Short version: Western Digital’s refreshed My Book Essential external hard drive provides a simple, unobtrusive, and relatively inexpensive home backup solution. With an enormous 2TB capacity, built-in WD SmartWare software, 256-bit built-in encryption with password protection, an “illuminated capacity gauge,” and a MSRP of $249.99, there is very little not to like here. → Read More
Short version: A nearly faultless wired mouse, more than suitable for everyday tasks or gaming. Fans of the distinctive MX series shape won’t be disappointed. Although I’ve been taking my time getting used to this mouse, this is a pretty straightforward review. Reason being that Logitech is an established and reliable brand for mice so we can skip the foreplay. You know as well as I do that this mouse is well-built and has excellent support. The shape of the mouse, while it’s been smoothed out over the years, is similar to my old wireless MX700 and several other popular mice in the Logitech line; if you haven’t held one in your hand, you’ve missed out on one of the better mouse form factors out there. → Read More
The Seagate FreeAgent Go is a 1TB, USB-powered hard drive that works. What more do you wanna know? → Read More
There is a code to which a cowboy cleaves. He never shoots first, he’s always kind to ladies, and he never buys more printer than he can handle. While I can’t speak for those out on the lone prairie, I can report that the 52-pound ImageClass MF8050Cn by Canon may be the heaviest printer I’ve had in my office to date.
This isn’t a printer for scrap-booking or creating beautiful photomontages of your grandmother. The color printing is delightfully sharp but the speed and on-board features – the lack of a picture preview screen, for example – makes this an office printer through and through. It also has a built-in copier and fax machine if you’re into that stuff. It also scans from PCs or Macs.
Because we’re basically talking about a large job printer here you won’t be printing many photos on this printer. However, it has excellent color reproduction and is just fine for color prints. A slight concern: the “media capacity” is 150 sheets on this puppy, which means you’ll have to refill it every few if you’re doing a few dozen pages per day. → Read More
Storage is cheap, and just keeps getting cheaper. I remember buying my first 250 megabyte hard drive, and paying just under a dollar per meg. Now we’re approaching multi-terabyte drives at retail stores for extremely reasonable prices. The age old problem, though, is how to protect all that precious data. RAID solutions have been around for a long time, but the consumer-grade products haven’t been all that great, and the commercial-grade products have been way too expensive. Things are starting to change, though, and the iStoragePro iT4UFER is a good indicator of what’s to come. Read on for a complete review, and a chance to win a $100 Starbucks gift card! → Read More
The last Epson printer I reviewed, the Artisan 800, was a work of art. The Workforce 600 is the art of work. See what I did there? To be clear, there is little to say about besides the speeds and feeds. A printer is a printer is a printer, no matter how printer manufacturers like to spice things up with claims of ink price or pages per second. That said, I’m fairly impressed by the Workforce 600. It printed a full ream of paper – about 300 sheets – over a month period and ran out of black ink once. The colors go a little more quickly – about 60 photos – and it prints black and white at 38 ppm. → Read More
One of LaCie’s most recognizable products, the Rugged line of external HDDs has been around for ages, but only recently expanded into the 3.5″ HDD realm with this 1TB unit. The design is much the same, but obviously it’s significantly larger — and more spacious. But is it worth the premium over other 1TB drives? → Read More
With a name like the T.16000M, you kind of expect this joystick to sync with your cerebellum and control eight games at once. But no, it’s just Thrustmaster’s latest, which uses a magnetic sensor to provide extra precision in your controls — 16,000 analog states per axis, to be precise (many analog sticks use 256 or even 16). I’ve always thought of joysticks as being precise, even if I was never good with them, and this one appears to be the most precise non-military joystick out there right now.
I’ll be honest here: I don’t have a lot of experience with joysticks. I do have lots of experience with joypads, and I used to drive stick, so if you add them together it’s almost like I could have reviewed this thing years ago. So I’m not a specialist, but I do know what to expect from a controller. → Read More
Back at CES, I got to check out the Mamba in its near-final form. I was impressed, and couldn’t wait to get my hands on it to review. Now, after living with it for a good while, and after some serious initial problems, I can say it’s everything they wanted it to be, though I still think Razer’s true megamouse will be the Mamba’s successor. Watch and read for optimum review experience. → Read More
The D-Link DIR-685 Xtreme N Storage Router has a lot of features stuffed into a small, attractive package. It’s the first router I’ve ever made space for on the top of my desk and, expensive though it is at $299, it’s part router, part Chumby, part print server, part network hard drive, and more. → Read More
The 7-inch 800×480 Mimo monitor is a portable USB-powered display that’s easy to set up and use and ought to fit neatly in most laptop bags. At $130, it’s not outrageously priced, either, considering you’re getting a pretty capable second monitor that weighs just 1.3 pounds and requires only a single cable in order to operate. → Read More
The Ford GT40 Series Car Mouse from RoadMice.com is a $50 wireless mouse stuffed in a replica Ford GT. This is definitely a mouse for car lovers and there’s apparently quite a market for car mice, as RoadMice.com offers about a skillion different models of wired and wireless mice that look just like real-life cars. → Read More
Short Version: This good-looking, small internet radio receiver has the potential to fit right in with your home audio equipment. But those looking for a portable streaming audio device will want to look elsewhere, as the Myine Ira Wi-Fi Internet Radio is tied to its remote control and doesn’t feature built-in speakers. → Read More
Quick Version: In short, the FreeAgent Theater HD Media Player Solution from Seagate was made for a caveman if cavemen been around in 1999 when people actually used the DivX codec and only used Windows machines. Not to be completely unfair, but if you’re an avid reader of CrunchGear or a savvy BitTorrenter then this definitely isn’t what you’re looking for. → Read More
Without a doubt, the 1TB Western Digital My Book World Edition is the easiest to use NAS I’ve ever tried. There’s virtually no setup, it’s remotely accessible and works flawlessly on both PCs and Macs. → Read More
We wrote about the PogoPlug NAS adapter in January, and I was excited to see what it could do. I finally got my review model, and this little gadget does a pretty good job of living up to the hype. Read on for the whole scoop. → Read More
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