USB sticks then you can get them for a lot cheaper.

Features

• 1.2 Amps/5.75 Watts to operate
• USB 1.1 and 2.0 Compatible
• Works on Computers, XBOX, XBOX 360, and Playstation

The USB Beverage Chiller is a very unique item. Most people who work on or near a computer will at some point need something to drink. With the USB Beverage Chiller you can be sure that it is always cold. The chiller is very compact so you can easily take it with you. Because it draws so little power you can easily power it with a laptop running on batteries.

Design

The USB Beverage Chiller is very simple in design. As you can see it is mostly white with a small round blue disk. This disk is where you put your drink so that it will be cooled. If we flip over the Chiller we can see that it is held away from any surface by 4 rubber feet. This not only reduces any vibration noise that you might hear, but it also reduces the chance that air flow might be blocked. On the back of the Chiller is a small fan. Even though it is small and turning fast it is very quiet. The fan moves air over the heatsink that is attached to the chiller. This helps the chiller from overheating while in operation. The front is where the air comes out after passing by the heatsink.

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I decided to take this one apart just to see how it works. I first removed the bottom and from there I could see that the USB Beverage Chiller is a rather simple device. In this picture you can see the heatsink, fan, and power cables. Next, I turned the heatsink over and removed the blue disk. The disk is attached to the Chiller by some thermal glue that I assume helps transfer the cold. On the other side of the Chiller is the heatsink. This is used to dissipate any heat the chiller might produce while creating the cold.

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Performance

Testing the USB Beverage Chiller is really easy and quick. Once you plug it in you will immediately begin to feel the blue surface get cold. It takes about 20 seconds for the chiller to reach its maximum cooling temperature of 45°F. You don’t have to wait for it to get cold before you put your drink on it.

Because it cools from the bottom up it is most effective if your beverage container has full contact with the blue surface. Soda cans (with concave bottom) and other containers that do not make full contact can still be cooled, it will just take a little longer. You will also want to watch out for insulated containers. Because the USB Beverage Chiller is trying to cool from the bottom up it must first pass through all the insulation and then to the liquid. By the time it gets through, most of the cold is waisted by cooling the container. Also if your drink is not already cold then it will take a lot longer for the chiller to get the drink cold.

The Chiller is very quiet. It is so quiet that I had to hold it to my ear before I could hear it over the normal noises in the office. All this is achieved without using more than the 5.75 Watts that a single USB port can provide.

Warranty and Support

CoolIT Systems warranties the USB Beverage Chiller for 1 year. Since the only moving part is the fan, it would have been nice if they could have increased the warranty to at least 3 years, if not longer.

Conclusion

If you drink a lot of beverages, mostly from aluminum cans and glass bottles, then this will do a great job of cooling your beverage. It also helps if the drink is already cold. For the small price of $39.99 I think it can easily be purchased as a gift, or for yourself, and it won’t break the budget.

Features

• Firefox – high-speed browser with enhanced security
• Anonymizer – anonymous surfing complete network security and IP masking
• RoboForm – one-click form-fill with secure user ID/password management application
• Thunderbird – portable e-mail access
• Hushmail – high security web based e-mail solution
• USB 2.0

Ever since the release of the original StealthSurfer the manufacturers have been hard at work improving on their technology and design. In case you are interested, we covered the original StealthSurfer here. They have added several new features and increased the size of the flash drives.

The original StealthSurfer was basically just a web browser that made the claim that by keeping your cookies and web history on the flash drive you were safe from prying eyes at home and network monitors at work. This claim did not hold up very well, so they went back to the drawing board and made some significant changes.

The StealthSurfer II has several new enhancements that will do a much better job of keeping your surfing habits private. Their first and most major change is the inclusion of Anonymizer. Anonymizer is a small piece of software that runs quietly in the background hiding your IP address and the content of your pages. It hides your IP address from the website you visit by having all your web requests go through a proxy server. A proxy server is a computer that sits between you and the Internet. This means that the people on the web only see the proxy server and not you. StealthSurfer II hides the content of your pages by giving you a secure connection to the proxy server. This means that even if you surf at work they cannot see the content of the pages you are looking at because they are encrypted with SSL.

