28" Hanns-G HG281DP Widescreen Monitor

Power User

Now that your house is full of buzzing, bleeping gadgets of all descriptions it's time to make sure the juice isn't on the loose. That's right, it's time to get all environmentally conscious and normalise your electricity usage. First of all, good news everyone! The Irish Energy Sector has been deregulated to the point where you can be switched over to a new supplier within an hour. See that, Eircom, hmm?

That means you are now free to get your power from alternate suppliers. At a minimum saving of 10%, you'd be mad not to.

https://www.thebigswitch.ie/
http://www.airtricity.com/ireland/for_your_home/index.xml

Way-hey! Instant savings. Now how can you get it down further? Well, why not invest in a handy-dandy energy meter to see which devices are drawing down unnecessary Watts?

http://www.efergy.com/en/
http://www.ecostore.ie/acatalog/Energy_Saving.html

After buying one of these suckers you'll think twice before leaving that Xbox plugged in all night!

And finally the most important part of all: common sense. Electricity has only been in common usage since the early 19th century and people somehow managed to survive without it. I'm not suggesting using candles and horse-drawn carts but don't forget: walking is good for you, you can't watch television in the living room while eating dinner in the dining room and laptops are good enough for checking email.

With January 2009 looming around the corner, we move ever closer to a world of Digital Terrestrial Television. But all those people who bought Freeview-ready TVs to be "ready for the future" are in for a shock: the vast majority of them won't work in Ireland. There have been a few DTT trials around the country (mainly Dublin) that worked on the old equipment but these have now ended and there are new trials in places. These use the more modern Mpeg-4 AVC standard also known as H.264, x.264 and Mpeg-4 part 10. So, if you want to receive terrestrial channels after jan '09, you have a couple of options.

Buy a TV with DTT and Mpeg-4 decoding built in. (Expensive)
Buy a seperate box for DTT and Mpeg-4. (Probably not too expensive but who knows?)
Buy a combo satellite and DTT tuner with Mpeg-4.

You may have guessed which one I'm going to recommend.

The Technomate packs a whole lot of functionality into it's shell, it can pick up channels from DTT and satellite sources, decode SD and HD channels, and download program info from the internet. It probably does more but I'm already sold! For the interested, you can view the specifications here:

2 High Definition Tuners: DVB-S/DVB-S2 Satellite & DVB-T Terrestrial Compliant (MPEG-2 / MPEG-4 / H.264)
576i & 576p, 720p & 1080i supported
1 Smart Card Reader & 2 Common Interfaces (2CI)
HDMI & Component Output (YPbPr) with Hardware Upscaler to Improve Picture Quality
Very Fast & Detailed Hardware Blind Search (power scan)
Ethernet Communication Port
eSATA Port
2x USB Ports (Front + Rear Ports)
PLL type RF-Modulator (Ch. 21- 69) and UHF tuning function
10,000 TV & Radio Channels
USB 2.0 PVR Ready via USB External Device
USB PVR Features: Rewind/Forward, Slow Motion Rewind/Forward, Timeshift (Pause Live TV) & Record Scrambled/Free-To-Air (FTA) Channels & Record current channel and playback a recording at the same time
Music player & JPEG viewer via USB 2.0
Fast Software & Channel List download via USB 2.0
2 Scart Outputs with RGB Support
Fully Featured VFD text Front Panel Display
Super Sensitive tuner for very weak signals
Dolby Digital Optical S/PDIF
Dolby Digital by HDMI
S-Video Output
Less than 1 second channel change
DiSEqC 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 & 1.3 (USALS) compatible
Auto Navigation system – select as many satellites as you want to search
On-screen display with true full color resolution
Enhanced 16 Favorite channel groups
Channel control by: Favorites, Lock, Skip, Move & Delete
Channel sort by: All, Alphabet, Transponder & CAS
Parental, Installation & Receiver Lock
Multilingual OSD Menu: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, German, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, Russian, Greek, Czech, Romanian, Persian
Fast & Easy-To-Use Menu System
Extended EPG and program reservation on EPG
Teletext & Subtitle by OSD and VBI
Last channel memory function
Factory default channel list
Various games
Software & channel list upgrade via RS-232C: PC to STB, STB to PC, STB-STB and USB
Zoom function on Pause & Live channel
Multi picture display
Support for multiple language broadcasts
SCPC & MCPC receivable from C/Ku band satellites LNBs supported: Universal, Single, Single S & C band wideband LNBs
Multi TV Standards supported: PAL G, I, K, M
4:3 & 16:9 Screen Formats
90-250V AC 50/60 Hz
LNB Short Circuit protection onboard
Software & channel list upgrade via RS-232C: PC to STB, STB to PC, STB-STB and USB
Dimension 390mm x 262mm x 67mm
Available in Silver or Glossy Black

Please note: the motorbike is not included.

