XML4 High Technology

So what exactly is the Samsung SyncMaster C23A750X, or Central Station, as it’s also called? Samsung refers to it as an “IT hub,” but I think a more apt description would be “wireless monitor/docking station.” It’s a standalone monitor with a number of inputs, and it connects wirelessly to your Windows 7 or XP laptop.

First, connect your desktop peripherals (keyboard, mouse) via USB to the Central Station’s base. Then, insert the included wireless USB dongle into your notebook’s USB 2.0 port. Now, whenever your laptop comes within a 5-foot radius of the Central Station, it will connect wirelessly to all of your desktop peripherals as well as the 23-inch monitor, without you needing to touch any cords or adjust any settings.

Cool concept, but does it actually work and, if so, how well? Also, and maybe more importantly, is it worth the $450 dollars Samsung is asking? Keep reading to find out.

Design and features
The 23-inch Samsung SyncMaster C23A750X’s panel resembles that of the Samsung PX2370, with its front portion encased in a transparent plastic covering, sheltering a black chassis underneath. The panel has a thin bezel, about 0.75 inch on the left and right sides, and its profile is as thin as the PX2370′s, measuring about 0.7 inch.

On the back, the monitor’s glossy panel is completely flat, aside from a 3.75x 5.5-inch area in the bottom middle, where the hinge meets the panel and protrudes out slightly. The corners are somewhat rounded, although not as much so as other, softer Samsung designs like the P2770FH. The matte screen has an antiglare coating, covering the edge-lit LED backlight within.

The base of the C23A750X is narrow, with a rectangular shape and a smooth, convex top. The stand measures 5.25 inches wide by 9.25 inches long and at those dimensions is, unsurprisingly, quite wobbly when knocked from the sides. In fact, thanks to this design, it may well be the easiest monitor to topple we’ve found yet. On the base’s front is a black, glossy plate adorned with a silver Samsung logo. On the lower right side, aligned horizontally from left to right, are the menu, hub, and power buttons.

Above the black plate is a dark, silvery section where the navigation controls for the onscreen display (OSD) menu and the source button are located. These controls glow, thanks to a dim white LED light underneath.

The left side of the base features two USB 3.0 downstream ports, an HDMI port, and a headphone jack. The USB 3.0 ports can be identified by their blue connectors, while the two USB 2.0 connectors on the right side of the base are white. The back of the base features a VGA port, Ethernet port, and USB upstream port.

The C23A750X was made with a double hinge design: the first hinge allows height adjustment from 1 to 4 inches from the desktop, and the second allows the panel to tilt back a complete 90 degrees, until it faces directly up.

Pressing the menu button brings up the monitor’s OSD. The OSD consists of typical monitor options such as Brightness, Contrast, and Sharpness, as well as a response time option. Also featured is Magic Angle, which allows you to view the monitor from specific angles with minimal color changes.

Presets include Custom, Standard, Game, Cinema, and Dynamic Contrast. There are also specific color controls, including Red, Green, and Blue options. Color tone can be adjusted from warm to cool temperatures, and for fans of gamma control, Samsung includes three different levels to choose from.

The Eco Savings options simply consist of brightness shortcuts that adjust the display’s luminance to 75 or 100 percent.

Thanks to its LED lights, the navigation interface can be easily seen in the dark, but the actual buttons, or in this case, touch areas, were not as consistently responsive as we would have liked. The lack of any tactile response is the most likely culprit.

Thankfully, Samsung outfitted the C23A750X with Magic Angle, which adjusts the monitor’s image so colors are closer to normal when viewed from specified angles. You still won’t find the kind of off-angle performance you’d expect from an IPS monitor, but it’s much improved over the TN norm.

It would be an incredibly tall order to find a monitor that failed at performing general tasks, and indeed when for use of Word or Excel, surfing the Internet, or any other casual endeavor, the C23A750X gets the job done without any problems.

