Eric Grevstad

With the new “Microsoft Office System” campaign emphasizing the suite’s ties to Windows Server 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services — for XML integration of desktop documents and e-mails with intranets, company Web sites, and enterprise database info — it’s hard not to conclude that this fall’s Microsoft Office 2003 will be aimed more at corporate […]

Who says home theater is only for the living room? True, giant-screen TVs and surround-sound speaker systems may be unwieldy in a home office, but Samsung‘s newest LCD monitor puts PC/entertainment convergence right on your desktop: The 17-inch SyncMaster 172MP is not only a top-quality computer display, but a stylish TV set — an HDTV-ready […]

Last week, the market watchers at NPD Group announced that in May, notebook PC sales passed the dollar amount of desktop sales for the first time. These days, desktops are decried as low-profit-margin, generic-commodity products; desktop sellers are scrambling to diversify — Dell putting its name on PDAs and printers, Gateway adding everything from home […]

The Gateway E-6100 system sent to us for testing would make a superb small- or medium-office server — either an application or file server, considering its blazing Pentium 4/3.0C processor, 1GB of DDR400 memory, Gigabit Ethernet networking, and whopping 320GB of Serial ATA storage. But someone in Gateway’s review-loan assembly department has a sense of […]

It may not be a hit at the box office, but this summer’s comic-book movie The Hulk offers a memorable image — a cute, fluffy French poodle turned into a snarling Hulk dog. Zone Labs‘ software firewall ZoneAlarm has become a hit in much the same way — as we noted when reviewing the previous […]

If the Averatec 3150P cost just $25 less, it’d be tempting to call it a baby grand. Even at $1,025, it stands out amid budget-priced portable PCs — there are lots of good values in this price range, but most are full-sized, fairly heavy laptops. Newcomer Averatec’s, however, is a 4.5-pound subnotebook that measures just […]

There are shipped and shrink-wrapped software packages that aren’t as well and widely known as Microsoft Office 2003, the release due later this year that will serve as both an upgrade to Redmond’s dominant productivity suite and cornerstone of a new “Microsoft Office System” of XML-based desktop, server, Web-service, and enterprise-database interoperations. Office 2003’s slow […]

PC speed freaks and hardcore gamers look down their noses at any factory- instead of home-built computer, even a custom job from Alienware or Falcon Northwest. They’d seem no more likely to buy a Dell than a Maserati or Ferrari fan would be to buy Detroit iron. But the all-American Corvette and Viper manage to […]

Whether it’s called trading up or upselling, it’s a strategy that goes back to the first sticks-and-rocks retailer in the first cave mall: Sure, you’re making a good choice buying X, but did you realize that for only a little more you can get the extra features of Y? It’s happening now with monochrome laser […]

The last time we reviewed a desktop-replacement portable, we noted that it fit between “the 8-pound ‘Oof! This is heavy’ notebook limit” and “the 9-pound ‘Argh! This is impossible’ status of some” high-powered laptops. On that scale, Sharp Systems of America‘s new Actius RD10 is off the scale: It weighs 10.3 pounds. Granted that Intel’s […]

Is it too early to nominate the hardware trend of the year? AMD hopes it’ll be 64-bit processing, but we suspect that’s a bit premature. It might be LCD monitors replacing CRTs or multifunction printer/scanner/copiers replacing plain inkjet printers, but those trends were well underway before 2003. And wireless networking was last year’s news. No, […]

Compared to slickly packaged keyboard-and-mouse bundles from Microsoft and Logitech, the Full Comfort Wireless Desktop from A4 Tech doesn’t look very glamorous. The software driver and typing tutor come on 3.5-inch floppies instead of a CD. The box and manual are written in Taiwan-import English (“The unit is designed to fit into your thumb ergonomically […]