Apple iBooks Author

Amazon's Kindle, Barnes and Noble's Nook, and even Apple's iBooks have been working on moving us away from reading physical books and embracing the digital revolution.

But until now, there was very little to convince us how good an idea this could be, since the digital versions looked very much like their real-world counterparts, right down to the page turning effect.

You'd save a lot of weight if you tended to carry a few books with you, but no title appeared to offer the limitless potential of a true digital book, something more akin to what you can achieve with apps, for instance.

All this and more is what Apple is trying to accomplish with its new content creation app, iBooks Author. Its aim is to revolutionise modern textbooks by bringing interactivity to the learning experience.

Not only can you add images to your pages, the reader can zoom in or out of them. You can insert Keynote slides or movies that can either be viewed embedded inside a page or full-screen. There's even the possibility of creating short quizzes to test your reader's knowledge retention.

You'd think that all this would require a lot of programming knowledge, but that's the beauty of iBooks Author: it's incredibly simple to use, and if you're familiar with Apple's iWork suite, you'll feel right at home within its interface.

It's a bit like a cross between the iWork apps Pages and Keynote, but you can't change the page format in any way: it's designed solely to be used on an iPad – even iPhones and iPod touches are left out.

On template

Just like other iWork programs, you start with a choice of template, six of which are offered by default, although you can create your own if you so choose.

You can write straight into iBooks Author, but it's also easy to import content from a Pages or Word document. Text is brought in seamlessly, but more complex formatting and embedded images can cause problems with the layout. The best option is to bring in the text then add the multimedia in iBooks Author.

Inserting media is child's play: you have a Media window from which you can locate photos, movies and music already stored on your Mac. Applying interactivity is done with the use of one of seven widgets, including being able to insert HTML dashcode applets, like those used to create Dashboard widgets on your Mac.

You can also preview your work as you design it: connect an iPad to your Mac, click the Toolbar's Preview icon and your book will be transferred across the USB cable for you to check. A purple 'Proof' banner will appear on the cover of your ebook and you'll be able to browse through it and interact with your widgets to make sure they all work as expected.

Once you're happy with the results, you can export your work in the iBooks format (or as a PDF or text file, but you'll obviously lose all the interactivity). That iBook can then be transferred to any iPad. It's a fantastic means of creating your own interactive documents and could do wonders in the classroom.

If you'd rather profit from your endeavour, you'll need to respect the program's licence agreement which states that you have to make your iBook available exclusively on the iBook Store (the content remains yours of course, so you're free to redesign your book using a different program and sell it elsewhere).

You'll need to acquire an ISBN number (an industry-standard code designed to catalogue all publications), and if you're not a US resident, you'll also need a unique reference number from the IRS. However, free books can be made available anywhere without such restrictions.

First iterations

Despite all the things this app allows you to do, and how it will empower teachers and even home-schoolers to design their own textbooks, it's a 1.0 product, which means it's a little rough around the edges at times.

Aside from the occasional glitches that prevent you from altering the content in any way (a quick restart of the app solves that problem – thank goodness for Lion's Autosave feature!) there are some odd inconsistencies.

For instance, the whole interface is designed around text boxes. You can link them so that your words flow seamlessly from one box to the other. However, in order for that to work, new linkable text boxes must be created with the help of a text box already present on your page. Text Boxes created from scratch by clicking on the relevant toolbar icon can't be linked to others.

Worse still is iBooks Author's draconian restrictions when it comes to video formats. Only H.264 files are tolerated, but not all H.264 files are created equal. Try dragging a video clip you shot on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad and it'll be rejected, even though we all know Apple's iOS products save their footage in H.264. If you export an iMovie project on your Mac, it's the same problem (you have to use the Share command to create a kosher version).

What's worse is that files made with HandBrake, a video format conversion tool, or created with the excellent screen capture program ScreenFlow, won't work either – even though you can play back these files directly on your iPad, iBook Author refuses to. To make them work, you must open them up in QuickTime X and export them for the iPad. It seems like an unnecessary and unintuitive step to have to take.

This run-around is far from what we're used to from Apple. But despite these problems, iBooks Author is an amazing program which enables anyone to create a polished interactive ebook in little time.

If you can live with the licence agreement, you can have a lot of fun engaging with your students or customers. As long as they all own iPads, of course.

