Kworld TVBox 1440ex review

Well, having injured my back somehow my appetite is decreasing a lot. On the peak pain hampered me, I even ate nothing for a whole days except bread. Thank God, I stored bread in my room so when I was unable of getting up from my bed, at least I could reach them and ate them :D. The result is I lost 4 kilos. It's a new record since the biggest loss I was able to manage is 3 kilos when I got "germany measles" 5-6 years ago.

But the good "side effect" of losing my appetite is I'm able to save my penny - that suppose I spend for buying food - and buy this good : Kworld External TVBox 1440 ex. After toying with it for a while, here is the verdict.

Kworld is designed for no brainer. Even an idiot can use it without any sweat. There are tiny buttons on the tuner box that feel a little bit uncomfortable to press for controlling the tuner functions, but nevermind we won't use them a lot since the remote control will take over anything most of the time. The remote control use infrared as its transmission so we must point it to the tuner straightly. The remote control button is really good but for those with big fingers may wish the buttons there are slighly bigger too.

Hooking them to the monitor and the CPU is really easy. As I said in the beginning : this product is for no brainer. It's too easy to use! That's a good thing anyway ^_^. Using this product, we can watch television with our computer monitor without need to turn on our pc. But when we use our PC and want to watch tv for a moment, for example for watching news, we don't need to turn off out PC before turning on the tuner. Not necessary!

Just press the power on button on the remote control and the monitor will switch to display tv programmes instantly. And when we power off the tuner, we can continue using our PC just as we left off for watching tv. There is no data loss, no hassle. Very good product.

And for those who like to multitask a little bit, can use PIP function offered by this tuner. For example, when we want to kill the time by playing solitaire but we don't want to lose any single scene from our favorite movie broadcasting on the tv, the PIP surely come into useful. We also can arrange the position of PIP windows so that it won't disturb area we want to view. Very nice feature.

But inspite of the great features this product offers, there are two weakness I note. The first one is the sound quality it produces. While it seems a really good idea for including small speaker inside this tuner, the quality of speaker is proven to be too bad for music and movie. Those who really are music and movie lover should think of investing more money for buying better speaker and hook them to this tuner.

The second and last one, since computer monitor is more superior in displaying pictures than analog tv we usually use in our daily life, the weakness of analog tv signal is become more and more apparent. But this is actually a problem for every tv tuners if they are paired with digital monitor anyway. Kworld TVBox 1440ex provides us with noise reduction function, but I noticed that it doesn't help a lot for a very bad tv signal.

Anyway, this is a very good product for daily use. It's very easy to use and that's what makes this product fun to use :).

And last note, for those looking for better resolution, they can go for its sibling, Kworld TVBox 1680ex, which is nothing but a same product with better max resolution support (1680x1050) instead of 1440x900.

Labtec Elite 840 review..

When I was a college student a few years ago, I acquired this headphone. At that time, I was looking for cheapest solution for enjoying music since as a college student, I was always short of money. Looking for decent computer speaker for music, I realise all are too expensive. The excellent computer speaker for music at that time was Altec Lansing 621 and is priced about $150. A price that I couldn't afford...

Then when I had windows shopping in Dusit, Mangga Dua, I saw this headphone. I thought for a while: why don't give it a try? Priced about $25, I still can afford it with some saving money I had :). Then I looked for this headphone specification thoroughly. The specs is as listed below:

Features:

• High-performance audio for home or portable use
• Velvet touch ear pads for extended wear
• Acoustic air vent for enhanced bass
• Self-adjusting headband for superb comfort
• Tangle-free single-side cord

Specifications:

• Driver Magnet: Neodymium
• Cord Length: 10'
• Impedance: 32 ohms
• Ear Pads: Deluxe Padded
• Stereo Plug: Gold Plated
• Frequency Response: 20 - 20,000 Hz

Hmm, if I just mere take account the specification then this headphone will beat every computer speaker systems in the world since most of then cannot go as low as 20Hz! I believe to reproduce 20Hz by using speaker, we'll need a huge subwoofer and a very big room :). But in the end, I bought this gadget anyway and took it home...

First impression, when using this headphone in my old cheap computer, I found the sound reproduced is not too good. Searching a little bit for the culprit, I found two reasons causing bad sound. The first is the onboard soundcard I had (CMedia-8738) and the second is the source of mp3 file I played. So after pairing it with decent soundcard, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, I found this headphone can produce a very clear and nice music. I was surprised by the amount of details this headphone produced. The only thing lacking in this headphone is the bass. This headphone characteristic is producing a little bright sound. For bass lovers, they will absolutely be disappointed by this headphone-better go for Koss UR40!

