Marks are out. Now back to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
(Credit: CBSi)

The days of waiting by the gate for the postman to deliver your HSC marks seem so quaint now.

Nowadays, the numbers that distil the educational efforts of the first 12 years of your life can be accessed through the internet, by SMS message or over the telephone.

In the first 24 hours since students in NSW could access their results online, the Board of Studies website had been hit more than 137,000 times. And who needs a PC to web browse anymore? A spokesperson for the department confirmed that so far, 33 students had used a PlayStation 3 to access the site, while 21 more had used a PSP. Presumably for those school leavers, the marks mean either "game on" or "game over" for further study.

• Sony PSP-3000
• Best televisions for gaming
• Canon EOS 5D Mark II
• Sony PlayStation 3 Slim

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• BMW's 5-Series GT concept is a really big hatchback
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• Concept cars at the 2008 Paris Motor Show

• Up to four players can dance off against each other
  A decent workout if you do it for long enough

• Limited song choices
• No reward system or bonus songs to unlock
• Many songs may be unfamiliar to younger players

The proliferation of motion games and fitness titles for the Nintendo Wii can only mean one thing - there's a glut of rather shocking additions to the genre. And no, shocking in this context is not a good thing.

Enter Just Dance, stage left. In this game, players must, as the title suggests, dance off against an animated dancer on screen in order to accrue points. There are two gameplay options: either single player or multiplayer involving up to three other dancers using separate Wii remotes. In single player mode the dancer chooses a song (each with their own preset difficulty level) and must decide between performing a truncated version or the full length version of the song. Once the song begins, the dancer on screen, decked out in resplendent fluoro colours, performs moves which you must copy, with Wii remote in hand. The subsequent moves scroll from the right-hand side of the screen, giving you a sort of heads up in terms of what absurd move you must pull next.

Groove may be in Deee-Lite's heart, but it will be far from yours after you've finished with Just Dance. (Credit: Nintendo/Ubisoft)

Multiplayer mode makes things a little more interesting as up to four players can battle in a "last dancer standing" scenario, or a sort of musical chairs but with dance moves play off. That said, interest in the game doesn't last long as there's no ability to change the difficulty to cater for more proficient dancers playing against less experienced ones. As for the song choices, the packaging states there are "More than 30 original songs" (meaning just 32) including such gems as:

• Katy Perry - Hot 'n' Cold
• MC Hammer - U can't touch this
• In the style of Irene Cara (cover) - Fame
• Deee-Lite - Groove is in the heart
• Technotronic - Pump up the jam
• Cyndi Lauper - Girls just wanna have fun
• Trashmen - Surfin' Bird
• Blur - Girls & Boys

Admittedly, your humble author will not be auditioning for the next series of So You Think You Can Dance? anytime soon given the outcome of the first few dance routines. Feedback is immediate, with the system rating you against the professional dancer's moves on a scale of either "Good", "OK" or "Bad". As the song progresses, your status bar will fill with what we can only assume is bubbling, perhaps toxic coloured cordial to indicate your proficiency at the move. You can hazard a guess as to what the initial scores bestowed upon this author were.

You too can look as ridiculous as these people just by playing this game. (Credit: Nintendo/Ubisoft)

And now we must come, of course, to the so-called "professional" dancers themselves. Following the caricatured moves of a cartoon dancer outfitted in a comically oversized dog suit to the tune of Who Let The Dogs Out? may seem slightly absurd but it's a raucous affair, involving flailing limbs and enough euphoria to fuel a small nightclub into the wee hours of the morning. The other dancers are a little more reserved: of particular note, apart from the dog suit gentleman, is the housewife-cum-dancer donned out in an apron performing the curious matching dance to Mashed Potato Time.

While moving around in such manic methods may result in injury, it is actually enough to work up somewhat of a decent sweat if the song choices are difficult enough. It's unlikely to replace an actual workout any time soon but it could be an interesting supplement. That said, don't blame us if you find yourself flailing into your television set.

Unfortunately, this is where the entertainment ends. While Just Dance is an exercise (quite literally) in laughter for anyone over the age of 12 and old enough to have lived through the heyday of many of the songs the first time they came into vogue, for smaller kids and those closeted to the bastions of 1990's pop culture the song choices will be odd and unfamiliar. There's also the issue of longevity - there is absolutely no scope to move beyond the preset moves, nor is there the ability to unlock any extra songs or routines. This is not a game to absent-mindedly give as a gift as there's simply no replay value once you've mastered the moves. Coupled with the dearth of kid-familiar songs, this makes Just Dance a dud investment.

• Boogie Superstar
• Wii Fit
• DJ Hero
• Punch-Out!!

Design

The WD TV Live carries the distinct industrial design the company has used since it first released its My Book range and features the same "spine" and cooling duct "pages". It's a metallic grey colour, and is about the size of a pack of cards so it's not fussy about where you place it - as long as it's within sight of the remote control.

The remote control itself is unchanged from last year, and it's not bad but the buttons are quite tall and rubbery. It's sensibly laid-out though but be aware that, as before, the WD TV won't work if you lose it.

