Remembering… Box art

David Hayward spent a lot of time looking at boxes

Computer and video game box art, or cover art, was once just as important element of game marketing as the game itself. Who cared if the game consisted of a stickman running a wire-thin strip of landscape, dodging ASCII characters? If the box art displayed something totally amazing, then the game invariably sold.

Chillblast Fusion Quartz

All you need in a desktop PC

Big PC boxes are traditionally known as ‘towers’. This one takes the term pretty literally. It could comfortably house the headquarters of a small country’s secret police. Bucking the trend for show-off neon-lit fishtank systems, there are no windows. What happens inside is the stuff of tales told by mothers to frighten their children. We shall not speak of it.

Magix Video Pro X8

Magix update its top-of-the-range video editor

VideoPro X8 is the latest version of Magix professional video editing suite. Admittedly it’s a product with a fairly hefty price, yet as our American cousins would say, it provides a lot of bang for your buck.

And for those that simply dabble with video editing or only throw together the odd celebratory slideshow, Magix offers a comprehensive range of more affordable alternatives. But make no mistake: Pro X offers as much as, if not more than, many professional editing suites, which could cost you five times as much.

Archos 70 Platinum

An inexpensive device with a great display

The 7" tablet market has grown significantly in recent months, with users much preferring more manageable devices, rather than something that’s 10 inches or more.

Archos has risen to that demand and produced an interesting range of 7" Android tablets, from the GampePad through to the top-of-the range 70b Helium. This Archos 70 Platinum comes in second to the Helium, so you can expect some pretty decent specifications.

Synology DiskStation DS216j

Synology delivers a new j series NAS box for the discerning user

I really liked the DS215j, and so I would have been rather shocked to have spurned the DS216j given that it’s remarkably similar in almost every respect. The outside is almost identical, being a minimalist exercise in high quality plastic and form-is-functionality. Synology has been using this dual-drive design for a while and evidently sees no compelling reason to change it now.