I personally use a LOT of storage space. Producing video eats up terrabytes, so having some reliable backup solution is very important. The Samsung Story Station offers up some serious storage in a nice looking package. You will also find a handy formatting tip for Mac users. Check out the review below.
Product: Samsung Story Station 1.5TB Hard Drive
Price: Under £100
Supplied by: Scan Computers
Contact: 0871 472 4747
If you have a netbook, but need a portable optical drive you could do a lot worse than look at this cost effective solution from Liteon.
Product: Liteon eSAU108 Slimline Portable CD & DVD Writer
Price: £42 (average)
Supplied by: Liteon
Contact: +31-40-2508000
Looking for speedy internet? How about wireless N, plus gigabit ethernet, all wrapped up in a good value package. Check out the review below.
Product: Belkin Wireless Gigabit Broadband Router F5D8235uk4
Price: £65 (average)
Supplied by: Belkin UK
Contact: +44 (0)1933 35 2000
If you want a cost effective Network Hard Drive, that does what it says on the tin, then check out my review of this tidy unit from Iomega.
Update: There is a new firmware update available here for this device. It adds Remote Access, Torrent Download, Time Machine and FTP support.
Product: Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive
Price: £110.99 (500GB as reviewed)
Supplied by: Iomega Europe
Contact form here
If you are a creative of any kind, your desk should have one of these babies on it. Check out my review of the Wacom Intuos 4 below.
Product: Wacom Intuos 4 Graphics Tablet
Price: £329.99
Supplied by: Wacom Europe
Contact: +49-(0)2151-36 14-0
Check out this review of the very cost effective Buffalo WHR-G300N Wireless-N NFiniti Broadband Router and Access Point.
Product: Buffalo WHR-G300N Wireless-N NFiniti
Price: £31 (lowest)
Supplied by: Buffalo Technology
Contact: 0845 3511005
Something a little larger than an A4 printer can make for some very effective photos. The Epson Stylus Photo R2880 printer offers the ability to do larger prints and even produce panorama's. Check out the video review.
Product: Epson Stylus Photo R2880
Price: £499 (Amazon)
Contact Epson: +44 (0)8702 416900
When choosing speakers for your PC or iPod there are certainly plenty to choose from. What manufacturers seem to try are adding flashy lights, docking features, touch sensitive controls. These are all well and good, but often at the expense of more useful features, like sound quality, frequency handling, and good looks. With the FX3022 from Altec Lansing, they may just have got the mix right.
When you unpack these beauties, it is obvious that their gloss black exterior and good weight is hiding some goodies under the hood. The FX3022 are really quite large, but they are tapered towards the top and in such a way that it is very pleasing to the eye. The 1.5-inch drivers at the top protrude slightly and offer up 3.5 watts of mid and high range frequencies. These tiny driver are covered by cloth grills, which add to the quality feel. The only thing that detracts slightly from the value is that the main unit does feel a little bit too plasticky. Each speaker also house a downward firing 4-inch subwoofer, that goes down to 40Hz and is capable of delivering 9 watts per channel. This combination is pretty good, with the subwoofer seamlessly integrating into the speaker and filling the frequency gap.
On top of one of the speakers you also find a nice power button and volume controls. These are discrete and function admirably. The FX3022 is really designed as a PC speaker, equally at home connected to our iMac or a PC. However, around the back of the unit is an AUX in jack, so you can connect your iPod or other MP3 player and enjoy your tunes. I tested with both music playing from my iMac and from an iPod touch and in both cases was pleasantly surprised. The detail in the mid and high ranges was very good, the FX3022 never seemed to struggle. There was also a nice warmth to the sound. The subwoofer control was awesome, with deep frequencies sounding as though they were reaching far beyond the quoted 40Hz. Pumping up the volume for some movie watching was also a pleasure. Explosions seemed to set the FX3022 alive and added a great deal of enjoyment to the on-screen action. The same can be said with games, without the FX3022 speakers the sound was quite thin, but with these gorgeous speakers turned on I was fully immersed in my Call of Duty.
Available in black (as reviewed) or white, for your £100, you get a really good set of multi-purpose speakers. The material used to make them does feel a little cheap, but the sound they deliver more than makes up for that. They are equally at home delivering in-game sound, movie madness or simply relaxing with your favourite tunes. Oh, and the guys at Altec Lansing throw in a two year warranty for good measure.