This is in fact a rare and strange beast, a 28" monitor with full 1080p HD capabilities. No TV tuner, just HDMI and VGA to get the signal in.

So without further ado:

28" Hanns-G HG281DP Widescreen Monitor

1920 x 1200 (WUXGA) Optimum Resolution
16.7 Million Colours
800:1 Contrast Ratio
3ms Response Time
500 cd/m2 Brightness
Viewing Angle (H/V): 170°/ 170°
One HDMI Input (Comes with a HDMI to DVI lead)
One Analogue Input
2 Integrated 2.5W Speakers
3 Year Manufacturer Warranty

28" is an unusual size for a monitor. 23" and 26" are popular for televisions but 22" and 24" are normally where the action is on the PC scene. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just... odd. And it seems to be astonishingly good value.

Aria PC: £267.84 + £40.75 (!!!)

Overclockers UK: £258.49 (time-limited offer) + £22.00

PC World Business: €424 (ex VAT)

So for the price of a 24" you could have a 28", not too shabby. Reviews seem generally positive too. Will this be the first of a long line of 28's, or just another mad venture by HannsG/Hannspree? Only time will tell...

VS

The eternal question for those in a world without woot (but with woot shirt). Do I go for the Dutch or the, let's face it, English. UK my arse, that's no Scotsman telling dodgy jokes.

Anyway, as I sit here mulling over the next twenty minutes I think to myself: "If a great bargain appeared and I missed it because I was on the other site, how annoyed would I be?". How indeed. The answer is surely somewhat or possibly even quite.

But just because both sites have the potential to create the perfect environment for producing a most lusted-after item from my list (which I assure you has no tangible form per say, beyond it's manifestations in my increasingly unpleasant personality) there are more factors to consider. The pedigree for instance. While Boffer has shown a great knack for quirkiness, they have yet to show that they can deliver performance when selling items of a greater scale. Whereas iBOOD occasionally forget to ensure that a given offer really is the internet's best offer, they have been known to come up trumps on big ticket items.

So how do I reconcile these two very different yet ultimately harmonious schools of consumerism? Casting a look at yesterdays offer sheds no clues at what will come tomorrow: iBOODS wifi enabled Archos media center (complete with loathsome optional browser) and Boffers cheapy PC repair kit typify the gulf that divides them and does nothing to make me think some serious mould-breaking is in the works.

iBOOD or Boffer...

Whoops, almost eleven. Gotta go.

So play.com are having a sale with a lot of items for £5. Unfortunately, all they've managed to do is highlight the myriad problems that afflict them. For example:

They won't ship electronics to Ireland, so a whole category is ineligible for purchase.
The exchange rate on this sale is almost £1 = €1.49 as opposed to the more realistic £1 = €1.24 (source: xe.com)
Some of their items have increased in price for the sale! This fondue set was £3.99, now £5.00! Only, at power ci- I mean, play.com!

So, caveat emptor. They are still a reasonable bet for your purchases but not totally without problems.

N.B.
I see boards have picked up on it as well. Boardsie lindtee suggests using http://www.dvdbargainalerts.co.uk/ to compare prices for DVD's and I concur. The storewatch section is particularly good. Thanks, lindtee!

A little late but still available. Komplett me.

Samsung 20" 2032MW, TV-tuner,Widescreen, Teletext, 1000:1, 5ms, Black

€ 254.01

-7%

My €0.02
Tough call. It doesn't seem to be cheaper anywhere else but 20" in general are a good bit cheaper than 250. PC World for business sell it ex VAT for 227.

Corsair Powersupply 650W Black, ATX/EPS,120mm Fan, 8xSATA, SLI

€ 79.00

-7%

My €0.02
Looks like a good price for the TX series. Beats Dabs'.

