Cheap hardware bargains o'the day

IF YOU know of any good value IT sales (buy it now 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.

UK
£9.99 for a 54MBps Wireless PC card - it is really a bargain for those with older non-Centrino laptops. PC World slashed a full £40 from the SRP to give the Netgear WG511 to their customers (go to pcworld.co.uk, enter product code 951462). The card is a 802.11g Wireless PC card and theoretically can go up to 54MBps - although in real life, don't expect anytying near. Backward compatible with 802.11b, it is five times faster than the latter and gives you the convenience of being able to connected to a network - or to the interret - at anytime. Netgear's intuitive Install wizard makes driver installation a real pleasure and with up to 128-bit WEP encryption, hackers will have a hard time trying to access your data.

The card also have dynamic rate shifting according to environmental conditions achieves the fastest possible connections. Thorough testing ensures quality and dependable operability, which NETGEAR backs up with a solid 3-year warranty. The card will support MAC address authentication, 802.1x and WPA with future firmware upgrades: these enhanced security measures ensure only authorized users can access the network. The NETGEAR Wireless LAN Manager lets you create profiles that reflect specific WLAN settings for each place you travel. Maximum throutput for the 802.11g reached 20.2MBps in CNet Labs' tests. Moreover, the WG511 provided with a strong signal beyond 100 feet, which is from CNEt's own word - an exceptional range for this product range. Backed by a 24/7 tech support via phone, a well organised website with firmware and a searchable knowledge base and you will understand why this product deserves a serious look from you.

USA
Most reviews of the Kodak EasyShare CX7430 are ecstatic about the camera. PCWorld says "If simplicity is a virtue when it comes to digital cameras, the EasyShare CX7430 outclasses most of its competition. Kodak gave this camera just the few controls needed for basic snapshot photography, and added text-based help prompts so that even the most neophyte photographer can work through them after a little instruction". Harmonycomputers is selling this 4.0MP digital camera for a mere $164 making it fantatic value for money. The camera's resolution is the effective number of pixel it can capture rather than obtained from interpolation. It is a refurbished camera but comes with Kodak's full warranty.

It obtained an incredible 97% approval from users at CNET, a true thumbs up for this camera. Although it has no manual exposure or focus conrols and no non-JPEG file options, it is still a relatively complete camera. The camera has a 3x optical zoom - 35mm equialent to a 34-102mm - which can be combined with a 4x advanced digital zoom. It does have autofocus and a 1.6in TFT LCD display. To complement the latter, you have a real optical viewfinder. The camera also has a movie mode with a movie resolution of up to 640x480 at 13fps, complete with audio capture - video format used is Quicktime MOV with MPEG4 compression. The movie length is only limited by the capacity of the external memory card - which would be MMC or SD. The card has an internal 16MB memory but it would obviously not be enough if you plan to make films.

The quality of the photos obtained from the camera are good enough to be printed in an A3 format without being ashamed of the quality. But its a pity though that corners had to be cut on accessories. The camera does not come with any batteries, casing or memory card. Final words again from PCWorld - Uncomplicated and inexpensive, the EasyShare is fine for buyers whose interest in photography is limited to recording life's events without the distraction of complicated settings.

Singapore
It seems that ATI has decided to get rid of the 9800 Pro and has orderd its retailers to get rid of these chips. Else, what would be the possible explanation of the sudden slump in the price. Cybermind is selling a Powercolor R9800Pro for only S$389 - half its last year's price. The R98-PC3 fortunately does not share the 128-bit memory interface that hinders the performance of some Powercolor Radeon 9800 cards. The card comes witha full size HSF covering the GPU but as for most entry level R9800 Pro cards, does not cover the memory module. For the rest, it is pretty standard with TVO, DSub and DVI, a 256-bit memory interface and a 8-pixel pipeline architecture.

The price is only a few Singaporean dollars over and above the plain 5900 category but handily beats it in most if not all benchmarks. Hardwarezone was able to overclock the powercolour to a maximym of 440MHz for the core and 690 for the memory - Samsung 2.83ns are used on the 9800Pro. All cables and acessories are included. Other software include InterVideo WinDVD 4, Summonet, Comanche 4 and demos of Ballistics, Black Hawk Down, Ghost Recon, Serious Sam and Vietcong. The card is now releagated to a mid-range position but can be expected to compete easily with the members of the 6600 family. µ

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