Along with the tiny, powerful Alienware M11X, Dell has also updated the Mini 10 netbook, proving the company’s CES PR spin that it is obsessed with cramming hot tech into tiny boxes.

The new Mini 10 comes with the usual netbook accouterments: an Atom N450 processor, a gig of RAM, up to 250GB of HD space and a small ten-inch screen. What is new, though, is the souped-up high-def hardware.

Being a Dell, the hardware is almost infinitely customizable at point-of-sale, so we’ll talk about the hypothetical best configuration, which is the one Dell wants you to buy. The tiny screen can playback 720p movies (1366×768 pixels) and the machine has an HD processor chip in there to handle it. Also inside is a hi-def TV tuner, and GPS for location services.

I took a look at the new machine, in fetching hot pink, at Dell’s CES lounge, located out in the wilds of Vegas at the Palms Resort Hotel (it feels like the low-rent casino in Swingers). Windows 7 choked on a weirdly encoded video, but once working it looked great. I thought HD on a ten-inch screen was a waste of time, but it is actually a nice way to watch video, and with the nine hour battery such as dell F5136 battery, dell 312-0306 battery, dell 312-0305 battery, dell D5561 battery, dell G5345 battery, dell Inspiron 500m battery, dell Inspiron 510m battery, dell Inspiron 600m battery, dell Latitude D500 battery, dell Latitude D505 battery life, a good companion on a plane or train.

This unit had a Dell sound-bar running along the top, to boost the sound. It boosted it indeed, making the thin, hissing, music thinner, hissier and louder. It beats the standard netbook speaker setup, but you’d do better plugging in a pair of headphones.

Available this month, prices rise from $300 as soon as you add any useful features.

Along with the tiny, powerful Alienware M11X, Dell has also updated the Mini 10 netbook, proving the company’s CES PR spin that it is obsessed with cramming hot tech into tiny boxes.

The new Mini 10 comes with the usual netbook accouterments: an Atom N450 processor, a gig of RAM, up to 250GB of HD space and a small ten-inch screen. What is new, though, is the souped-up high-def hardware.

Being a Dell, the hardware is almost infinitely customizable at point-of-sale, so we’ll talk about the hypothetical best configuration, which is the one Dell wants you to buy. The tiny screen can playback 720p movies (1366×768 pixels) and the machine has an HD processor chip in there to handle it. Also inside is a hi-def TV tuner, and GPS for location services.

I took a look at the new machine, in fetching hot pink, at Dell’s CES lounge, located out in the wilds of Vegas at the Palms Resort Hotel (it feels like the low-rent casino in Swingers). Windows 7 choked on a weirdly encoded video, but once working it looked great. I thought HD on a ten-inch screen was a waste of time, but it is actually a nice way to watch video, and with the nine hour battery such as dell F5136 battery, dell 312-0306 battery, dell 312-0305 battery, dell D5561 battery, dell G5345 battery, dell Inspiron 500m battery, dell Inspiron 510m battery, dell Inspiron 600m battery, dell Latitude D500 battery, dell Latitude D505 battery life, a good companion on a plane or train.

This unit had a Dell sound-bar running along the top, to boost the sound. It boosted it indeed, making the thin, hissing, music thinner, hissier and louder. It beats the standard netbook speaker setup, but you’d do better plugging in a pair of headphones.

Available this month, prices rise from $300 as soon as you add any useful features.

When Research in Motion introduced its PlayBook tablet Monday, it was diving into a market already dominated by Apple’s iPad.

But there’s other competition too, either already on the market or soon to be: The 5-inch Dell Streak is available now, and Samsung’s 7-inch Galaxy Tab isn’t.

Since the iPad started shipping in April, Apple has sold more than 3 million devices. In June, Dell introduced the Streak, a device billed as a tablet but priced like a phone. Samsung hopes to bring its tablet, the Galaxy Tab to market in time for holiday-season shopping.

RIM announced its latest device, the 7-inch PlayBook with battery like dell 2941E battery, dell 9943E battery, dell Inspiron 7100 battery, dell Inspiron 7500 battery, dell Inspiron 7000 battery, dell 2M400 battery, dell 5208U battery, dell XPS M1210 battery, dell UD265 battery, dell Inspiron 3700 battery, at its developer conference Monday.

The PlayBook won’t be available till early next year. But it’s not too soon to see how its promised specs stack up with the main competitors it will face when it comes out.

