Thursday's Daily Hardware Buys

USA
Computergeeks is parting away with some surplus Viewsonic Tablet computers for only $494, around £280+VAT. The Airpanel v150 15" smart display is more of a super remote control for your PC crossed with a PDA rather than a stand alone computer. It features a large and bright 15" touch screen supported by a 400MHz Xscale Processor from Intel, 64MB SDRAM and 32MB ROM. It also comes with loads of accessories like a docking station and an AIRsync USB wireless adapter. Curiously, though it ships with Windows CE as operating system, it also comes with Windows XP Home and Professional Service Pack, Windows XP Professional for device abd Windows XP Professional Start Here.

Those alone are worth nearly $250 or more than half of the total price of this kit. The screen allows XGA display and supports 24-bit color. The whole system is powered by a 2Ah Lithium Ion battery. Expansion wise, it has three USB ports, one Type-II PCMCIA slot, VGA connector microphone and headphone jacks. The system is covered by a one-yer guarantee. Overall, a very good product which reminds me of 3Com's Audrey Wireless Pad.. Anyone remember these? µ

UK
Analogic.co.uk has sent me an email regarding some of their products. They are currently having an offer on refurbished Compaq Armada 7400 laptops. Our preferred one is a Pentium II 266MHz with 128MB memory and a 4.3GB hard disk for £170 + VAT. The Armada 7400 also comes with a DVD drive and a 13.3" colour TFT screen capable of XGA resolution. Amongst other things you will found, there is support for a PSU, Nickel Metal Hydride batteries, all supported by a 30 day warranty which can be extended to one year on a £40 payment. More models are available as from £110 + VAT. which should last on average 2.5 hours. Finally, you can expect to find some nice additions like the Easy Point III, the integrated modem, the PCMCIA ports, the multibay function which allows you to swap out bays as well as the sturdy magnesium-alloy casing. µ

Singapore
TFT monitors are gradually displacing their CRT counterparts. Videopro.com.sg is selling the entry level CMV 1512 15" LCD monitors for only S$ 455, less than £ 130 + VAT. The CMV brand might not be known to the public but it is a pretty important OEM in Taiwan under the name Chi Mei technology. The CMV 1512 features an analog input so it won't work natively with some DVI-only cards for example. It does come with two 2-watt inbuilt speakers that won't rock the room but enough for Windows. It is light and takes almost no space on your desk. It has a contrast ratio of 400:1 and won't rotate to portrait. With only 48w consumed, it is fairly economical and boasts a 0.3mm dot pitch and a good response time of 15ms (66Hz). PCQuest says of it that "Overall, it's a good entry-level LCD monitor that can be used by offices with a space constraint and for people spending long hours in front of the screen". µ

France
Rueducommerce.fr has a cheapo AMD socket 754 motherboard on sales. The Asrock K8S8X might be cheap at €79.49 (around £45+VAT - good price considering the same product costs 15% more in UK) but it oozes quality. One must not forget that Asrock is a spinoff of the Asustek group, the largest motherboard manufacturers in the world. Based on the SIS755 chipset, it has two DIMM slots, one AGP port and five PCI connectors. Onboard, a 5.1 sound module, Ethernet, two Serial ATA 150 connectors suporting RAID 0,1 and six USB 2.0 connectors (with support for two more) are present. Performancewise, it is no slouch at all and overclocks quite well even though not as much as some motherboards with better BIOSes. So good it is that OCworkbench gives it a highly recommended award and adds "Overall, if you are one that has been waiting for a cheaper Socket 754 K8 board for your Athlon 64 3000+ or 3200+ processor, ASrock K8S8X is definitely a board within your purchase limits for your gaming needs". µ