Overview

The HP Envy 14 Spectre is the latest and best-named Ultrabook to hit the shelves, and with the combined draw of HP's premium Envy range, and Dr Dre's urban cool Beats brand, it's going to be very hard to ignore.

We're well into the Ultrabook race by now and we've already been impressed by the Asus Zenbook UX31, Acer Aspire S3 and most recently by the Dell XPS 13, perhaps the toughest rival that the HP Envy 14 Spectre faces in the battle for our hard-earned pennies.

And HP's newest baby is taking an interesting approach to the competition by being less concerned with a size zero frame. The HP Envy 14 Spectre is 20mm thin, and weighs 1.8kg - hefty for an Ultrabook.

But the slight bulk enables it to throw around some extra connectivity and features that other Ultrabooks, perhaps save the Toshiba Satellite Z830, can't match.

Of course, before we start dreamily idolising this shiny new offering, there are a couple of points that need to be looked at. Firstly, the fact that the HP is built around an Intel Core i5-2467M processor, rather than the Core i7 CPUs on offer inside the likes of the Dell and Acer mean that for all its bulk, the Spectre lacks power.

You might also be forgiven for thinking that this lower-spec processor will have a pleasing effect on the price of the computer. Not so.

The HP Envy 14 Spectre costs a sphincter-tightening £1,100 in the UK, and $1,400 in the US. That's a clear £200 more expensive than the Dell, and in these hardened times; a penny saved is a penny earned... or something.

But before you click away in disgust, there are a number of excellent features that the HP Envy 14 Spectre has to offer, and we have to say that it's one of the best-looking Ultrabooks we've yet seen. Clearly a lot of time and effort has gone into its design and development.

Specifications

Shunning the aluminium silver outer design favoured by other Ultrabooks such as the Dell XPS 13 or the Acer Aspire S3, the HP Envy 14 Spectre boasts a black Gorilla Glass lid with a slick, glossy finish. Adding the final touch is the bright HP logo nestled in the corner.

Although it looks great, the inevitable downside is that the surface of the lid will quickly attract dust and smudgy fingerprints - more so than any other Ultrabook we've seen.

A backlit, isolation-style keyboard lurks underneath, and is one of the most comfortable we've used on an Ultrabook. The greater depth of the chassis gives a better travel to the keys, and the result is comfy typing all day long.

A neat trick is the ability of the keyboard to sense your proximity, and dim itself when you move away from the laptop, saving power.

Of course, any discussion of the Spectre's features starts and ends with the Beats audio. The speakers do a decent job of producing a rich, full sound - but slap a pair of Beats headphones on and you're ready to experience the best sound we've heard from an Ultrabook since the Bang & Olufsen-packing Asus Zenbook UX31.

Anyone who has used any of HP's other laptops, including the Envy and Pavilion ranges, will be at home with the extra choice Beats gives you.

You can open up a control panel to tweak all aspects of the Envy 14 Spectre's audio performance. There are also several bonus modes to take advantage of, such as noise and echo cancellation.

The HP Envy 14 Spectre also features a small Beats-branded clickwheel on the chassis that enables you to quickly alter the volume of the speakers.

Arguably, the HP Envy 14 Spectre's 14-inch screen should get as much praise as the Beats audio. The 1600 x 900 pixel resolution is a step up from other Ultrabooks such as the Lenovo IdeaPad U300S, and we marvelled at the crystal clear high-definition visuals.

Not only that, but the HP Envy 14 Spectre has a tiny bezel, allowing the 14-inch screen to sit nicely inside a 13.3-inch chassis.

Performance

TechRadar Labs

Cinebench 10: 7, 336
3D Mark '06: 3, 377
Battery Eater '05: 206 minutes

Ultrabooks are all members of the Sandy Bridge family, and the HP Envy 14 Spectre is built around an Intel Core i5-2467M CPU operating at 1.60GHz and 4GB RAM.

It's not the fastest or highest-spec chip we've seen in an Ultrabook, and rivals will triumph on raw power. This is reflected in the Cinebench scores we recorded, in which the Spectre posted less than rivals including the Acer Aspire S3.

But general day-to-day use is unaffected, and the HP Envy 14 Spectre kept up with our multitasking needs. In part a justification for the higher price tag is that both Adobe's Premier Elements and Photoshop Elements editing suites come preinstalled, and ran perfectly when we tried a spot of on-the-fly photo editing.