Features

We asked for it, and Western Digital has provided it. The WD TV Live now includes an Ethernet port that enables you to stream media from other devices in your house - no more copying files onto a USB key and then plugging that into your WD TV. The fact that the new version is the same price as the old means the unit is even better value now.

In addition to media streaming, the Western Digital now provides Flickr and YouTube access as well. Many competitive units also offer these services, but few are able to match the price of this package. The WD also does internet radio courtesy of the Live 365 internet portal, but it only includes a free trial - after which it's up to US$8 a month. While the Live can also handle the Pandora music streaming service, unfortunately, it isn't available in Australia and so won't work - though the option is still in the menu.

In addition, the WD TV Live sets up its own iTunes server which is visible on other machines on your network, but we found that even with a USB disk connected to it it didn't serve out any content.

You can check the specs page for all of the file formats the Live supports, but the standouts are DivX, VOB, MOV and MKV, and for audio MP3, WAV, FLAC, OGG and AAC.

The back panel is much improved on last year's model as it not only looks more professional but now includes a component output as well. This brings the inputs and outputs list to two USB slots (including one on the side), HDMI, optical audio, Ethernet and A/V . There is only one missing - wireless - though this is not surprising at this price.

Performance

While not as pretty to look at as the new Apple TV front end, the user interface is nevertheless still functional. As a user you get a choice of Audio Video and Pictures, and each option breaks down into the various internet sources and/or local and network devices. Navigating around is easy if you use the default "fade out" screen, but the transition effect can become quite tiresome going back and forth - thankfully you can turn this off.

The first thing you may want to change is the ponderous thumbnail navigation mode for music, and after selecting "List" you'll find it much easier to browse to the artist you're looking for. The scroll tabs do feature acceleration, but it could be argued that it builds up a bit too much speed, and you may overshoot the option you need by quite a way.

Navigation niggles aside, the unit works very well. The plethora of file formats means that it takes a lot to flummox it and there are also Random modes available to give you a different mix; however, nothing is as sophisticated as Apple's Genius. As most of the connection options are digital, and you need to use a dongle adapter to use A/V we didn't do analog audio sound tests - most people will probably let their receiver do the work anyway. We did some listening tests with the WD TV connected to a Sony STRDA5400ES receiver and the sound quality of the FLAC'd Beatles Remasters was excellent.

Video quality was something we could gauge in a more useful way, and we have to say it was excellent. The unit will clean up some of the rough edges of your movies and present them perfectly scaled to the size of your TV. We streamed HD files over the office network and had no problems with stuttering video or belching audio. YouTube and Flickr were similarly positive, though we wish that Flickr photos scaled to fit the size of the screen because resizing each time takes a bit of trouble.

If you use this device to connect to your network you shouldn't have any troubles, set-up was easy and we were watching videos in minutes after connecting an Ethernet cable. USB disks were another matter though, and like last year's model it had problems reading from some including a 16GB Toshiba USB stick. However, we found that a smaller SanDisk 4GB worked great.

• Netgear Digital Entertainer Live (EVA2000)
• Netgear EVA8000 Digital Entertainer HD
• Netgear EVA9150
• LG BD390

• Extensive range of horses to ride
• Various international locations to play in
• Multiple game modes and challenges

• Difficulty curve is too steep
• Uninteresting game presentation

On paper, this Horse Club title sounds like a real winner. Over 30 breeds of horses to ride, with international locations including Canada, Morocco, Spain and the wild west of America. It also seems like there is a lot to do with all these horses in all these exotic locales, such as training, show jumping contests and rodeo-style riding challenges. But do these ingredients add up to a worthwhile gaming experience?

As with our review of Groovy Chick My Fashion World, we've enlisted the invaluable experience of Katie King, a nine-year-old Sydneysider with a love of video games who hopes one day to be a journalist. As you can see from her impressions of the game below, she has a bright future ahead of her.

A game that doesn't scale the difficulty level can impede players building the skills necessary to complete the various puzzles. In Katie's opinion it seems My Horse Club was so difficult that she lost interest very early in the story mode. We also agree with her impressions about the game's graphics; the exotic locations looked drab and lifeless with a colour palette of dull browns and greens.

Overall

The ability to ride a variety of breeds and the chance to befriend the horses may appeal to ardent horse-riding fanatics, but the difficult gameplay will challenge young players which runs the risk of becoming frustrating too early in the piece.

• Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood
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• M-Audio Studiophile AV 40

The seven games of Christmas, with US pricing listed. (Credit: Gameloft)

For the next week, Real Tennis 2010, Real Soccer 2010, Brain Challenge, Terminator Salvation, Castle of Magic, Castle Frenzy and Shrek Kart have been discounted. Obviously these are all available exclusively on the Apple App Store.

So if the excitement of the week leading up to Christmas is more than you can bare, these games might be just the ticket to seeing you through until after Santa's visit. You can check out the entire Gameloft iPhone catalogue by following this link.

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• Single-speaker streaming audio system
• Controlled from any iPhone or iPod Touch using a free app
• Impressive sound from a compact, single housing
• Elegant design
• Cuts down on cord clutter
• Streams internet-based radio and audio services, plus your own digital music collection from any Mac, PC or NAS drive
• Simple set-up, particularly if you already own a Sonos system
• Expandable to up to 31 additional rooms (with the purchase of additional ZonePlayers)

• While the S5 can wirelessly interact with other Sonos products, you'll need a hard-wired connection or the wireless bridge accessory if it's your only Sonos component
• Somewhat expensive, especially if you don't already own an iPod Touch or iPhone
• Not much stereo separation.

