MaximumPC 2006 10

B

lu-ray has finally arrived, and like a lot of first-gen products, it’s big

on price, but not so big on performance. Sure, we used it in the Dream

Machine last month, and we stand by that decision. The Dream Machine is all

about the bleeding-edge—it boasted a beta BIOS, a beta chipset, and a Blu-

ray drive too, damn it, despite the fact that Blu-ray movies and blank media

are incredibly scarce.

Now that we’re back in the real world, however, it’s time for a sober

assessment of Blu-ray technology. Does it work? Yes. Can it really burn

25GB onto a disc? Yes—though in reality, the burned discs actually contain

about 22.5GB, due to the whole “how many bytes are in a megabyte?” prob-

lem. And finally, the big question: Is Blu-ray worth the cost? The answer is,

to put it bluntly, hell no.

Let’s look at the reasons to pass on

this drive.

The most

obvious

is cost. At

$1,000 the

BD-R 101A

costs more

than a decent

PC—an

insane price for an optical drive. Second, it’s not very fast, for burning

either Blu-ray recordable (BD-R) or DVD-R. It burns DVDs at just 8x, and

burns Blu-ray at 2x—which translates into a pokey 9MB per second. The

drive’s slow speed makes it very quiet, but it takes a whopping 45 minutes

and 18 seconds to burn a 22.5GB disc.

It gets worse. The BD-R 101A can’t read or write to CD, which is a mas-

sive oversight from the perspective of gamers and music lovers. Furthermore,

the drive doesn’t come with software to watch Blu-ray movies, and there

isn’t any third-party player software available at this time. Pioneer ships a

bare-bones version of Roxio with the drive, which lets you burn data discs,

but that’s about it. The dearth of software is even more surprising given this

drive’s outrageous price.

For mere mortals, this drive simply isn’t worth the money. When speeds

ramp up and media and movies are more readily available, it’ll be a

more attractive prospect. For now,

it’s nothing more than a novelty.

—Josh Norem

Pioneer BD-R 101A

Blu-ray Drive

Good for burning 25GB discs, and that’s about it

A

re digital cameras now headed in the direction of “smartphones”? You’ve

gotta wonder when you hear about a point-and-shoot camera that plays

games—what’s next, a camera that makes phone calls?

OK, we jest, but if you spent some time with Fujifilm’s FinePix V10, you

wouldn’t blame us. As a camera, this is a very capable, very user-friendly,

very stylish, compact point-and-shooter. It takes nice 5.1 megapixel photos

at ISO speeds up to 1600, thanks to its aggressive, and effective, noise-

reduction capabilities (though, you’ll still be happiest with images shot at

400 ISO and below). Its large 3-inch LCD is bright, sharp, and almost makes

up for the absence of a traditional viewfinder. The LCD real estate is put

to good use, offering a 30-thumbnail display and a useful Post Shot Assist

mode that shows the last three snaps alongside the live viewfinder window.

The camera gains up nicely in low-light situations but can still be problem-

atic in bright sunlight.

The V10’s a relatively snappy performer, too, with shot-to-shot intervals of

less than 2 seconds; plus it offers several burst-mode options, and its 10-step,

3.4x optical zoom lens is smooth, quick, and quiet. The only real glaring chink

in the V10’s shiny armor is its lackluster battery life—ours needed a recharge

before we hit 100 shots. This is no doubt due to the fancy-pants LCD, and the

games, which, quite frankly, are a gimmick.

The camera sports four titles: Number Puzzle, Block Buster, Maze, and

Shooting Game (yes, those are the real names.) All of them are more frustrating

than fun to play using the camera’s controls, which thankfully are excellent for

the V10’s true calling—picture-taking.

Photogs can safely ignore the games and focus on the camera’s manual con-

trols, which allow you to quickly and easily perform exposure compensation and

white balance tweaks. And the V10 includes a healthy stable of scene presets,

covering just about every imaginable shooting condition from nighttime to sports.

The games might be disposable, but the V10’s capabilities are very wor-

thy of consideration—just make sure you also consider an extra

battery, or two.

—sTeVe KLeTT

Fujifilm FinePix V10

Don’t judge this camera by its games

8 MAXIMUMPC OCTOBER 2006

reviews Tes Ted. Reviewed. veRdic Tized

The first Blu-ray drive has arrived in the Lab! sadly, it arrives

with a low-speed whimper instead of a bang.

The V10’s claim

to fame is a

huge, vibrant

LCD display

that’s put to

very good use—

cheesy games

aside.

8

fujifilm finepix v10

$400, http://www.fujifilmusa.com

4

pioneer bd-r

$1,000, http://www.pioneerelectronics.com

pioNeer BD-r soNy 16x DVD

DVD Write speeD aVerage 6.2x     11.20x

DVD reaD speeD aVerage 6.1x  12.07x

4.25gB DVD Data Burn 10:41  (min:sec)    6:08   (min:sec)

22.5gB Blu-ray Data Burn 45:18  (min:sec)    N/A

access time (ranDom/full) 146ms/328ms    120ms/190ms

cpu utilization 6%  (2x)     22%    (8x)

benchmarKs

3.3"

2.5

"