But, what should be the first thing you do as soon as you get hold of the tablet? Watch our video as we run down the 10 things you should do as soon as you get it out of the box.

BlackBerry PlayBook: 10 things you should do first

Source: T3 Tech Videos

Posted by Rhiain Morgan

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We managed to get hold of one of the tablets at BlackBerry World 2011 and couldn’t wait t find out what was lurking in the box. Here’s our BlackBerry PlayBook unboxing video.

BlackBerry PlayBook unboxing video

Source: T3 Tech Videos

Posted by Rhiain Morgan

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It also comes with the brand new BlackBerry 7 OS, a refreshed design and improved UI. Can it compete with the Android Army and the iPhone? Press play to find out in our BlackBerry Bold Touch video.

BlackBerry Bold Touch video

Source: T3 Tech Videos

Posted by Rhiain Morgan

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Although DSLRs are becoming increasingly complex and feature-rich, manufacturers are trying to make them easier to use. Nikon has been at the forefront of this development, over the last six months we’ve seen the Nikon D3100 (read our review here) and now it’s bigger brother the Nikon D5100.

Nikon D5100 specs inclue a 16.2Mp Nikon D5100, which replaces the D5000, has straight-forward handling, easy to use Special Effects modes (Night Vision, Color Sketch, Miniature, Selective Color, Silhouette, High Key and Low Key), an image-merging HDR option, a host of scene modes and an articulated 3in LCD screen to help when shooting from unusual angles.

In many ways the D5100 seems to offer everything the aspiring photographer could wish for as the more advanced Program, Aperturee Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual exposure modes are also on hand.

Check out our Nikon D5100 test shots here:

Nikon D5100 Controls
 

There isn’t much room for buttons on the rear of the D5100 so live view and movie recording (1080p) are activated by controls on the top-plate. This may seem odd given that using live view and shooting movies means looking at the screen, but as the D5100’s screen folds in and out users may view the camera from above more often than usual.

Small niggles aside, the D5100 is easy to get to grips with, and while there might not be direct control for aspects such as sensitivity, white balance and metering, these and more can be accessed quickly via the on-screen Information Edit Display.

Nikon D5100 Screen
 

With 920,000 dots the D5100’s 3in LCD shows plenty of detail, but reflections are an issue in bright sunlight and it may be necessary to shade it with a hand. However, the articulated joint on the screen’s left is a real bonus when shooting from unusual angles.

Although the LCD image is clear and movement is usually smooth, when the Color Sketch or Miniature Special Effects modes are activated the live view image becomes very jerky, presumably because of the demand on the D5100’s processing power.

Nikon D5100 Speed and performance
 

All the controls on the D5100 are responsive and it starts up quickly. When a class 6 SD card like a SanDisk Extreme III is installed, the D5100 can shoot continuously at a maximum rate of 4fps for around 100 highest quality JPEGs, or 20 raw images, or 12 simultaneous raw and JPEG files.

Nikon D5100 Battery
 

Nikon supplies a rechargeable Li-ion EN-EL14 battery with the D5100. This takes around 1 hour 30 mins to charge from flat using the supplied MH-24 charger. A fully charged battery should last for around 660 shots in single-frame release mode or 2,200 shots in Continuous release mode.

Nikon D5100 Picture and video quality

The D5100 features the same 16.2 million pixel CMOS sensor and EXPEED 2 processor as the Nikon D7000. These prove to be very capable and noise is controlled well throughout the D5100’s sensitivity range (ISO 100-6400 expandable to ISO 25,600). At low sensitivity settings the level of detail visible in images and video also impresses.

We have seen the D5100’s white balance, metering and (11-point) AF systems before in the D5000 and they don’t disappoint. Grass can look a little too yellow in sunlight when the auto white balance setting is used though. This isn’t an issue for Raw shooters, but those wanting to get JPEGs right in-camera may wish to switch to the Direct Sunlight option or the Landscape Picture Control mode.

The Special Effects are easy to use and generally work well, although a grainy monochrome mode might be more popular than the Color Sketch mode. It would also be nice to have control over exposure compensation when these modes are selected. Although there is some subtle haloing, the image combining HDR mode proves very useful for capturing high contrast scenes such as landscapes with deep shadows.