We've long been fans of the Sonos Digital Music System, which lets you stream all manner of digital audio throughout your home, but we were always a bit disappointed that Sonos didn't sell a speaker that had the system's ZonePlayer networking component integrated right into it. Well, that's exactly what the ZonePlayer S5 is: envision a Bose SoundDock with Sonos' streaming technology built-in. The S5 is pretty much everything we were hoping for in a Sonos speaker, except for perhaps a slightly lower price tag.

If you already have a Sonos system, you're probably just interested in knowing how this thing sounds, so you can jump down to the performance section toward the bottom of this review. But if you're new to Sonos, we'll spend a minute explaining how the whole thing works, and what makes it so appealing.

Cosmetically, the S5 looks a lot like an iPod speaker system that just doesn't have an iPod dock. It's an attractive, elegant unit that takes its design cues from Bose and Apple but doesn't try to stand out too much. The speaker measures 217mm tall by 365mm wide by 123mm deep, which, in terms of design, puts it somewhere between the Bose SoundDock II and the larger SoundDock 10. Weighing 4.15kg, the S5 has some nice heft to it, but it's not so heavy that you'd have trouble moving it from one room to another if you had to.

What's a bit confusing to wrap your head around is that the ZonePlayer S5 does have wireless built-in, but it can only interact with other Sonos products. The Sonos components talk to each other via a wireless "SonosNet" mesh network. That's separate and distinct from your home's Wi-Fi network. The advantage of that separation is that it makes the Sonos's audio streaming more bulletproof; the sort of drop-outs and interruptions that are all too common on Wi-Fi-based audio streamers are basically absent here. It also makes set-up potentially easier; there's no need to deal with passwords or wireless access points.

If you happen to have Ethernet in your walls, you can simply plug the S5 into an open Ethernet port in a room and you'd be good to go. A second option is to use two Powerline-to-Ethernet adapters to link your router with the S5 in another room. If you do want to go wireless, you'll need to interface with another piece of Sonos gear that's already wired to your home network. For those who already have a Sonos ZonePlayer (including another S5), you'll just need to make sure you keep the S5 within range of it. Otherwise, you'll need to purchase a Sonos ZoneBridge (AU$179), which plugs into your router and instantly creates a SonosNet wireless connection for ZonePlayers like the S5 to tap into. You can have a total of 32 (!) ZonePlayers and ZoneBridges wirelessly interconnected in your home.

While the need to have one wired connection can be annoying, there is a bonus: the ZonePlayer S5 has two Ethernet jacks and can double as a network bridge. So once it's online, you can also plug another non-Wi-Fi device into it (such as a TiVo, Slingbox or Xbox 360).

The S5 has a single power cord, which cuts down on cord clutter, and its white, neutral tone fits in with a variety of environments. In addition to the dual Ethernet ports, the S5's rear offers a headphone jack and a line input for attaching other audio devices (you can connect any audio source to the unit and stream music to the rest of your Sonos network via the line-in connection).

The S5 itself has only three buttons: volume up, volume down and mute. To access your music, you'll need to control it from afar. You can use the included Sonos software (available for Windows or Mac) or purchase Sonos' high-tech (but pricey) CR200 touchscreen remote. But the most convenient method is to use an iPhone or an iPod Touch as a remote. The Sonos controller app is a free download from the iTunes App Store, and it duplicates nearly all of the functionality of the dedicated Sonos controller. You just need to make sure that your iPhone or iPod Touch can access your home's Wi-Fi network. (By contrast, the CR200 is another SonosNet device that can communicate directly with the S5, or any other ZonePlayers.)

This may all sound complicated, but Sonos makes it fairly easy to set up, particularly because adding new rooms (ZonePlayers) is a snap and you don't necessarily have to tie into a library of music on your computer or a networked hard drive to instantly have access to a lot of tunes. Instead, you can choose from thousands of internet radio stations embedded right into the Sonos system.

You can also stream your entire digital music collection from any Windows or Mac computer on your home network, as well as most NAS (network-attached storage) drives that support SMB sharing. The Sonos supports most standard playlist formats as well, so you can - for instance - easily access your entire iTunes collection without a problem. (Note: the Sonos can stream nearly all non-DRM audio file formats, but older, copy-protected iTunes files will need to be upgraded to play.)

Adding the S5 to an existing Sonos set-up is dead simple. You just plug it in, go to your computer and click "add zone" in the desktop software menu, then return to the S5 and press the mute and volume up buttons simultaneously on the device. Within 10 to 30 seconds, the S5 will be recognised and added to your existing zones (you name it for whatever room it's in). Once it's part of the system, it will show up on your Sonos remote or on your iPhone or iPod Touch with the Sonos app running.

The experience of using your iPhone or iPod Touch as a Sonos remote is as good as it is because the interface of the Sonos iPhone app is quite easy to use. You can easily sync zones so the same music plays in all rooms or have different music playing in different zones. For instance, you could have internet radio playing in one room and have an album stored on your computer playing in another room. You can also choose to turn certain zones on and off and raise the volume in one room while lowering it in another.

