Stories by Campbell Simpson

In pictures: NBN 3-year roll-out plan announced

At a press conference in Sydney today, Prime Minister Julia Gillard joined NBNCo's Mike Quigley, Minister for Broadband Stephen Conroy, Minister for Infrastructure Anthony Albanese and NICTA's Hugh Durrant-Whyte for the announcement of NBNCo's three-year network roll-out plan.

Amazon Kindle e-reader

Amazon has refined the Kindle several times since its Australian debut, and each time the e-reader du jour has become increasingly attractive to potential buyers. This iteration of the popular e-book reader -- by our count it’s the fourth generation -- is smaller, lighter, slimmer and cheaper. Australian buyers are well served with local and international stores to buy from, most popular books are very reasonably priced, and using the device is almost as seamless as it could be.

Dell Inspiron 560 desktop PC

Dell's Inspiron 560 is one of the company's cheapest desktop PCs. The configuration we tested comes with very basic specifications, but includes a 18.5in Dell monitor -- so it's a simple computing package that doesn't require you to buy any extras. We think it's a reasonable system for basic use, but it's made less attractive by the existence of slightly more expensive models that are significantly more powerful.

HP Pro 3130 (WL831PA) business PC

The HP Pro 3130 (WL831PA) is a desktop business PC that's small, quiet and simple, but lacks the grunt to tackle intensive tasks like video editing or graphics work. If all you need is a Web browsing and word processing machine then it will be up to the task.

Dell Inspiron 580s desktop PC

The Dell Inspiron 580s is a mid-range multipurpose desktop PC that's in direct competition with Apple's low-end Mac Mini computer. The Inspiron 580s has the same price tag as the Mac Mini and comparable specifications. It's larger than the Mini, but it is bundled with a 20in LCD monitor for no extra cost. It runs Windows 7 Home Premium and is designed to be used for basic home computing tasks like Web browsing, word processing and viewing photos.

Apple iMac (mid 2011, 27in)

The Apple iMac has received some power and performance upgrades since its last model in mid-2010. It’s now got a second generation Intel Core i5 quad-core processor, some beefy graphics power and customisable options for plenty of memory and hard drive space. Not much else has changed, however.

Canon PIXMA iX6550

Canon's PIXMA iX6550 inkjet printer doesn't have a scanner, copier, automatic document feeder, auto-duplex or any other complicated circuitry to confuse you — all it does is print documents and photos from the tiny 6x4in size all the way to A3+. It's compact — hardly wider than an A3 sheet of paper, and not especially tall or deep — and is able to produce high quality print-outs when using the right paper and settings. If you're printing documents it can be reasonably quick, although photos do take significantly longer and can chew through ink within just a few prints.

BlackBerry Torch 9860 smartphone

The BlackBerry Torch 9860 is a BlackBerry, but it doesn’t have a physical keyboard. It’s a BlackBerry for the iPhone and Android generation, but we think the BlackBerry faithful will prefer the real thing. The Torch’s best chance is with casual BlackBerry users that like the interface and ecosystem, but aren’t going to spend all day on email or BlackBerry Messenger.

Dell Australia customer email addresses accessed in Epsilon breach

An email sent out to Dell Australia customers is advising them that their emails may have been accessed by a third party after a security breach at Epsilon, a large US-based email marketing service provider. The Epsilon security breach occurred on March 30, with the email addresses of customers of around 50 companies accessed by an unauthorised user or users. It is not known whether Dell users in other regions are affected, but Dell Australia joins companies like Visa, Disney, Best Buy, Citigroup and several international banks in having its customer email databases compromised.

Hands on with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

At this week's Samsung Forum 2011 in Singapore, we got the chance to get some hands-on time with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, the successor to the original Galaxy Tab Android tablet. The new Tab 10.1 runs version 3.0 of Google's Android operating system, dubbed 'Honeycomb'. Unlike previous versions of Android, Honeycomb has been designed for use with tablets. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 has a fancy new 10.1in TFT screen and an 8-megapixel camera.

HP Officejet 7500A A3+ inkjet multifunction printer

The HP Officejet 7500A is an A3 multifunction inkjet printer with wireless networking, a range of online printing applications that might appeal to home or business users, and fast printing speeds for both A3 and A4 text documents. Its quality is mediocre in Draft mode, but it is fast. Stepping up to Normal quality offers a noticeable increase in clarity.

Dell Vostro 460 business desktop PC (preview)

Dell's Vostro 460 is the first small business desktop PC to use the latest Intel 'Sandy Bridge' quad-core Core i5 and Core i7 processors, according to the company. This should mean that this desktop PC has more than enough power to handle business multitasking.

HP Officejet Pro 8500A Plus multifunction inkjet printer

The HP Officejet Pro 8500A Plus is a multifunction inkjet printer aimed at small and medium businesses. It is able to print draft documents very quickly, and can produce high quality pages if you don't mind slower printing. It's also able to produce good quality photo prints.

Epson WorkForce 320 multifunction inkjet printer

If you are running a home office or small office that needs a cheap all-in-one multifunction printer, the Epson WorkForce 320 is one of the best available. It has impressive specifications and performance for its low budget price, and is only really hampered by mediocre paper feed and ink cartridge capacity figures. It's a solid competitor to the HP Officejet 4500.

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