Cooler Master Transparent side panelfor Mystique 631/632 Black

€ 24.01
-0%

My €0.02
Er, it's a transparent panel for modders. If you know what this is, you'll know it's essentially worthless but might want it anyway.

PRESTIGIO HDD External Data Safe II 2.5" 80GB SATA USB 2.0 Brown Leather

€ 39.00

-20%

My €0.02
Well, on the good side it's only forty euro.

No Takebacks: 5 Most Screwed-Up Tech Buys

Really, they should have known better. Haven't eBay capitalised so well on their acquisition of Skype in 2005? Oh, you didn't know? Maybe that's because they've done bugger all with it.

Don’t Be Pound Wise but Penny Foolish

An article from December 07, probably written after an honest review of the Christmas blitz.

Three mobile broadband

Number one result for "awful purchase", or at least it should be. I've heard more complaints about Three Ireland than any other broadband provider and many even appear to be legitimate. There's a huge forum thread on it as well as a "company x sucks" site [actually this seems to have vanished, legal pressure?] and no shortage of cranky Irish bloggers.

Ah, it was salmonella. Haven't heard of that for a while, what with kids today and their e-coli's and superbug whatnots.

Samsung HT-TX250 Home Cinema HDMI 600W

€ 299.00

-14%

My €0.02
It's ok I guess. Ibood couldn't do any better.

Sony Bravia 32" LCD-TV KDL-32P3000--DVB-T--

€ 537.00

-9%

My €0.02
A few people have complained of buzzing from this model. Also, I'm pretty certain it won't work with Irish DTT because it has no MPEG-4 decoder. Cheap enough though, if only the shipping wasn't so rough...

BenQ 24" G2400W, Black, 1920x1200,5ms, 1000:1, VGA/DVI/HDMI

€ 319.00

-9%

My €0.02
Apart from some people moaning about TN panels, this looks like a decent buy. Dabs have it for 338 and Misco want 336 so if you want it, go for it!

HIS Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3,PCI-Express 2.0, 2xDVI/HDMI/HDCP

€ 140.00

-10%

My €0.02
Now even cheaper than two weeks ago. Ok, that was a Sapphire card and this is a HIS, but hey it's a 4850 at the end of the day.

Apologies for all the delays recently, a number of factors have been conspiring to keep me from my favourite blog. I think pointing out Komplett's flaws might make me feel better!

Canon Pixma MP610

€ 129.00

-7%

My €0.02
Yup, it's a printer. Do you know how much the ink costs? The photo paper? Because that's where most of your money will go. Actually this price is pretty good as it beats dabs, peats, elara and miscellaneous.

Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA232MB 7200RPM

€ 109.00

-8%

My €0.02
Ooh, a terabyte. Nice. But Aldi have them in external casings for €120.

Acer 24" LCD P241WD Widescreen,3000:1, Silver/Black, 5ms, HDCP

€ 330.00

-5%

My €0.02
Honestly? No idea. But I don't like Acer screens at all.

HTC Touch Diamond (4GB) WWE

€ 538.99

-5%

My €0.02
Not a bad price, but not a good phone. Do yourself a favour and get an N95.

Ok Komplett, I went easy on you this time. But you better bring some deals that I can assess in a fair and impartial manner next week!

A rather handy way of watching your must-see list of films is to use an online DVD rental service. They all work the same way: first you sign up for a free trial (credit card required). Then you create a queue which is essentially a list of the films you want to watch in descending order of preference. When the film at the top of your queue becomes available, it is posted out to you. You watch it, and when you are finished you pop it in a freepost envelope and send it back. Depending on your plan, you may be able to take out more than one at a time. So if you have a list of films you never quite got around to seeing but don't want to buy, one of these services may be for you.

If you're into games then it works even better because they are so bloody expensive whereas DVDs are comparatively cheap.