Nikon D5100 Verdict

Nikon has produced a very capable and versatile camera that is fun and easy to use, its image quality is also superb. While it would make an ideal SLR for a novice looking to take more creative images, it has enough features to make it worthy of consideration by enthusiast photographers.

Nikon D5100 launch date: Out now, link Nikon

Nikon D5100 price: £699-£799 online, with kit lens

Posted by Angela Nicholson

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After blowing us away at CES,the Motorola Atrix gained the coveted top spot in the T3 Hot 100. It’s the latest in a line of successful devices from Motorola, including the first Honeycomb tablet the Motorola Xoom (check out our review here) and the rugged Motorola Defy.

But it’s the Atrix that is Motorola’s crown jewels. First and foremost this is powerful, dualcore smartphone. Add a series of docks, however to the USB and HDMI connections and it comes a multimedia hub, or even a 11.6-inch laptop. You can also transform” it into an alarm clock.

Motorola Atrix: Android 2.2

Solid and well built, the Atrix 2.2 and exudes a restrained air of competence and power, a bit like a top-class bodyguard. It dresses all in black like one, too  It runs Android (2.2) – Froyo – overlaid with Motoblur, offering excellent Twitter and Facebook integration and useful Motorola widgets.

The four-inch, 960×540 touchscreen is responsive, bright, with bold colours. There’s less fine detail than on the iPhone 4, but the slightly larger size and very pure whites do go some way towards making up for that.

The speaker on the back ridge musters an excellent volume level. Quality is also good, if not exceptional, through the 3.5mm output. The 5-megapixel camera capture 720p movies, they’re a little soft and although colours are bright, the colour balance notivably shifted a couple of times depending on the light, although this could be because of our sample was early.

Motorola Atrix: Performance 

The dualcore Tegra 2 processor never feels slow. You can quickly swap between open browser windows, maps, games and video playback without it batting an eyelid. At the moment there aren’t many games or apps that make the most of the extra processing oomph, although it handles Samuari II Vengeance very well, with smooth motion and bold graphics.

Dock the Atrix in the Lapdock or HDMI-connected Multimedia Dock (see below for more information about the individual docks), select the Webtop mode and things get seriously next-gen. On the bigger screen, app shortcuts are arranged along the bottom. You can also add bookmarks or web apps; settings are accessed in the top corner.

If you prefer something more familiar, Mobile View displays a mini version of the Atrix’s home screen. There, you can click any app as normal and use phone features including calls – a pop-up box indicates an incoming call and you get decent call quality through the mic and speaker – contacts and mail. It’s easy enough, even if it’s unsurprisingly not as slick as a proper laptop OS. If a smartphone screen isn’t big enough, you can even play Angry Birds.

You can read and edit email attachments using Quick Office, access web-based apps such as Google Docs and Sugar Sync and, if your business uses Citrix, you can remotely access a full Windows desktop, so you can open and use PowerPoint and Word documents – a very simple yet powerful feature. You can copy and paste elements from Citrix to Webtop, save to the phones memory where you can access it via the File Manger or transfer to USB.

The docks also give you a full-screen Firefox browser. This works a treat on both our 42-inch TV and Moto’s 11.6-inch Lapdock, streaming T3.com, YouTube and BBC iPlayer at speed over the N Wi-Fi. Motorola’s slick Entertainment Centre also makes a good fist of showcasing your phone’s media files.

Motorola Atrix: Multimedia Dock in detail

The HD Multimedia Dock includes Dual HDMI mini and micro USB connections let you dock the Atrix and connect the dock to your flatscreen via mini HDMI Three USB ports let you add accessories like a mouse or by a USB key for saving and accessing data. To get the best of it you really need a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, otherwise you have to use left and right virtual keys and move around the 4-inch screen.

Display Settings adjust automatically. The max resolution we could watch on a 42-inch TV was 1280x720p at 60Hz, picture quality is pretty good though and it plays back audio through your TV. Big-screen options make this a more inclusive way of sharing phone content, perhaps killing the All-In-One?