Product: Altec Lansing FX3022 Speakers
Price: £99.99
Supplied by: Altec Lansing
Contact: +44 (0)870 458 0011
In the age of digital photography, the work of a scanners seems to be a lot less. They still have their place in your computer set-up though. Scanning in high resolution photos is essential if you are reproducing anything in print. If you combine this requirement with the need to scan lots of documents, then you need to look at something a little more capable though. I was lucky enough to be sent an Espon GT-1500 scanner to review and this smart device sits in the business category, but could find its way as a very useful addition to the SOHO sector too.
The GT-1500 is not a lot larger than a regular flatbed scanner. The clue is in the height though, where you find a very useful and robust-feeling Automatic Document Feeder or ADF for short. The unit is made really nicely, it feels like a premium product. Even though it is primarily a plastic affair, it certainly feels solid. Setting up is really easy and installs Epson's suite of software, as well as Twain compatible plug-ins to the likes of Photoshop.
Using the unit as a standard flatbed scanner takes advantage of the full 1200x2400dpi optical resolution. I was impressed by the preview speed, as well as the actual final scan speed. For my tests I mainly used Photoshop, but using the EpsonScan software produced almost identical results. Colours in photographs remained true and had good depth and detail. Black and white photos were very neutral with a very slight green tinge. Scanning white sheets of text and business graphics resulted in crisp text scan, with hardly any shading.
The ADF on the top of the GT-1500 was my area of interest here, as this is what you are paying extra for. Using the ADF you can scan up to 600x1200dpi. The scanner head is simplex, so you can only scan one side at a time, but you can load up about 40 pages (though I did manage 50) and leave this baby doing its thing. It automatically de-skews wonky scans well, and a few that I noticed fed a little off-line wre fine in the resulting scan. I love the ability to scan direct to PDF files, as the results are easily filed and searchable, it is a very useful feature. Epson quote 12ppm in colour and 18ppm in mono, this is pretty accurate. The actual scanning I acheived was 10ppm in full colour and 17ppm when doing text based pages. This is only scanning time though, so if you have a really slow computer it'll take a little extra time to process the scans. My 2.4GHz iMac flew through them though, so I was very happy at the end of my testing.
At just over £200 you are paying about an extra £100 over a standard flatbed of comparable quality for the ADF function. Add to this that you get a one year on-site warranty. Throw into the mix all that added functionality and you can see that the GT-1500 offers very good value for money. The ADF really is the icing on the cake and gets my thumbs up.
Product: Epson GT-1500 Scanner
Price: £229 (average UK)
Supplied by: Epson UK
Contact: +44 (0)8702 416900
It is that day of the week again, 'Review Tuesday'. This time around you can take a look at the video review of a cleverly designed mouse from Macally. The Turtle has a tale, yes a wired portable mouse, with a trick up its sleeve. Enjoy!
Product: Macally Turtle Mouse
Price: £21.59 (average)
Supplied by: Macally Europe
Contact: + 31 24 373 14 10
When it comes to protecting your computer kit there are various steps you can take. Most users go along the route of a surge protector, that plugs into their main socket and takes the hit of any electrical surges or spikes before they hit and damage your equipment. One potential hazard that many overlook is that of a power outage or powercut (as we refer to them in the UK). Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) are just like big rechargeable batteries. You plug them into your main socket to recharge and in turn you plug your equipment into the UPS. If the power goes down, then the UPS takes over and gives you a window in which you can save you work and shut your system dow in a safe a proper manner. Some of these units also protect from surges and spikes too. Equipment suddenly shutting down is very important to protect against and can sometimes do just as much damage as a power surge.
In this review I take a look at the Belkin Active Battery. I place UPS units into two categories, those that can protect complete systems and those that are good for maybe one or two peripherals. The 'Active Battery Backup' unit (Part # BU308000ukDB) that I am testing here, just about fits into both categories, let me explain why... all UPS units are rated by Volt Amps (VA) or Wattage (W) and the Active Battery comes in three flavours. A 400A/240W, 600VA/360W and 800VA/480W. The first two in this series I would say are only really good for peripherals or maybe older less demanding computer systems. If you take into account that a 20-inch iMac draws 200W then you would barely expect three of four minutes of battery use from the entry level model if your mains power fails. Imagine you are using a Mac Pro drawing 360W and a separate monitor that draws 60W and you can see where I am going.
