Kingston Data Traveler | Cheap and Robust USB Flash Drive

Written by Admin on April 10, 2008

When looking for a new USB flash drive you might just look for the cheapest of the lot but there are many factors that I take into account before buying a new flash drive. Price does factor in my decision but because I often store important files on my drives that need to be transported I also look for durability and speed so I can transfer files in a hurry.

The Kingston Data Traveler has all of these features that make my life easier when transporting files. Although it doesn’t have any security features so I don’t use it to carry confidential material on, but use it for general files.

The manufacturer stats that it can do up to 3MB/s transfer and 6MB/s reading, I carried out some transfer speed tests on my own and found that the average time for large files (100MB+) was around 2.7MB/s which is fast enough for me.

In the time that I’ve used the Kingston Data Traveler I’ve found it to be incredibly robust for a drive that is so cheap. It’s been in the wash a few times when I’ve forgotten to take it out my trousers but as long as I’ve left it to dry afterwards it’s been fine. Its also been dropped down a flight of stairs but it’s still running smoothly.

If your looking for something cheap, cheerful and robust that will carry your files around then I would recommend this drive to anyone, but if your looking for a more secure USB flash drive to carry around sensitive data then I would suggest looking elsewhere.

Main Features

• Very Robust
• 3MB write and 6MB read speeds
• Cheap for its quality

More Info

• Find the 1GB version on Amazon
• Fine the 2GB version on Amazon
• Find the Kingston Data Traveler Dirt cheap on Ebay

Logitech VX Revolution | Cordless 2.4 GHz Wireless Notebook Mouse

Written by Admin on April 8, 2008

The Logitech VX Revolution Cordless Mouse was designed especially for Notebooks and has many features that aren’t even in the latest of Mice. Even though it’s relatively old It’s a decent mouse if you don’t mind spending a little extra for the features.

First off it has a sleek and comfortable design which makes it easy to handle, fitting comfortably in the palm of your hand. It has a “Hyper-fast” scroll wheel, or at least that what it says as I found it to be quite mediocre, but then again I am used to Gaming Mice although I must admit it does let you scroll through documents and webpage’s faster than some of the mice I have used.

A feature of this mouse that I’m unsure of though, is the zoom button. Its designed to let you zoom in on webpages, documents and pictures with ease, but you really have to ask yourself if you really need this feature. I know I don’t, but then again if you find yourself squinting at the monitor a lot then maybe this mouse was designed for you, or you could just need glasses.

The Logitech VX is wireless one of the features that many Notebook mice have these days, freeing up your work space from wires. Although, I have to point out that you should watch out for busy areas where a lot of people are using their Notebooks. The other day I ran into a problem, there was two of us in the same room using the same mouse and we were interfering with each other’s signal, it was rather frustrating.

I think this is one of the better Notebook mice I have used and it did try to set a trend with some of the features that it offered. Even though most of them never caught on and were in the end pointless, such as the Search button where you highlight a bit of text and click the button for it to open it up as a search in a search engine of your choice.

Main Features

• Fast and Smooth Scrolling
• Wireless 2.4GHz Connectio
• Zoom Button
• Search Button

More Info

• Read more on the Logitech VX mouse on Amazon
• Find the Logitech VX cheap on Ebay

Geforce9800 | The Facts About The New Geforce9800 series Cards

Written by Admin on April 2, 2008

NVIDIA has launched its latest set of cards, the GeForce9800 part of the Geforce 9 series which are its new hi-end graphics cards for desktops. The Geforce9800 comes in GX2, GTX, GS and GT variants. These new cards offer just under a 30% increase in the performance of the graphics as compared to the previous 8800GTX series GPUs.

The power consumption of the GX2 chipset is rated at 197watts. The architecture consists of two GPUs on 65nm scale with 256 stream processors. Since the chipset already contains two GPUs, so with addition of another similar graphics card, the total support comes out to be quad SLI. The model also has 1-GigaByte memory frame buffer and supports directx 10 and shader model 4, with the openGL version 2.1.

The GTX version of 9800 contains only single GPU with the core clock running at 675MHz and the shader clock running at 1688MHz. the memory is clocked at 2200MHz, with data path of 256bit. There is 512 MB of GDDR3 memory compared to the 1GB in the GX2 model. DirectX 10, shader model 4.0 OpenGL 2.1 are supported by this model of Geforce9800 too. Output ports include two DVI ports, an HDMI output, and S/PDIF in connector on-board for routing audio through the HDMI cable

Overall they are great graphics cards or will be in a few months when the prices come down but if you have the money to spend why not? Splash out. Otherwise I would suggest going for the Geforce8800 instead as these are half the price and the Geforece9800’s only have a 30% performance increase at best

More Info

• Find the Geforce 9800 GTX on Amazon
• Find the Geforce 9800 GX2 on Amazon
• Find the Geforce 9800 Cheap on Ebay