As promised by yesterday’s leak from Vietnam, Apple has updated the plastic unibody MacBook. The new model, which appears on Apple’s traditional new hardware day – Tuesday – gets the NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor and the new aluminum MagSafe power-cord. It also gets another feature not revealed in the inexplicably leaked Vietnamese MacBook: a claimed ten-hour battery-life.

The battery life estimates keep on growing as Apple squeezes better power management out of its machines, but the biggie for buyers of the $1,000 MacBook is the new graphics chip, which is made by NVIDIA exclusively for Apple and also found in the 13-inch MacBook Pro. The 320M shares system memory and uses PureVideo HD to decode hi-def video within the GPU, helping to keep the fans from spinning up when watching video with compatible apps.

Dell’s ultralight, portable MacBook Air competitor Adamo is back after a makeover. The new Adamo XPS is thinner, lighter and cheaper than its predecessor.

Adamo XPS will have a 13.4-inch high-definition display, Intel Core 2 Duo (1.4 Ghz) processor, 4GB memory and will run the latest Windows 7 operating system. The laptop, which claims the title of the thinnest in the market, is just about 0.4-inches thick and has a full-size keyboard. Compare that to the original Adamo that was 0.65-inches thick.

Dell launched the first Adamo laptop in March. The laptop’s sleek design though came with a stiff price tag. The basic version of the Adamo cost $2,000, while a more expensive model costs $2,700. It also did not have a user-removable battery such as dell Inspiron E1705 battery, dell Inspiron 6000 battery(dell 6000 battery), dell Inspiron 9300 battery, dell Inspiron 9400 battery, dell 310-6321 battery, dell 310-6322 battery, dell D5318 battery, dell G5260 battery, dell G5266 battery , which has changed in the Adamo XPS. (See more photos of the Dell Adamo XPS)

With the Adamo XPS, Dell has refined on its earlier product to make it more attractive and less expensive.

Like the MacBook Air, Adamo XPS weighs just over 3 lbs. The Adamo XPS is priced starting at $1800. It still costs more than the cheapest version of the Air, which starts at $1500. But Dell is hoping the Adamo XPS’s sleek aluminum body, and portability factor will make it an attractive buy to those who really want it.

The Streak’s 5-inch touchscreen display is just a little bigger than the latest crop of Android smartphones (HTC Evo and Droid X each sport a 4.3-inch touchscreen) but significantly smaller than the iPad’s 9.7-inch display. That puts the Streak in an awkward middle ground: too big to be a phone, too small to directly take on the iPad.

But the Streak’s 5-inch display looks much better in real life than it sounds on paper. The screen is smooth, responsive and big enough to comfortably type on and access different widgets.

The device itself is ultrathin, just 9.9 mm thick compared to the iPhone 3G’s 12.3 mm and almost on par with the iPhone 4. It slips easily into your jeans or jacket pocket and doesn’t feel awkward if you hold it up to your ear to make a phone call.

The Streak has just one 30-pin connector and no USB with battery like dell Latitude CPi battery, dell Inspiron 8200 battery, dell Inspiron 8000 battery, dell Inspiron 8100 battery, dell Inspiron 4000 battery, dell Inspiron 4100 battery, dell Inspiron 2500 battery, dell Latitude CPX battery, dell Latitude C600 battery, dell Latitude C610 battery port.

The Streak runs Android 1.6, which seems ancient considering that Google has released Android 2.2 Froyo.

But Dell says it has created an enhanced version of Android 1.6 that puts it almost on par with Android 2.0 Eclair.

“If you compare Android 1.6 on the Streak to Eclair, the only feature that is missing versus Eclair is the live wallpapers,” says Andrew.

The Android experience on the Streak is very similar to what we have seen on the latest Android cellphones. The Streak supports up to six home screens. The main screen (shown above) has icons for phone, calendar, messaging, browser, maps and market, among other things.

A small round dot at the top left corner of the screen acts as a shortcut to applications. Streak users can download apps from the Android market.

The Streak has a 5-megapixel camera on the back and 0.3-megapixel VGA videocam on the front. It can shoot videos up to 720p (1280 x 720 pixels resolution). Sharing photos is easy and should be familiar to most Android phone users; Click on the photo, choose the Share button from the virtual menu and pick Facebook, Twitter or Flickr to upload it to.

Dell also offers an accessory dock, with an HDMI output that can be connected to a TV.

The Streak will have a user-replaceable battery, internal storage of 2 GB and additional storage up to 32 GB using a microSD card.