To get the best from the Multimedia Dock you need the mouse and keyboard. Motorola’s wireless mouse is solid, comfortable and works on a variety of surfaces. We could even use it from ten feet across our kitchen, at an angle. The keyboard is light enough to use comfortably on your lap, but the keys remain a good size for prolonged typing. Dedicated music, SMS, contacts and browser keys work in Mobile View mode.

Motorola Atrix: Lapdock

So to the Lapdock. This has a flap at the back for your Atrix, this restricts how far the screen can go back and it would be better if it docked below the keyboard and became the touchpad, but maybe that’s a few incarnations away yet. Everything looks bright and clear enough on the 11.6-inch, 1366×768 screen and the keys are a good size, with a decent travel. It’s not as slick as a Windows or OS X laptop, but it is a very cool bit of kit
 

Motorola Atrix: Verdict

The Atrix is a great phone if you can ignore its slightly ropey camera. Arguably only business users will make full use of the Lapdock, but the HD Multimedia Dock is an excellent alternative to Apple’s iPhone/AirPlay/Apple TV system
for getting your phone’s content on a big screen and hi-fi. It’s not as neat and seamless, but the quality is comparable and it’s cheaper.
 

Motorola Atrix launch date: Soon from Orange

Motorola Atrix price:  Phone TBC, HD Multimedia Dock, free with £40 a month contract, £50 as a kit with mouse and keyboard. Lapdock £299; Bedside Dock; bundled with the phone.

Posted by Hannah Bouckley

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We first saw the Android Samsung Galaxy S2 (GT-I9100) mobile phone at MWC earlier this year and it was love at first sight. The successor to the Samsung Galaxy S includes a gorgeous next-gen 4.2inch AMOLED screen in a slimmer body.

Samsung Galaxy S II video: 10 Things

Well, the handset finally landed on T3’s doorstep a few days ago, and we can confirm this is more than a fleeting attraction. Samsung is seriously challenging HTC for the Android crown.

Samsung Galaxy S2: Build

Pick up the phone and the first thing you notice is how light it is – it’s just 116g. Measuring 8.49mm, it’s incredibly slim in comparison to 9.9mm for the original Galaxy S; 9.3mm for the Apple iPhone 4 and 8.7mm for the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc.

While the Galaxy S2 will certainly fit into the tightest jeans pocket, the compromise is build quality – the body just feels cheap and uninspiring. Things don’t improve when you remove the wafer thin back to insert a sim – we’d be seriously worried about snapping it.

Controls are limited to volume on one side, power on the other, MHL port, which serves a dual purpose of charging via USB and outputting to HDMI, and a 3.5mm jack on the top, Samsung includes a range of streaming options including DLNA.

Samsung Galaxy S2: Screen

The highlight of S2 is the 4.3-inch 800×480 screen, which incorporates Super AMOLED Plus technology. Colours are eye popping and blues and greens literally jump out of the screen at you. Off-angle viewing is excellent too – the first phone we’ve seen to match the iPhone 4.

A larger screen sizes means that the phone is bulky, but it’s a joy for movies. When playing back our test HD movie clips, detail is sharp and action smooth. We found that whites aren’t as pure or bright as those on the iPhone 4, although blacks seem darker and colours are bolder and warmer. It handles action smoothly too.

Samsung Galaxy S2: Android

Running Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread), you get seven homescreens customisable with widgets and shortcuts. Swipe down to quickly activate WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and Auto Rotation settings. Phone, Contact, Messaging and Application settings along the bottom are static when you are browsing the homescreens. Like other Android phones, press down to customise with Shortcuts, Folders, Wallpaper and numerous Samsung widgets.

Samsung’s overlayed Android with its TouchWiz UI which is functional and adds some neat features, including four hubs: Music (see below), Games, Readers and Social Hub, which acts as a portal to Kobo bookstore and Magazines via Zinio.

Social Hub syncs social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, to IM accounts including Google Talk; and MySpace and Linked-in. It’s functional, syncing your contacts, but we prefer HTC Sense. In addition Sony Ericsson’s Xperia skin is slightly easier to use, for example here you can only organize the Applications via grid or list and to create App Folders you make the folder first before dragging items onto it.

