Zath - UK Tech Blog

It appeared an odd coincidence that on the day I realised my MacBook Pro would need to go in for some potentially pretty hefty repairs, I would receive delivery of the Dell XPS 15z, the high performance laptop that can only be described as a keen admirer of the machine that I hold dearest at the moment. From almost every angle, it would seem an obvious replica of Apple’s flagship portable, a machine which has won hearts and minds for its craftsmanship and its beauty. And here, in an almost mocking fashion, I’m being stared in the face by something which in truth, is kidding no-one.

Specs

The model I’ve been given to review for Zath is actually at the top end of the three which are available here in the UK, with the entry level model setting you back a modest £899 and offering a Sandy Bridge Core i5 clocked at 2.3GHz, 4GB RAM and a 500GB hard drive, however if you make the step up to the intermediate option, for £100 extra you’ll get a 1920 x 1080 display as I have in this, even more lucrative model. [Read more…]

In a world where there is so much dependence on the accessibility and security of digitally stored data, the corporate scene is crying out for substantial methods of holding it. Even small businesses can rack up terabytes of data, and unfortunately in few cases, without even a second thought for backing it all up. What we have here today is the Startech Infosafe RAID enclosure with four SATA hard drive bays, which aims to help you achieve just that.

Specs

The setup supports up to 4 drives, and though maxing it out isn’t necessary you can have as few as you like in there. My tests proved that the unit can handle any capacity of SATA drive up to 2 terabytes, giving you a maximum of 8, however, I won’t rule out at this point that the unit will handle the newer 3TB drives just emerging onto the market at the time of writing. [Read more…]

Firstly, you might ask why would you need the Huawei E367 3G Broadband Dongle on Three? Especially given smartphones, with their built in 3G data connections, are great for taking care of your social networks and the occasional e-mail on the go, but they’re also somewhat limiting in what they can do.

You won’t have any problems typing out a 140 character tweet on a touchscreen keyboard, but what if you have some more serious work to attend to? Attempting to type out an essay or a series of long emails on any phone will undoubtedly leave your hands looking like they’ve been through a thumb war with Ivan Drago, and all of the auto-corrections will leave you more frustrated than, well, I’ll leave that one for you to finish off…

If you were able to take your laptop with you wherever you went, however, and use a 3G connection with that machine instead of your smartphone, your life would probably become a whole lot easier. If you don’t want to rely on free public WiFi access for your data fix on the go, then you may want to invest in a 3G dongle, such as the Huawei E367 from Three, to give you the flexibility of a data connection wherever you are and the reliability of your trusted personal computer. [Read more…]

Let’s not try and deny it: the netbook market is painstakingly boring. At the start, it had some imagination. Expensive Windows licenses were pushed aside for custom Linux distributions which were great to try out, but of course Microsoft came along eventually and killed off the resurgence of the Tux yet again.

A few years on and things haven’t really changed. Almost every netbook on the shelf now runs Windows, probably Windows 7 Starter Edition, the vast majority run on an Intel Atom processor, have the same amount of RAM, the same graphics chip and the same form factor. Don’t say I didn’t warn you: the netbook market is painstakingly boring. Fortunately for us, there might be one netbook that has brought a smidge of differentiation to the market. The Acer Aspire One is 10.1″ big – pretty standard – but that 10.1″ display doesn’t have a resolution of 1024 x 600, but a HD resolution of 1280 x 720. [Read more…]