Overall, the Streak is an exciting, well-engineered device that should appeal to consumers who want to supersize their phone. But that also means its unlikely to have Apple or iPad fans quaking. The Streak seems like a tablet for a very different audience than the iPad.

Dell’s Android-powered Streak is an intriguing device. Billed as a tablet but priced and sold like a phone, the Streak has more in common with the HTC Evo and Droid X than it does with the iPad.

Teardown specialists iFixit decided to drill into the Streak to see what its internals look like.

Dell has designed the device so that a mechanical engineering degree is not required for a successful disassembly, says iFixit, which was able to reverse engineer the assembly process within minutes.

The Streak’s 5-inch LCD screen has a layer called ‘Gorilla Glass’ on top that is scratch resistant and durable. The LCD is bonded to the front panel glass to increase the strength of the device, as well as the sensitivity of the capacitive touch panel. But that is also likely to increase the cost of fixing the device if you break just the glass.

The front panel’s construction means the device should be able to withstand drops from above waist height, says iFixit.

The 1530 mAh battery such as dell 2941E battery, dell 9943E battery, dell Inspiron 7100 battery, dell Inspiron 7500 battery, dell Inspiron 7000 battery, dell 2M400 battery, dell 5208U battery, dell XPS M1210 battery, dell UD265 battery, dell Inspiron 3700 battery on the Streak is easily replaceable and is covered with a sheet of steel, rather than plastic, to decrease its overall thickness.

Streak has a second 2 GB microSD card near the top of the motherboard that holds system and applications files.

The “C”-shaped motherboard of the device comes out easily after disconnecting some cables, says iFixit, and all components are attached to this motherboard.

Overall, the Streak rates high for the ease with which its battery can be replaced and the use of standard connectors for the cables.

But the rear panel feels cheap, says iFixit, and deforms easily. That’s disappointing for a device that costs nearly $600.

Story continues.

iFixit has given the Streak a high repairability rating of 8 out of 10, where ten means the manufacturer did everything possible to enable repair.

Here are more photos of the Streak. You can also go to iFixit to see the step-by-step teardown of the Streak.

Watching a Blu-ray movie in all its high-definition glory on your laptop may finally become an affordable prospect this year. Just don't wander too far from a power outlet.

With the Sony-backed HD format emerging victorious from a two-year showdown with Toshiba's HD DVD, many laptop manufacturers are now scrambling to add Blu-ray drives in their desktop and notebook lineups. Next month, Dell will even introduce a sub-$1,000 Blu-ray notebook, according to Brian Zucker, a technology strategist for the company.

But the promise of viewing an increasing variety of HD movies on your laptop may be overshadowed by ongoing concerns over the technology's vampiric effect on battery like dell Inspiron E1705 battery, dell Inspiron 6000 battery(dell 6000 battery), dell Inspiron 9300 battery, dell Inspiron 9400 battery, dell 310-6321 battery, dell 310-6322 battery, dell D5318 battery, dell G5260 battery, dell G5266 battery life. Indeed, if the first generation of Blu-ray equipped laptops are any indication, you might not get more than halfway through that movie before running out of juice completely, analysts say.

"Blu-ray battery life is obviously a huge concern," says Yankee Group analyst Josh Martin.

"If you bought an iPhone and you couldn't watch a two-hour movie, which you barely can now, that would be a huge problem," Martin continued.

Granted, batteries suck (along with other annoyances like spam filters and plastic packaging). That's largely because there is no Moore's Law for batteries. If battery power capacity improves 1 percent a year, that's considered pretty good. Batteries are more often afterthoughts for an industry obsessed with cramming as many new features into a notebook as possible.

Introducing Blu-ray drives to the mobile mix certainly isn't going to help matters. For now, the laptop manufacturers that have offered Blu-ray drives have also avoided revealing the precise effects of Blu-ray playback on battery life. That's probably for a very good reason, as some claim battery life can top out at one hour in some cases.

"The laser that runs the show [in Blu-ray players] is a very high-power laser," notes Mercury Research analyst Dean McCarron. That laser is one of the main things that conspire to raise power consumption.

The other part of the equation has to do with the process of decoding data from a Blu-ray disc and turning it into moving images on your screen. When Blu-ray was first introduced, this process was all done in software, which is very taxing on the CPU, eating up processing cycles and power.

"Any time you introduce a new technology like this, the initial products tend to be more power-hungry," McCarron says. "Once you get to a certain point, though, the industry usually starts the refinement process."