Unfortunately, though, we had a lot of problems with the trackpad. It was responsive enough when moving the cursor, but the integrated mouse buttons were a pain to use. We appreciate the nicer look of integrated buttons, but the irritation of repeated clicks to select and execute slightly tarnishes the overall experience.

Although the HP Envy 14 Spectre can cope with the demanding graphical performance of video editing, or running several intensive websites at once, don't buy this expecting a gaming platform.

The integrated GPU is powerful enough, thanks to the Sandy Bridge heritage, but it won't be boasting the latest Assassin's Creed title.

We don't know what the thought process was behind naming this laptop the Spectre, but it could be to do with the almost silent way in which it goes about its business, thanks to the SSD drive and its lack of moving parts.

The Spectre remained cool to the touch during operation and, like other Ultrabooks, is available with either a 256GB or 128GB SSD internal hard drive.

According to HP, the Envy 14 Spectre will offer you a reasonable nine hours of battery life. We ran our high-stress benchmarking tests and recorded an impressive score of 206 minutes.

Avoid our brute force attack on the battery and you should have no trouble getting through a day without the company of the AC adaptor. Just keep the volume down.

Verdict

We see the HP Envy 14 Spectre as being the 'cool kid' of the Ultrabook class, with its Beats audio branding, high resolution 14-inch screen and Gorilla Glass casing. It's a highly usable laptop, with only the integrated click buttons on the touchpad giving us grief.

We liked

At first, we had worries about the slightly chunkier casing, but this was tempered by the joy we felt when we spotted the HDMI port and Ethernet port that HP has included on the chassis. We've lamented the lack of connectivity on other Ultrabooks, and having the option for a wired internet connection and the use of an external monitor is music to our ears.

On the subject of music, this is undoubtedly the Ultrabook for media enthusiasts. The screen is gloriously crisp and the extra audio technology on board gives you options to tweak and alter the sound to get your albums sounding the way you want. Invest in a decent pair of headphones or an amplifier and you can make this your sole media machine.

We disliked

Ultrabooks are meant to be light, airy and portable computers. By any other laptop standards, the HP Envy 14 Spectre is a classy ultra-portable. But, when you put it up against the other Ultrabooks, it's inescapably bulky.

It just comes in under the weight limit set out in Intel's specifications for Ultrabooks, and business users might be more swayed by the svelt curves of the Dell XPS 13 or the functionality of the Toshiba Satellite Z830.

We also got increasingly frustrated with the integrated click buttons on the touchpad. We know the overall effect is a nicer aesthetic, but unfortunately the usability suffers as a result. Often we would just rely on the double-tap to select files and launch programs instead.

Final verdict

We're deep into the second round of Ultrabook releases by now, and we feel the HP Envy 14 Spectre sits alongside the Dell XPS 13 at the top of the heap. But these are two different machines with different focuses.

The HP Envy 14 Spectre is the most media-centred Ultrabook, with a larger 14-inch screen, 1600 x 900 pixel resolution and Beats audio technology. But it won't win over fans looking for performance and portability, due to the lower spec processor and bulky Gorilla Glass chassis.

If you can overcome the steep asking price then the HP Envy 14 Spectre is a well-built and stylish way to transport and enjoy your music, movies and do a spot of image editing.

The capacity of USB flash drives has risen steeply, with 16GB becoming common place. The GigaRunner might seem small at 4GB, but this drive has some network-enabled tricks up its sleeve.

Most of us have hard drives 500GB or more these days, so while we might be able to fit a lot of our important files and folders on a flash drive, the ideal of having access to any of our files from another system is still a distant one.

Of course, there's cloud backup and synchronisation services but if you're after anything more than 20GB of space things start getting expensive.

The GigaRunner's 4GB space isn't much to write home about but it's the GigaRunner software which is really interesting. After a quick setup, creating a server on our main PC, we were able to plug the USB stick into another PC and browse and download any file from our main rig.

It worked really well, and the interface made it easy to navigate files and folders from our remote computer.

Files you download and then edit can't be uploaded back onto your main PC. This is where the 4GB capacity comes into play.

Another drawback is that your main PC needs to be constantly on and connected to the internet.