Moviestar.ie
Free trial period: 2 weeks
Available: DVD, BluRay
Mini MOVIE : €7.99pm, 2 DVDs
MOVIE 1: €12.99pm, 1 disc at a time, unlimited rentals
MOVIE 2: €17.99pm, 2 discs at a time, unlimited rentals
MOVIE 3: €24.99pm, 3 discs at a time, unlimited rentals

Screenclick
Free trial period: 2 weeks
Available: DVD
Lite: €7.99pm, 2 DVDs
Bronze: €12.99pm, 1 DVD at a time, unlimited rentals
Silver: €17.99pm, 2 DVDs at a time, unlimited rentals
Gold: €24.99pm, 3 DVDs at a time, unlimited rentals
Platinum: €31.99pm, 4 DVDs at a time, unlimited rentals

OnlineDVDRentals
Free trial period: 2 weeks
Available: DVD, PS2, PS3, XBOX 360, Wii, PC Games
Lite: €7.99pm, 2 DVDs
Bronze: €10.99pm, 1 discs at a time, unlimited rentals
Silver: €15.99pm, 2 discs at a time, unlimited rentals
Gold: €22.99pm, 3 discs at a time, unlimited rentals
Platinum: €29.99pm, 4 discs at a time, unlimited rentals

Now, the gotchas. Not every company has the same amount of discs to go around. So, you could be waiting for the discs in your queue to become free. Ranges also differ, with some offering TV show sets and classic movies. Also, Moviestar.ie are the only ones who rent BluRay discs at the moment. My advice is try them all. Why not, it's free!

Things have been hotting up in the world of soulless, corner-shop crushing, profit-chasing and unfortunately necessary supermarkets. Tesco have announced their intentions to help beat back the recession by offering low-quality crap for less money than usual. Not too impressed with that. However, if any of you use clubcards there is a promotion giving 25% back in points on PCs, laptops, TVs, games consoles and electrical equipment this weekend. I don't believe in the loyalty card system myself so, as usual, use your own judgment. I assume Tesco are fine for returns.

M&S Dine for Two for €12.50 is back. It's cheap and very tasty.

Dunnes were selling the old Xbox 360 Pro (without HDMI) for €180 last week. Sorry, I was on holidays.

I couldn't help but smile at Lidl Treats. I'm a big fan of some of their stuff so it's nice to find an author who does good research as well as spinning a good yarn. Prices are in Euro too, unlike the now defunct the joy of lidl. Worth checking out.

It sounds better - or so they say. This is essentially a turntable that you can hook up to your PC. It uses a USB connector to shuttle the audio directly from the pickup to the PC so you don't need to mess around with cables and sound cards. Of course if you are a pro then maybe you like messing around with wires and whatnot but then again this isn't for you. If you are a DJ on a budget with a Mac and a few vinyls for remixing or an aging hipster who wants to make their back catalogue accessible through the home multimedia system, then this could be right up your street.

For comparison, komplett are selling it at €99 : ION ITT USB05XL USB

Free upgrades for broadband users

If you have UPC broadband at home you may have noticed the blisteringly fast new speeds you can reach. 20Mb on the top package puts it on a par with Dungarvans famous offering. If you haven't been moved to a faster package automatically you will need to fill in this form. You can upgrade from from 1Mb to 3Mb, 3Mb to 10Mb or 6Mb to 20Mb for free, but will need to sign up to a new 12-month contract.

It's not all doom and gloom for the 99% of DSL users on Eircoms resold Bitstream product (which powers almost every other ISP) as there are free upgrades coming to you "in the next four weeks". They won't be quite as dramatic though, with the top residential package moving to a mere 7.6Mbps. How awful.

No word of reactions from Smart, Digiweb or Irish Broadband at this time.

Don't expect any movement from the 3G crowd, they're fighting their own battles.

PS. What the hell happened to Wimax? Too expensive? Not enough available spectrum? Name not catchy enough?

Taking a break from the high end 1080p beamers this time, what we have here is the InFocus IN1 gaming projector. Ideally suited for PS2 gaming in the kids room (ahem) this is a basic projector that will display medium quality graphics from medium quality sources. In other words, don't expect to have this at the centre of your home cinema. But for a wall full of gaming goodness, you won't get better value than this!