That process is actually well underway, according to the Blu-ray Disc Association. "In the first generation of laptops that had Blu-ray drives, [power drain] was an issue," a Blu-ray spokesperson said, "but that's been resolved."

The solution has come by offloading some of the decode process onto other system hardware, namely the graphics processing unit, according Dell's Zucker, who also sits on a committee of the Blu-ray Association.

"We looked at playing DVDs and Blu-ray discs, and our early data showed that it could knock [battery life] down to half when playing a Blu-ray disc," Zucker says. He also points out that the main reason we've only seen Blu-ray drives in high-end laptops to date is because you also need a high-end processor to do that decoding.

"All that's changed now, because we have decode assistance from the graphics core," Zucker says, thanks to sophisticated new graphics cards from Nvidia and ATI.

There are some Blu-ray laptops that have sufficient battery capacity for playback of two movies back-to-back on one charge, Zucker says, declining to give specifics. Two models might be Dell's XPS M1530 and Inspiron 1420, which the company claims will support 4½ hours of Blu-ray playback.

Many analysts contacted by Wired.com note that even though laptop makers will be eager to add Blu-ray drives into their lineups, the desktop will likely remain the logical home for Blu-ray in the near term. On the desktop, most consumers won't have to worry about power issues and will also have larger monitors to enjoy all that high-definition content.

Ultimately, McCarron expects a scenario similar to what happened with the first DVD drives. Substantial power drain will be an issue at first, but the technology will be refined in the desktop and then ported to the notebook, eventually eliminating power-consumption problems.

Watching a Blu-ray movie in all its high-definition glory on your laptop may finally become an affordable prospect this year. Just don't wander too far from a power outlet.

With the Sony-backed HD format emerging victorious from a two-year showdown with Toshiba's HD DVD, many laptop manufacturers are now scrambling to add Blu-ray drives in their desktop and notebook lineups. Next month, Dell will even introduce a sub-$1,000 Blu-ray notebook, according to Brian Zucker, a technology strategist for the company.

But the promise of viewing an increasing variety of HD movies on your laptop may be overshadowed by ongoing concerns over the technology's vampiric effect on battery like dell Inspiron E1705 battery, dell Inspiron 6000 battery(dell 6000 battery), dell Inspiron 9300 battery, dell Inspiron 9400 battery, dell 310-6321 battery, dell 310-6322 battery, dell D5318 battery, dell G5260 battery, dell G5266 battery life. Indeed, if the first generation of Blu-ray equipped laptops are any indication, you might not get more than halfway through that movie before running out of juice completely, analysts say.

"Blu-ray battery life is obviously a huge concern," says Yankee Group analyst Josh Martin.

"If you bought an iPhone and you couldn't watch a two-hour movie, which you barely can now, that would be a huge problem," Martin continued.

Granted, batteries suck (along with other annoyances like spam filters and plastic packaging). That's largely because there is no Moore's Law for batteries. If battery power capacity improves 1 percent a year, that's considered pretty good. Batteries are more often afterthoughts for an industry obsessed with cramming as many new features into a notebook as possible.

Introducing Blu-ray drives to the mobile mix certainly isn't going to help matters. For now, the laptop manufacturers that have offered Blu-ray drives have also avoided revealing the precise effects of Blu-ray playback on battery life. That's probably for a very good reason, as some claim battery life can top out at one hour in some cases.

"The laser that runs the show [in Blu-ray players] is a very high-power laser," notes Mercury Research analyst Dean McCarron. That laser is one of the main things that conspire to raise power consumption.

The other part of the equation has to do with the process of decoding data from a Blu-ray disc and turning it into moving images on your screen. When Blu-ray was first introduced, this process was all done in software, which is very taxing on the CPU, eating up processing cycles and power.

"Any time you introduce a new technology like this, the initial products tend to be more power-hungry," McCarron says. "Once you get to a certain point, though, the industry usually starts the refinement process."

That process is actually well underway, according to the Blu-ray Disc Association. "In the first generation of laptops that had Blu-ray drives, [power drain] was an issue," a Blu-ray spokesperson said, "but that's been resolved."

The solution has come by offloading some of the decode process onto other system hardware, namely the graphics processing unit, according Dell's Zucker, who also sits on a committee of the Blu-ray Association.

"We looked at playing DVDs and Blu-ray discs, and our early data showed that it could knock [battery life] down to half when playing a Blu-ray disc," Zucker says. He also points out that the main reason we've only seen Blu-ray drives in high-end laptops to date is because you also need a high-end processor to do that decoding.

