If you subscribe to StarHub’s fibre broadband service and are stuck with the Huawei HG256s gateway that seems to be plagued by poor wireless coverage, a range extender might help.

Cisco’s Linksys RE1000 is a S$109 range extender that takes an existing wireless signal and repeats it throughout the home. It also serves as a wireless bridge to connect a wired printer, Internet enabled TV or game console to the wireless network through its integrated Ethernet port.

The RE1000 is a handsome gadget like its siblings in Linksys’ E series portfolio of network equipment. You can plug it straight into the power socket with the three-pin plug adaptor. Or, use the bundled power cable if you intend to use a power strip with limited space to accomodate the device.

Setting up the RE1000 is as easy. The bundled software, available for Mac and Windows computers, will take you through the set-up process. The software will attempt to detect the RE1000 and prompt you to enter your wireless network credentials. Once that’s done, you are ready to go.

Note that the Mac version of the software may not be able to detect the RE1000 in some cases. After a couple of tries, I gave up and used the Windows version of the application on a PC to set up the device.

So how does the RE1000 fare in real-world tests?

My main workroom is roughly two rooms away from the Huawei HG256s router, and I usually get speeds of up to 26Mbps from my connection based on Speedtest.net tests. With the RE1000 plugged into a wall socket in my workroom, the bandwidth speed increased to about 30Mbps.

The results are better in another bedroom furthest away from the router, where the bandwidth speed increased from 12 to just under 25Mbps.

Bottomline: The RE1000 is a nifty gadget that will boost your Wi-Fi signal in network blind spots. Where you place the RE1000 matters, too. Placing it too far away from your router may not achieve the best results, as the device will be working with a weaker source signal.

Malaysian cellphone maker CSL is targeting business travelers with the Spice Mi350 dual-SIM smartphone that lets you pop in two SIM cards into a single device. That means you could, say, receive calls on your personal and business phone numbers without lugging two phones around. Folks with a dedicated mobile broadband service could also use the Android device as a broadband modem through Wi-Fi tethering.

To be sure, the Mi350 is not for everyone. If you are a smartphone junkie who can’t wait to update your devices to the latest flavor of the Android OS, the Mi350, which ships with Android 2.2 Froyo, will seem rather dated. While most Android handsets today are running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, using a Froyo device, which is just a generation behind Gingerbread, is an unfamiliar experience. For better or worse, that’s how fast things are moving in the Android world.

Design
Despite its plasticky frame, the Mi350 is a well-built gadget. Though it doesn’t feel like a premium device — and it isn’t meant to be one either — the Mi350 has a solid frame and will not creak when you try exert more pressure around the edges. The battery cover snaps perfectly into the back of the phone with no signs of coming off. The rounded edges softens the phone’s business-like profile and offers a comfortable grip. In the age of ultra-slim phone designs, however, the Mi350 has a hefty 14.7mm thick body. There’s a lid-protected USB port along the left edge of the phone and a five-megapixel rear camera.

Display
If you have been lapping up on soap dramas on a 4.3-inch screen, the Mi350′s 3.5-inch display will seem rather small. With a 480-by-320 pixels resolution, onscreen text is readable but you shouldn’t expect things to look super sharp. Colours also look a little washed out, with obvious colour gradations in photos and images. That said, the phone’s display is responsive to taps and swipes, making it a cinch to navigate menus and apps.

Software
The Mi350 offers a stock Android experience. That means the phone is devoid of bells and whistles that some smartphone makers have slapped on to differentiate their devices from the pack. While there’s no custom app launcher, CSL has thrown in some of its own apps, such as Blueberry Messenger and CSL Fan Club, along with notable third-party offerings such as the Muvee video editor and Nero backup software.

Performance
Powered by a Qualcomm MSM7227-1 600Mbps processor, the Mi350 is not in the league of high-end smartphones that sport dual-core chips. Notwithstanding, it has enough computing juice for Web browsing and running a handful of apps in the background, but be warned that the phone will start to slow down once you try to do too much. Installing a task and storage manager such as Norton Mobile Utilities will help to free up resources hogged by idle apps.