If you're new to Sonos and setting up the S5 for the first time as a single or multi-zone system, the process is fairly straightforward but things can get a bit trickier if you want to pull all your music from a networked drive. Also, when you're dealing with any sort of networking - wired or wireless - you can run into snags that might baffle the average person (and even plenty of tech-savvy people). But all in all, Sonos' does this type of DIY multi-room audio - and the set-up that's involved - about as well as any company we've encountered. It's also worth noting that if you were to get a professional installer to equip a home with in-wall speakers and a special networked system (for instance, Crestron), you'd be looking at thousands of dollars per room instead of hundreds.

So, while the S5 does require other components to make it work, as we said in our introduction, what's nice about it is that you get a speaker and ZonePlayer combined into a single unit for a relatively affordable price. Previously, you had to connect a set of speakers to a ZonePlayer to hear any music and the set-up wasn't ideal for certain spaces, particularly kitchens or bathrooms, where you don't want to deal with trying to hide speaker wires running from a little box that has to be plugged in. It also doesn't help that certain ZonePlayers, like the ZP90, are amp-less and require you to have powered speakers that also need to be plugged in.

As for the sound quality, it's quite good, comparatively speaking. The S5 boasts a total of five drivers: behind the non-removable grille, a single woofer is flanked by two mid-range drivers and a pair of tweeters, each of which are powered by a dedicated digital amplifier. The only problem is that similar to all compact iPod speakers, the drivers are spaced so closely together that you don't get a whole lot in the way of stereo separation (these types of speakers tend to sound best when you're sitting about 4 feet away from them).

That small knock aside, the S5 is a well-balanced speaker that offers good detail and a decent amount of bass without sounding thumpy. It's also able to play loudly without distorting and it did a decent job filling a fairly large room with sound. We listened to a wide variety of music on it, from Elvis Costello to Bach to Rihanna to assorted techno, ambient and electronica tracks, and its sound was consistently smooth and never brash.

Against the competition, it measures up quite well to various "refined" iPod speaker systems we've seen from Bose, B&W, and other luxury brands in this price class, and bested B&W's smaller AU$599 Zeppelin Mini in our tests. When we put it up against Bose's larger and pricier SoundDock 10 (AU$999), it didn't sound quite as big, but it wasn't far behind in terms of overall sound quality.

We're hoping that someday Sonos will update its system to allow you to use one S5 as a left speaker and one as a right, which would remedy the stereo separation issue and help create an even more serious sounding living room system for those who could afford it. It would also be nice to see a slightly smaller, less-expensive speaker (say around AU$500) that could be geared toward smaller kitchens and bathrooms.

Otherwise, we liked what we heard, and the S5 clearly marks an important step for Sonos as it works toward offering a more streamlined product offering. The combination of iPhone and iPod Touch compatibility and an integrated speaker/ZonePlayer make the Sonos system that much more appealing, especially when it comes to adding Sonos to rooms where speakers are hard to place. Our only (minor) reservations come from the set-up caveats for first-time Sonos customers - the requirement to go Ethernet or invest in the AU$180 ZoneBridge accessory. But for existing Sonos customers, the ZonePlayer S5 will be a welcome and enthusiastic addition to the system.

Via CNET.com

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The Panasonic FZ35 has an 18x optical zoom. (Credit: Panasonic)

It sounds like you need a superzoom camera.

Superzooms are characterised by their dSLR-like styling but are generally more compact and boast optical zooms up to a massive 26x. All the cameras listed here have manual exposure controls as well.

Image stabilisation is standard on superzoom cameras but for the best results, particularly when you start to reach the upper echelons of zoom, you will need to invest in a tripod to avoid camera shake.

• Little cameras, big zoom
• Olympus SP-565 Ultra Zoom
• Canon PowerShot SX10 IS
• Megazoom shootout: Nikon Coolpix P80 vs Olympus SP-570UZ

• Good suite of messaging tools
• Access to Ovi Store
• Decent 3.2-megapixel camera
• Well-spaced QWERTY keyboard

• Cramped navigation panel
• Lacklustre screen
• 2.5mm headphone socket
• Muffled earpiece speaker

Design

Twitter junkies and Facebook fiends, this one is for you. A budget-priced slider with a full-QWERTY keyboard is just what the doctor ordered to cure that aching texting thumb, plus Nokia has bundled some handy apps to boot. The QWERTY keyboard is surprisingly well-sized, with each key about 1cm in length, making it extremely easy to hit the right key when tapping out long messages.

The navigation panel isn't as well-spaced, with nine buttons (four shortcuts and a five-way nav key) crammed into a tiny area under the phone's screen. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the shortcut buttons are basically one big button, and we found ourselves constantly pressing two buttons rather than one every time we tried to use them.

The Slide's 2.4-inch QVGA screen does the job it's intended to do, but the QVGA resolution is starting to look a bit outdated, along with Nokia's Series 60 operating system. It's fine for most day-to-day tasks but we wouldn't recommend it for extended use of the web browser or for media playback. Also, painfully, Nokia has chosen to use a 2.5mm headphone socket, rather than a standard 3.5mm connection. This limits you to the bundled headphones, unless you choose to splash out on an adapter.

