A trio of ‘uber-capable’ tech gadgets for consumers

James and Robin Careless —

Welcome back to the Gadget Zone; this time written by the father-and-son tech team! In this edition, we have three uber-capable pieces of consumer technology for your consideration.

The Gadget Zone

First up is the Acer TravelMate P645 Ultrabook. For a laptop, it’s got some serious power behind it. With the NVIDIA GeForce 840M graphics card that comes built in (plus 8GB of RAM), we’ve been able to run any number of games at their highest settings, not to mention edit 2K quality video clips without it slowing or stuttering.

The P645’s 256GB SSD (Solid State Drive) hard drive looks small in this day and age, especially for something with the graphics capabilities that this machine has. That said, an external HD for your larger files sorts that fine, and due to the nature of the SSD, what you do have on the hard drive will run at hyperspeed.

On the aesthetic front, the TravelMate P645 Ultrabook is a sleek-looking laptop, matte black carbon fibre with silver accents. With it being crazy thin, we worried about its durability.

However, not only has the P654 stood up to everything we have put it through, it hasn’t even gotten a scratch. The only actual drawback I would say this laptop has is the lack of a disc drive. But given the size of the laptop (14”) that’s pretty common now a days, and more reflects my antiquated love of physical media than it does an oversight on the construction side. LINK.

Remember when we said that the only real concern with the Ultrabook was the lack of space? In writing, we call this “foreshadowing,” because next up is the Seagate Backup Plus 4TB with Cloud Storage. This little box is huge on the inside; we honestly don’t have 4TB of anything. So we loaded absolutely all our files onto the Backup Plus, and still have so much room to stretch out and grow. Somewhere between the size of a cellphone and a pack of cards, it fits comfortably in your hand, and feel sturdy enough that you can feel comfortable travelling around with it, without having to hold your breath the entire time.

On top of all that, the Seagate Backup Plus 4TB comes with a free 200GB storage bump for your OneDrive, on the off chance that the 4TB just isn’t big enough. And for the Mac users out there, it should be mentioned that the Seagate Backup Plus is just as compatible with a Mac as it is a PC.

If you use a computer and/or an HDTV, then you need to have your electronics plugged into a UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) to protect them from circuit-frying power surges and lightning strikes. Better yet, a UPS rechargeable onboard battery will keep your computer running long enough to shut it down properly (to not mess up your computer files), or even keep using it for a while until the main power comes back.

The Tripp-Lite SmartPro SMART1500LCDT UPS does this and more. Equipped with 10 outlets on its rear side—5 battery-protected, 5 surge-only—the SMART1500 LCDT delivers reliable 1500VA/900W power protection for your computer and media equipment against surges, line noise, blackouts and brownouts.

The SMART1500LCDT can keep an average PC running on its built-in rechargeable battery for up to 90 minutes, while making sure that power disruptions don’t fry your expensive equipment. Frankly, we would not dream of operating a PC by plugging it into a UPS to protect the hardware investment and data files anymore than leaving a car unlocked in downtown Manhattan.

Find out more SMART 1500LCDT.