The C23A750X isn’t suited to tasks that require very accurate color, given its TN roots. If precise color values are something you require, an IPS monitor like the excellent but much more expensive Dell UltraSharp U2711 is much more appropriate.

Central Station
The C23A750X is obviously more than just a monitor, and in this section we’ll describe our experience while using it as a wireless docking station.

We used two laptops and a desktop to test Central Station using the included wireless USB dongle. There’s also the option to use a traditional wired USB connection, but that’s just not quite as exciting.

After we installed the drivers, the dongle didn’t detect the C23A750X until we opened the Hub menu on the monitor and turned on Auto Wireless Detection. In two out of the three installations we conducted, it was also necessary to access our Windows screen resolution control panel and make sure the C23A750X was enabled.

According to Samsung, the USB dongle connection has a 5-foot-radius limit and beyond that things aren’t expected to function as smoothly, and will eventually not function at all. We found that we could get about 6 to 7 feet away before severe lag hampered our experience. When we brought the laptops back into the C23A750X’s wireless radius, performance suffered for a few seconds as the monitor resynced, before working smoothly again.

Conclusion
As a traditional display, the C23A750X performs well, with the same vast number of OSD options we’ve come to expect from Samsung monitors. A few idiosyncratic differences it had with one of our test laptops aside, the C23A750X also works as a wireless docking station.

As good as its functionality is, however, we feel the $450 price is a too high. The monitor itself would probably run about $300, and as novel and useful as the added functionality can be, we doubt it would be worth an extra $150 to most users.

That being said, if you have the money to spend and are a laptop user who is constantly moving around with it, Central Station provides a level of convenience you’ve likely never experienced, and it will probably be of high value to you.


The coveted stone

In the heyday of their Empire, the Eth Sorcerer Kings discovered sourcestone under the rolling hills of Stonefield. They carved out a mine like no other: not a maze of shafts but one enormous cave supported by twisting pillars, thick as ancient granitewoods and veined with glowing sourcestone.

So great was the Eth’s lust for sourcestone to fuel their machines that they bound titans from the Plane of Earth to guard their mines. In time, these mighty giants overthrew the Eth, who only managed to reclaim Stonefield shortly before their empire’s collapse.

After the Eth withdrew, hardy Mathosians laid claim to the mine, prospering as they supplied the magic stone to their own empire. When the rifts tore into Telara, the cultists of the Endless Court rose from their hideaways to chase the miners from Deepstrike with a swarm of walking dead.

Now, undead miners exploit the wondrous Eth engineering. Unwilling to properly maintain the soaring Eth walkways, they move between the pillars on a rude catwalk. Anyone who falls off is immediately set upon by flesh-eating scarabs that can strip a living body in seconds, leaving only a skeleton to join the Court’s mindless horde.

Enemies: dead in the ground

Undead swarm the mines, hacking recklessly at veins of sourcestone and slaughtering any who intrude. Spectral overseers goad miners on with lashes of chain, and seers have sensed a powerful necrotic entity in the mines, whose task perhaps is to supervise the silent laborers and discourage reclamation efforts with curses and shadowy magic.

Walking corpses are the least of an explorer’s worries. Deepstrike has always been plagued by creatures from the Plane of Earth, and the Endless Court works tirelessly to subvert and corrupt these crude beings, planting the seeds of death in the brutes as corpses are laid in the ground.

One massive earth elemental has already shifted his allegiance from Laethys to Regulos. Called Bonehew, this fouled behemoth guards Deepstrike like the titans of old, eager to live up to his name. Rumors have it that the deepest parts of the mines are home to an elemental of diamond, and who knows what harm the Endless Court could do with an unbreakable champion of black gemstone.

Call to adventure

As it corrupts the mines, the Endless Court fouls the very land of Stonefield, and it must be scourged from Deepstrike Mines if the honest folk of Granite Falls are to survive. The sourcestone in Deepstrike could provide endless fuel for technomagical machines, so any loyal Defiant should fight to reclaim the mines.