The construction of this headphone is so well built. It's just the headphone cable is so thin that I sometimes was getting scared of tear it apart. But I found it would be unpleasant for wearing it for more than two hours since my ears will feel hot if I wear it for a long time. For comfort, I could not compare it with Sennheiser HD series anyway, which is being said as the most comfortable headphones in the world, it would not be fair. In its price range, I find this headphone offers the biggest driver (50mm) among its competitor. This is really nice as the bigger the driver, the more detail sound can be produced by this headphone...

After owning it for more than 4 years, then finally this headphone broke. I think it has exceeded its lifetime anyway. Time to start for hunting a new one....:)

High-End Computer Speaker for HTPC..

Nowadays, computer is more than office tool. Because of advanced technology, computer can now be used as home theater replacement or also known as HTPC (Home Theater PC). In order to build a HTPC, you'll need to fulfill several requirements by choosing the right components as follow :

• VGA Card that has hardware acceleration for decoding video compression (H-264, MPEG-2, etc)
  
• Processor with decent speed


• High-Quality soundcard which support multi-channel (5.1, 6.1, etc) playback


• A high-quality multi-channel speaker set


• A huge monitor or LCD TV for displaying the movie

This article will focus only on speaker. Why do I only discuss speaker? Because I believe speaker is the heart of HTPC. You cannot enjoy any movie if you cannot be immersed by the movie's sound effects. And the main device for giving you the right sound as wanted by movie producer is speaker because the quality of sound-card onboard nowadays has been very good. So in this article, I will try to show you 2 high-end computer speaker products with best price/performance that can be used in HTPC.

First candidate is Logitech Z5500. Let's see the speaker first from the image below :

I would not describe in details about Z5500 technical specifications because it would be too long and besides, there are a lot of reviews there you can easily find about :). I will just tell you what make me think this speaker does deserve to be in your living room.

Ok, first is 10" subwoofer. Well, it is the biggest subwoofer in this class and price range. So when you choose this one, you'll be sure of have an enough bass to shake your neighbors' wall :P. Just kidding. Logitech speaker is famous of its huge bass. Well, sometimes the bass is boomy but this can be tricked by placing them in the right spot and help from equalizer :). But with the big size of subwoofer, you'll be sure to know exactly what the explosion should sound in the war-action movie.

Second, Z5500 is equipped with hardware decoder in it. It's capable of decoding Dolby Digital, DTS, and Dolby Prologic II signal. It also have 6 channel direct, StereoX2 and Stereo mode if you don't want to utilize the hardware decoder capability. This will add more benefit when you have, for example, a stereo sound card but you want to hear 5.1 Dolby Digital sound from your movie. Well, you can merely use passthrough mode of your sound card so the signal will be delivered as is to the speaker and then let the hardware decoder in speaker do its job.

Third, Z5500 offers wide range of compatibility mode. You can use this speaker for PC/Mac, CD, MP3, DVD, Playstation, Xbox and other gaming console. It's very nice to have such a versatile speaker that can be used for many devices you want to plug in. You will save room and money because you won't need to buy another speaker for every devices you have.

Overall, because of its configuration, Logitech Z5500 is most suitable for movie (THX certified) and gaming. It can also be used for listening to music, but for some genre music which need a pure-flat frequency response before it can sound enjoyable, you'll have to tweak the equalizer enormous times before you can find the right configuration...

Now the second candidate, Edifier S5.1. As usual, let's see the image of this speaker first ;)

Wow, now we see how the speaker should really look :). Edifier S5.1 is really elegant by having wood finishing instead of plastic/alumunium material usually used in computer speaker. The configuration is almost the same like logitech, i.e : 5.1 and have remote control. The main difference between this speaker and logitech's one is edifier S5.1 does not come with any hardware decoder in it. The other difference is the subwoofer in Edifier S5.1 is smaller than logitech Z5500 has (8" vs 10"). But it won't hinder this speaker to be in your living room as it has several remarkable characteristics as follow :

First, looks! In my opinion, this speaker shows us how the speaker should look. Simple and elegant. The choosing of wood as finishing material is brilliant as wood is also known as an excellent material for reproducing sound. It also have LCD display, but in this case the control center from logitech is far better :).

Second, tweeter! The satellite of edifier S5.1 are equipped with 3/4 inch cloth dome tweeter. This will ensure that you'll be able to hear high frequency sound like you often hear in classics music.

Third, price! What can I say? For a price below $300, you won't ask for more as this speaker currently is the best price/performance speaker set. But keep in mind that this speaker is most suitable for music. If you want to hear *boom* as *BOOM* then you'll have to tweak equalizer a little bit. Just make sure your sound card support equalizer or at least treble/bass configuration.

Overall, Edifier S5.1 is an excellent choice for anyone who wants to have a nice-looking speaker and listen a lot for music in their living room. The setup features smaller subwoofer than logitech, means that edifier's subwoofer won't be stand out as above its satellites. It will be balance instead.

If I have hot money to spend and should choose between these two beast, then I'll choose Edifier S5.1 as I like music more than watching movie ;)...

GunSlingerGirl Anime Brief Review...