Well, although I tested the Belkin 800VA/480W model on our 24-inch iMac, my main test was in keeping my broadband equipment protected and running. I already have a beefier Belkin UPS (1200VA Universal UPS) which I will be reviewing next week for you, so my iMac is safe. What I need to ensure is that I can still communicate with the outside world when the power goes out. So, into the Active Battery I plugged the following. A Linksys WAG160N router, a Negear GS608 ethernet switch and my BT DECT landline phone. This presented me with the first stumbling block, but one that is very easy to overcome. Almost all UPS units have IEC sockets on the back, rather than 3-pin UK sockets.
If you take a look at the image here, you will see what an IEC socket looks like. Well, this is east to overcome with a computer, you simply plug in with the supplied IEC cable, or purchase extra ones for a couple of pounds. They have an IEC plug on one end and a socket on the other that plugs into your computer. Well, all three of the products I wanted to plug in have their own AC/DC adapters, so I could not exchange these for new cables, nor could I chop their plug off and replace it.
The solution was to get a two or three gang trailing socket, with an IEC plug on the other end. These are available from the likes of Maplin or CPC in the UK. Problem solved, I now had three standard 3-Pin UK sockets.
Once everything was plugged in, I left the UPS charging for a good 24 hours. It was then time to simulate a powercut. Switching the socket off that the UPS was plugged into was the easiest way. The Active Battery lets out a beep to warn you that this has happened. Then I carried on using my laptop with full network connectivity for a very useful 16 minutes. I must admit I was expecting longer, but I am no mathematician, so was part guessing the result. Just under an hour of continuous hard use, without mains power is fantastic. The results on the computer set-up were a lot different, but again they really impressed me. With a 24-inch iMac, external 21-inch Samsung monitor and ScanSnap S300M scanner plugged in, I flicked the switch off and was able to finish a few scans and post an article on the website. I also checked my emails one last time, then safely saved my open documents and shut the system down. This took around six minutes and no sooner had I shut down the iMac safely that the battery was depleted. In total this meant I in real use, you could expect around five or six minutes using this sort of system to save your work and safely shut down, this is more than enough time.
For your money you get a fairly compact UPS here, capable of protecting either just a few peripherals or a medium sized computer. The Active Battery Backup also protects from electrical surges and spikes, with a £40,000 connected equipment warranty too. Add to this a two year replacement warranty (including the battery itself) and this really puts the icing on top of the cake. This is fantastic value for money, it does exactly what it claims for a really great price.
Product: Belkin Active Battery (BU308000ukDB)
Price: £51.96 (Amazon UK)
Supplied by: Belkin UK
Contact: +44 (0)1933 35 2000
In this ever-growing digital world, where for entertainment we rely on digital cameras, MP3 files and movie downloads, the need for more and more storage space is a weekly, if not daily problem. For those of you who produce projects, such as home videos, the problem is even more evident. Add to this that the average household will have more than one computer, the value of some sort of shared centralised storage device is very valuable indeed.
Network Attached Storage devices (or NAS as they are often referred to) are growing in popularity. In their simplest form, they are hard drives that connect to your network via ethernet, rather than locally to your computer via USB. The fact that they are attached to your network means that you can make the content accessible to computers that are also attached to your network. This even extends to wireless use, whereby if your NAS is attached to a wireless router, then the content can also be accessed wirelessly.
Over the past week I have been testing the LinkStation Live from Buffalo Technologies. It is availble in sizes up to 750GB. The model on test is the 250GB HS-DH250GL. This compact box contains a SATA hard drive and sports a nice front panel with informative status LED's up front. Around the back of the unit you plug in your power cable (the power supply is in the unit itself, so no external brick). The back also sports the 10/100/1000 Mbps ethernet socket, so it is nice to see that Gigabit speeds are supported. When viewing the back you can also see a vent, behind this hides a tiny fan for cooling purposes. In use, you can definitely hear the fan, but is is very quiet, so not intrusive at all. There is also a USB 2.0 port, which is great. It allows you to plug in another hard drive, so you can expand the amount of storage capacity on your network with a standard external hard drive.
Setting up the drive is really easy. Everything is configured via a standard web browser interface. You can set up users and passwords, folder shares, maintenance of the drive etc. It is also possible to schedule backups, so that USB 2.0 port around the back has a second use. Rather than using it to add storage, you can assign the connected hard drive to act as a backup drive. Once scheduled the LinkStation will backup files to this second drive, even when your computer is switched off... this is a very useful feature.
