Cheap 19-inch LCD monitor, cheap laptops, cheap cheap

IF YOU know of any good value IT sales (auctions, rebates, one-off, clearance, surplus, classified ads) going around in the United Kingdom, France, USA or Singapore, don't hesitate to contact me, at least 24 hours before the sales end.

USA
There's a new kid on the Gaming block from Tapwave. The Zodiac 2 multimedia handheld takes the fun of a gaming console, cross it with the power of a high-end handheld computer, integrate with MP3 player, photo viewer and videos and you've got Zodiac.

It's the perfect combination of functionality, technology and portability in a sleek package you'll want to take everywhere. The charcoal gray Zodiac 2 multimedia handheld comes with 128MB of RAM, USB cable, power cable, earbuds, wrist strap and a flip cover.

Also included is the new Zodiac v1.1 software suite and CD containing Palm Desktop Software and Chapura PocketMirror to seamlessly sync your organizer data, MP3 playback, video playback, image viewing, word processing, calculator and web browsing (requires compatible mobile phone with data service). And, of course, games. Stuntcar Extreme and AcidSolitaire are included to get you started.

Features include a Motorola i.MX1 ARM9 processor, a high resolution 480x320 pixels, 3.8-inch 16-bit colour TFT screen powered by ATI's Imageon graphics accelerator coupled with fathammers' XForge 3D graphics engine. Two expansion slots allow you to plugin MMC, SD and SDIO cards including peripherals and others. The Zodiac 2 also a PDA which can be used to watch Movies. Powered by a PalmOS, its many applications will be a boon if you are a gaming businessman or vice versa. At US $353, it is cheaper than buying a colour PDA and a portable gaming console and definitely much lighter.

UK
Nineteen inch LCD monitors are bound to become the next frontier as the price difference between a 15-inch monitor and a 19-inch monitor reaches its lowest point ever.

Basically, two 15-inch monitors cost the same as a much larger 19-inch LCD monitor making it a much better deal to buy the later. Three offers are available in the UK with one under the £200+VAT barrier at £199.95+VAT. Savastore has a winner with its Aries AL190 19-inch TFT monitor. With a viewing size of 48.3cm, it finally hammers a nail in the large-CRT category coffin.

The rest of the features are pretty standard. A fairly large bezel, a 0.29mm dot pitch, a 400:1 contrast ratio with a 300cd/m2 luminance. The screen resolution is 1024x1280 and input connector is a standard D-Sub. The AL:190 weighs in at 9Kg and consumes around 60w, much less than a similar sized CRT monitor. It comes with anti-glare treatment. For once, Dabs.com is beaten at the price game. With this particular model £22 dearer over there. The monitor is made by ATEC and belongs to the NeoView range.

In the near future, we can expect prices to fall even more as manufacturers try to recover their costs by selling more monitors.

Singapore
The cheapest laptop in Singapore is a mobile AMD Athlon 2200+ powered ECS made notebook, the A535. At S$1099 - at Cybermind - or £354, it is by far less expensive than new laptops in the UK. Corners have been cut thoug as it comes with only 128MB DDR memory and a CDROM drive.

But for the rest, users will be pleased to learn that there is a 20GB under its hood, a Gigabit Ethernet controller coupled with a 56K modem - the ECS website also mentions a 802.11b WLAN controller though this is not present on Cybermind's brochure, a fairly large 14.1-monitor, two minute speakers and a 8-cell battery - ther latter takes 210 minutes to charge to give a 80 minute autonomy.

The same model is on sale in the US under by Walmart under the name "Balance". Other interesting points include the SIS740 chipset which provides with a 256bit 3D graphics engine which share at least 16MB of memory, a fairly comfortable keyboard and a synaptics touchpad with a 4 way scrolling button. Interface ports include four USB 2.0 ports, a whole set of Audio ports, Kensington Lock, CRT port, TVO and parallel port.

The guys at Laewe.com bought one of these and found out that it was compatible with Linux. Overall, they say, it is a good value. If you don't need to do games or video editing, this is a competent laptop and the price is just right. Given its design limitations, the product was given a four and a half stars out of five. It loses the half-star solely because of the flimsy touchpad buttons. Overall, the laptop fulfills most requirements for a basic machine without going the extra mile. If you want to play game or encode MP3, this is definitely not your PC. However, if you do want a laptop to watch some movies, do some text editing and surf the net, then you can't go wrong with the A535. µ

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