This week I finish watching GunSlingerGirl. At first sight, this anime is really boring. The opening and ending musics don't suit my appetite, the story is a liitle bit slow, etc. But the graphics is really good. Not awesome, but good indeed :).

The story is about 6 girls who have been granted artificial body because of several reasons. One is being told having bad parents who tried to kill her in order to have the insurance money. One is being told have a very weak body, etc. Shortly these girls have a super power because of the new body and they will have to endure dangerous mission.

If their body is hurt by weapon (bullet, knife, etc) then these girls have to go to special hospital in order to reconditioning their body. The side effect of this reconditioning is they will lose some memory and their live will be shortenen. Sad story, isn't it...

In doing their mission, each girls will be accompanied by an older "brother" and each couple then will be called "fratello". The background of the story is set in Italy, so no wonder there are many Italian style we'll see when watching this movie. As we know that Italy is famous for their mafia-like lifestyle. And this style will be adopted by the producer of GunSlingerGirl anime in telling the story (So please expect many gunfiring actions in this movie)

Overall this anime is average. For me who likes more actions, the storytelling style is quite boring anyway. But it is still quite acceptable. Well, is it worth to watch? Hmm, I can only suggest that if you have a lot of spare time then losing several hours for watching this anime is quite okay. It's not really entertain, as the climax is not too distinct. Sometimes in an episode, the story just flow flat without put empahize on some factors. But in the near-ending episode, the story is getting better and better, but can never touch the word of excellency ;)....

Shock Troopers' Very Brief Review...

Yesterday, I finish playing Shock Troopers 1 and 2. They are old games, shooting-action games similar to Metal Slug. But in my opinion, they are more fun than Metal Slug because the character movement is more flexible.

In Metal Slug, we can only move our character from left to right, but in Shock Troopers, we can move them anywhere we like since we see the character from upper view. And this also add some difficulties of playing it ;). And of course-more fun :D..

Shock Troopers 1 is modest in graphics (what can you say to 1997's game :P) but I believe in their era the graphics can be categorized as good. The really nice feature from Shock Troopers 1 is we can select 8 different characters. Each characters have their own attributes. Some can move slowly but have deadly attack and some can move faster while slightly damage the enemy.

And we can select two mode game, lonely or team mode. In lonely mode, we play only one character from the beginning until the end. In team mode, we can choose up to three characters and switch them in-game while we need their special capabilities. Very useful feature ;). We also can select the route our character will take to the enemy stronghold. And this is the very nice feature I like from shooting-action game like this..

Shock Troopers 2 shows major improvements in graphics with release date only differ by 1 year (1998). But the drawbacks are now we can only select 4 characters and the number of stages are only 5. So it would be ended shortly. So sad, because I think everyone who plays Shock Troopers 2 will expect more stages to come. Another drawback is the route can only be selected at the beginning of game, unlike Shock Troopers 1 which offers route changing at some point in the game. Overall, this is a very good shooting-action game. Saurus has done a very good job by making this game :).

If you ask me, I prefer to play Shock Troopers 2 despite of its drawbacks ;).

Asus eee pc...the notebook killer?

Have you heard about Asus EEE PC ? It's a small lightweight notebook that becomes popular nowadays. Why is it so popular? Maybe because of it's affordable price - just $400.

For Asian people, especially Indonesian people whose salary are really low, saving money to buy their dream notebook is very difficult. So when the news of Asus eee pc is out, people in Indonesia are very curious of it. They expect that they can use it as their main mobile pc, for doing their work and entertainment.

Well, if I must say, Asus eee pc is really nice. The design is superb, except for the low resolution of display lcd being used. But as a technical engineer, I'm really disappointed of how small the storage in it. 2 GB, 4 GB, even 8 GB are just not enough for me.

But for most people, who will use Asus eee pc only for surfing the internet or making office documents or maybe playing some games in order to kill the time, Asus eee pc maybe is the right choice.

Why do I say that? I list some of good points of this product below :

1. It's very light, below 1 kilos
2. It's also very small and compact
3. It's come with wifi - this is definetely a major point
4. It's very cheap too, if we compare it to a real notebook in the market
5. The storage used is solid storage disk type which is claimed as shock proof

The weak points I found is :

1. The display resolution is very small so that we have to do a lot of scrolling
2. The operating system bundled is Linux
3. The softwares bundled are GPL's software. It means that there are no commercial support

But if you ask me : would I like to buy it? I would say no :P.

Because my work as technical engineer make me need more powerful beast than Asus eee pc ;)

And beside that, I have fall in love with my Toshiba with its elegant windows blue screen LOL..

As closing note, I would say that Asus eee pc is an awesome product but it cannot replace the role of real notebook. For ladies and kids, and even for men who will utilize their mobile pc for surfing the internet and doing small things for killing the time while they are away, this product maybe suits them.

Wanna try one?