When you see a £2,200 PC in these post-X79 days, you might assume we're talking about a Sandy Bridge E-based machine with a £1,000 CPU at its heart.

But no, what we have here is the OCUK Ultima 9450i Mosasaur MKII, a good ol' fashioned straight Sandy Bridge machine with the perfect PC gaming chip thrumming away inside: the Core i7 2700K.

So why the vast price tag considering this top-end Sandy Bridge chip is available for a relatively bargainous £257?

Well, that has less to do with the processing power of this PC and everything to do with the twin graphics power-houses hurling pixels and polygons around inside.

Pairing up two of the fastest single-GPU graphics cards in this beast of a CrossFireX setup accounts for nearly half of its price. A single HIS Radeon HD 7970 costs £500. That makes a staggering £1,000 worth of graphical prowess at your fingertips.

CrossFire fun

As a single upgrade, we've been a bit down on the HD 7970 for not being quite the new AMD dawn we'd hoped for. Yes, it's a fair chunk faster than its predecessor and speedier than the previous fastest single-GPU card, Nvidia's GTX 580, but not really by the extra £150 you'll have to pay for the privilege.

Over the last few months we've actually seen a lot of high-end, high-price rigs. This is surprising given the current state of the global economy. Still, Intel's tippy-toppest desktop chipset has rocked up, ably supported by AMD's HD 7970, both of which are pricey ol' beasties.

This has given rise to some severe rigs in the £2-4K range, and this Ultima Mosasaur MKII is one of the best – even compared to the likes of the twin GTX 590-sporting, £4,000-costing Palicomp Phoenix Inferno Redline.

TechRadar Labs

CPU rendering performance
Cinebench R11.5: Index score: Higher is better
Ultima Mosasaur MKII: 8.95
CyberPower Liquid Xtreme GT: 13.01
YOYOTech XDNA Platinum: 12.69

DirectX 11 tessellation performance
Heaven 2.5: Index score: Higher is better
Ultima Mosasaur MKII: 53
CyberPower Liquid Xtreme GT: 22
YOYOTech XDNA Platinum: 43

DirectX 11 gaming performance
Metro 2033: Frames per second: Higher is better
Ultima Mosasaur MKII: 33
CyberPower Liquid Xtreme GT: 15
YOYOTech XDNA Platinum: 13

Despite having a slightly higher clocked i7 2600K and four Nvidia GPUs humming away inside, the Phoenix isn't far ahead of this Overclockers rig, which costs almost half as much.

We also chose to test its silicon against the DX10 Just Cause 2 benchmark and the twin HD 7970s actually come out on top of the twin GTX 590s, with the AMD setup hitting 97fps at 2,560x1,600 and the Nvidia just managing 86fps.

The CPU performance is inevitably off the pace against the X79-based machines but, in terms of gaming, even the SLI GTX 580 setup of the £2,500 YOYOTech XDNA Platinum is put in its place.

There are always caveats though, and here it's the constant spectre of CrossFire drivers working with new games and new hardware. For the most part, the HD 7970 drivers worked fine, but no matter what we tried we couldn't get reasonable results from Crysis 2. In fact it came in slower than a single HD 7970.

That little aside, er, aside, this is one hell of a gaming rig. With just a single HD 7970 it would still be a good machine, and a shade under £1,700 isn't a bad price.

However, if you're going to spend that much on a PC, why not go the whole graphical warthog? These things in CrossFire are simply blinding.

Overview

The 120GB could be the SSD sweet-spot, but can Intel's SSD 520 Series 120GB drive hit that head-on?

Intel has done the obvious thing and stuck a SandForce controller in its desktop SSDs.

If the larger members of the new 520 Series, like the Intel SSD 520 240GB, are a little punitive on pricing, what about the Intel SSD 520 Series 120GB, could it offer the best compromise between price, performance and capacity?

One thing it certainly shares with the larger 520 Series solid state drive is Intel's SSD firmware development and validation regime.

It will take time for the true long-term performance of this latest Intel SSD family to shake out, but Intel has a well-earned reputation in this area.

The only slight snag is that smaller drives make for fewer memory chips and in turn fewer memory channels and a little less performance.

The optimal drive for performance in the range is the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB model. But that's a much more expensive drive.