Features

The focus here is on messaging, all kinds of messaging. Whether it's just basic text messaging, emailing mates, instant messaging or keeping up on Twitter, MySpace and Facebook, the 6760 should cover all communication needs. Out of the box the Slide sports MSN messenger, Facebook and My Space, plus it also has an app called Friendster in case you need a new online addiction.

Anything not covered by pre-installed applications will probably be found on the Nokia Ovi Store, which you can download by entering the Downloads! menu on the phone. The Ovi store is also your one-stop-shop for games and themes, but you'll need to register an account with Ovi before you can take advantage of it.

On the back of the Slider you'll find a 3.2-megapixel camera, but no flash. It also doesn't have auto-focus, though the upside to this is that it takes photos extremely fast. During our tests we found the shutter lag was only about 0.5 second, which is twice or three times faster than most mobile phone cameras. The pictures were good too; we didn't see any focus issues and the colour was fine, if a tad dark. You can share photos with a Flickr or Ovi account if you have one.

Performance

We found it was difficult to use the 6760 Slide, but this had nothing to do with the phone's processing performance or data access speeds. Navigating the phone is fast, with a zippy, responsive performance, but the cramped navigation pad slows down the process considerably. Web browsing was fine, but the small screen really doesn't lend itself to anything more than quick Google searches or Facebook status updates.

While messaging features are the standout, we were disappointed with the call quality of the 6760, or more specifically with the quality of the earpiece speaker. We had no complaints about volume or clarity from the people we spoke to, but we noticed low volume and a muffled quality to the audio when heard through the speaker during calls. This doesn't make the phone unusable, but as with our issues with the navigation pad, this problem only makes the phone more difficult to use than many other phones available.

Battery life was good, with up to three days between charges thanks to its enormous 1500mAh battery. We tested the phone with an active Gmail account, some use of Facebook, and standard calls and messaging. We didn't push the phone's media capabilities, and we doubt owners of this phone will too much either.

Overall

The 6760 Slide is a well-featured phone, and a seemingly perfect tool for social networkers and text-message tyrants. However, some awkward physical design and its small, low-resolution screen holds us back from truly falling in love with this particular Nokia handset. At the time of writing the 6760 Slide is available through Vodafone and 3 Mobile.

• Nokia N97
• Nokia 6600 Slide
• Dualsim Slider
• Nokia 3600 Slide

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• Grabs the essence of Littlest Pet Shop well
• Variety of mini-games
• Some quality music in a kid's game - how novel!

• Story mode is rather short
• Only of interest to Littlest Pet Shop fans

Littlest Pet Shop: Beach Friends is a game based around the big-eyed, über-cute plastic toy series. It's a series with plenty of cute animals but not a whole lot of defined characters in it, if you ignore the mid '90s cartoon show. Instead, kids can name and decide on their own stories for their pets, which makes a rather challenging proposition for any video game adaptation. Beach Friends doesn't use much in the way of character, beyond the brief assumption that very cute animals will be best friends with each other, and everyone will stay happy along the way. Cake may well be served, in blatant violation of well known gaming memes. And if the title didn't clue you in, a lot of the game action takes place around a beach.

Arguably, Beach Friends doesn't use much of a plot to string itself together either. Kids will need a modicum of reading ability, unless you're prepared to sit by them and read out the character interactions. None of them are all that complex - and some of the in-game puns are groan-worthy affairs - and most of the mini-games that break up the loose narrative are very simple point-and-flick stylus affairs. Character movement is simple, and every action in the game is prefaced by a pop-up bubble explaining which button to press or which Littlest Pet to choose.

Beach Friend's animation conveys the basic design principles of Littlest Pet Shop pretty well, as all the characters have huge eyes and cute expressions, just like the toys they represent. You can add accessories to your pets - frankly, no Great Dane is complete without a set of sunglasses - further enhancing the "cute" factor. Beach Friend's music does have a light repetitive factor, similar to many child-centric games, but it's of a generally better quality than most, with at least a little variety. You can also opt to switch it off in the pause menu if it's driving you particularly insane. Beach friends does offer multiplayer over local Wi-Fi, but you'll need two copies of the game to make that happen, something we were unable to test.

The critical test for any kids game involves giving it to a kid to test. We did this on a recent long car journey with a seven-year-old well versed in Littlest Pet Shop lore. She loved it - for several hours - and despite finishing it, wanted to go back and play through again. This does point to a rather short overall game time, so if your little ones are impatient gamers who don't want repeated game experiences it might not be the best buy, but Little Pet Shop devotees should still get good value from it. Which brings up a rather obvious but pertinent point for any game based off a licensed property. Those who love the Littlest Pet Shop will more than likely enjoy this light but not terrible kid's game. Those who don't will be left wondering what the point is.

