Staff Writers

As the IEEE standards process drags the industry’s heels on the slow road to 802.11n, the latest RangeMax Wi-Fi access point offers speeds up to 240Mbps.

Although investing in non-standards compliant hardware is a decision not to be taken lightly, the low-cost of Wi-Fi hardware and the slow rate of standards negotiations is making non-standard Wi-Fi look all the more attractive.

A case in point is the latest RangeMax 240 router and PC card from Netgear which sets a new standard in high speed wireless networking.

Offering speeds up to 240 Mbps ­opens up a new vista for bandwidth-intensive applications such as hi-def video and audio or applications such as VoIP in the home.

“Increasing convergence in the home means that people are now looking to access a wide variety of applications simultaneously, placing huge demands on their network,” said Ian McLean, Vice President, Netgear Asia-Pacific.

“Our original RangeMax family of products has proven popular in Australia and around the world, becoming the top selling MIMO range globally – a trend that we believe will continue with the new RangeMax 240 line.”
The system doubles Netgear’s previous top speed by using Airgo Networks spatial multiplexing technology to send multiple data streams across a single wireless channel.

The new product family includes the WPNT834 Wireless Router and the 240 WPNT511 Wireless Notebook Adapter which the company says “ensures that for the first time wireless has attained an effective throughput of up to 100Mbps”.

The devices are capable of supporting encryption at 128bit (AES, TKIP and WEP) thanks to hardware acceleration.

Prices are: RangeMax 240 WPNT834 Wireless Router (RRP: $339) and WPNT511 Wireless Notebook Adapter (RRP: $219).

One of the drawbacks with LCD displays is being all but eliminated with response times getting to the point even gamers will have trouble criticizing.

Fast motion, whether from watching DVD video or in 3d interactive gaming can cause blurring on LCD screens causing some dedicated gamers to eschew the flat panel displays in favour of the tried and trusted CRT tubes.

As the LCD industry has responded to this challenge response times, the measure of how fastan LCD crystal can be reset have been steadily marching downward. Now ViewSonic has released a display with a response time that beats its previous models which it claims were already the world’s fastest.

The latest monitor in the company’s VX Series now has response times 33 per cent than the earlier models. The 19-inch VX922 offers two millisecond (ms) average video response time across the entire colour scale, says the company.

Typical “fast-response” displays on the market today offer an average grey-to-grey (or intermediate level) response time of 20 to 25ms, says ViewSonic stretching the point a little. And then calculates its new Xtreme LCD line-up as up to 12 times faster.

“The faster response time of our new VX displays brings us one step closer to achieving CRT-like performance with all the benefits LCD’s offer,” said John Yeh, Country Manger, ViewSonic Australia. “We’ve made the much sought after ability to enjoy games and movies in the sleek flat panel form factor a reality.”

The VX922 combines ViewSonic’s proprietary Dynamic Structure and Amplified Impulse video response acceleration technologies to support rates of up to 500 frames per second across the entire colour scale.

The VX922 19″ LCD monitor should be available now at an RRP of $849.

www.viewsonic.com.au

After growing 16 per cent sequentially in the second quarter this year, IDC’s latest printer market tracker shows Q3 sales dropped off seasonally.

Describing the market as “quite healthy in Q3 2005”, IDC says there was only a marginal drop of 2 per cent over the previous quarter with a 4 per cent growth over the year ago quarter.

The market shares for both single-function and multi-function devices showed Epson was bumped out of its third placing as strong shipments in the single function inkjet printer market helped Lexmark move up.

Brother, meanwhile, continued to occupy the fifth position. No change was observed in the ranking of sixth-place Dell. On the other hand, Kyocera entered the Top-7 vendor tally this time, displacing Samsung.

However, the biggest news from the report is probably HP’s continued domination of a declining market. HP dropped 2 per cent market share, but was hit by a significant drop in average selling prices. The average selling price of a single-function colour laser printer was down by a significant 29 per cent in Q3 2005 compared to the same period a year ago, according to IDC. The corresponding drop for a multi-function colour laser printer was even steeper at 40 per cent.

Canon’s position was precarious also. It dropped 2 percentage points in the share rankings despite strong sales in its preferred market segment – single function inkjets.

“Laser printers, which registered better-than-expected performance at the end of the financial year in Q2 2005, fell by 16% sequentially in Q3, in the absence of large orders. However, the drop was notably smaller for colour lasers, compared to that for monochrome lasers. Increasing focus of vendors on colour lasers and declining prices will accelerate the growth of this segment”, said Rishi Ghai, IDC Peripherals Analyst.

“While consumer buying in Q3 2005 showed signs of moderate improvement over Q2, commercial buying witnessed a relative seasonal drop. The trend was also reflected in a small growth in shipments of inkjet printers and a drop in sales of laser printers”, he said.

IDC Top-7 Printer Vendors, Q3 2005:

Sales of printers grew by double digits over the prior year according to IDC second quarter results. HP maintained its leadership position.

Growing 16 percentage points over the first quarter and 11 per cent year-on-year the market was buoyed by the seasonal spike in demand from financial year-end buying in the enterprise space, said IDC.

Laser printer shipments were up 29 per cent over Q2 2004, while inkjets had a much quieter result turning in a “relatively modest” 6 per cent, said the research firm.

Multi-function devices are still where the action is with inkjet MFPs growing 26 per cent over last year and laser MFP shipments up 38 per cent over Q2 2004.

“The Australian printer market, though mature, has been witnessing multi-level shifts in end-user preferences. On the first level, smaller businesses are migrating from inkjet printers to laser printers”, said Rishi Ghai, Market Analyst, Peripherals, at IDC. “The second level is characterised by end-users shifting from monochrome lasers to colour lasers.

“The third level comprises of enterprises opting for multi-function printing solutions as opposed to the traditional single function printers. The fourth, and rather nascent level, is that of enterprises going in for managed print services, bypassing direct capital investment in printing equipment”, he said.

HP continued to lead the market with a 29 per cent share, ranking top in single and multi-function lasers as well as MFP inkjets. However, Canon was only a shade behind HP with a share of 27 per cent which it gained by “leveraging primarily on its supremacy in the single function inkjet printer space” said IDC.

Third place saw Epson edge out Lexmark by a point thanks to strong single function inkjet shipments. Then there was a big wait for third with Brother coming in at 5 per cent a long way behind the top four.

IDC Top-5 Printer Vendors, Q2 2005:

* HP 29%
* Canon 27%
* Epson 14%
* Lexmark 13%
* Brother 5%
* Others 12%

Optima Technology has announced its new Centoris RW Series of ultra-portable notebooks based on the Intel Pentium M Processor.

Weighing in at 2.2kg, the new notebook will retail under $1600. Beefed up to handle media, the Centoris notebooks are built around an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900 that supports up to 128MB of memory. The notebook also includes an Intel 915GM Express Chipset, which supports Intel’s new PCI Express graphics interface and up to 2GB of DDR2 RAM.

Magnus Long, Notebook Product Manager, Optima said: “Although the RW Series is compact and lightweight unit, its still features a 14-inch widescreen display, which offers the same viewing space as a standard 15-inch LCD panel.

 “This display size is favoured by occupational health and safety boards as it allows for a more comfortable viewing experience for end-users, minimising eye strain.”

Powered by a Li-Ion 6 Cell battery and with the latest Centrino Intel PRO/Wireless tri-mode (802.11a/b/g) card, the RW Series is pre-loaded with Windows XP Professional.