ASUS Commando Reviews

The Commando is a P965-based board that joins the “Republic of Gamers” league, consisting of the Striker (nForce 680i based), and the Crosshair (nForce 590SLI based) motherboards. The first evident difference between the Commando and the P5B-Deluxe is the fancy heatpipe solution. Secondly, the newcomer features an all-solid state capacitor design, improving the board’s life. The all-practical E-SATA back port gets dumped for the LCD diagnostic poster. Overall a very well-laid-out board with all the SATA connectors facing outwards (opposed to upwards); ditto the solitary IDE port. There’s space aplenty between the CPU heatsink and memory modules. However, the heatpipe solution will make installation of larger heatsinks a little difficult if not impossible. Incidentally, motherboard temperatures remained well within acceptable limits during our tests. Neither did the heatpipe assembly get too warm. ASUS provides a plethora of overclocking and tweaking options in the BIOS. You can store various BIOS settings as Overclock Profiles, and load them at startup, depending what you plan to do during the session. Surprisingly, the Commando lagged slightly behind the ASUS P5B-Deluxe we tested a while ago. Priced at Rs 17,500 the Commando is a bit overpriced. After all, aside from the bling factor, and the solid capacitors, it is costlier than the P5B-Deluxe, which adds Wi-Fi and E-SATA as connectivity options. Gamers will also note the full version of GRAW that’s been bundled “free” with the board.
Specifications:
Intel P965 chipset based; ICH8R Southbridge; 6xSATA 2 ports; Expansion slots—1xPCI-Express x16, 1xPCI-Express x4, 1xPCI-Express x1, 4xPCI slots; 4 rear USB ports; 1 FireWire port...

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Mercury HT 5800R Home Theatre 5.1 Channel System Reviews

Though this 5.1 channel system has a 5,800 watts PMPO, it has only 25 watts RMS for the satel-lites and 50 watts RMS for the subwoofer. The RMS power gives you an idea about the actual sound output that the system can achieve without distortion, whereas the PM PO output indicates the maximum out-put achievable by the system, albeit with distortions. The wires are long enough,and speaker stands and wall mountings are provided as well. One shortcoming is the ridiculously short power sup-ply wire. The system provides good performance and at Rs 7,000, it offers good value for money. The subwoofer is quite powerful and you can crank up the volume with-out experiencing too much distortion. If you’re looking to own a 5.1 speaker sys-tem, but are constrained by your budget, the Mercury HT 5800R offers a decent enough solution. How- ever, if you cannot settle for anything less than perfectsound, give this one a miss... SPECIFICATIONS : Four satellites at 25 W RMS, one subwoofer at 50 W RMS, w...

Mercury HT-4500 Reviews

The HT-4500 is a 5.1-chan-nel speaker set and each of the five satellites pumps out 6 watts RMS, while the subwoofer is capable of 20 W RMS power output. The black satellite speakers are compact and subwoofer. Also, the cable for the front channel speakers isn’t long enough for the speakers to be placed suffi-ciently far apart. The cable connecting the woofer to the soundcard is of the same colour, which can cause some confusion. The speakers give a good surround sound effect with reasonable clarity for a good home theatre experience and can also be connected directly to a DVD player. The performance in the low and mid frequencies is also good. However, the speakers are not built to listen at full well-designed, though a tad heavy. The subwoofer has the volume and fade controls on the front, which makes it dif-ficult to access these settings, as subwoofers are generally placed near the feet, with the front face ideally facing a reflecting surface. Another inconvenience is the power swi...

Che-ez Spyz Digital Camera Reviews

Spyz is slightly larger than a matchbox and comes in sil-ver and metallic blue. It bun-dles a dog tag and an USB cable, but oddly, misses the battery. The software bundle comprises the Che-ez manag-er, Arcsoft Photo Studio 2000 and the driver CD. The manual explains fea-tures such as sound beeps, LED and LCD displays very neatly. The device can take up to 26 photos in the high-resolution mode of 640 x 480 pixels, and 107 photos in the low resolu-tion mode of 320 x 240 pixels. Other features include a timer and continuous capture that turns the camera into a cam-corder. The Che-ez Manager also lets you convert frames into a movie in AVI format. The Spyz can also act as a Web camera when used with the Che-ez Manager or MS Netmeeting. However, some-times the manager does not recognise shortcut keys such as the [Alt] + [F4] combination for closing the program. The interface is also very basic and below par. The price tag may justify all the features of the Spyz, but the management software...

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