• EyePet
• Real Adventures: Pet Vet
• No More Heroes
• Philips AJL308 Photo Alarm Clock

• Solid battery life
• Articulating LCD
• Comfortable shooting design
• Can zoom during movie capture
• Hotshoe
• Exceptionally close macro focus

• Slower than its predecessor overall
• No raw support
• Images soft and noisy as low as ISO 80

The Canon PowerShot SX10 IS wasn't a great superzoom, but it was one of the better ones. So it's kind of sad to see its replacement, the SX20 IS, take a couple of steps backward, delivering overall poorer performance and photo quality as trade-off for slapping an extra couple of megapixels on the box. On the bright side, it does add 720p video while retaining the ability to zoom during capture, plus a mini HDMI connector for playing your movies on an HDTV.

Design

Keeping an almost identical body to the SX10, the SX20 remains very comfortable to hold and shoot, retaining perks like the articulated LCD and four-AA-powered operation. It's heavy, 560g, which makes it feel like a dSLR, but the big grip gives you plenty of holding room. There's a deep indented thumb rest on the back, joined by playback, exposure compensation and focus area selection buttons. Because of the darker accent plastic, the labels are easier to read than on the previous model.

The articulating screen at the back of the SX20 IS. (Credit: Canon)

On the right side of the back is a dial concentric to a four-way navigation switch with the function button in the middle. As with the SX10, we generally like the controls, but the dial feels too mushy. It doesn't respond appropriately, and it feels like it needs to spin too far or not as far for any given operation, resulting in frequent overshooting of settings. It needs better tactile feedback. The zoom switch still doesn't feel terribly exact either, a common problem with stepped zooms (these lenses don't really cover a continuous zoom range, instead stopping at a series of preset distances).

Features

Of course, the flip-and-twistable LCD remains a user favourite, but in trade-off it's quite small - only 2.5 inches compared with the more typical 3-inchers. The electronic viewfinder (EVF) seems a bit improved over the so-so version in its predecessor. It looks pretty coarse, but we didn't experience the slow refresh issues we had with that one. But - still annoying - the camera lacks a dedicated toggle between the LCD and EVF. Instead, you have to cycle through the four different display settings: low-info LCD, detailed LCD, low-info EVF, detailed EVF. That makes it nearly impossible to quickly jump back and forth.

It's still got a dedicated movie record button with a fairly well-implemented capture interface. Canon integrated the movie resolution settings into the function menu along with the standard white balance, colour adjustment, exposure bracketing, flash compensation, metering, and still size and quality controls. Held over from the SX10, some of the more interesting features include a Face Self-timer, which shoots a specified number of seconds after a face is detected and a custom timer that lets you also specify the number of shots to take (sort of a limited intervalometer since you can only take up to 10 shots). The rest of the capabilities, for the most part, are the same as the competition. These include PASM, full auto and a handful of scene modes; our favourites are a custom setting slot on the mode dial and 3.9-inch macro and zero(!)-inch Super Macro modes. For more details on the SX20 IS's features and operation, you can download the PDF manual.

Performance

By going to 12 megapixels, the new and "improved" version of the SX10 manages to become significantly slower than its predecessor in some respects. That's in a class of cameras always struggling with poor performance. The camera powers on and shoots in about two seconds, which is acceptable, if a tad slower than everyone else. In good light it matches the SX10's 0.6-second time to focus in shoot, and in dim manages to shave 0.1 second off for 0.7 second - relatively good for this group. However, the larger files come into play for the time it takes for two consecutive shots, which increases by a full second; when you add flash, the differential rises by over 1.5 seconds to 4.1 seconds. The burst performance also drops in half, from 1.4fps to 0.7fps, but that just takes it from unusable to even more unusable. (Since EVFs black out when a shot is taken you can't verify that the subject is in the frame, making them inadequate for continuous shooting.)

The battery life is still good, though. Canon CIPA rates it at about 340 shots on alkaline batteries and 600 on NiMH, and the optical image stabiliser works as well as ever. The lens, however, narrows to f5.7 at maximum telephoto, which is quite slow; even the Olympus SP-590 UZ only narrows to f5.0 at a longer 676mm equivalent.

Shooting speed
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Time to first shot	Typical shot-to-shot time	Shutter lag (dim)	Shutter lag (typical)

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35

1.6

1.7

0.9

0.4

Canon PowerShot SX20 IS

2

3.1

0.7

0.6

Canon PowerShot SX10 IS

1.5

2.1

0.8

0.6

Olympus SP-590 UZ

1.6

2

1.4

0.6

Nikon Coolpix P90

2

2

0.8

0.7

Image quality

The SX20 IS's photos aren't bad, but they no longer stand out from the rest of the pack. Even photos shot at ISO 80 look soft and noisy, except when viewed scaled down; it looks like the poor detail resolution typical of point-and-shoot cameras, since super macro close-ups tend to look the best of the lot. While the exposure and colour look very good, the slow lens can get frustrating when shooting at the telephoto end because there never seems to be enough light. The HD movies look relatively good, though they're soft like the stills, and the ability to zoom through the whole range for video is really nice. The lens zooms quietly, too.

(Credit: Matthew Fitzgerald/CNET)

This was typical of our outdoor photos with the SX20 IS. At small sizes, most photos look sharp, but when examined closely they look noisy and mushy. This was shot at ISO 200, but the ISO 80 photos look just as bad, and our noise numbers confirm that the camera's noise at ISO 80 and ISO 100 are unusually high, even for a class of camera known for image problems. (1/80, f5.0, ISO 200, AWB, evaluative metering, 289.5mm equivalent) (Credit: Lori Grunin/CNET)

Conclusion

While it's a solid megazoom, the Canon PowerShot SX20 IS doesn't deliver for the extra dough the way the SX10 did or than the expensive PowerShot SX1 IS still does. You probably should check out some of the cheaper options before committing.

