Cheap hardware of the day

Singapore
This is a bizarre situation. I've got the product but not the price. The Joycoder PV-330 is available in Singapore but no price ;-(. It is available in the UK for around £320. The Joycoder looks like the Archos multimedia readers; it is a MP4 video player and recorder, a data storage center, digital voice recorder and MP3 music player and finally, a digital photo viewer and digital photo wallet. They key to the Joycoder is its built-in 20GB HDD, enough to record over 40 hours of MP4 movie. Need less to say that if you want to upgrade the hard disk, you can do it. Even better, you can have an external USB 2.0 hard disk, pumping up the capacity to a tantalizing 300GB.

You can view the movies via the built-in 3.5" LCD monitor or connect it to a TV or a projector. The Joycoder has a built-in microphone to record sound. One can also store their MP3 music collection, up to 5000 songs or so on the 20GB hard disk drive. Information can be transfered via the USB 2.0 port. As a digital wallet, the Joycoder can store several tens of thousand high resolution digital photos. A credit card size IR remote control is provided. A 3-in-1 RCA AV in and out is provided while the firmware stands on a 2MB flash memory and 64MB RAM is also provided. The TFT screen has a resolution of 480x234 pixels and the onboard player is courtesy of Real. Oddly, the Joycoder does not currently support MPEG-1 or MPEG 2 as well as WMA or WMV. At 350g though, it is quite light as compared to others. µ

UK
While browsing tiny.com's website yesterday, I came across the £499 Laptop - most probably the cheapest such laptop in UK and also an ultra cheap computer with a supplied fully fledged operating system. Although tiny's website appeared to be down yesterday, I managed to get a copy courtesy of Google. The Tiny Omega LX2400 is the cheapest barebone available in UK at £199 all inclusive.

For the price, you get an Intel Celeron 2.4Ghz, 128MB DDR memory, a 80GB 7200rpm hard disk, a DVD/CDRW combo placed in a micro ATX tower with five drive bays, 32 MB shared memory graphics, a Supanet Internet optimized 56K modem, 10/100MBps ethernet, 5.1 sound onboard, multimedia keyboard and wheel mouse. The rest is pretty standard with four USB 2.0 ports and one floppy disk drive. As for the operating system it si a Linspire ex-lindows 4.5.

No information about whether it has other software like Open Office or the likes. If you want to go for something more beefy, then try the Intel Celeron D 320 which adds 128MB memory to 256Mb, a 128MB Geforce FX5200 graphics card and a 8x DVD Writer as a second optical reader for £299 inc. VAT. More Linux err... Linspire systems are apparently on the way. A quick look at what the competition offered - PC World offers a Celeron 21.4Ghz with half the hard disk and only a DVD - was enough to convince me that Tiny had a winner. Build one yourself might cost you even more. µ

USA
Thanks to Stefan for the link to a Iomega Firewire Rev Drive at $85.13. I do not know if it is a typo but the price seems to be too good to be true. Anyway, it would cost you only $85.13 to try.

The drive is an external model of the Jaz successor. It supports up to 35GB uncompressed and delivers read-write performance of up to 25MB/s, closer to a hard disk albeit an entry level one rather than a DVD. The disks themselves are fairly diminutive, sliightly higher than three floppy disks stacked one on the other. The REV is therefore destined to bring backup closer to hard disk. The Firewire version includes Iomega Automatic Back Up pro software and Symantec Norton Ghost. It is compatible with Mac and PC and does not need an external Power Supply. The disks are rated over one million rewrites, much more than most rewritable media. Also the "clic of death" syndrome that plagued users of previous Iomega hardware seems to have subsided... hopefully. The suggested retail price of the drive with a disk is $399.99. µ

France
Many words have been wasted about multi function printers. From the day they were invented, they have spurred controversy. Some would say that MFC cause more problem due to their sheer integration while others praised them for their lesser price. Indeed, these kinds of conflicts remind us of the days of integrated HiFi versus self assembled ones. The X1150 is the entry level MFP of Lexmark which explains that you might find a similar model from Dell, the A920.

The Lexmark X1150 prints at 4800x1200dpi on photo printer and scans at 600x1200dpi, which is fairly standard by today's performance. It can print in draft mode at a speedy 14 pages per minutes. At €75 at Mister Good Deal, it will suit most household PC. Other useful information include USB2.0 compatibility, a maximum scanning area larger than A4, the use of Contact Image System - CIS for scanning and the fact that it is a four-colour inkjet printer using two cartridge. Lastly, it is compatible with Mac and PC. A good deal if you want to get the cheapest MFP around. I don't know if it can photocopy documents or be used when the computer is switched off. The costs of consumables though might be somewhat high. µ