Samsung Galaxy S2: Processor

The Galaxy S2 has a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor. In use the phone feels incredibly quick – one of the fastest smartphones we’ve used, whether you’re browsing a web page or swapping between applications it never feels slow. During our tests it loads web pages over WiFi quicker than the iPhone 4 – loading a content-rich website like T3.com in just 15 seconds.

This isn’t a Nvidia Tegra 2 chip, so we couldn’t download  games designed specifically for this (such as Samurai II: Vengence THD), but there are a decent selection of games to play. We defy anyone to not enjoy Shrek Karting with the 3-axis gyroscope, and it ably handles speedy gameplay.

Samsung Galaxy S2: Camera

Samsung has boosted the camera resolution from 5-megapixels to 8-megapixels, instead of a dedicated shutter; you tap the virtual shutter, which is fairly quick if not quite as nippy as the offering on the iPhone 4.

There are plenty of manual controls. Adjust the ISO from 100-800, choose from five white balance settings and choose between three metering settings. Samsung has also included Smile Shot, Beauty, Action, Cartoon and Panorama scene modes. Alongside auto focus, Macro mode captures sharp shots to around 10cm and there’s an effective Face Detection mode.

Still results are pleasing, the S2 is pretty good at controlling noise, and we’d like them to be a little sharper, colours are very natural. The S2 shoots HD video at 720p and 1080p at 30fps and results are pleasing; it’s smooth, with natural colours, perhaps lacking a little definition.

Samsung Galaxy S2: Music

Music Hub lets you browse and buy tracks from 7Digital, downloading directly to your phone, expect to pay around 99p. It’s very well laid out with Featured, Genres, My Music and My page icons along the top.

Confusingly there’s also a Music Player, the interface is very similar, although can create playlists here. We’ve no complaints about the sound quality, when you plug some headphones into the 3.5mm jack, and here you can access nine Equalizer modes and some Sound Effects, including the useful Bass enhancement and Wide.

Samsung Galaxy S2: Other features,

Samsung’s included motion controls. Hold an app down then move the phone left or right to scroll through the homescreens and reposition it. Elsewhere hold two fingers on the screen and move towards you and away from you to zoom in and out. We’re not sure how useful these are – to us they felt awkward, but maybe with more time with the phone  you will become more familiar with them.

Polaris Office lets you create and edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents. In portrait mode we did find the keyboard a bit cramped and frequently tapped the wrong keys and the predictive text isn’t as impressive as the iPhone 4. Alternatively the Swipe keyboard detects words as you drag your fingers over the keys, it works pretty well, although frequently didn’t recognize our choices, although this probably has more to do with us hitting the wrong keys. In landscape mode typing is far easier.

Elsewher you get Exchange Activesync, and Kies Air for accessing phone content over WiFi from a PC

Samsung Galaxy S2: Battery

With WiFi on, maximum brightness, moderate browsing, some video and photos we got into our second day. One of the most useful features is Task Manager, where you can view and kill active applications and clear the RAM, and you can enable Power Saving Mode to cut in when the power gets to 50%

Samsung Galaxy S2: Verdict

Our main complaint about the S2 is the build. It’s doesn’t feel premium and considering it will set you back close to £500 on pre-order, this isn’t good enough.

From the HTC Incredible S to the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, there have been some great Android handsets this year; however none have been fantastic, until now. Combining top-notch connectivity with one of the best screens available on a smartphone, backed by a powerful dual-core and good camera, the Samsung Galaxy  S2 is quite simply a fantastic phone, we just wish the Korean giant had produced a handset with build closer to the feel of a top-end HTC or Apple handset.
 

Samsung Galaxy S2 launch date: May, link Samsung

Samsung Galaxy S price: TBC, pre-order for £499-£529

Posted by Hannah Bouckley

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From the inconvenience of taking the wrong USB drive to work, to the abject horror of a hard drive fail, problems with data are never fun. Backing up your most important files online can be a real life-saver if disaster strikes. Here are five cloud services that can store, share and protect your data for a small monthly fee…

Best: Ease of use
Dropbox
2GB: Free I 50GB: £5.60 per month
Love: Intuitive to use. Phone apps. 2GB free
Hate: Limited data plans
Dropbox review I Link: Dropbox