"All that's changed now, because we have decode assistance from the graphics core," Zucker says, thanks to sophisticated new graphics cards from Nvidia and ATI.

There are some Blu-ray laptops that have sufficient battery capacity for playback of two movies back-to-back on one charge, Zucker says, declining to give specifics. Two models might be Dell's XPS M1530 and Inspiron 1420, which the company claims will support 4½ hours of Blu-ray playback.

Many analysts contacted by Wired.com note that even though laptop makers will be eager to add Blu-ray drives into their lineups, the desktop will likely remain the logical home for Blu-ray in the near term. On the desktop, most consumers won't have to worry about power issues and will also have larger monitors to enjoy all that high-definition content.

Ultimately, McCarron expects a scenario similar to what happened with the first DVD drives. Substantial power drain will be an issue at first, but the technology will be refined in the desktop and then ported to the notebook, eventually eliminating power-consumption problems.

The Dell Streak seems on paper, to be neither one thing nor the other. It is an Android device which launched with Android 1.6, but has now been updated to Android 2.2. It has SIM support and it has a 5-inch screen. That makes it rather too large to count as a smartphone but way to small to compete with the likes of the iPad as a tablet device.

The Streak is also too small to compete with the 7

Physically the Streak is fantastic. I was sent a sample with a bright red back which adds to the visual appeal. But it is the shiny almost enamelled finish to the back and curved edges as much as the colour that make the Streak look and feel great in the hands.

It is just the right size for holding two handed to type on the keyboard with battery such as dell F5136 battery, dell 312-0306 battery, dell 312-0305 battery, dell D5561 battery, dell G5345 battery, dell Inspiron 500m battery, dell Inspiron 510m battery, dell Inspiron 600m battery, dell Latitude D500 battery, dell Latitude D505 battery. There have clearly been some keyboard design changes since we wrote our original review and I found typing easy and the keyboard well designed. The separate number pad has been banished in favour of a full screen qwerty keyboard and Swype is included. Overall, I found the capacitive screen really responsive.

The screen size suits web browsing too, with no need to pinch to zoom to read text on many pages, and the wide screen mode offering a good view of pages in the 800 x 480 pixel screen. Because the Streak now runs Android 2.2 it streamed video from web sites too. The Streak found an almost immediate home for me as a mobile internet device in particular for web browsing and email.

Dell’s skin for Android is quite attractive. There are seven home screens and some nice widgets that help make the most of them. Of course Facebook and Twitter widgets are among them, but there is also a nice web bookmarks widget, one for shortcuts to music and one for contacts all of which have room for thumbnails presented in a grid. The main screen houses a grid of nine recently used apps and today’s weather.

Dell has populated the Streak with oodles of third party applications including Amazon’s MP3 store, a 30 day trial of the CoPilot navigation software, the superb Evernote, Amazon’s Kindle Android app, YouTube client and QuickOffice for creating and editing Word and Excel documents and reading PowePoint and PDF documents.

The technical specs are impressive. The screen is made from Gorilla Glass and does a good job of resisting scratches – I wasn’t able to make a mark on it with a pen knife. There is a front camera for video calling and a 5 megapixel camera on the back. 16GB of microSD card based storage is included. The 1GHz Snapdragon processor moves along nicely. HSDPA and Wi-Fi ensure smooth communication. And there’s GPS of course.

Battery life isn’t fantastic and I’m not a fan of the proprietary connector for charging, but this is used because the slot is compatible with Dell accessories. The charge cable is at least USB at the other end, but it is short so that using the Streak while it was charging was challenging.

Battery life aside I found the Streak a pleasure to use, but after more than a week of use I still can’t help wondering if it really does have a niche. I wouldn’t want to carry it daily as my phone. While it could take on this role it is simply too large. And if I were choosing a tablet device I’d definitely want something with a larger screen– I’m settling for 10 inches as my preference currently.

So, the Dell Streak is a third purchase, and it is not an inexpensive one. My red sample currently costs £361.09 inc VAT and delivery from the Dell web site without a SIM. As a point of comparison, a SIM free 16GB iPad direct from Apple’s web site costs £429 with Wi-Fi only, £529 if you add in 3G. Operator deals bring the unit price down considerably, but then you have to pay for your SIM.

With all that in mind I’d love to see Dell make a 10 inch screened Streak, and retain the superb hardware design and great usability. Keep the price down and Dell might have a true iPad rival on its hands.