Managing two phone lines on the device was easier than expected. There’s a dedicated dual-SIM settings menu that you can delve into to enable or disable SIMs, set the default data network, and configure mobile data settings. The phone was able to configure both carriers’ Access Point Names automatically, including that of my T-Mobile prepaid service, which I still use on my trips to the U.S. And with Wi-Fi tethering, you can effectively use the Mi350 as a broadband dongle by assigning the default data network to your mobile broadband SIM card.

The Mi350′s battery life is nothing to shout about. We’ve come to expect smartphones to last not more than a day without plugging in the charger in between meetings, and the Mi350 is no exception.

Bottomline: While the Mi350 does not offer a premium smartphone experience, it gets the job done and will save business travelers one less gadget to put through airport security checks. However, it is likely to gain more traction in prepaid markets where users are more likely to take advantage of different price plans offered by different telcos.

Sony has unveiled two new photo frames in its S-Frame range today, offering for the first time Wi-Fi connectivity in a 7-inch frame.

The DPF-WA700 and DPF-W700, once connected, can automatically retrieve and display photos shared on Facebook. Users can also hook up to an existing email account and view photos through it.

Other features, such as home network connectivity, a 7-inch  resistive touch screen, AccuWeather forecasts, are included in both frames. Both offer 1GB internal memory, which translates to approximately 4,000 photos. Card slots supporting MS Duo, SD, and SDHC memory cards are also available.

Singapore consumers, however, will only be able to get their hands on the WA700 frames, which have additional features such as vTuner Internet radio compatibility, AVCHD video playback as well as music playback capabilities.

Sony’s latest frames promises to follow in the footsteps of Sony’s other eco-friendly products. These frames use LED backlight technology that Sony claims uses less power, as well as auto on/off timers. The DPF-WA700 will hit Singapore’s stores in Jan 2012.

Dell is making a dash for the enterprise tablet market with the Latitude ST, a 10-inch Windows-based slate powered by an Intel Atom Z670 processor.

If you are wondering why this gizmo runs Windows and not Android, it’s because most companies are hardcore Windows users who can continue using the same Windows-based business software on the new tablet. Besides, IT folks can manage the tablet like any other PC on their network using existing remote management software. The device also integrates with desktop virtualization software to provide secure access to corporate data on the move.

While Latitude ST sports a 128GB solid state drive and Wi-Fi connectivity, it lacks a bar code reader or magnetic strip scanner for it to be used as a mobile point-of-sale system, which Motorola Solutions’ ET1 tablet allows through add-on options.

For now, the Dell tablet is aimed at the financial, medical and education sectors. A doctor could, say, offer diagnoses, submit prescriptions and conduct medical research on the go. The Latitude ST is available now at prices starting from S$1,050.

Huawei is bringing a series of low-cost Android phones to Singapore this month, in the hope of winning over a part of the market that tech-savvy Singapore users often don’t spend too much time checking out.

While we are talking up the Samsung Galaxy S II and Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, phones closer to the S$1,000 mark (without contract), Huawei has been banking on the low-cost segment (S$300 to S$500) where Android can play a big part. Hey, the software is free, after all.

This is where the Ideos X3, a followup to the original Ideos, comes in. The new Android phone will cost just S$299 when it ships on June 15, said Huawei executives who launched the phone along with three other low-cost numbers yesterday in Singapore.

Considering that telco rebates here often start from about S$300, don’t be surprised to see this phone debut with one of the operators here as a “zero-dollar” phone.

What do you get for paying, er, nothing? Huawei’s biggest selling point is Android 2.3, the latest iteration of the most popular phone OS out there. A 3.2-inch HVGA capacitive touch-screen and a 3.2-meg camera, among other features in a 115g frame. To be sure, the X3 has got no Super-AMOLED, no shiny 4.3-inch screen and certainly no dual-core processor.