The flexibility of the LinkStation Live is where the added value comes in. Rather than me trying to guess what your use would be, let me tell you a little of how it helped me. In just 30 minutes I was up and running and had set up folders and shares on the drive to tackle two organisational tasks that I wanted to do with my iMac. Firstly, I have a large iTunes library, probably around 100GB including the downloaded video content. Having moved this all over to the LinkStation (which took a lot less time than I had anticipated), it solved two problems. Not only had it freed up 100GB of space on my iMac, but it also allowed me to wirelessly access my iTunes content on my MacBook Pro too. My second task was to move all of my video content. Producing the videos for Geekanoids eats up a lot of space. So I moved all of the completed movies I had made, some 120GB. Although they are uploaded to various sites already, it is essential that I keep them locally too. Again, the LinkStation handled the transfer with no problems, and also allowed me to stream them to my computers easily. On the wired network (the iMac) the streamed content played back with no hitches. Over the wireless connection (the MacBook Pro) there were a few stutters, but these were very minimal and once some buffering was done things ran very smoothly.
So in my tests the LinkStation Live gave me back over 200GB of space on my iMac. It also allowed for a much more useful and versatile experience. The single fact that it opened up my iTunes library to my laptop too is worth the spend alone. It is a very solid unit, good build quality, easy to set-up and as such offers superb value for money.
Product: Buffalo LinkStation Live (HS-DH250GL)
Price: £118.23
Supplied by: Buffalo Technology
Contact: +44 (0) 1344 381700
If you own a couple of Macs, or perhaps a combination of a Mac and PC, then this product could be for you. The Aten CS1782 KVM Switch allows you to have two computers connected, but to tidy up your desktop by using just one keyboard, mouse and screen. It even handles the sound too, so one set of external speakers are suffice.
In use, the Aten CS1782 performed very well, with no degradation in video quality. It worked very well with two Macs connected and I assume equally as well when you add a PC into the equation. For the full rundown of what this device can offer, check out the video review below.
Product: Aten CS1782 2-Port USB 2.0 KVM Switch
Price: £118.66 (inc. VAT)
Supplied by: Aten UK
Contact: +44(0)1753 539121
If you need a mouse for your Mac, and it needs to be portable, wireless and stylish, then you need to check out this review. The Pebble Wireless Portable Mouse might be just what you have been looking for.
Product: Macally Pebble Wireless Portable Mouse
Price: £22.00 (approx.)
Supplied by: Macally Europe
Contact: + 31 24 373 14 10
If you need a mouse that is as happy on your desk as in your travel bag, then this could be just what you are looking for. The Slimblade Trackball Mouse from Kensington also has a trick up its sleeve. At the press of a button, you can transform this little rodent into a trackball. Check out the video review for a look at how it performs.
Product: Kensington Slimblade Trackball Mouse
Price: £61.99 (average price)
Supplied by: Kensington UK
Contact: +44 (0)845 603 1730
Storage is all important, whether you need it for your day-to-day work, or for backing up those important files, you can never have enough of it. A lot of users are now turning to off-site storage solutions, such as Amazons S3 service. However, if you need something fast and reliable, then there is no other option that a desktop hard drive.
Iomega have been in this game for a long time. I remember with a warm glow, the day when the original Zip Drive was released. Wow, all that data on a tiny little disk, the size of a fat 3.5-inch floppy. Well, they kindly sent me there Professional Series Desktop Hard Drive, with triple interface to review. Offering up 500GB of storage, with USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and two FireWire 800 ports lined up across the back panel. It is also nice to see an on/off switch on the back too (many drives don’t come with one now, they just turn on and off with the computer system they are connected to).
There is not normally a lot to get excited about with devices of this nature, but I must say that the feel of this unit is superb. Plastic front, back and sides, but a lovely brushed aluminum top and underside panel, gives it a really nice solid feel. It also comes supplied with all the cables you need (although my sample was missing the FireWire 800 cable), you should get USB, FW400 and FW800 cables in the box. The power supply is a small brick type affair, into which you plug a figure 8 cable for your particular country. A Quick Start Guide is also enclosed in printed form, along with a software CD that also includes EMC Retrospect backup software. There is also a small plastic stand included, so you can stand the unit on its side to save valuable desk space. If you prefer to put the unit down flat there are four small rubber feet to dampen any vibrations.
In use the Iomega drive performed flawlessly. The noise generated is pretty darn good, seeming quieter than some hard drives I have previously tested. This has a lot to do with the decent enclosure, build quality and no doubt damping on the hard drive. On the speed front, it performed as expected on USB 2 and FireWire 400. Using the FireWire 800 connection (if possible) is definitely the way to go. Data transfer was very fast indeed, and although this is not a comparative review, the Iomega was faster than a Freecom Pro hard drive, but a little slower than the Western Digital MyBook Studio edition.