Yet the undead are digging for more than sourcestone. Every day, they gouge the mines deeper under the earth, a fact that sends Eth scholars scurrying to their tomes in search of some spell or device to eradicate the Court before they dig too deep.

It is well known that after they put down the titans’ rebellion, the ancient Eth imprisoned their mighty slaves under Stonefield. Could the Endless Court seek to release the titans from their prison? Perhaps they hope to corrupt these ruthless juggernauts to serve the Devourer of Worlds, or merely plunder the treasures buried in the tomb.

For all their hideous magic, the Endless Court had best hope they never breach the buried gates. The titans within epitomize the power of earth, waiting in the deeps to shatter the works of living and undead alike.

On Friday, Dell launched the Inspiron M5030, what it claims to be the first Spanish-language laptop sold within the U.S.

The Inspiron M5030 doesn’t just have a Spanish-language operating system, as anyone can configure Windows or the Apple OS to operate in Spanish. The $499 notebook also contains a Spanish-language keyboard, designed to give Spanish speakers a more familiar experience. In the video below, for example, the keyboard layout includes an “” key.

Dell said it was targeting the 50.5 million Hispanics who live in the U.S.

However, the M5030 will launch in a limited release at BrandsMart USA shops in both Florida and Georgia, Dell said in a blog post Friday.

“The launch of the laptop stems from Dell’s commitment to listen to customers,” Gerald Zapata of Dell said. “By listening, we realized there was a need to develop a laptop that was 100 percent designed for Spanish speakers, affordable and available in the United States. The concept was to introduce a laptop that meets all of these needs and enables Spanish-speaking families to better communicate and keep in touch with relatives, share information and experience the ultimate in technology.”

Aside from the cosmetic changes to the OS and the keyboard interface, the new M5030 looks nearly identical to the existing M5030, a Dell laptop which is only sold in stores. The Spanish-language version includes an Athlon II P360 prcoessor, a 1366-by-768 15.6-inch widescreen display, 4 Gbytes of memory, DVD burner, 3-in-1 card reader, 802.11g/n, all running under Windows 7 Home Premium.

Fujitsu wireless PC

Many of us can now wirelessly stream images from a computer to a screen over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi without too much trouble, but the display is still inevitably powered by cables. At CeBIT 2011, Fujitsu is showing off a working prototype of a 22-inch computer display that receives both images and power wirelessly. The power transfer is made possible by magnetic induction technology – similar to Powermat chargers – that’s concentrated into hotspots built into office furniture or conference tables.

I remember being somewhat disappointed when I bought my first wireless telephone. Although there were no cables connecting the handset to the base, there were still numerous wires joining the base to the power outlet and the telephone socket, and there was even one dangling down the back to provide a better signal.

Happily, wireless technology has moved on somewhat since then and we’re now at a point where our homes are filled to the brim with computing solutions that connect to the internet without needing to be positioned next to a router, televisions and audio systems that can play digital media from a box located in another part of the house and mobile phones that can be charged by placing them on a special mat.

Now Fujitsu, working with the Fraunhofer Institute and other German partners under a project funded by the German Ministry for Economic Affairs, has developed a completely wireless solution for the provision of power and images to a computer display.

The new 22-inch proof-of-concept, park and play, wire-free monitor receives its power using something called Smart Universal Power Access (SUPA) technology. The display is placed on a hotspot area of a desk and draws power via magnetic induction from a transmitter located inside the desk or office panel or conference table, making as safe to use as electric toothbrush chargers. It receives its images over wireless USB from a desktop PC or notebook within a range of up to 10 meters (32 feet).

“We are planning to introduce the first models incorporating totally wireless power technology to our LED-backlit display range within the next year,” said Fujitsu’s Rajat Kakar. “This is another technology innovation from Fujitsu, following on from our 0-Watt PCs and displays. In operation, there’s no difference in quality from the desktop image – except that we’ve consigned cables to the history books of display technology.”

The working prototype is currently on display at the Fujitsu booth in the Dealers only section at CeBIT 2011. Pricing details are expected at launch.