Projectors have been and are mostly still being marketed at large organizations. The cost of projectors have gone down considerably over the last year and manufacturers are now targeting home users as their primary audience. BenQ, a company, which is widely known in the market for their displays and other PC related products have launched a line-up of projectors designed for home entertainment. One of these are the BenQ W700 that features DLP Link technology which offers 3D content through a single feed.

Design and Build Quality
The BenQ W700 is a slightly large projector and is made entirely out of hard plastic. It has a glossy white and matte dark grey finish. The glossy white adds to the stylishness of the W700. While most of the projector has a white finish, the grey is featured only on the front, back and strips at the side. There are vents that run along the sides and half of the front - this helps in the cooling process of the projector.

The controls are easy to navigate through

At the bottom centre is a push to release stand. The button to deploy feels sturdy. To aid in straightening of this stand are feet that are located at the bottom on the rear of the projector. These feet have to be rotated to get it to its maximum length. Together, with the stand and the feet, this projector can be well-balanced. The focal ring along with the zoom ring are finished in silver and located directly above the W700’s lens. The controls for this projector are located on the bottom right of the top panel. They, like the rest of the top panel are finished in glossy white. The spacing of the buttons is large and within a matter of minutes one can easily use the controls without looking at the pad. The bundled up remote control is black and has a whole lot of controls, which are well spaced out. The build quality of the remote control is good and could survive even after a couple of accidental drops. Overall, the BenQ W700 is a stylishly designed projector that is well-built as well.

Features
The W700 DLP projector has a native resolution of 1280 x 720, which is a 16:9 aspect ratio. This ratio is a common feature found on most displays nowadays, be it televisions or monitors. The brightness levels of this projector are 2200 lumens as rated by BenQ. Apart from this, BenQ claims that the W700 has a contrast ratio of 10000:1.

Large vents help the cooling process immensely
 
The interface is simple to navigate through. The design of it is rather plain with the interface in Grey. A tad bit more colour would make it look better. The default mode when connected to a notebook is the Cinema mode. Other modes included in this projector are User 1, User 2, Game, Bright and Living Room. While tweaking the settings in the default preset are limited, one can easily tweak brightness, contrast, etc in the User modes.

A host of connectivity options

Various connectivity options are found on this projector and the most interesting ones are the two HDMI inputs. These can be used to connect to a home theatre system or a gaming console allowing people to project the content on a large surface. Other connectivity options include component, composite, D-Sub, mini USB, RS-232 as well as a 3.5 mm audio jack. All in all, the W700 has some interesting features that can be used in either a home or a small conference room.

Performance
The BenQ W700 projector was tested using a notebook and all the lights in the room were turned off to get optimum results. We ran the DisplayMate test along with a number of videos to check the performance. Let’s start of by mentioning that this projector does not emit a lot of heat, but the top panel gets a bit warm. Another thing we noticed was that there was a constant low humming sound noticed. Connected to the notebook, we used the default settings to check how well the projector fares out of the box.

Video playback is really good

During the DisplayMate test, we noticed that greys and whites reproduced well in the intensity range test. Black levels noticed were really good and colours were very accurate in the colour contrast test. There was a lot of sharpness noticed throughout all colours and there was a noticeable difference between each scale in the colour intensity scales test. During video playback colours rendered accurately and watching videos through this projector was an enjoyable experience. Out of the box, the BenQ W700 performs really well and there is no need for tweaking, whatsoever.

Verdict
The BenQ W700 sells at a market operating price of Rs. 52,000. The projector is mainly designed for home use and with a price point as such we get back to the debate of whether one should pick up a large screen LCD HDTV or a projector.

Simple yet stylish design
 
While there may be no match for a television as of now, this projector surely closes the gap between the two. While we do not discard the fact that one should not buy an HDTV, if the BenQ W700 falls in one’s budget, this can be a very good solution for a large viewing area home theater setup...N

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB may be an inauspicious card to the crowd of people who live and die in the enthusiast mindset but to most of the market, it represents very good performance for a minimal investment. NVIDIA has also given their board partners the green light to release a vast number of overclocked and non-reference designs come launch day. These new versions have been helped along by the GTS 450’s abundant willingness to overclock to extremely high levels.

ASUS is following on the heels of their competition by introducing a number of GTS 450s into the market. Naturally, there will be a reference version but the product we are more interested in is their TOP Edition which comes with a custom heatsink design dubbed “DirectCu”. In the longstanding tradition of ASUS cards, the TOP series has always been synonymous with high clock frequencies and cutting edge design. They have now taken this mantra and applied it to their $149 GTS 450 TOP.