Instead this 120GB drive must do battle with the likes of the Corsair Force GT 120GB and OCZ's Vertex 3 120GB.

Benchmarks

Long term performance is the big worry with SSDs.

Early drives delivered scorching performance out of the box, but quickly went down the pan with intensive usage. To simulate a used drive, we install Windows 7 and then stuff each SSD full of data.

This used to be enough to make SSDs suffer slow downs. More recent SSDs are much more resilient and Intel's SSDs in particular have a strong reputation for excellent longevity.

As our benchmarks show, however, it's not hugely remarkable in terms of raw performance

Synthetic drive performance, compressible data

Synthetic drive performance, incompressible data

Synthetic drive performance, 4K Random

Application performance

Verdict

Check this out. Somewhere out there on the internet lives a species of PC hardware enthusiast that gets a kick out of endurance testing SSDs.

Among this strange breed, Intel SSDs have a very high reputation.

In fact, there have been reports of a 40GB Intel SSD soaking up 700TB of writes before finally losing the will to store data. When you consider that smaller drives fail faster in such conditions, well, it's pretty impressive.

So Intel's reputation when it comes to developing SSD firmwares that deliver excellent longevity is well earned.

Intel stresses that the same applies to the new 520 Series and its widely used, and strong-performing, SandForce SF-2281 controller. The firmware has been given the full Intel treatment.

That bodes very well for the long term.

What Intel hasn't done, however, is deliver a drive that immediately takes down the opposition in terms of raw performance. Most of our benchmark results are pretty much exactly what you would expect from a 120GB SandForce drive.

That said, there are a couple of areas where Intel's work might just be visible.

The Intel SSD 520 120GB is noticeably, if not dramatically, quicker than the Corsair Force GT 120GB in our random read and file decompression tests.

Unfortunately, sequential incompressible data write performance is no better than that same Corsair drive. Which means it's slower than both larger SandForce-based drives and the competition packing Marvell and Indilinx controllers.

We liked

The combination of Intel's attention to detail when it comes to SSD firware development and the sheer speed of the latest SandForce SF-2281 controller chip is pretty compelling. We also think 120GB is probably the current sweet spot in terms of balancing price with performance and capacity.

We disliked

Much cheaper than the 240GB model this 120GB drive may be, but it's still a significant investment to make. So it's a little disappointing that you not only have to give up half the capacity but also see write performance drop off, especially when shunting incompressible data around.

Verdict

SandForce performance plus Intel quality. Performance though is a little down on the 240GB version.

Overview

Intel is looking to SandForce to provide it with a performance-class SSD in the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB.

It changed tack about a year ago and started using third-party controller chips in its consumer class solid state drives (SSDs). From that moment on, it was almost inevitable that a SandForce-powered Intel drive would eventually appear.

With the launch of the new Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB, and the other members of the 520 family, that day has finally come.

Of course, SandForce SSD controllers aren't perfect.

Thanks to the use of aggressive compression technology, impressive headline data transfer rates can sometimes translate into slightly pedestrian real-world performance. What's more, SandForce's second generation of controller chips suffered from a few stability glitches early on.

Still, there's no doubting the popularity, success and strong, all round performance of SSDs based on the latest SandForce controller. Add in Intel's reputation for going the extra mile with SSD firmware quality control and validation and you have a very promising mix.

The task for the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB is clear enough. Not only must it rise above the hordes of SandForce based drives, it must also take on the new pretender in the form of the OCZ Octane and its refreshed Indilinx controller.

Game on.

Benchmarks

SSD performance is more multi-discipline decathlon than single-distance time trial.

A drive that delivers impressive peak performance doesn't always deliver the goods in random access workloads, for instance. Intel says it's put a lot of work into tuning the SandForce SF-2281 controller to improve performance and reliability.

But the results aren't always obvious in our benchmark tests.

Synthetic drive performance, compressible data

Synthetic drive performance, incompressible data

Synthetic drive performance, 4K Random

Application performance

Verdict

For the most part, Intel's new desktop SSD looks like any other drive based on the SandForce SF2281 controller chipset.

Not that we're suggesting that's a bad thing.

Sequential read and write speeds of 550MB/s and 520MB/s courtesy of a SATA 6Gbps interface is about as good as it gets for a single desktop SSD.

