Friday 6 March 2015

Cougar 700K Mechanical Gaming Keyboard

Cougar 700K Mechanical Gaming Keyboard

Cougar sinks its sharp claws into the mechanical keyboard market

From the earliest PC days, keyboard had processors, even if most people weren't aware of them. They couldn't be used for much else other than polling the keys, but they were true microprocessors.

I mention this because the Cougar 700K has a processor in it that would probably see off all the 8-bit computers I owned and possibly most of the 16-bit ones too.

Jabra Step Wireless Headphones

Jabra Step Wireless Headphones

Jabra takes a Step towards our wireless audio future

A few months ago, I covered the Jabra Rox headphones and was suitably impressed. However, at more than £100 a pop, these weren't the cheapest means of getting audio through a Bluetooth connection.

Jabra clearly considered that a cheaper option might be very popular and designed the Step Wireless to fill that gap for under £60.

Acer Liquid Jade 16GB

Acer Liquid Jade 16GB

Acer occupies the middle ground in the smartphone wars

Some in the smartphone business have worked out that not everyone is prepared to spend £500 or more on a phone or sign up for a £40-per-month contract. But equally most of these same people don't want a slow device with a rubbish camera.

As a result, we're seeing a new stratum of £125-£225 phones that have generally good specifications that won't blow tumbleweeds through your current account.

Corsair Carbide Series 100R Silent Edition Mid-Tower Case

Corsair Carbide Series 100R Silent Edition Mid-Tower Case

Corsair demonstrates that not all great cases need to cost

Normally when I get a case to review, it‘s for someone else. By that I mean they're often for someone who likes lime-green neon, neo-classical architecture or the aesthetics of bulldozers.

Personally, I like simplicity and understated elegance, along with a good dose of practicality.

And shocking as it might seem, that makes the new Corsair Carbide 100R case almost perfect for me - and hopefully a number of people reading this magazine.

Buffalo LinkStation 441

Buffalo LinkStation 441

Michael goes buffalo hunting with a NAS box

Buffalo has released its LinkStation 441 NAS 4-bay desktop unit, which is compatible with Windows, Mac, Android and iOS platforms. Aimed at small business and home office users, this NAS box is available as a diskless product or with a storage capacity of up to 16TB depending on your needs.

I’ve been checking out this NAS box populated with four 1TB drives. Included in the package are leads for power (two and three-pin versions) and an Ethernet cable for integrating the NAS box into a network via a connection to a router. You also get a quick setup guide, software CD and a couple of keys for when you need to unlock a front panel to gain access to the drive bays.