Not only does the GTS 450 1GB TOP come with high flying clock speeds and a wicked-looking heatsink but additional changes have also been made. Not satisfied with the canvas given to them by NVIDIA’s reference design, ASUS went back to the drawing board and have designed a card which has the ability to far outstrip its price point. Along with their Xtreme Design VGA initiative (more on this later on in the review), an expanded and improved power distribution layout was added in order to better cope with higher clock speeds. ASUS also includes their SmartDoctor overclocking software which will help push the outer limits of this GTS 450’s design.

We have already seen some companies like Palit announcing their own custom GTS 450 versions but many of their changes have been made to cut costs. ASUS on the other hand charges a slight price premium and yet adds features that improve upon the card and its overall performance. To us, this looks like a winning combination.

The Current NVIDIA Lineup

It may have taken them a while to get the ball rolling at a meaningful pace, but NVIDIA is well on their way towards fleshing out their first generation DX11 lineup. Currently, the GTX 480 and GTX 470 hold the topmost rungs where they can compete against ATI’s single card flagships; the HD 5870 and HD 5850. They are both beastly cards that spill out the framerates as quickly as they consume power but there is no denying the fact that they each provide some excellent performance.

Running a bit lower along the rungs of the 400-series brings us to the GTX 465 which until recently represented an interesting wrinkle in the lineup. However, this GF100-based card’s performance and efficiency were brought under heavy scrutiny when the GF104 core was released.

The GF104 was NVIDIA’s first departure from the standard GF100 core layout and moved the Fermi architecture into a realm that was infinitely more affordable and attainable than past cards. Everyone’s darling, the GTX 460 series came front and center with a significant increase in its Texture Unit count versus GF100-based cards and it dazzled the press and consumers alike. There are bound to be additional GF104-based products coming soon so stay tuned.

Until additional 400-series cards are released, the GTS 450 1GB will act as NVIDIA’s lowest-end DX11 desktop card that is available at retailers. The GF106 core at its heart is essentially half of a GF104, and as you can see its specifications are very much in line with its asking price. Parallels will naturally be drawn between it and the outgoing yet infinitely long lived G92-based GTS 250.

The fact that we are comparing this new GTS 450 card to one which sports a GPU core that essentially debuted in 2007 is simply shocking and yet tells two stories; the longevity of the G92 and the fact that NVIDIA has been relying on its associated architecture for FAR too long. Nonetheless, the GTS 450 is meant to act as a direct replacement for the GTS 250 in addition to the 9800 GTX, 9800 GTX+ and 8800 GTS. Judging from specifications alone, it should be able to do this without a problem since the only areas where it really loses out is in the memory bandwidth and texture unit departments. By now we all know that the Fermi architecture somewhat makes up for its lack of TMUs with additional processing cores so this should be a non-issue as well.

Out with the old, in with the new

Competition for this new card is of course ATI’s HD 5750, which is currently retailing for between $130 and $145. From our understanding, NVIDIA is hell bent on dominating this price category; be it by overall performance or a more appealing cost structure.

The GF106

Since the GF106 is based off of the exact same core design as the GF104, we recommend that you take a close look at our in-depth GF104 architecture analysis before reading any further. If you aren’t willing to do that, let’s just say that the GF106 at the heart of the GTS 450 1GB is essentially half of a fully enabled GF104. This evolution of the GF100 architecture is aimed at appeasing a market that is looking for higher efficiency than the higher end cards are capable of and yet still wants respectable performance. NVIDIA achieved this by upping the texture unit count per SM and slightly modifying the path by which higher level data is passed through the architecture.

The GF106 has four Streaming Multiprocessors which each contains 48 CUDA cores, 8 Special Function Units, 64KB of L1 cache, eight texture units and a Polymorph Engine containing the fixed function stages. In total, an unblemished GF106 has 192 cores and 32 texture units while lower-end cards could be created by disabling one or more of the SMs. This is all serviced by a single Raster Engine, 16 ROPs, 256KB of L2 cache and a pair of 64-bit memory controllers.

The GF106’s Features

As it stands, the GF106-based cards are the lowest priced units in the lineup that are compatible with NVIDIA’s Surround multi-monitor gaming setup. SLI is of course a requirement for Surround, but from our experiences the GTS 450 1GB is more than capable of delivering playable framerates across several monitors, as long as the detail settings are kept within acceptable ranges.

It goes without saying that other NVIDIA technologies such as CUDA, PhysX and 3D Vision are all useable on GF106-based cards but one of the main draws of the Fermi architecture’s efficient side is its ability to act as a higher-end HTPC card.