A peak IOPS rating of 80,000 for writes is pretty much par for the second-gen SandForce course, too.

So Intel isn't making any showbiz claims for basic performance.

In fact, if anything it's more up front about the limitations of the drive when it comes to shunting incompressible data around. In practice that includes most really big files, such as video, music and images.

Intel is also happy to 'fess up to the fact that the peak IOPS speed relates to a completely box-fresh drive. It only rates the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB at a maximum of 60,000 IOPS in normal use.

However, what Intel does have is an enviable reputation for exhaustive validation and quality control when it comes to SSDs.

In fact, it's rumoured the 520 Series has arrived later than expected due to that very validation process. The upshot of all this, however, is not a drive than immediately blows away the competition for raw performance.

All our synthetic tests reveal an SSD that's very similar in performance to other SandForce-based drives. So that means a generally pretty fantastic performance with the exception of slightly ordinary incompressible data write performance.

We liked

It's not perfect, but SandForce's SF-2281 SSD controller is probably our current favourite.

It routinely wins a lot of benchmarks and is never too far behind even when it isn't at its best.

Add in Intel's hardcore validation and you have the promise of speed combined with longevity.

We disliked

If you were expecting something special in terms of raw performance, you'll be disappointed.

The 520 Series is very similar to other SandForce powered SSDs. And that means only ordinary performance in incompressible writes.

Like any large SSD, it's pricey, too.

Verdict

Probably the pick of the currently available 250GB-ish SSDs. Just a shame it's not a bit cheaper.

We looked at one of Plextor's first 6Gb/s rated drives - the PX-128M2S - last year. And barely nine months later, the next generation is upon us, in the shape of the M3 series. According to Plextor's own blurb, these are its most advanced drives yet.

The Plextor M3S SSD comes in 128GB (510MB/s read, 210MB/s write) and 256GB (510MB/s read, 360MB/s write) flavours, both of which are available now. The flagship M3S 512GB model (525MB/s read, 445MB/s write) will be appearing soon.

The new drives come with an up-rated Marvell controller, four times as much cache as the previous generation (in the 256GB and 512GB models), and faster NAND to complete the upgrade. So what do they look like when you throw some data down their tubes?

Marvell-ous

The new M3 series uses the same Marvell 88SS9174-BKK2 controller as the M2S series – and a load of other drives come to that – but with a twist: Plextor has made a raft of upgrades to the firmware. This, combined with 24nm Toshiba Toggle MLC NAND and a large 512MB cache (256MB in the 128GB model), gives the Plextor M3S 256GB pretty impressive performance.

Eight 32GB 24nm Toshiba Toggle NAND chips give the drive its capacity. These sit on the topside of the PCB, along with the two 256MB Nanya DDR3 1333 chips that make up the cache. The controller is positioned all on its lonesome on the underside of the board.

TechRadar Labs

Sequential read/write (incompressible)
AS SSD: MB/S: Bigger is better

Plextor PX-256M3S
Read: 468
Write: 346
Vertex 3 MAX IOPS
Read: 506
Write: 234
Samsung SSD 830
Read: 499
Write: 391

4K random read/write performance
AS SSD: MB/S: Bigger is better

Plextor PX-256M3S
Read: 24
Write: 46
Vertex 3 MAX IOPS
Read: 18
Write: 42
Samsung SSD 830
Read: 20
Write: 53

Under test conditions using the ATTO benchmark, the drive came pretty close to Plextor's own figures for sequential reads at 507MB/s, and did marginally better than the quoted figures for sequential writes at 365MB/s.

The more demanding AS SSD incompressible data benchmark saw it fall behind both the Vertex 3 Max IOPS and Samsung SSD 830 in the sequential read/write test, but it did much better in the 4K random read/write tests.

A bit of real world testing saw the drive take just four and half minutes to copy a 50GB folder of mixed file sizes and types, while loading Office 10 Pro took a smidgen under five minutes from key code entry to being ready for use.

Plextor is also shipping the M3S with its proprietary True Speed technology. This supposedly provides better sustained drive performance over time and, together with advanced wear levelling and bad block management, keeps the drive running closer to fresh-out-the-box than many of its competitors'.

The M3 series carries on from the previous generation, offering strong performance compared to the Samsung SSD 830 and OCZ's Vertex 3 Max IOPS. It's competitively priced as well, and at around £300 it may well ruffle a few feathers.

