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SONY
Sony Internal Blu-Ray Rewritable Drive: $599.99
www.sonystyle.com |
As the dust settles on the battle over high-def DVD standards, resellers can safely recommend rewritable drives. Sony’s internal Blu-ray disc burner will work for both hi-def film playback on a PC and as a monstrous backup solution. With up to 50GB of storage, a single Blu-ray disc can hold the better part of a modern hard drive. For home videographers who work with the newer camcorders and editing software, this BD drive burns up to four hours of full-length film content that preserves its native crystalline 1080i HD resolution. Sony even includes Cyberlink BD/DVD authoring software.
A SATA interface opens up the massive bandwidth such resolution requires, and at the same time ensures easy installation on most recent motherboards. An 8MB buffer prevents those irritating video hiccups as well. Blu-ray functionality sells this pricey part, but the backward compatibility rounds out the value proposition. The drive burns to all CD and DVD standards, including dual-layer DVD+/- discs for up to 8.5GB of capacity on legacy discs. DVDs will remain the core of the rewritable media market for a while, to be sure. But forward-looking customers already see that the future is clear . . . and in high definition.
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Epson
Stylus Photo R1900: $549.99
www.epson.com |
The digital imaging market embraced high-res D-SLRs last season, and all of those new photo-bugs need prosumer-grade output to match that high-end investment. Epson dominates the photo printer world by anticipating trends and filling emerging niches with well-targeted products such as the R1900. Unlike previous generations of pro-amateur printers, the R1900 packs eight color cartridges for stunning, accurate reproductions. The separate red and orange inks electrify flesh tones and overall image vibrancy. A new Radiance technology maximizes the color gamut, while smoothing transitions and grain. Epson aims directly for the pro-am mindset, with new UltraChrome Hi-Gloss 2 pigment inks, including a dedicated Gloss Optimizer tank, that deliver professional glossy finishes that resist smudges, fading, and moisture.
You can promise your customer gallery-grade prints without the photo shop costs. The two blacks (matte and photo black) switch out automatically to accommodate different paper profiles and achieve rich blacks on any medium. Designed with hi-res, large-format photography in mind, the R1900 lets serious amateurs show off their work at up to 13 inches wide and 44 inches long, and it supports thicker, gallery-grade papers. A 5760 x 1440 dpi maximum resolution translates faithfully every dot from your customer’s new 10- and 12-megapixel D-SLR. And this model even prints lush photo-imagery on the backs of CDs and DVDs. At a very reasonable price point, Epson brings professional quality and flexibility to the ambitious amateur.
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Western Digital
Western Digital Caviar SE 16 640GB: $139.99
www.wdc.com |
Storage manufacturers continue escalating their capacity arms race. But not everyone needs to fill a $300, terabyte-sized drive with hours of movie downloads. Most consumers prefer a reasonably-priced solution with breathing room for image libraries and video-editing chores. Western Digital’s new bargain employs the latest high-end perpendicular magnetic recording technology (PMR) that packs 650GB onto two platters. In Western Digital’s distinguished Caviar series, the drive runs at a speedy 7200 RPMs across a 3GB/s SATA connection. Fold in the generous 16MB buffer, and your customer gets fast loading of programs and video playback that should be hiccup-free. The high 972 Mb/s maximum transfer rate keeps pace with most of the high-performance PCs in gaming and multimedia rigs.
Western Digital has also included an impressive suite of safety features. The recording heads park themselves away from the discs during spin up and spin down, and StableTrac technology secures the motor shaft of the drive on both ends to reduce potential damage from vibration and heads crashing onto the recording surface. WD’s standard Data Lifeguard and ShockGuard features protect against shocks and even repair some disc errors. The Caviar SE 16 delivers more speed and space than most of your customers need, and keeps the price point out of the hard drive arms race.
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Linksys
Dual-Band Wireless-N Router with Storage Link: $249
www.linksys.com |
Industry mavens have been promising increased Wi-Fi range and speed from the next generation of 802.11n routers and receivers, but some consumers beg to differ. Once you clutter a Wi-Fi cloud with legacy 802.11b/g devices and throw in a corner or two, that blisteringly fast and powerful “N” signal degrades quickly. Linksys addresses this issue with a “dual-band” Wireless-N router that works on both the common 2.4 GHz radio band as well as the less popular 5GHz band. Users can now configure their network to dedicate one radio band to high-throughput operations such as video streaming and leave the other for data transfers across legacy 802.11x protocols. For customers running multiple laptops and media streaming devices into home theaters, this offers a much better solution than typical N-grade routers. When both the router and the receiver are using the N protocol, the Linksys 600N kicks into double speed mode to deliver data up to 12 times faster than typical G networks.
Linksys rounds out this very powerful higher-end router with a four-port 10/100/1000 switch for direct Ethernet connectivity. Also safe for small office situations, the router locks down the network with 256-bit encryption and an SPI firewall that detects most common Internet attacks. The built-in Storage Link USB port connects to most external storage devices to turn the router into an NAS, an important selling point for advanced home media networkers. For serious users looking for the most feature-rich home networking solution available, Linksys’s dual band option is hard to outrun.
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