Review: Boston Acoustics Horizon MCS130
Boston Acoustics Horizon MCS130 is distinctively styled 5.1 surround speaker system, which comes in six other finish glacier (light blue), rosebud (pink), pearl gray, chocolate (brown), chili pepper (red), and caramel (tan) apart form orthodox black (onyx) or silver (mist). The Boston Acoustics Horizon MCS130 is 200 watt home theater equipped with three LCR satellite speakers and 10-inch powered subwoofer. The LCR speakers are newly designed dual 3.5-inch drivers and a 1-inch soft dome tweeter along with relatively compact size.
Features:
* 5.1 Surround Sound
* Left, center, and right speakers feature dual 3.5″ drivers and 1″ soft dome tweeters
* Rear surround speakers feature 3.5″ drivers and 1″ soft dome tweeters
* 10″ 200-Watt powered subwoofer
* All speakers feature MagnaGuard magnetic shielding
* Wall Mountable
* Matte black finish
Boston Acoustics Horizon MCS130 Specifications:
General:
Product Type: Home theater speaker system
Dimensions (WxDxH) / Weight Details: Satellite speaker : 5 in x 4.1 in x 13.8 in / 5.1 lbs, Surround sound speaker : 5.5 in x 4 in x 8.4 in / 3.1 lbs, Subwoofer : 16.5 in x 16.5 in x 13.7 in / 31.3 lbs
Speaker System:
System Components: Subwoofer, 5 speakers
Speaker Type: Active subwoofer, passive satellites
Response Bandwidth: 40 – 20000 Hz
Recommended Amplifier Power: 10 – 150 Watt
Connectivity Technology: Wired
Detachable Grilles: Yes
Additional Features: Satellite magnetic shield
Speaker System Details:
Speakers Included: 3 x Satellite speaker – 2-way – 110 – 20000 Hz – 8 Ohm – Wired, 2 x Surround sound speaker – 2-way – 120 – 20000 Hz – 8 Ohm – Wired, 1 x Subwoofer – 200 Watt – 40 – 150 Hz – Wired
Driver Details: Subwoofer : 1 x Subwoofer driver – 10″
Power:
Power Device: Power supply – Internal
Apple Macbook Pro Laptop
For people who appreciate finer laptop accoutrements such as a backlit keyboard and a slot-fed DVD drive, Apple has crafted another tasty offering in the form of the 17-inch MacBook Pro. Sleek, powerful, and able to run Windows as well as the Mac operating system, the MacBook Pro makes a strong case for becoming anyone’s ultimate notebook.
Equipped with a 2.4-GHz Core 2 Duo T7700 processor, the maximum 4GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and nVidia’s new top-of-the-line notebook graphics card, the nVidia GeForce 8600M GT, our $2949 test unit set new speed records. We loaded Windows Vista Home Premium on the Apple notebook, and it snagged a WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 88. In games it achieved a blazing frame rate of 141 frames per second in Far Cry.
At 6.6 pounds and just 1 inch thick, the MacBook Pro is the lightest 17-inch notebook available. But it has no memory card slots and only three USB ports, and it comes configured with an ExpressCard/34 slot instead of the more versatile ExpressCard/54 slot. Though it has Bluetooth and 802.11n Wi-Fi, built-in cellular broadband is not an option. On the other hand, video editors will be happy to have not one but two FireWire ports. Battery life was disappointing: Apple pegs it at 5.7 hours on one charge, but in our tests we got less than 2 hours, 45 minutes.
Nevertheless, the MacBook Pro is elegantly designed and remarkably mobile for a 17-inch notebook.
Apple’s 24-inch iMac Desktop
The 24-inch iMac’s striking design and impressive performance compare favorably to its smaller 20-inch sibling. In addition to a larger screen size, the 24-inch model offers higher-end configuration options and, of course, a higher price tag. The 24-inch iMac comes in two standard configurations. The $1,799 system includes a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of memory, and a 320GB hard drive; the higher-end configuration costs $2,299 and comes with a dual-core 2.8GHz Core 2 Extreme CPU, 2GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive.
The only performance area in which the iMac disappoints is with its 3D gaming proficiency–or lack of it. We were surprised to see the 24-inch turn in even lower scores on our Quake 4 test than we saw with the 20-inch model. This disparity is still a bit of a mystery for us as both systems use the same graphics engine. Regardless, while the bigger model nets you a larger screen, a faster processor, more memory, and bigger hard drive, there are no options for speedier graphics.
The ultimate question is whether the 24-inch, 2.8GHz iMac is worth spending $800 more than the 20-inch, 2.4GHz version for a 16 percent improvement in performance and 30 percent more screen real estate. Serious multitaskers and some prosumers can definitely gain additional screen area to support more open applications on the desktop, and the modest performance bump can make a difference during longer video or audio renders. Perhaps the ideal user is someone who needs as much processing power as possible from a Mac, but can’t justify the much costlier Mac Pro.