Best: Apple users
MobileMe
£60 per year
Love: Easy to upload files. iPhone tracking
Hate: Apple’s premium pricing and relative lack of PC-friendliness
MobileMe review I Link: Apple

Best: Office documents
Google Docs
1GB: Free I 20GB: £3.20 per year
Love: Clean and simple web interface. Quickest on test for uploads
Hate: only 1GB of free storage. Basic look
Google Docs review I Link: Google

Best: Unlimited storage
Livedrive Backup
£3.95 per month
Love: Unlimited storage for a reasonable price
Hate: online uploads cost a little extra
Livedrive Backup review I Link: Livedrive

Best: Social networking
SugarSync
30GB: £3 per month
Love: Easy and automatic synching. Wide support
Hate: Slow initial uploads
SugarSync review I Link: SugarSync

Posted by James Trew

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For amateurs wanting to achieve professional looking photos, and, increasingly, video, the digital SLR remains king. Canon’s newest entry level DSLR comes after last year’s equally accessible EOS 550D, which remains just below it in the EOS range.

The most noticeable difference between the two 18-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor DSLRs is that the Canon EOS 600D has added on a tilt and swivel LCD screen. No coincidence, as the next step up, the EOS 60D model, sensibly offers photographers and videographers one too.

The 600D goes directly up against the equally new 16.2 megapixel D5100 from Nikon, also notable for an adjustable LCD. Clearly this is a feature increasingly in demand, and, as we’ll discover, a particularly useful one too. At a manufacturer’s suggested £679 body only, the Canon is just £10 more than its Nikon rival.

Beginners should spend £100 more however and get the EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 image stabilised zoom we had on test with it, which is a jack-of-all trades starter option in the absence of any body integral anti shake. Ideally you’d go for the more expansive 18-135mm zoom, likewise offered as a kit bundle with the 600D, but this won’t leave much change from a grand.

Canon EOS 600D Controls

Screen and provided lens aside, the other thing that immediately strikes you upon handling the 600D is how relatively lightweight, compact and portable this camera is – although it’s clearly no pocket option. At the same time the Canon manages to offer ergonomically chunky controls and a grip of sufficient size to snake three fingers comfortably around, so it sits well in the palm.

For the first time a Feature Guide has been added to the user interface that ‘talks’ you via text prompts through the camera settings – an explanatory sentence popping up on the LCD with each subsequent twist of the shooting mode dial – so users can pick the 600D up and start shooting without having swotted up via the manual.

Amidst the busy 14 settings on the shooting mode dial that cover the creative regulars of program, aperture priority, shutter priority and manual mode, Canon has highlighted the Scene Intelligent Auto mode in green. As it sounds, with this option selected the camera itself sets the focus, brightness levels, flash and colour tones according to the subject before the lens – so operation becomes as easy as pointing and shooting.

Canon EOS 600D Screen

Of course we’ve witnessed tilt-able LCDs on bridge cameras and rival DSLRs for a while now, but here its implementation really allow users to make the most of the 600D’s Live View functionality (where the 3-inch, 1040k dot resolution LCD can be used as a viewfinder)for shot composition as well as review.

Because you can flip and bend the screen to achieve previously unrealised shooting angles – such as high or low – it proves a distraction from the regular optical viewfinder. Especially as, if attempting to use the optical viewfinder, your nose squashes up against and smears the screen as you attempt to get an eye level with it.

Canon EOS 600D Speed and Performance

The 600D’s power switch is adjacent to the shooting mode dial. Give the switch a thumb flick to ‘on’ and the by the time your forefinger has pressed the shutter release button down half way so the 9-point auto focus system can do its stuff, you’re ready to take the shot. So no frustrating delay here at all.

The camera deploys sensor cleaning upon powering down, rather than powering up, as a further time saver.

For those looking for grain free results in low light, the basic light sensitivity range of ISO100 to 6400 is further expandable to ISO12800. While that’s up there with semi pro DSLRs in terms of performance, it still falls slightly short of the ISO 25,600 offered by the Nikon D5100 – on paper at least. High speed shooting at 3.7fps is more akin to what we would expect at the entry level, as is the aforementioned auto focus system. Clearly Canon is mindful of demarcation between DSLR models in its range.