The flexibility of the triple interface on the Iomega Pro Desktop Drive, coupled with the rock solid build quality, make this a very sensible choice. If it comes down to brand, then you cannot go far wrong with a manufacturer that has been around for so long. If you need 500GB or more of storage (this particular drive from the professional series goes up to 750GB with the triple interface, or 1.5TB with eSATA and USB2 interface), then this drive should definitely be on your shortlist.
Product: Iomega Professional Desktop Hard Drive (#33648)
Price: £119.99
Supplied by: Iomega Europe
Contact form here
They say that 'good things come in small packages', but in contrast 'size doesn't matter'. The Lacie Mini Disk hits home on the first, but proves that size does matter, with its small proportions delivering a very handy portable hard drive that just oozes style and performance. Check out the video review below.
Product: LaCie Mini Disk 160GB Dual Interface
Price: £89.90 (was £99)
Supplied by: LaCie UK
Contact: sales.uk@lacie.com
When you are in the market for a new keyboard, or perhaps one for that Mac Mini (an essential additional purchase), there is certainly a lot to choose from. The natural direction to look is at the skinny Apple keyboards. However, if you have used a Mac for a long time, you will yearn for that Classic keyboard look and more importantly something that gives you proper tactile feedback. The USB 2.0 Keyboard we look at here from Matias, could be just the ticket.
This offering from Matias has some superb advantages and features, all of which can be had for a little over £25 in the UK and around $35 in the US. For this sort of price you certainly do get a lot for your money.
First of all you get what I would term as a proper keyboard. The keys are raised in such a way that it resembles that old Apple classic. The spacing is just right and the tactile feedback you get from each key is just right. There is also a full numeric keypad (which you would expect on a full size keyboard), but Matias go one step further... How often have you found yourself searching for that Euro symbol (€)? Well, I don't mind admitting that on more than one occasion that illusive symbol has escaped me. The Matias USB 2.0 keyboard has extra symbols printed on the keys. You get things like the @ € and ™ signs actually printed onto the number 2 key. This is repeated over the whole keyboard, with the relevant symbols printed on each key. Thanks Matias, this is a great time saver and worth the asking price for this alone.
You also get a full whammy USB 2.0 hub on the back of the keyboard. Older offerings from Apple let the side down here, with only USB 1.0 ports on their keyboards. Matias give us two USB 2.0 ports on the back and an extra one on the top of the keyboard, which is handy for USB keys, iPod syncing and the like... if you have an older generation iPod Shuffle you will find this brilliant. Over my test period this was really handy as I use USB flash memory keys quite a lot, so I did not have to stumble around looking for a spare port.
I like the USB 2.0 Keyboard from Matias a lot. It feels lovely to type on, compliments my Mac perfectly and puts those invaluable extra symbols at my fingertips. If you need a keyboard for your Mac, make sure this is on your shopping list.
Product: Matias USB 2.0 Keyboard (Mac)
Price: £25 (typical UK)
Supplied by: Matias Corporation
Contact: 1-905-265-8844 or info@matias.ca
With more and more people opting for laptops nowadays, it is of ever increasing importance to have a flexible way of storing files without the hassles of being tethered to a desktop external hard drive. Yes, we all know that laptops can now accommodate quite large hard drives, but what about backing up, or storing files in a central location so other users can access them. This is where Network Attached Storage (NAS) comes into play. I had some experience to this medium of storage before, and came away a little disappointed, so when Iomega sent me their lastest Storcenter device I was a little concerned over what I may find.
Opening the box gave me my first (positive) surprise. The unit felt really robust and looked very professional too. In an understated gunmetal colour, this robust little box housed 1TB, yes one terrabyte of storage. On the back of the unit is a kensington lock port for securing this baby to a desk, the all important Gigabit ethernet port, and two USB ports. The USB ports can be used for adding more storage by way of external USB drives, or connecting a printer for sharing over the network. There is a tiny power button (and I mean TINY), so I connected the unit into my gigabit ethernet switch and fired it up.