Plextor backed its previous range of SSDs with the usual three-year warranty, but the M3S series is backed for an unusually generous five years.

Verdict

Plextor's new drive is a rather impressive offering. It may not be the fastest kid on the block, but it's powerful enough and that price tag makes it a pretty attractive choice too.

Not so long ago, affordable monitors were a case of anything you fancied so long as it was TN. More recently, screens with IPS and VA panels have been coming thick and fast. Hallelujah! The latest member of this new monitor army is the Philips Brilliance 241P4QPYES.

It sports what Philips calls an AMVA panel. Think of it as the latest iteration of the MVA breed, which in turn is a particular flavour of VA (vertical alignment) LCD panel. That typically means much better colours, contrast and viewing angles.

The only slight snag is that the competition among the £200-ish, better-than-TN brigade is hotting up. Dell has been flogging eIPS screens for a while, while BENQ prefers to go with VA tech.

Meanwhile, ViewSonic has just launched an IPS-based screen, the VP2365-LED. And it's very, very good indeed.

MVA – brilliant

Specs-wise, the Philips Brilliance 241P4QPYES certainly looks promising. That AMVA panel is claimed to be good for 178-degree viewing angles in both planes, 6ms response times and static contrast of 5,000:1.

Factor in the LED backlight and good connectivity, which includes HDMI, DVI and VGA, and you have a very promising package. You even get a fully adjustable stand that lets you rotate the monitor to portrait mode.

More predictable is the combination of a 24-inch diagonal and 1920 x 1080 pixel grid. For PC use we'd prefer the slightly taller 1920 x 1200p alternative, but that's asking a lot at this price point.

Philips has also thrown a few image enhancement options into the mix. We're not big fans of dynamic contrast, but it's offered here and since it's switchable, everyone wins.

The same goes for pixel overdrive, a technology used to improved response times. It's known as Smart-response in Philips' parlance, and again it's fully switchable. As it happens, we found it delivered noticeably better response when enabled, without introducing any inverse ghosting or input.

As for the other image quality metrics, most are pretty impressive. Colours are rich without being over-saturated. Black and white scales both reveal excellent detail, and there's little evidence of colour compression. Gradients are rendered impeccably and there's plenty of depth to the contrast.

Less impressive are the viewing angles which can't quite match the best IPS screens. The overall brightness isn't exactly stellar either, leading to slightly dirty looking whites.

We liked

It's a joy to find yet another great non-TN screen available at this relatively affordable price point. The main benefits are excellent colours and contrast. Philips has managed better pixel response than we're used to seeing from an MVA screen. Impressive

We disliked

While the Philips Brilliance 241P4QPYES's chassis is very adjustable and well featured, it looks cheap, and the four ports of the USB hub are inconveniently located on the rear rather than near the bezel. And as good as the image quality is, things are moving fast right now.

Verdict

A year ago, this MVA panel would have been a world beater. Today, the Philips Brilliance 241P4QPYES is merely very good. There are slightly better screens available for similar money.

The Compaq Presario CQ57-366SA won't win any awards for its looks, but does offer the things we look for in a budget machine. It's solid with a decent screen and great speakers, and the sort of internal specifications we'd expect at this price.

However, even though this is a budget machine, we'd still appreciate something a little nicer to look at.

The Compaq is a solid black brick seemingly devoid of colours, shades or textures. It's boring and uninspired but, as mentioned above, solidly built – with only a small amount of flex detectable around the chassis.

We were also pleased to discover that it's not as heavy as it looks, but it isn't the lightest at 2.5kg.

Leaving the aesthetics behind, usability is perfectly acceptable. The keyboard has wide buttons and a good depth of travel but, despite the amount of space on the chassis, feels cramped. There's no numeric keypad or quick-access hotkeys to be found, but, like most laptops, you can alter volume and media playback by holding down the Function key and using the F-keys.

While the touchpad is responsive, it's also the exact same shade of black as the rest of the chassis and therefore wonderfully camouflaged.

Where the Compaq picks up again is with the screen. It's got a 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, meaning you can enjoy 720p HD videos – although the full 1080p experience is out of reach. We found that although the screen was very bright, it wasn't as sharp as we've seen elsewhere. The Super-TFT coating helps, but ultimately we'd pick this for working on documents rather than watching Avatar.

