A Burning Question

Sony’s DRU-820A is widely available. It retails at Rs 2,750, and is a good buy. You will also come across a loose Sony DVD-Writer which retails at Rs 2,350-the difference is that the loose one is an OEM product, whereas the DRU-820A is a Sony boxed product. If you can’t find the Sony drives, the Lite-On 1693S costs Rs 2,300.

I Need My Music
I have a budget of Rs 4,000 and want to buy a good MP3 player. What is the maximum capacity I can get within my budget, and what brand should I opt for?
Jackson Ouseph

There are lots of MP3 players around, and recommending one is a bit difficult. First, don’t opt for any of the cheap Chinese unbranded things that have flooded the market. If you are an Apple fan, you can get the new 1 GB Shuffle for Rs 5,000. If you want more features, look at Creative, especially their MuVo series. Transcend Tsonic MP3 players offer the best capacity for the price, and are a lot more dependable than the Chinese players. You should get a 1 or 2 GB Transcend player within your budget.

All(Most) Worked Out
I have a budget of Rs 18,000, and I want to buy a PCI-E graphics card. I have short-listed cards based on two chipsets-the NVIDIA GeForce 7600GT with 128-bit 256 MB memory and the GeForce 6800XT with 256-bit 512 MB memory. Is there a better option available?
Sanwal Chandra

For the amount you’ve specified, I think you can easily get a 7900GT, which will outperform both the 7600GT and 6800XT chipset-based cards. XFX has a 7900GT that retails at Rs 18,500: contact Rashi peripherals on 28221013 / 1024,  or drop in a mail to navinderc@rptechindia.com for any queries regarding XFX graphic cards. We have also done an extensive graphics card shootout in our October issue.

Too Much For Too Less!
I have an AMD Athlon64 3000 on an ASUS A8V-VX motherboard with 512 MB of memory. I want to buy a temporary graphics card till DirectX10 makes it to the market. I am also planning to increase my memory to 1 GB-is this recommended?
I also want to buy a racing wheel-the cheapest; I don’t need it to be branded! And finally, an MP3 player with loads of space-an iPod would be great! I have just Rs 15,000 allocated for all these put together.
Ranjodh Dhaliwal

Rs 15,000 is just too low a budget for your extensive upgrade plan. If you are interested in an iPod, the 30 GB model itself will set you back by Rs 13,000. As far as the graphics card is concerned, you can opt for a 7300GS card from XFX, Palit, or Zebronics, which will cost about Rs 5,000. If you plan to upgrade again post-Vista, I don’t recommend upgrading your memory now. Any upgrade now will require DDR2 memory, and your current DDR will be wasted. Racing wheels from Genius, Typhoon or Frontech are easily available; they are cheap and should suit your needs.

Nokia Or SE?
I want to buy a mobile phone, and I have narrowed down two choices-the SE W800i and the Nokia 6233, both retailing at around Rs 14,000. The 6233 has 3G and Edge, and it also records video at 640 x 480, whereas the SE W800i has great sound capability and can take good photos. So-which one?
Mansoor Khan 
 
First you need put down your needs. Will you spend more time listening to MP3s, or will you use your phone more for video shooting and as a digital camera? Apply the 60:40 or 80:20 rule, that is, 60 or 80 per cent of the time will be spent listening to music, and 40 or 20 per cent will be spent in imaging. In both cases, the SE W800i is what I recommend. It has better-quality headphones; with the Nokia 6233, you will need to buy a new headset. In the absence of 3G networks, support doesn’t really matter; similarly, EDGE matters when you plan to use the phone for surfing the Internet using the phone as a modem-quite rare. In sum, if you are looking for an all-rounder, opt for the Nokia 6233. For anything related to music, the SE phone beats its competitors.

Swearing By Sound
I have purchased a Nokia N91, but am not happy with the bundled earphones. Please suggest a good pair; I have a budget of Rs 3,000.
Surendra Patel
 
We totally agree-the Nokia N91 needs a good headset! Give the Sony Fontopia MDR-EX71SL earphones a try; they sound really good. Also look for the Sennheiser MX-500 or PX100. The former is a earbud type, and the latter is an over-the-ear set. I recommend the PX100, which should be available for around Rs 3,000.

Bed Time
I wanted to know if you could tell me if there is any software which could automatically make my computer, using Windows XP SP2, hibernate or shutdown-that is, I configure it to make my system shut down after, say, a couple of hours. Is this possible? If yes, please recommend a good software.
Shashvat
 
While there are lot of utilities out there which will help you with this, I receommed using a freeware utility from Beyondlogic. Download it from http://www.beyondlogic.org/solutions/remoteprocess/beyondexecv205.zip and follow the instructions to set the automatic shutdown procedure.