Competitors in the field include Samsung’s Galaxy Mini running Android 2.2 (S$368), which is often sold as a zero-dollar phone as well. But Huawei will boast that the Ideos X3 is the only one with Android 2.3 for the low-end market.

Does that matter? I’m not sure because at that end of the market, presumably less geeky users would look at more obvious features like screen size, screen quality and yes, smoother performance. Here, the Ideos X3′s 600MHz CPU shows its age when you swipe your finger on the screen – it betrays a very slight lag, compared to smartphones powered by a 1GHz or faster chip.

To be fair, I still found the phone to be quite usable on the whole, for an entry-level aimed at first-time smartphone buyers. For for “zero-dollar” phone, I’d  recommend it over another Nokia Symbian or “feature phone” (or  ”dumb” phone) for folks looking to jump on the smartphone bandwagon.

Besides the Ideos X3, Huawei yesterday also unveiled two other phones and a “Mi-Fi” dongle. Here’s what I thought of them after a quick hands-on session:

Huawei Boulder (S$299, end June): Another low-cost option for those who want a keyboard to go with a touchscreen, this comes with Android 2.2 and some social media network features. I’m wondering if this will fly well in Singapore, as the social media crowd are often also quite the tech-savvy lot.

Huawei IDEOS X6 (S$499, end June): An interesting offering that looks a bit like a cheaper version of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc. Note the big infinity edge screen (4.1-inch), the squarish facade and 1GHz processor for much smoother operation than the X3. Runs Android 2.2 but will be upgradeable in Q4 2011, says Huawei.

Huawei Mobile WiFi Smart Pro (S$299, Q3 2011) – a handy and sleek-looking Wi-Fi sharing dongle that will share the HSPA+ mobile connection (21Mbps up, 5.76Mbps down) with other devices through your own portable Wi-Fi hotspot. Great for mobile warriors.

Okay, so this much-sought-after Wi-Fi router is only officially launched to the Singapore media today. But the truth is Linksys’ E4200 has been out in the market here for at least three weeks, during which time I bought myself a unit to hook up to my new fibre broadband connection.

The first thing that catches your eye is its ultra-sleek design. Hands down, this is the most gorgeous-looking home networking router out there, if there’s such a thing. 

I had previously been using D-Link’s excellent DIR-855, another top-end router that handled well the tasks at home, which included connecting two NAS boxes, five PCs, a couple of game consoles, a Logitech Squeezebox Touch and even a networked TV, to the Net.

My next router, I told myself, would have to have the standard high-end features – a gigabit WAN port, gigabit LAN ports and a powerful processor that handled everything thrown at it without freezing (yes, lesser routers do crash if you stack too many downloads on them).

But beyond just what the DIR-855 offered me, I wanted something that looked nice as well. There, I said it, I first looked at the E4200 because of its looks.

I wanted something that matched my Sony Playstation 3 and shiny TV console, because I was relocating the core of the home network from my study room to the living room, thanks to the fibre termination point being set up in the living room.

The minimalistic E4200 doesn’t have blinking lights at the front to distract you when you stream a movie to the TV. Only thing present at the top and front is the lit Cisco logo. The high-end router is also pretty small and svelte – more so than previous “UFO” Linksys routers.

Besides its looks, I soon got wowed by the E4200′s performance as well, after reading the respected SmallNetBuilder review site’s tests of the new router.

In particular, I was impressed by its WAN-to-LAN routing prowess (important for me if I wanted to have several high-speed connections to the Net via multiple devices) and its high-power 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi links, which meant steady wireless throughput in an apartment that has several blind spots, no thanks to heavy beams between rooms.

Once that was settled, my mind was made up. So, at the Funan mall a couple of weeks back, I ended up with a nifty new router after I bargained S$20 off the (rather expensive) S$279 suggested retail price. Right now, it is sitting prettily on the TV console, next to other audio-visual gear in the living room.

