Why has it taken me so long to put together this review of BenQ’s sub-£800 projector? It’s been on the go here at Bidmead Towers since before Christmas. Could it be that I’ve been enjoying it so much I’m reluctant to return this review sample to the manufacturer? Perhaps. My official reason is that its excellence (for a remarkably low price) is subtle. Not easy to put into words. And I want to do it… Now read on…
With the raw mechanics of RAID out of the way, we’re now ready to get some fun out of this QNAP TS-451 NAS. You’ll have realised by now that it’s a lot more than a chunk of 11TB of storage on my LAN. The daemons we talked about in part 1 can be set to work behind the scenes whipping up all kinds of magic. FOR THE PAST SEVERAL MONTHS the QNAP TS-451 has been working… Now read on…
Last time I said we’d be talking about the non-game uses for the nVidia Shield TV. As it’s an Android device (and, unlike the Amazon Fire Stick and Box, fully Google compliant) the Shield gives you access to a subset of the Google Play Store, although not all the apps there will be appropriate to its function. Let’s take a look at some that are… THE NVIDIA SHIELD TV IS A SLICK launch pad for… Now read on…
nVidia launched the Shield Android TV here in the UK on September the 30th last year. Normally, journalists expect review samples to be available either at the launch itself, or very shortly after. With the Shield it took three months and a dozen or so email exchanges with nVidia’s hard-pressed PR rep, Ben Fletcher, before I could lay my hands on it. And even then—as you’ll have gathered from the story so far—that was only… Now read on…
The first 10″ iPad at the beginning of this decade took two hands to hold comfortably, so you’d need a third hand for pointing, tapping and swiping. Three years earlier the iPhone had introduced us to a new sense of touchy-feely intimacy with the device we held, but its 3.5″ display was too small once you’d popped up a virtual keyboard. And then came the 7″ tablet. There was room to work with an onscreen… Now read on…
Winding up the previous part of this nVidia Shield review I wrote “So now, I think, we’re at last ready to get on with Part 3—the actual review!” We aren’t. WE’RE WAITING FOR THE GAMES CONTROLLER to be FedExed back from the nVidia European base in Holland, where it’s been on a hospital visit to get one of its buttons repaired. Well, of course, I won’t get back the one I sent; the RMA (Return… Now read on…
I ended the last part by failing to lament the absence of DAB on the Yamaha RX-V679 Receiver. What the device does have wireless-wise—not counting the wireless network capability we’ve already discussed—are Bluetooth and (a limited version of) Apple’s Airplay. I wind up the adventure with this useful extra connectivity. Bluetooth and Airplay THE RX-V679 IMPROVES ON THE RX-V677 model it replaces with the welcome addition of Bluetooth. (A plug-in Bluetooth accessory was available for… Now read on…
Ok, so the Shield and I got off to a bad start. A bit like those Hollywood romcoms where in act one the boy and girl can’t stand the sight of each other. And then the love affair begins. I feel act two coming on. But before we get into that, let’s see if we can throw a little light on what went wrong. The worst thing, to my mind, wasn’t the bug itself. These… Now read on…
The DSP Programs I talked about last time are at the core of the RX-V679. This is where Yamaha’s expertise really shines. But to get to this functionality you need to go through the device’s user interface (UI). Weakness in this part of the design isn’t unique to Yamaha—it seems to be endemic across mid-range audio products. With that caveat, I promised earlier I’d say something about the RX-V679’s remote control. So here goes… The… Now read on…
When a newly acquired gadget goes wrong, the first thing any inquisitive user will do is scour the Web for disgruntled fellow-sufferers. And of course will always find them. The next step might be to tweet, or otherwise publicly complain: “Product X is a load of shite. Everybody’s had this same problem.” Watch out for this, because you’ve now fallen into a logical trap. Yes, there are several others out there who’ve run into the… Now read on…
