Computer Reviews

The Sony VAIO VGC-RC110G desktop computer is a good all round machine serving as a home entertainment center PC. With its fairly plain looks, it might not be a cool as some of their higher end equipment, but good for those looking for something that has a little clout.

When you mention Sony computers, or Sony VAIO computers, the first thing that comes to mind is their laptop computers, but the line of Sony desktop computers also have something to offer.

Their models are all designed to be used in home entertainment centers, I suppose because of Sony’s link to electronics and the entertainment industry. So these computers are aimed in line with the rest of their customer base.

This model sports a Pentium D 830 3GHz processor, which is not the newest in the Pentium D series, but allows for a few savings on more expensive, very up-to-date parts. It serves well in all applications. The 1GB or DDR2 memory is plenty for pretty much any application, and their is the option to upgrade if that vast amount ever becomes too little.

As this relatively cheap Sony computer is designed for your entertainment system it comes with Windows Media Center which allows a lot of options for recording from your TV and getting the most from your system. There is also a DVD drive which will write all of the popular DVD formats. It also includes a DVD-ROM.
A single 250GB hard drive covers all of the storage needs. There are options for RAID with SATA, but will necessitate upgrades if you want to take advantage of these features.

The water cooling of this case is cool as water cooling allows the heat to be transported more effectively, reducing the need for big, or many, fans and leading to less overall noise from the system.

All of the audio/visual ports are available from the front of the case, which makes them accessible, but ugly, so there are more at the back for permanent connections. There is also a card reader built into the third DVD bay from the top.

Its features are fine and it includes a non-descript 128MB video card. It does the trick and has alright looks to match. If you need to use it as a desktop computer, then you will have to get normal Windows to do that. In terms of price, I’m one for getting the cheapest of a series, so one with a slower Pentium D would be my recommendation.

Transferring data securely has always been an issue. Any kind of drive can be lost, misplaced, stolen or damaged. All of these mean the loss of your data, which is very often valuable.

Flash drives have become popular because of their small size, fairly high capactiy and robustness. However, they are also easy to get stolen or get lost.

To stop others from seeing your private data when they shouldn’t A-data have introduced a fingerprint sensor which makes the drive inaccessible for anyone but those whose fingerprints have been verified.

The drive itself comes with proprietary software loaded onto the disk that gets loaded when the disk is plugged in. It requires you to put your fingerprint on the the sensor to unlock it. It does support more than one users fingerprint and has a backup password system just in case.

This all allows the disk to be pretty secure, although someone could probably get a hold of your information if they were diligent enough.

However, this solution is very good and gives you peace of mind when travelling with your private information. PS. remember to keep backups because even if they can’t hack into it, you still won’t have your data anymore.

The biggest nag is that it will ONLY work in Windows. Other operating systems, you’ll see nothing on the disk.

Some of the other features:

• Sweep-type fingerprint sensor
• USB 2.0 connection
• Software pre-installed
• No special drives needed for fingerprint system

Biostar are attempting to get into the enthusiast overclocking part of the computer sector with this new model. The T-series represents their high-perfromance boards.

In the review at bit-tech.net they have a closer look at how well it performs, especially compared to the other boards in the same price range as this one.

The board itself is well set out with the 24 pin power cable input being the strangest positioned thing on this board. Sitting back near the USB ports it makes wiring a bit of a drag as the wires have to pass across the board from the back of the PSU.

One of the other strange things was the lack of a manual in the box, which was a little strange, although it was probably just forgotten on this box, as I don’t think there is any great reason to not have one. The cost saving could only be minor by leaving it out.

There is an option to set the voltage of the DDR2 modules to 3.3V, which is actually too much for them. With standard voltages of 1.8V this should fry them within a few hours.

Much of the board is set out alright, not too well, but not too badly either. The features it includes are good. A 280MHz FSB speed was all that they could get out of the board which doesn’t rate that great against some of the competition that can be overclocked to much higher levels than that.

For gaming enthusiasts it will not meet the grade. It does well generally, but not enough for those who want to dish out all this cash for a motherboard. Check out the full review at bit-tech.net

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