I’ll have to say I have not measured the router’s performance as SmallNetBuilder has, thus this is not a full Goondu Review. What I can say, based on casual observation, is that it is pretty robust. Even when I threw multiple downloads at it, while uploading to a friend via FTP, there was no slowdown when it comes to surfing the Net.

Another good thing is the 5GHz Wi-Fi,which proves to be speedy as long as you don’t try pushing the signals through too many walls (At higher frequencies, 5GHz signals are less able to penetrate walls than the regular 2.4GHz Wi-Fi that runs simultaneously on the E4200).

At least at line-of-sight distances of a handful of metres, the 5GHz network is great for fast transfers to my laptop. Even 1080p high-def movies stream via Samba without a lost frame, and I can scroll through movies instantaneously, without the usual lag associated with slower networks.

For this home setup, I had connected the router directly to a Nucleus Connect ONT (optical network terminal) and linked up to my M1 Broadband 100Mbps FTTH (fibre to the home) service. The other gear in the rest of the apartment are mainly hooked up via in-wall Cat5 cables and another couple of gigabit switches.

The reason why I am not using M1′s Huawei residential gateway, which I can rent for S$2 a month, is that it does not seem to have gigabit LAN ports (see Huawei site). If I run at 100Mbps on the WAN, I’d like some overhead within the LAN to deal with that kind of speed, so gigabit is the obvious choice – something you get standard on the Linksys E4200.

The only thing I don’t like about the E4200 is the manual Linksys interface, which offers mainly the basics and not even stuff like setting AES or TKIP encryption with the WPA2 Wi-Fi security. To do that, you have to have the router at its basic settings and control it (via Wi-Fi Protected Setup) with an Linksys PC application installed from the bundled CD.

And unlike with the D-Link DIR-855, Linksys also does not let me block out segments of incoming traffic by specifying their IP address ranges. This is something that is useful, say, if you just want to open up parts of your network to friends who are on SingTel or StarHub, and block out potential attacks from the rest of the world.

Instead of doing this on the E4200 router, the workaround for me is to set up the same rules on the firewalls of particular devices on the network that accept incoming connections from the Net.

What also irks me about Linksys UI is that it is rather sluggish to load, compared to, say, the D-Link DIR-855′s UI, which feels much zippier. One solution is, of course, to install third-party firmware such as Tomato or DD-WRT, which I understand, are currently being developed for the E4200.

But maybe that will be for another day. Right now, this good-looking and powerful router seems to be doing its job the way I like it to. It’s not such a cheap buy, for sure. But a Geek Buy for a home networking buff? Definitely.

Aruba Networks loves iPads, and is betting on the ubiquitous Apple device.

The wireless networking company’s new mobility architecture, Mobile Virtual Enterprise (MOVE), allows mobile devices like iPads to roam freely and connect within an enterprise space, and yet securely tracks them and manages their use.

Most importantly, Aruba Networks claims that their MOVE architecture uses less appliances (and hence rack space, energy and deployment), is simpler to manage, and will over a three year period save 70 percent of the total cost of ownership as compared to a rival solution, say, from Cisco’s Borderless mobility architecture.

At a press conference this week in Singapore, Aruba Networks — ranked number two in wireless switching behind networking king Cisco — quoted this exact example, and also launched MOVE in the Asia Pacific region together with a suite of new wireless products.

Albert Tay, general manager for South East Asia at Aruba Networks, is bullish about the marketplace for MOVE, and he gave two reasons.

One, there are lots of enterprises who are are looking at replacing their old Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g wireless standards to the faster 802.11n wireless standards, so it’s perfect to pitch the new architecture.

Two, it’s the damn iPad.

It is symbolic of the huge mobility trend — be it iPads, Android tablets or other smartphones — that is sweeping the world.

According to an IT predictions report by Gartner in late 2010, the combined install base of smartphones and browsing-capable phone hybrids will exceed 1.82 billion units in 2013. Past 2013, this will exceed the install base for PCs. What this means for mobility, and those who can tackle it well, is huge.