Dell's new S300WI projector is an ultra-short-throw DLP wireless network projector with an interactive pen and 3D display capabilities. Apart from these two latter features it's almost identical to the existing S300w model, and powered by Texas Instruments' S450 DarkChip3 DLP chip. Promoted as an alternative to fixed interactive whiteboards, the S300WI has the advantage that any suitable surface can be turned easily into an interactive surface for classroom projects and demonstrations.

The projector weighs a fraction over 3kg and measures 30.6cm wide by 9.9cm high by 24.6 cm deep, making it a very compact and portable unit. In the box is a remote control with integrated laser pointer, a couple of video cables (VGA and USB), plus a 6m-long mini-USB cable for use with the interactive pen. No audio or network cables are supplied. Printed documentation is a motley and confusing with battery like dell Latitude D510 battery, dell Latitude D520 battery, dell Latitude D600 battery, dell Latitude D610 battery, dell 312-0068 battery, dell 6Y270 battery, dell 1X793 battery, dell C1295 battery, dell Inspiron 1100 battery, dell Inspiron 5100 battery collection of leaflets that offer little practical help. You're much better off spending some time with the PDF manual. The unit can be ceiling or wall mounted and can work in either front or rear projection modes.

Video input is via two VGA ports (a VGA pass-through output is also provided), HDMI, composite or S-Video connections. HD input resolutions up to 1080p are supported, although the native resolution is 1,280 by 800. A USB display driver is stored in the projector, making for a quick and easy connection using the supplied cable. There's also an applet for viewing JPEG photos on a USB memory stick — a bundled converter converts PowerPoint files (20 slides maximum) into a suitable format.

A wired or wireless (802.11b/g) network connection can be used to connect up to 30 PCs, each using a small applet downloaded direct from the browser-based management interface. There's support for four-way split-screen conference calls when using a network connection. Crestron RoomView is supported for web-based remote control and management.

The S300WI's control applet, which supports four-way split-screen conference calls, is downloaded from the web-based management interface

The S300WI's 3D-Ready feature means that — with a suitable graphics card, 3D content and DLP Link active 3D glasses (which synchronise wirelessly with the DLP chip) — multiple users can watch projected 3D content.

Setting up the interactive pen can be a little confusing; although it's wireless, it requires a USB or network connection between the PC and the projector. Thankfully the supplied mini-USB cable is 6m long, giving you a little more freedom.

The pen is a chunky affair powered by two AA batteries that deliver a claimed 50 hours' use. On the top of the pen are two mouse buttons and a third that can be assigned various functions. We found the pen difficult to grip and use, as the buttons are rather awkwardly located.

A replaceable 'nib' (five spares are included) triggers the drawing mode when pressed on any hard surface, or you can simply wave it around in remote cursor mode from up to 10m away. Range and performance are directly linked to the brightness of the projected image, as an optical diode detects the pen's position with respect to the screen. A single-licence version of Interwrite Workspace is bundled — an e-learning application with a large selection of free images, templates and interactive content. It's not the most intuitive software to use, though.

Once everything's up and running, it all works well. The fan is reasonably quiet and the on-screen menus are logically arranged. The 0.52 throw ratio gives a minimum focus distance of just 0.5m, delivering an impressive 96cm by 60cm display (113cm diagonal). This rapidly increases up to a maximum of 633cm by 396cm (746cm diagonal) at 3.3m, making the S300WI eminently suitable for use in confined spaces.

The 8W mono speaker copes in small rooms, but otherwise you'll need to connect speakers via the stereo audio-out jack. A 3.5mm jack and a pair of phono connectors are provided for audio input, and there's a 3.5mm microphone jack. A 12V DC output can be used to control an automatic projection screen. The display quality is good (ignoring the unavoidable DLP 'rainbow' effect), and more than adequate for its intended use. But with a brightness of 2,200 ANSI Lumens from the OSRAM E20.8 190W lamp, and a maximum contrast ratio of 2,400:1, the picture soon washes out in bright environments.

We noticed a few minor niggles; the adjustable feet are fiddly to operate, and one is located too close to the hot air exhaust vent. The control panel on the projector isn't illuminated (apart from power, lamp and overheating warnings), and neither is the remote control. There's also no HDMI cable supplied.

The S300WI lives up to the 'interactivity in a box' idea pretty well, and could certainly appeal to educational users seeking an alternative to electronic whiteboards. It's not cheap, however, and there's a fairly steep learning curve before those unfamiliar with interactive applications will be able get the most out of the package.