Via CNET

• Canon PowerShot SX200 IS
• Canon PowerShot A2000 IS
• Canon PowerShot SX120 IS
• Olympus SP-590 UZ

As we reported earlier, Sony Computer Entertainment is releasing a Gran Turismo 5 demo - yes, another one - on Thursday, 17 December 2009. Unlike GT5 Prologue, however, this one's free.

A track-tuned version of Nissan's 370Z.
(Credit: Sony Computer Entertainment)

It's being released primarily as the tool by which national finalists are chosen for the second GT Academy, although one suspects that it's there to further whet our appetites for the much delayed Gran Turismo 5, which is now due in the first quarter of 2010 in Japan.

If you're from any one of the 17 eligible countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK) and set one of the 20 fastest times you'll qualify for national finals, where racers compete on a different GT5 track in the hope of qualifying for a real-world, five-day boot camp at the UK's Silverstone track. Two drivers out of that boot camp will then attempt to gain an international racing licence, with one scoring a year's stint in an RJN Motorsports 370Z racing in the European GT4 Cup.

Dress up as the Stig.
(Credit: Sony Computer Entertainment)

Other countries are running different competitions tied into the Time Trial demo, with US and Canadian winners getting VIP tickets to the 2010 Indy 500 race.

Is it any good?

Only one circuit is supplied with the demo, the Formula One track at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and two cars are available, a track-ready version of Nissan's 370Z and its road-going cousin. Predictably, the track version almost handles as if it's on rails, with the road car feeling slow and ponderous on the track.

In terms of overall driving dynamics and visuals, this time trial doesn't seem too different from GT5 Prologue. Indeed, the crash physics, one of the most eagerly anticipated features of GT5, is notable for its absence. Car customisation settings are limited to choice between automatic and manual gear changes and, disappointingly, the game doesn't remember your preferred camera mode between start-ups.

It might be great on the road, but it's slow and roly-poly on the track.
(Credit: Sony Computer Entertainment)

If you're like us, you'll be distracted and frustrated by the ghost car appearing on the track after you set a fastest lap - you can workaround this by deliberately setting a slow "fastest lap", saving a ghost replay and loading it as necessary. A number of racing wheels are supported and it's the first GT game to work with Logitech's new G27, the successor to the much-loved G25.

Conclusion

If you've ever dreamt of being Michael Schumacher, Fangio or Tazio Nuvolari, then this free download for the PS3 is a must have. Qualifying times for the second GT Academy are open from 17 December 2009 until 24 January 2010. After that the demo may no longer function and we'll have to go back to GT5 Prologue and counting down the days.

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• Please Explain: Ping

• Good photo print quality
• Realistic speed measurements
• Dual-paper feeds

• Printer body shakes a lot
• Some problems installing under Snow Leopard
• Some prints come out rather wet

Design

The MP560 is a wireless all-in-one printer, although in this case, all-in-one doesn't include faxing capabilities if you still needed that. Its design is pretty basic; a square flat box with silver sides and a black top. About the only remarkable thing that the MP560 brings is that the default set-up hides all the printer's controls. A flap on the right-hand side pops up to reveal the main printer controls and a tiny 2-inch LCD display screen. Controls include an iPod-style scroll wheel, used for making menu selections. Those who don't like scroll wheels can also use it as a straight directional pad for making choices.

Features

Canon states the MP560's printing resolution at 9600x2400dpi, meaning that this is more of a photo-centric multifunction than, say, a document processing machine. Canon states the print speed of the MP560 as up to 9.2 images per minute (ipm) in black and up to 6.0ipm for colour text and graphics, with an approximate time for printing 10x15cm photos of 39 seconds. If you're thinking those figures sound rather low, bear in mind that Canon's using the new ISO 24734 ipm standard rather than the rather shakier old pages per minute speed ratings. Ipm should be more accurate to real life usage, which means our tests should be fairly similar to those in real testing.

The MP560 uses a dual-paper feed mechanism, with A4/Letter paper feeding from a cartridge at the base and photo paper types feeding in from the back. It supports PictBridge and memory card printing, but not direct printing to CDs. The scanner is a 48-bit, 2400x4800dpi CIS (Contact Image Sensor) type. The MP560 uses five individual ink tanks. Canon claims this is a more efficient way to reduce ink costs, but then again they also claim that the prints produced with the MP560's ChromaLife inks will produce photos that last 300 years. You'll have to forgive us - we haven't had the MP560 quite long enough to accurately verify that.

The MP560 supports wireless networking and connectivity via USB 2.0, but no actual Ethernet port. If you want to share the MP560 over a network, it's wireless or nothing.

Performance

Installation of the MP560 is the usual tapes and printer cartridges affair, although Canon supplies a multi-lingual installation booklet rather than the more common set-up poster approach. USB connection happens as part of the install, and you can configure your wireless settings either from your PC, or if you're feeling particularly masochistic, you can opt to enter your wireless network password via the MP560's scroll wheel. It's a slow, tedious process this way, but we tested it just to make sure it did work that way.