Aruba Networks tout MOVE as an architecture that will allow easy administration of mobility devices. Users coming onto a corporate network simply self-register their devices, a security certificate is pushed onto the device, and voila, the device is free to roam the network with the requisite security settings. (Of course it’s not exactly as simplistic as that, but that’s the gist).

Thus far, the fledgling architecture works only this seamlessly for iOS devices — i.e. iPhone or iPad, or iPad2. The Android roadmap will be released sometime later in the middle of the year, and will first support Android devices from HTC and Samsung.

When asked about Windows 7 devices, Aruba Networks said they are not sure about widespread market adoption of such devices yet, but will keep it in consideration for building this same seamless access.

Also in the roadmap is for the security certificates pushed to the mobile devices to connect automatically and talk to a public key infrastructure (PKI) — a security architecture that manages digital certificates — sometime later in the year.

Who cares how your home router looks like? That is what many broadband users would think until they see Cisco’s new US$179.99 Linksys E4200.

With a svelte frame hiding all the antenna and other networking goodies inside, it is surely one router you won’t mind placing next to your designer furniture in the living room. Linksys already has slim, UFO-shaped routers before this, but the E4200 in its new lineup just looks a lot more streamlined and sleek.

Under the hood, you can expect the works as well. The star here is the promised 450Mbps you can expect on your Wireless N connection, though your mileage will vary depending on how many pillars your apartment has and how many neighbours are fighting over the bandwidth with you, for example.

You can fight back with the E4200′s powerful 3×3 MIMO antennas that are now common on high-end Wireless N routers, though the good thing (at least for aesthetics) is that these are built into the Cisco router’s frame instead of jutting out awkwardly.

Like its previous high-end E series cousin, the E3000, the new router comes with the simultaneous dual-band feature that lets you run a 2.4GHz and a 5GHz network at the same time – one for video streaming and one for Net surfing.

Completing a stellar list of features are four gigabit-capable LAN ports – a must these days for streaming HD videos – and a USB port that you can run as an uPnP extension for streaming movies and songs to the rest of the home network.

I’ve got a Buffalo Nfiniti WZR-HP-G300NH serving as an access point for streaming and Net surfing in the living room and a D-Link DIR-855 in the bedroom now, but I won’t mind swapping one of them for a E4200, if only for its looks!

The E5 supports various connectivity modes. Besides serving as a wireless AP that supports multiple devices, you can also choose to keep your mobile broadband connection personal by hooking the E5 directly to your Windows or Mac machine via a USB port. The E5 also supports a combination of USB and wireless AP modes.

Setting up the E5 to work with Windows 7 was a cinch and took just a couple of minutes. On Mac OS X Tiger, however, the modem could not connect to the Internet although the required driver software was already installed.

The default network name (SSID) and WPA passwords are printed on a sticker stuck on the device. You can change both of these easily by logging into the admin dashboard, where you can also specify various security and network settings. There’s also a SMS section in the dashboard for you to send and receive text messages while you’re on the mobile network.

The battery life from the E5 is nothing to brag about. I managed to get roughly three hours of Web browsing on the go. The good thing is that the E5 has a removable battery, and can be charged from a USB port – provided you have a laptop with decent battery performance.

Bottomline: If you have an additional data plan on top of what you may already have for a smartphone, the E5 offers a easy way for you to get online with a laptop or tablet without grappling with software and device driver installations required for USB dongles to work.

Long before Apple and Samsung trotted out their tablets, the lesser-known Archos had been making what were known as portable multimedia players (PMPs), which worked sort of like tricked-up MP3 players with video playback.

Now, after being not particularly successful with early Android tablets, the French company is back with a couple of tablets you really have to check out before buying an iPad or Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Tab.

While buying some parts for a PC over the weekend, I found the Archos 70 and 101 tablets selling at Memory World and its other outlet Storage Studio at Sim Lim Square, and I joined a small crowd swiping our fingers over the screens of these two wonderfully portable machines.