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Now just because your work cannot see the content of your pages, it does not mean they don’t know what pages you are looking at. If your office is monitoring your Internet usage they can still see the URL of every page you visit. This means that if they were really interested they could go back to those pages and see for themselves what you are looking at. Your office could also be monitoring the amount of bandwidth you are using, so if you are streaming videos or audio and you get in trouble for using up too much bandwidth, then the StealthSurfer II will not help you.

The next big change is the web browser. The original StealthSurfer used the Netscape 7 web browser. The new StealthSurfer II uses the Firefox web browser. This web browser is well supported and maintained.

To assist you in your surfing the StealthSurfer II also includes RoboForm. RoboForm is a small piece of software that automatically fills in forms on the Internet with your information. This saves you from having to retype you name, address etc. every time you fill out a form.

Another nice addition to the StealthSurfer II is the ability to get your email. The device includes the Thunderbird Email client which is made by the same group that makes the Firefox web browser.

The StealthSurfer II also boasts encrypted email services through a product called Hushmail. I could not find any information about this in the documentation so I went onto the StealthSurfer website. The website talked about the Hushmail service, but gave no instructions about how to set up an account or even where to find the product. A quick Google search turned up the website www.hushmail.com. This site offers free personal email accounts. I could not find anything on the website about any special deals that they had made with StealthSurfer so it looks like the mention of Hushmail was just an advertisement.

Design

The StealthSurfer II is designed to look exactly like the original StealthSurfer. The StealthSurfer II consists of an Intelligent Stick which is made by PQI. This is quite an innovative memory stick. The stick has an optional that you can put it in for protection and also for providing you with a standard USB plug; but you don’t need the cradle to plug it in. The stick itself fits nicely in a USB slot on your computer and will read just fine. This makes the stick very small and lightweight.

Performance

The StealthSurfer has been upgraded and given a USB 2.0 connection. This boosts the speed up to 8MB/sec. This really helps to make it so there is no lag when using the programs on the StealthSurfer II.

Unfortunately, the StealthSurfer II only works on the Windows OS, specifically Windows 2000/XP. This is mainly because the Anonymizer software is only available for Windows. I know that Firefox and Thunderbird are both available for the Macintosh OS.

When you plug in the StealthSurfer you will notice only a single executable file. This is a password protected access point to the rest of the programs. The software that provides the password protection is called U-Storage. When you unlock the StealthSurfer the U-Storage software will be running in the background and it constantly uses 4 MB of RAM. This is not including the RAM that the individual programs use.

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Every time you login to the StealthSurfer II it will look for an updated version of the software. You don’t have to worry about keeping you software up to date because it is done automatically. While it is looking for new software you will see this splash screen.

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You will also notice that even before you start storing your own files on the StealthSurfer II, that there is already about 70 MB of space used up by the programs. You may want to take this into consideration when choosing the size of StealthSurfer you buy. Since the StealthSurfer II comes in sizes from 128 MB to 1 GB you will have a wide variety to choose from.

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There are several strange things that I ran into, one by accident and another seems to be standard functionality. I was taking screen shots of the StealthSurfer for this review and when I tried to open up Photoshop 5.5 it would keep crashing. I did some testing and found that if the StealthSurfer was unlocked then Photoshop 5.5 would not open correctly. If Photoshop 5.5 was already open when you unlocked the StealthSurfer II then it worked fine. Just an odd occurrence that I thought I would bring up.

The other strange thing that I noticed is that when you open either Thunderbird or Firefox on the StealthSurfer II then your default browser is changed. It is not changed to Firefox because if you set Firefox to check to see if it is default then it still says it is not. It is also not IE because of the same reason as Firefox. I have not found how to turn this off or even which browser it is set to. This is really annoying and should be fixed as soon as possible.

Conclusion

This really is a big improvement over the original StealthSurfer. It is beginning to become a really helpful tool. It is not yet perfect, so take that into consideration when you choose where to use it. The price starts at $99.29 for the 128 MB version up to $299.29 for the 1GB version. Even though these prices are a bit steep, you are not only getting the flash drive but you are also getting the software. I think this is a a great product for those who just have to visit websites and check email whenever they are near a computer. This will help keep those sites private and your email current. If you can wait until you get home then this won’t do you any good.