Getting the MP560 onto our wireless network was simple enough, but we did encounter problems getting it to work on an iMac running Snow Leopard. Despite updating the printer driver, application packages and even the scanner driver, Snow Leopard refused to actually print anything connected wirelessly for reasons that ultimately eluded us. It was doubly strange, as direct USB connection worked flawlessly. We encountered no such problems with the drivers supplied on the installation CD with Windows 7.

Black text quality was quite sharp in standard printing mode on 80gsm paper, although in common with most fast inkjet printers pages were slightly moist to first touch. Likewise photo prints had good saturation and colour fidelity but needed a short bit of drying time. In print speed terms, we averaged 15 seconds for an initial standard printed page and around eight pages per minute at standard coverage. Switching to "fast" printing, the MP560's equivalent of draft mode improved print speed a little to 11 seconds for first print and 10 pages per minute. Text quality was fair, but we did notice that the shudder of the print body did blur some characters in draft mode.

Ordinarily with a ppm measured printer we'd say the MP560 falls short of the mark, but those figures are well within the 9.2ipm figure Canon uses, and that deserves some congratulation. Photo printing was a little slower off the pace at around 49 seconds for a border-less 10x15cm photo print in our tests.

• Canon Selphy ES3
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We include some top picks in the disk defragger, file compressor and all-around optimiser categories. There's a tool to recover lost data and another to cleanly remove programs, including Registry leftovers.

Do you have other favourites that didn't make our list? Share them in the comments below.

(Credit: Glarysoft)	Glary Utilities This powerful application offers extensive utilities to improve your system's performance and protect your privacy. Glary Utilities' well-organised interface allows users to easily choose from several tools, including cleaning unwanted junk files and removes invalid and broken shortcuts, freeing up valuable disk space. It also allows you to scan, remove and back up faulty Registry entries.
(Credit: Pandora)	Pandora Recovery File recovery has never been easier thanks to Pandora Recovery. The program's wizard-like approach to finding and retrieving lost files will appeal to all users, walking you through the process of locating long-lost and deleted files. The user interface is about as straightforward as it gets, with clean and simple menu and command buttons run across the top of the panelled window, while a tree-menu containing hard-disk folders to browse resides in a sidebar. Pandora Recovery includes a multitude of quick help links located throughout the interface, and also includes a very thorough built-in Help file. Our one complaint is that Pandora Recovery leaves behind files after un-installation that require manual deletion.
(Credit: Piriform)	CCleaner Although it lacks a few of the bells and whistles found in other PC-cleaning applications, this free program offers more than enough features to make it a worthy download. CCleaner's interface is logically designed and makes it easy to wipe away your tracks from your web browser via various Windows system areas and from some third-party applications. The program also aids with secure file erasing and registry backup and cleaning. Since this free application handles the majority of PC-cleaning chores and offers nice extras, we strongly recommend CCleaner to all users, except those who need robust tools to remove supersensitive data.
(Credit: IObit)	Smart Defrag It's hard to stand out in the crowded field of defraggers, but SmartDefrag is able to do so with an unexpected twist. Along with quick analysis and scans, SmartDefrag boasts an automated defragger that continually defrags the files that you use the most and does it without becoming a persistent drag on your system resources. When running in the background, the program only eats up 14MB of RAM, so it's possible to run it smoothly on older machines. It also includes a scheduler to set up automated defragging of your system.
(Credit: Igor Pavlov)	7-Zip It's easy for Windows users to forget that WinZip isn't the only file-compression utility in the world. Like its better-known competitors, the free 7-Zip unpacks a host of archive formats, including ZIP, TAR, GZ and its own 7z format. Unlike WinZip, though, it can create TAR and GZ archives, which are commonly used on Unix and Linux systems. The program's ability to shrink files is stunning; in our tests, 7z archives were up to 40 per cent smaller then their ZIP equivalents, although compression did take longer, and the highest compression settings can hog system resources. Advanced options include the ability to create solid and self-extracting archives and to adjust the compression level and password protection.
(Credit: 2BrightSparks)	SyncBack Freeware This straightforward backup utility makes it a snap to safeguard and synchronise your files and its freeware price just sweetens the deal. Surprisingly flexible for a free program, SyncBack can save your files anywhere: on external hard drives, in ZIP archives, on network drives, on CDs (using UDF) or transfer them via FTP. Recovering from a drive loss is also a cinch, with a convenient restore tool that replicates folder trees along with the files in them.
(Credit: VS Revo Group)	Revo Uninstaller Where the built-in and sluggish Windows Add or Remove Programs option fails, freeware Revo picks up the slack. It builds out a useful feature set on top of a fairly light, 1.5MB installation. Right-clicking programs in Revo's interface gives users a list of choices, from the fundamental like Uninstall and Remove from list, to Search Google, Show the installation directory, and quick access to the app's Help file, its About screen and an Update link. Revo also provides some powerful tools, including start-up tweaking and Registry key access. Windows Tools pulls together various and disparate basic utilities under one umbrella and the Junk killer is just a killer.

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