3D Vision & Blu Ray 3D

Even though we believe the whole “3D” craze in Hollywood is highly misplaced when it comes to actual movie support, there is no arguing with the fact people’s interest in it is growing. Through the use of a built-in HDMI 1.4 connector, the GF106 and GF104 support the 3D Blu-ray format which is an absolute necessity for watching movies in 3D. Naturally, you will need supporting software like Cyberlink’s PowerDVD 3D but luckily NVIDIA has also released 3D Vision Play to guide things along.

3D Vision Play is the final piece of the PC 3D movie puzzle. This piece of software allows the NVIDIA GPU to sync with 3D capable HDTVs via the HDMI 1.4 output. As a result, the standard 3D Vision glasses can be made to work with a TV set that would otherwise be incompatible, but beware that some HDTVs may still be incompatible.

Lossless Audio Playback

All of the GF104 and GF106 GPUs also support full bitstreaming of HD audio over HDMI. This means every bit of signal processing is done on the GPU itself without the need for external decoding. This is a huge step forward for those of you who want true high definition audio to go along with a 3D experience but once again you will need software that supports this feature.

Much like ATI, NVIDIA now has their own HDMI audio driver that is packaged along with their standard Forceware driver stack. With the 250-series drivers, this worked perfectly for us in the latest version of PowerDVD 10 but there is a catch. Below is a response from Cyberlink regarding how to get BD Bitstreaming working on PowerDVD. Supposedly, the process will be streamlined in later versions.

To get BD audio bitstreaming going you will need to play a Blu-ray disc, pause, then go to the settings menu. Make sure you select your HDMI audio output, and then select “Non-decoded high-definition audio to external device.

Dust Proof Fan

We all know that dust is a constant problem within a computer case and it can shorten the life of certain components like fans and power supplies. ASUS has implemented what they call a “dust proof fan” which is basically a hub design that ensures dust does not enter the bearing area which will in turn extend the fan’s lifespan. With this feature it is claimed that the fan’s life will be extended by nearly 10,000 hours.

GPU Guard

One of the main problems with larger GPUs is PCB flex which is easily identifiable on cards that use certain custom coolers. In these cases, the PCB will slightly bow where pressure is applied. Even though this isn’t a problem on cards sporting full-length coolers with multiple contact points, the ASUS GPU Guard aims to eliminate this by introducing additional reinforcement between the PCB layers.

Fuse Protection

While surge protectors and most UPS units will protect your computer from harmful surges, there are plenty of people out there that don’t have one of these units installed between their PC and the wall outlet. In order to add another layer of protection between the sensitive components on a graphics card and harmful power surges, ASUS has begun implementing Fuse Protection. This means a pair of fuses have been installed on the card just in case your power supply’s Over Current Protection fails as well. Let’s call this a last line of defence when all else fails.

ASUS GTS 450 TOP Specifications

The ASUS GTS 450 TOP brings about some simply awe-inspiring clock speeds to the table when you consider the reference speeds of the GTS 450. Both the memory and the core get equal treatment to the point where the core is running slightly above the speed of EVGA’s FTW while the memory is a mere 100Mhz behind. All of this for $10 more than the reference version? Sign us up!

Packaging & Accessories

The exterior packaging for the TOP series cards all seems to be the same with the usual angel / tiger hybrid and a whole lot of black. We do however appreciate the inclusion of the core clock on the front but the memory clock speed is conspicuous by its absence. ASUS has also included their Voltage Tweak / Smart Doctor software with this card as stated on the back of the box.


ASUS was able to cut down a bit on price by using a standard white interior box which runs contrary to the beautiful black / gold packaging we are used to seeing with TOP-series cards. Considering one MAY see the interior of the box once, we would rather the cost savings be used somewhere else and in the case of this card, they are.

Accessories are basic with a single Molex to 6-pin adaptor included along with the usual driver CD and quick install guide. Since the card itself has connectors for VGA, DVI and HDMI, no other dongles are needed...N

Printers have become multi-functional devices with options like scanner, copier, fax and network printing all integrated into a single device. While this definitely increases efficiency and productivity, it also comes at a price that may burn a deep hole in your pocket. On the other hand, singular printers do offer the basic needs that most homes require viz. printing. We’ve reviewed the Epson L100 printer and here’s what we feel about this product.