Other NAS devices I have tested have been pretty noisy, but I am happy to say that the Storcenter is pretty darn quiet. Just the slight whisper of the hard drives spinning and a very quiet fan is all that you can hear. Back at the computer end it is just a matter of popping in the supplied CD and installing the 'Discovery Software'. I was doing this test with both a MacBook Pro and a Mac Mini running the latest version of Leopard (10.5.1) and both systems found the drive first time. This allows you to mount a public share folder, or to carry out extra configuration, such as adding users and extra folders to the drive. Everything worked flawlessly, and once you have 'discovered' the drive, you can then access and connect to it via the Finder.
There is a lot more you can do to the Storcenter in the configuration options, such as scheduling backups to another share, or to a connected USB drive, and once set up the device can be left to perform the task unattended. I tried this with a 250GB external USB drive and it performed admirably. The drive also supports JBOD, RAID 1 and RAID 0, which gives great flexibility in how you can put it to good use. The important part of any drive is performance, so copying across a series of 4GB files, I found that it was achieving just under 6MB/second, peaking at around 8MB/s. Changing the connection over to a 100Mbs ethernet switch did not effect performance a great deal, giving an average of 4.2MB/s. This is more than acceptable in my opinion, not groundbreaking, but it is very easy to work with these speeds.
Where the Storcenter wins is on two counts. The stunning rock solid build quality, and the price. It starts at 320GB for under £100, 500GB starting at £120, right up to the model reviewed here which is only £269. There is also a wireless version, but with most users having wireless routers, you could just plug into a spare ethernet port (like I did) and negate the need to spend any more money. For those that don't have this option, the 1TB Wireless Version costs just under £400. Back to the 1TB version reviewed, for £269 you get a stonking piece of kit, it comes highly recommended.
Product: Iomega Storcenter 1TB
Price: £269
Supplied by: Iomega Europe
Contact form here
There are stacks of choice when it comes to buying a printer, but if you are looking toward the higher end, something for a professional graphics market, then a lot more has to be considered. Speed plays a big part, as does quality of the prints, but if you are churning out volume then running costs are very important. The Xerox Phaser 8860 that we take a look at here, is right up there with all the superfast lasers, but it offers something a little different... just what makes the prints from this machine stand out from the crowd?
I am going to deal with the 8860's main features, and deal with the question of how each feature performs as we go. This is a slightly different way of doing things, but it means I can give you instant answers to your questions as they come along. The 8860 ADN costs £1,699 and offers 10/100 Ethernet connections and USB2. I tested the machine on an Intel based Apple Mac, and the software install and connection over both ethernet and USB performed admirably. There were no set-up problems at all.
This printer included automatic duplexing (double-sided prints) from the box. This is a really useful feature when report printing, so was a welcome addition. IT also gives you the ability to save paper (more on the money saving later). With a duty cycle of 120,000 prints per month and a quoted speed of 30ppm in both mono and colour, this reads like a true powerhouse. I cannot vouch for the duty cycle, but the speed is pretty much spot on. Black text resulted in an average of 27ppm, add in some graphics and after processing time we got 25ppm. Colour pages mainly consisting of text came in at 26ppm, with graphics added this dropped to a respectable 24ppm. So if you need speed, the 8860 delivers.
Quality is also very important and at 2400dpi the resolution should be superb. I found text to be great at point sizes 8 and above, but below this, not as crisp as some cheaper laser printers. When printing business graphics and photos the 8860 shone. Smooth gradations, very colour accurate, punchy graphics, all the traits of a high class printer. Now we get to the exciting part, and where the 8860 really stands out from the crowd. This printer uses a solid ink technology, instead of normal laser toner. It uses wax type blocks that you drop into the top of the printer, so loading it is very clean and easy. It then heats the wax and melts it onto the page. Two minor problems with this are the smell, which is not that nice, plus you cannot overprint your printouts on a standard laser or laminate them. If you try this, the print will smear into a gooey mess. That aside, the quality is outstanding. The print is laid onto the page in such a way that you get a slightly raised feel to it. When printing large areas of solid colour or photos this also shows off the finish which has a nice gloss look to it. So the 8860 delivers again, with awesome quality printouts.
The Phaser 8860 offers true Adobe Postscript 3, Mac and PC compatibility, speed, cheap running costs and quality prints. I would not recommend it for the home market, due to the smell, but then it is not aimed at this sector. For small to large office based companies, or graphic design pros, the 8860 really is worth the money. You will be amazed at the consistently good prints, and that raised effect that jumps off the page at you, has to be seen to be believed. This is a lot of money to invest, but well worth it.
Product: Xerox Phaser 8860
Price: £1699
Supplied by: Xerox UK
Contact: 0870 873 4519