Otherwise a full resolution JPEG records to memory in two seconds, and a unprocessed Raw file a fraction of a second longer, although in truth it’s hard to notice the difference, which is in itself commendable. The 600D is therefore as swift and responsive as you’d want a DSLR to be for daily use.

Canon EOS 600D Battery

The rechargeable lithium ion cell slotting into the base of the Canon EOS 600D offers up 440 shots.

Obviously if constantly deploying the screen for Live View and video this will suffer proportionally, but in our experience not to a marked degree.

Canon EOS 600D Pictures

Delivering realistic colour and capable of some lovely shallow depth of field effects, we felt the kit lens could perhaps have been sharper still, and we did experience the occasional clipped highlight, but such grumbles are mere nitpicking on what is a largely excellent camera.

If you are slightly unsatisfied with the result at the time, or simply wish to enhance it further, the 600D offers a range of creative filters that can be applied to pre-captured images. This selection is largely the same as that offered by Canon compacts. Namely we get the favourites of the tilt and shift lens apeing ‘miniature’ mode, along with toy camera, which lets user further adjust colour tones between cool and warm. So fun, effective and dynamic looking results can be achieved with the need to first take an evening class in Photoshop.

With HDMI output offered along with vacant microphone port, Full HD video shooting at 25fps is supplemented with an on-board wind filter for outdoor filming and a couple of interesting capture options. There’s Movie Digital Zoom, which carries out a sensor crop to achieve the illusion your zoom capability is bigger than it is, plus the video diary-alike Video Snapshot function, which can be enabled or disabled via the menus and is again similar to the Movie Digest function offered by Canon’s latest generation compacts. This allows the shooting of two, four or eight second bursts which are combined into one ‘movie’.

When zooming in users are faced with the need to adjust focus manually, but to be honest it’s usually quicker to do this than wait for the camera to catch up. Video picture and sound are commendably crisp, though the on-board microphone does inevitably pick up the sound of your fingers making their manual adjustments.

Canon EOS 600D Verdict

You know that a new digital SLR from Canon or Nikon is not going to be a clunker and that’s the case with the 600D: it’s another excellent if slightly pricey tool for anyone upgrading from a humble pocket point and shooter. All most of us want is to take shots that are a fair representation of what the eye can see, albeit within a fixed frame and the 600D delivers that and more.
 

Canon EOS 600D release date: Out now, link Canon

Canon EOS 600D price: £699-£749

Posted by Gavin Stoker

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Whilst the larger zoom range means that the Exilim is not Casio’s slimmest ever camera – it’s just under an inch thick – it will still fit comfortably into pocket or bag. It’s available in four colours: we had the classy black variety in for review.

Casio Exilim EX-H30: Controls

A press of the top plate on/off button and the Casio Exilim EX-H30 powers up in just over a second, lens extending to maximum wideangle setting with an audible whirr. Images and video are composed with the aid of a 4:3 aspect ratio 3-inch LCD with high-ish 460k dot resolution.

As mentioned, unusually for a minimalist point and shoot these days Casio has included a half penny sized shooting mode dial – which saves otherwise drilling into menus to find the shooting settings you want.

The Casio is quick and responsive although we found the menu layout a little confusing; it’s busy, and the fact it is overlaid on the LCD image further makes it tricky to read.

Ranged around this are the regular auto capture modes (image adjusting Premium Auto and standard auto) plus Casio’s familiar BestShot scene modes. We also, unusually again, get a silent mode for surreptitious snappers, plus aperture priority, shutter priority and manual modes.

In this way the EX-H30 is similar to the Canon PowerShot SX220 HS rival, in allowing users who want to do a bit more than point and shoot to get hands on.

Otherwise the Casio’s attendant controls are what we would expect to find on a pocket model, with separate buttons for capture or review modes, control pad with central ‘set’ button in the middle of the backplate, plus separate menu and dedicated video record button – a press of which will commence filming no matter which alternative shooting mode had been selected on the top plate dial. Because of this, a video option doesn’t actually feature among the offered shooting modes. The Casio keeps shooting simple.

Casio Exilim EX-H30: Specs

Mounting a challenge to the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ20’s Extra Optical Zoom facility, here the Casio’s range can be similarly extended by a factor of 1.5x, to an equivalent 18.8x.