Features

• USB 2.0 compatible Encoder box
• Watch TV on PC
• Video Inputs supported are TV, Composite and S-video
• Video input format :4:2:2 YUV CCIR-656
• High-quality real-time encoding (I-,B-,and P-frames)
• Export your final works to Elementary,Program,Transport,MPEG-1,DVD and VCD
• MPEG-1/2 capture of up to 8 Mbit/sec
• Audio capture of up to 384 kbit/sec
• Full TV frequency range for CATV/VHF/UHF
• Resizable TV-in-window – up to full screen
• Enable On Screen Display Function
• Built-in Video (Composite, S-Video) and Audio (Stereo) input connectors
• Provide user-friendly OSD (on screen display) to control functions
• Brightness/Contrast/Saturation/Color/Sharpness Adjustment
• Built-in microprocessor
• Full function remote controller
• Stereo input and Stereo/MTS/Nicam output
• Supports YCbCr Video input

Ease of use

Hooking up this machine is very easy. All the outputs are clearly labeled and easily accessible in the back and in the front. I really appreciated the fact that the Video (Composite, S-Video) and Audio (Stereo) input are on the front of the machine. This made it so I didn’t have to reach behind to hook up my camera or VCR. There is a coaxial input on the back, so you can just attach the cable and leave it. A USB cable is included and the connector is in the back.

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Once the machine is hooked up, it is time to install the software. During the install you can choose PAL or NTSC format, and it also installs a demo version of some PVR software. During the install it would frequently ask if I wanted to overwrite a newer version of a driver that was already on my machine and replace it with the one from the disk. I like to keep the newer versions so I would always say no. Big mistake, after the install the software would load up and I would get a usb connection error. I spent about an hour trying to figure this out and nothing worked until I reinstalled the software and used the older drivers that came on the install disk. I should mention that doing this broke all my other usb devices and I had to reinstall their drivers to fix it. But reinstalling those drivers would break this device, so for now I left all my other usb devices broken so I could perform these tests.

The first thing I tested was the ability to watch tv on my computer. I stretched my cable to the back of the machine, turned it on, and started the software. The first thing I noticed was that the video was extremely choppy. I went to reference the user manual and found that the 10 pages they provided just didn’t contain any diagnostic instructions. I couldn’t find anything on the website either. Eventually, after exausting all my other options I went out and bought a USB 2.0 card and installed it in my computer and plugged it into that. There was a definite improvement in the video quality and I could actually watch something.

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Recording TV was another issue. Turing on the record function nearly killed my machine. I should mention that I am running an AMD 1700+ with 256MB of RAM and 100GB western digital hard drive and a Radeon 9800 PRO with 128MB RAM. My processor usage went to nearly maximum and the ram usage didn’t seem to increase at all. I quickly exited out of all my other programs and that helped to keep the machine away from 100% usage. The picture was nothing to shake a stick at, I wasn’t expecting it to be crystal clear, but it seemed a lot more grainy than my tv was.

Another feature I wanted to test was the pausing live tv function. It only took the click of a mouse button to turn it on and everything seemed to be going well. There wasn’t any increase in cpu usage or memory, but when I tried to turn it off and watch the video I had paused, my cpu again went through the roof and froze up the program. I tried it again several more times but was unable to get it to work correctly, I assume that trying to play video and record video was too much for my computer to handle.

Unfortunately, recording from other devices like a VCR, had the same results as the cable tv; high CPU usage and grainy picture. Kworld could definitely improve the performance of this device by putting the MPEG encoding in the machine, instead of making the computer handle it all. The software was really not very good either. Some of the features were disabled because it was a demo version and there wasn’t any documentation on how to upgrade. After digging through filenames and doing some internet searches, I finally found the company that made the software. Honestech makes the software and their website even had a trial version of their latest PVR software. I quickly downloaded it hoping there would be some improvement. Well, I couldn’t find any improvement because the software wouldn’t work. I would click to start it and an icon would appear, then disappear. I tried all sorts of different options, but nothing else ever happened.

Design

The design of this machine is good. It is very thin and stands tall, making it great for putting next to your monitor or tucked away behind your speakers. It has easy to push buttons and it looks good. The remote is really plain and has buttons on it that don’t apply to this device, such as the FM tuner controls. The user manual is pitiful, I know some of you think that a 10 page manual is adequate, but for this device it needs 5 pages just for trouble shooting.

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If you are looking for an easy to use, hassle free TIVO like device for your computer then I recommend you not purchase this. If you want something that will hog your system resources and give you a big headache every time you turn it on, then this is the machine for you.