Boy, was I pleasantly surprised after getting a quick hands-on with the gizmos.

For starters, look at the attractive prices:

• S$459 for the 7-incher 70 with 8GB
• S$499 for the 7-incher 70 with 250GB hard disk
• S$499 for the 10-incher 101 with 8GB (most popular, I’m told)
• S$599 for the 10-incher 101 with 16GB

All of them are Wi-Fi only and do not have 3G built in, which may be a good thing for those who don’t need mobile data, or can get it by tethering to their cellphones.

With the Archos 101, the bigger version with the 10.1-inch wide-screen, the first thing that hits you is how light it weighs in one hand. You can carry this and watch your movie on the train without tiring out your arm.

The specs say it is 480 grams, a good 200 grams or roughly 30 per cent lighter than the 680-gram iPad (Wi-Fi only model). On the hand, the lighter 101 really feels like a world of difference.

Looks-wise, Archos’ tablets are also much sleeker looking than the iPad and Galaxy Tab. Not just slim but streamlined, these feel like really thin computers that are perfect for surfing the Web or even reading e-books on.

The only thing is, the battery pack on the bigger 101 can feel a little warm. Though nowhere near your laptop’s warmth, it’s something you should look out for if you are sensitive to that. Archos doesn’t say how much juice the battery has, though it promises up to seven hours of video playback.

Under the hood, the 101 has the works: an 1GHz Arm Cortex A8 processor, support for all sorts of video and picture formats and a MicroSD slot that negates the relatively small 8/16GB flash memory for storing files. It also has a handy HDMI port to hook up to your TV if you want to watch movies stored on the tablet.

The same specs are found on the smaller 7-incher Archos 70, which to me, is just the right size and weight (just 300 grams for the flash memory model) to carry around. For some reason, the device also seems noticeably faster than its larger 101 cousin when I tried swiping my finger through the Android menus.

Speaking of Android, Archos promises Android 2.2 on the machines, but the tablets on sale at Sim Lim are still running Android 2.1, with promises of an update within the coming weeks.

That, to me, was the deal-breaker at the moment I was going to take out my ATM card to pay. To be fair, the devices are only to be officially launched in Singapore on Nov 17, but I held back from buying a device that may seem still in development.

Why does Android 2.2 matter? For one, I’d like Flash on the big screen. And, of course, the speed improvements that I have seen with the same OS update on my Nexus One.

Another thing to note is that, unlike the Samsung Galaxy Tab, there are no extra software, such as an e-reader and content that you may (or may not) like. Out of the box, the Archos gizmos are plain vanilla Android devices that probably require the user to download his own software.

Speaking of which, there doesn’t seem to be native Android Market support here. That means you either have to apply a hack or “sideload” the apps, that is, download them separately and install them by running the APK packages from your tablet.

Still, the Archos tablets look like they will give other tablets a run for the money given its low cost – once they are updated with Android 2.2. And they could really ruin the party for the upcoming Creative ZiiOs shipping here next month.

Unlike the Creative tablets, Archos’ two offerings appear to use capacitive screens, which are more sensitive and enable multi-touch. Strangely, the Memory World salesman told me the tablets use a special type of resistive screen that provides for what felt like very smooth pinch and zoom gestures, while Engadget says they use the now-common capacitive models.

Either way, at the prices they are sold, I expect these Archos tablets to stake a claim in the growing market, which will likely see new entrants such as Acer, Asus and Toshiba very soon. At the low-end, the Archos 70 and 101 will do particularly well, especially with their sleek design.

They’ll also be attractive to users who don’t want a built-in 3G link – I, for one, can tether with my Nexus One. With Wi-Fi b/g/n, the 70 and 101 will appeal as a device to surf or play games on while lounging in the living room.

With more competition in the horizon, and tablets running Google’s upcoming OSes made from ground-up for tablets, consumers may be spoilt for choice in the coming weeks and months.