Casio adds on a mode called Slide Panorama, which, as it suggests, makes the shooting of panoramic images a cinch. Select this mode via the top plate dial, press down on the shutter release button and pan with the camera in the direction indicated (and through a maximum arc of 260°) to the sound of the shutter rapidly firing. Within seconds a seamless elongated image is automatically generated. Casio claims the camera can recognize moving subjects and omit them from overlapping images. While the resultant image appears low res, it’s a fun feature that travellers will enjoy.

Casio Exilim EX-H30: Image quality and video

More of a deal breaker for some may be the fact that the camera offers a video resolution of a not-quite Full HD 1280×720 pixels at 24 frames per second and with mono sound, a specification which falls short of the competition mentioned. Neither has Casio provided HDMI output – just standard AV and USB. Still, the Casio’s images are colour rich and detailed for the most part, meaning that they require little if any adjustment straight out of the camera. Which is exactly what anyone wants from a point and shoot camera.

Casio EXILIM EX-H30 launch date: out now, link Casio

Casio EXILIM EX-H30 price: £190-£260

Posted by Gavin Stoker

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Here we are reviewing the 17.3-inch M17XR3, whcih is Alienware’s third iteration of it’s M17x range (in Base Stealth Black) and it get’s better with every incarnation. This version is the best of best thanks to the tweaked re-design that looks much nicer and an excellent keyboard, it also has a longer battery life  and it’s cheaper than its predecessor.

In fact, there were only two problems with this model that could set it back. It only has 4GB RAM, which is the minimum for a 3D gaming laptop, but the other specifications are so good that it didn’t have the impact on performance we thought it might.

It also includes Intel’s new flagship "Sandy Bridge" Core i7 2630QM processor at 2GHz. Of which there was a big product recall, (including this model), because of the processor issues, but we didn’t have any problems to report at all when we were testing.

Alienware M17X: Screen

The centre-piece for us is the edge-to-edge 1920×1080 full HD screen. Colour and detail on 2D and 3D entertainment playback offers one of the best laptop screens we’ve seen so far. What’s more impressive is that the rich colour and pin sharp detail is viewable for a room of people thanks to the ultra-wide viewing angle.

Alienware M17X: Performance

The 17.3-inch Alienware M17x packs in Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, Intel’s newest Intel Core i7 2630QM at 2GHz, 4GB of memory, a superfast 256GB SSD drive and Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M graphics, with 1.5GB RAM. There are laptop graphics card out now, which have 3GB of memory but NVIDIA’s GTX 460M graphics are optimised for gamers so it has more bells and whistles under the hood.

Durning our testing the M17x maintained high frame rates for HD 3D gaming on next-gen games despite only having 4GB RAM. We installed Call of Duty: Black Ops and maxxed all settings at 1080p. In 2D we got 36FPS and that hardly faltered in much more demanding 3D at 3D.

Battery life is impressive too, we clocked a longer battery life, we clocked at 192 minutes thanks to a 9-cell battery.

Alienware M17X: Build quality

As with other Alienware laptops, you get the ability to mod nearly every feature, so you can adjust the underlit keyboard to any colour you like. The finish itself it a great non-slip rubberised black makes in interacting with the M17XR3 a delight. That also goes for the high-grade plastic that feels like it’ll cope with all night gaming sessions without breaking. We were also impressed with the stealth design, leaving the back of the laptop dedicated to the massive batman car look exhaust fins. By all rights, especially given the massive power requirements of the M17XR3, it should been like a jet taking off but it purred like a kitten and didn’t get hot – even on long 3D gaming sessions.

The other sides contained the comprehensive array of ports. You get four USBs, HMDI port, Display port, three audio jacks, one SDPI, one VGA, your LAN connection and one eSATA. Only firewire is missing and there’s a really nice HD webcam and slot-loading Blu-ay player for your HD movies.

We’re really impressed with the latest version of Alienware’s laptop range. We held off from five out of five because the M17XR3 isn’t quite perfect but it is as close as it gets – a portable 3D gamers dream if you have back up funds.

Alienware M17x R3 lauch date: Out now from Dell

Aliemware M17x price: £1499
 

Posted by Spencer Dalziel

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