Having said that, the Altec Lansing speakers are very good indeed – so we'd definitely be listening to music while we worked.

£350 won't buy you the greatest components on the market, but the basic user will find everything they require here. The first-generation Intel Core i3 processor is backed up by a capable 4GB of RAM and a standard integrated graphics chip that will handle video streaming from iPlayer or YouTube but stops short of advanced editing suites.

TechRadar Labs

Battery Eater '05: 184 minutes
Cinebench: 7839
3DMark 2006: 1464

There's a DVD rewriter and a standard 320GB hard drive for storing programs and media.

Better battery

Pleasantly surprising was the 184-minute battery life the Presario posted on our benchmarking tests. It's good to see budget laptops lasting more than three hours and, with careful usage, we reckon you could squeeze even more out.

The only noticeable omission in terms of connectivity is the lack of an HDMI port for connecting to a high-definition external monitor or TV. You'll have to make do with the standard VGA Out connection or buy an adapter for one of the three USB ports.

There's an SD Card expansion slot and an Ethernet port in case you don't want to use the 802.11n Wi-Fi connection to access the internet.

The Compaq Presario CQ57- 366SA is a perfectly acceptable budget laptop, with special mention going to the battery life and speaker system. It doesn't look, or perform, like a standout laptop and there are alternatives – such as the Acer Aspire 5742 – but if you're searching for a basic machine for the next year or two this is a good pick.

Toshiba's all-conquering Qosmio range was the first to bring us glasses-free 3D, and we were so impressed with the X770 that we awarded it 4.5 stars. The Qosmio F750 continues the tradition, albeit with a couple of drawbacks.

The sub-standard keyboard and paltry battery life might put some off, but anyone looking for a movie powerhouse won't fail to be impressed.

The bright red outer design is eye-catching and complemented by the glossy all-black look under the lid. White LEDs around the touchpad, power button and hotkeys also add a bit of visual flair.

Unsurprisingly though, it's neither light nor svelte. Measuring in at 386 x 265 x 39mm with a weight of 3.2kg the Qosmio is more of a desk-based PC replacement than a portable gaming machine.

Once you fire up the laptop though, the lack of portability gets lost in a storm of power provided by the Intel Core i7-2630QM CPU and Nvidia GeForce GT540M dedicated graphics chip.

Interacting with the Qosmio is made all the better by the fantastic screen Toshiba has incorporated. Capable of full 1080p high-definition visuals, the screen is bright, crisp and coated with the reflective Super-TFT coating that adds a degree of richness to the colours in pictures and movies.

The standout feature is, of course, the glasses-free 3D effect. By using the webcam to track your eyes, you can move your heads freely while retaining the 3D image unlike, for example, Nintendo's 3DS game system which requires you to keep your head in one position for the 3D effect.

While 3D will appeal to some, others might not be converted yet – and to be fair, the effect isn't as impressive when compared with the standard Active Shutter 3D system. But considering the price of the glasses, and the prospect of losing them, we're more than happy with this alternative.

TechRadar Labs

Battery Eater '05: 76 minutes
Cinebench: 16875
3DMark 2006: 8173

Average usability

While the screen and sheer power is fantastic, some of the usability suffers. The keyboard is a standard, flat affair and although the keys are nicely sized, there's some definite flex around the centre and we doubt it could cut it as a serious gaming keyboard.

Things are better when it comes to the touchpad; it's responsive and has a non-glossy surface that is comfortable to use. The only drawback is it's a little on the small side. For serious gaming, you're going to want to invest in a USB mouse.

Where the Qosmio really falls down is on battery life. Given the specifications we didn't expect much in terms of longevity but the Qosmio F750 gave out after only 74 minutes. It's a problem, but not a deal-breaker. The F750 isn't trying to be an ultraportable and to buy it thinking so is a mistake. In fact, its big brother the Qosmio X770-107 couldn't even manage an hour and gave out after 44 minutes.

We can't help but like the Qosmio a lot and its decisive pros and cons list should make it an easy decision. If you want hardcore visuals and processing power, we'd recommend it – although we'd advise you to also invest in a decent USB mouse and keyboard.

If you're less fussed about power over battery, and don't like 3D, then save your £1,300 for a different machine.