General
Device Type	DLP Projector
Built-in Devices	Stereo speakers
Width	33.9 cm
Depth	26.4 cm
Height	21.6 cm
Weight	4.5 kg
Projector / Panel
Image Brightness	500 ANSI lumens
Image Contrast Ratio	1500:1
Image Size	1.01 m - 5.33 m
Projection Distance	1.5 m - 8 m
Throw Ratio	1.8:1
Resolution	640 x 480
Native Aspect Ratio	4:3
Max Sync Rate (V x H)	130 Hz x 69 kHz
Bulb type	UHP 132 Watt
Bulb life cycle	1000 hour(s)
Controls / Adjustments	Volume, brightness, input select, focus
Video Input
Analogue Video Format	NTSC, SECAM, PAL
Analogue video Signal	S-Video, composite video, component video
Digital Television Video Formats	480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, 480i, 576i, 576p
Audio Output
Type	Speaker(s) - integrated
Sound Output Mode	Stereo
Output Power / Channel	7 Watt
Speaker(s)	2 x right / left channel
Expansion / Connectivity
Interfaces	1 x component video input - RCA x 3 1 x S-video input - 7 PIN mini-DIN 1 x composite video input - RCA 1 x headphones - mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm
Miscellaneous
Compliant Standards	FCC Class B certified, CE, UL, TUV GS, C-Tick, GOST, cUL, NOM, EN55022 Class B, ICES-003 Class B, CCC, MIC, EK, IRAM, RoHS, IEC 60950-1, EN 60950-1, WEEE
Power
Power Device	Power supply - internal
Voltage Required	AC 120/230 V ( 50/60 Hz )
Power Consumption Operational	260 Watt
Manufacturer Warranty
Service & Support	90 days warranty
Service & Support Details	Limited warranty - parts and labour - 90 days Limited warranty - lamp - 90 days
Environmental Parameters
Min Operating Temperature	10 °C
Max Operating Temperature	40 °C

Blurb shamelessly lifted from elara.ie

As the title says, Shirt.Woot are now willing to send their stuff to Ireland for the more than reasonable price of $5. If you are wondering who the hell Shirt.Woot are, or what relevance this has to, allow me to enlighten you. Woot use the same sales model for selling that iBood use: 1 day, 1 deal. They are notable for having a great sense of humour, awesome goody bags, great low prices and not shipping outside America. It's the last one disappoints me. But hopefully this is a step in the right direction. Shirt.Woot is a sub-site that sells shirts using the sales model.

And just to compare Woot and iBood, today deals are:

Woot
Navigon 2100 Portable 3.5” GPS with Text to Speech
$89.99
+$5 shipping

iBood
Navigon PNA 2110 White West Europe preinstalled with TMC
€149.95
+€12.50 shipping

C'mon Woot, ship to Ireland already!

Hope you prefer the new style, the old one was getting on my nerves a bit. There's a new subscription link at the side so you can get the latest news directly into your RSS application or online reader if you're not doing so already. Now, onto business!

If you can manage a trip up North, and there are many reasons for doing so, you can grab a 40" Samsung TV for ~€700 in Currys. Beats the hell out of their recent Irish pricing.

Argos are doing a DVD recorder for ~€55, which is as cheap as I have seen.

Note: Currys.ie is down at the moment (Sun 16th Jul, 6pm).

And it's a significant one: it is now arguably the best value package at €19.99 per month. The basic E220 modem is now €29, and the E270 (with 2Mbps max upload) is €49. 3 have matched the fair usage policy, but now O2 are ahead in my opinion because they offer GPRS and EDGE in areas without 3G signal. It is more useful because more Irish people can't get broadband at home than need it in a select number of locations abroad.

As always, try before you buy.

Right. This is the LAST 500GB drive I will ever blog about. From here on out, it's a minimum of 750GB. But it's a good one, truly. The drive itself is nothing special but the multimedia case is superb. It supports a ton of different video types so you spend less time mucking around converting them, has component connectors for HD viewing, a handy remote that can be clipped underneath the drive when not in use, supports subtitles files, it's quiet, it's compact and it's €119.

Oh, and it's a standard SATA drive, so when 500GB just isn't enough just take it out and pop in a bigger drive. It even supports NTFS.

El Reg are reporting that the previously mentioned second coming of Christ (in phone form) will be retailing, Pay As You Go, for the still outrageous but not completely unattainable $599 (8GB) and $699 (16GB). So, a glimmer of hope there. Though I sometimes find myself more in agreement with this guy on the features front.

Ah, my favourite day of the week. Well, not really. But I do like looking through Komplett's deals!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Friday, September 19, 2008

Thursday, September 4, 2008

28" Hanns-G HG281DP Widescreen Monitor

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Friday, July 25, 2008

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

General

Projector / Panel

Video Input

Audio Output

Expansion / Connectivity

Miscellaneous

Power

Manufacturer Warranty

Environmental Parameters

Monday, July 7, 2008

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Friday, July 4, 2008

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Monday, June 30, 2008