Smart Networking – IP Over Power

When it comes to home networking, it seems that most people are served very well indeed by a relatively straightforward wireless router. There’s no real mystery to it, a router just has enough coverage to envelop most houses. Still, there are some who, for one reason or another, just can’t use a router. In those cases, IP over power can be a refreshing change.

Check out our page for the Belkin IP over power arrangement 🙂

People can have any number of reasons for moving away from wireless: for some it’s just that their house is too big (or of too-dense construction) to allow solid wireless access, for others its that their desktop is their gaming machine, and on the wrong end of the house to their router. These things happen. Indeed, our Country Manager recently found himself in such a bind…

Special Offers – Week of December 14th

Good afternoon all, hopefully everyone’s week is off to a good start. For those of you who are regular readers, you’ll be pretty familiar with the structure of the blog by now, but for those of you who are new to it, we generally tend to post on Monday afternoon to point out some of the products that we’re offing discounts on for the week.

This week, we’ve got offers on a lovely set of speakers and a solid Wireless N router.

Logitech X-230 2.1:

Logitech’s X-230 is a solid set of speakers; it boasts two speakers and a sub, as anyone who’s familiar with the “2.1” in the name will already have noticed. They’re small, pretty elegant and tuck out of the way neatly… that said, they’re also some lovely speakers.

Click through to see our page for the Logitech X-230s 🙂

Logitech’s X-230 provide a full and solid sound that’s genuinely very impressive indeed considering the fact that they’re so very cheap. Moreover, you won’t find that the bass eclipses the treble too much, as is sadly common on other speakers in the same price range. The subwoofer isn’t massive, but it does the job. Obviously enough, at €44 you’re not going to be getting professional quality sound out of them, but if you’re just looking to add a little something visceral to your desk then you could certainly do a lot worse.

The user reviews confirm that with some fairly quotable snips, including, “Deep full bass, very clear sound. So cheap. Was hard to believe how good they sound was for that price, just wanted any old speakers hooked up for parties to play music over; all agreed; sound was fantastic, I’m very impressed.” It’s hard to argue with that kind of positivity, especially with other reviews echoing similar sentiment.

Logitech’s X-230 will set you back the entirely reasonable sum of €44 this week, which isn’t bad at all considering what you get out of the whole affair.

For those who like the price and description then you can check out Logitech’s 5.1 surround arrangement built from similar parts, the Logitech X-530. It’s what I’m using in my gaming/music setup at home and I’m loving it 😉

Bestselling Portable Video Players

Hey there all, our rundown of some of our most popular netbooks last week was very well received. People asked if we could put together a similar piece about the portable media players we carry, and while we don’t carry too many, I’ve got a bit of a top three here for those who were curious.

As you might expect, the list is leaned a bit in favour of the iPod, they being the practically ubiquitous media player of choice by now, but there is an Archos in there, for those of you who like something a bit bigger and a bit more durable. It also avoids pretty much all the hassle with proprietary formats and iTunes, which isn’t a bad old deal.

iPod Touch:

Apple’s iPod Touch is one of those products that’s just done shockingly well for itself; when Apple first announced that it was to release a device that basically amounted to an iPhone without the “phone” there were a lot of questions about it, but as it turns out, people are very interested in picking up a device with a large, touch-sensitive display, fairly large scale flash memory and solid video.

Click through to see our page for the iPod Touch 32GB 🙂

Since launch though, the Touch has morphed and, while the Nano has gained a camera, the iPod Touch has become the “entry-level” device for those looking to have a bash at apps on Apple’s App Store, meaning you needn’t pick up an iPhone to get in on the app-action. It might seem simple enough, but it’s one of the biggest points in the iPod Touch’s favour over other media players.

Add to that the fact that the recently released third generation of the iPod Touch comes with up to 64GB of storage, you can imagine putting video on it that bit more easily. Moreover, it comes with the same style of processor improvement as the iPhone 3G S, so you can rely on it to keep up with your apps a little more neatly than the older second-generation models.

Archos to Launch Android Tablet

Word is leaking out about a new device from French portable media player manufacturer, Archos. The upcoming gadget is to be an Android powered tablet capable of 720p playback.

As you might well expect from any new touch-sensitive Archos devices, the device is rumoured to act as an MID (mobile internet device) as well as a portable media player. Gizmodo is reporting that we can expect to see a device with a five-inch screen. What’s most interesting though is the inference Gizmodo has drawn that it’ll boast its own 3.5G internet connection, a feature largely unavailable in devices not designed specifically for the purpose in Europe.

Intel part of €100 million Irish WiMAX Project

The Sunday Business Post is reporting on a joint venture between Intel and “an Irish broadband provider” including the setup of €100 million worth of WiMax network.

For those of you unfamiliar with WiMAX, it’s essentially an incredibly long ranged WiFi setup. WiMAX has been used widely in countries like Korea to supply high-speed internet access to sparsely distributed rural populations, eliminating the particularly costly need to lay miles of cable. WiMAX has been reported to work (albeit with low connection speeds) at distances of up to 50km, which means that practically all of Ireland could be covered without too much expense to the provider.