Design and Build Quality
The Epson L100 comes in an elegant all-black design.  The top consists of two buttons - Power ON and function that indicates whether the printer has a paper jam, or if the papers are incorrectly placed. The back consists of the power and printer cable slot. The input tray neatly fits into the printer assembly and can be slotted out when required. The output tray is detachable and isn’t integrated into the unit. The printer comes with a separate ink tank, with four colours - magenta, cyan, yellow and black, which can be slotted in from the side. The whole assembly weighs 2.8kg. It also consists of a choke valve that helps control the ink flow to minimise ink leakage or wastage. Upon opening the cartridge assembly slot, four neat little pipes are connected that pump ink to the cartridges. As far as design and build is concerned, the Epson L100 printer definitely looks classy.



Features
The Epson L100 employs an on-demand piezoelectric ink-jet printing method with support for both bi-directional and uni-directional printing. It has a friction paper feed method and a paper holding capacity of 100 sheets at a time. According to Epson, the printer has the capability to print up to 27 pages per minute in black text. The maximum resolution supported is 5760 x 1440 dpi and it uses Epson’s Variable-Sized Droplet Technology. Also, the Epson L100 has a ‘Fast Ink Top-up (FIT) Technology’ that helps reduce ink wastage with frequent print heads. Epson also states that the printer’s page yield is a cool 12,000+ pages for black and 6,500+ pages for colour.



Performance
We ran a series of tests on the Epson L100 in two modes - normal and fine. However, it is of worthy mention that our standard tests are on economy and normal mode. The results from the ‘economy’ and the ‘fast economy’ mode didn’t exactly match our criteria and hence we settled with the two modes mentioned above. The Epson L100 was put through four test standards in both normal and fine modes - text only, a PDF document with text and images, a complete image printout (on normal and glossy paper) and text with different font sizes. Below are the findings of the tests we carried out.

All text documents in normal mode had decent quality, but economy mode, in particular, displayed the text using small horizontal lines. Also, the ink saturation level in economy mode was extremely low, and hence we chose to perform the other tests in normal and fine mode. A PDF page took 107 seconds to print and it did have slight display of horizontal lines across the images. A complete A4 size image looked quite faded out and was average, at best. The blacks on the image were quite light and at certain places we did find ink blotting. Also, roller marks seemed to be visible and minor details, for example, the craters on a golf ball, weren't recognized by the printer. Printing a text page five times over took 97 seconds, which is definitely slow.

A warm-up time of a minimum of ten seconds appears if the printer remains unused for even sixty seconds. That is quite slow, in our recommendation, and might develop a problem for those wanting decent quality fast prints. Text documents took a whole 26 seconds to get printed (all times do not include the warm up time) in the fine mode and 23 seconds in the normal mode. Photo on glossy paper took 86 seconds to print out. The only test the printer fared well in was printing text with different font sizes - 12 seconds on fine mode and 11 seconds on normal mode.

Another important factor to note was the amount of noise the printer made while printing. It’s definitely much louder than the average noise most printers make while printing. Also, the printer drivers need to be installed as it does not support direct plug-and-play. Both, the printer cartridge, as well as the ink tank have simple instructional diagrams, which facilitate easy installation.

Epson's L100 Printer - a tad expensive, and noisy



Verdict
The Epson L100 is priced at Rs. 8,999. It performs the solo function of printing and doesn’t include any scanning, or network printing and hence, is limited to being called a single-function device. Also, as far as performance was concerned, the warm-up time, as well as the time to print even simple text was extremely high. That would be a downer for most people wanting fast, efficient printing. At Rs. 8,999 this printer doesn’t perfect the single function it intends to perform and hence, we believe it might not be the exact solution you’re looking for, for your printing needs. ..N

Buffalo Technologies has been in the storage business since a long time internationally, but it is yet to make a real impression in the crowded Indian market. To gain a foothold, the company has launched DriveStation Velocity, which is an external hard drive with SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface.
The DriveStation Velocity also comes with a proprietary disk-caching solution known as TurboPC EX, similar to what it offers with many other storage products, which claims to speed up the data transfer. The drive comes in a glossy polymer enclosure housing a 7200 RPM hard drive within. It allows horizontal as well as vertical placement. Data security is taken care of by the Secure Lock Manager Easy, which easily encrypts and decrypts data as required. The drive also features hardware encryption for additional security against unauthorised access...N


The Buffalo DriveStation Velocity comes in three capacities: HD-LX1.0TU3 (1 TB), HD-LX2.0TU3 (2 TB),
HD-LX3.0TU3 (3 TB), for suggested retail prices of Rs 4500, Rs 7282, and Rs 12,100. All Buffalo drives come with a 3-year replacement warranty.