ATI Radeon HD 5970 Review

The ATI Radeon HD 5970 is an extreme high-end graphics card which comes equipped with a dual GPU thus making it the fastest card from ATI in 2009. The ATI Radeon 5970 has a 512-bit bus with a core clock of 725 MHz and memory clock of 1000 MHz along with 1 GB of DDR5 memory.

Design-wise, the ATI Radeon HD 5970 is very similar to the slower ATI Radeon HD5870 and ATI Radeon HD5850 cards. The card runs on a six and 8-pin power connector configuration. It has a single-fan cooling system, with two air-inflow compartments beside the fan.

The card was tested on an ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard with an Intel Core i7 975 processor. The ATI Radeon HD 5970 delivered the goods during performance. In general, it is a good bit faster than the dual-GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX295.

The only thing that is of concern is the heating up of the card. Due to the closed design, it tends to heat up a lot. The ATI Radeon HD 5970 runs a little cooler than the NVIDIA GTX295 under load though. The cabinet is a key component and has to be chosen to provide enough air-flow to enable quicker cooling of the card. Considering this is a high-end product, the price of Rs. 42,000 is quite steep. The DX 11 compatibility offered by the card is an added advantage even though there are no DX11 compatible games around for now.

Click here to download the detailed spec and performance log sheet for the ATI Radeon HD5970

Specifications for the ATI Radeon HD 5970
Engine Clock: 725 MHz
Memory Clock: 1000 MHz
Memory Interface: 512 - bit
Video Memory: 2 GB DDR5

Contact information for the ATI Radeon HD 5970
AMD
Phone: 1-800 425 6664
Email: fusion.india@amd.com
Web: www.amd.com
Price: Rs. 42,000

Transcend PF810 Digital Photo Frame [Review]

 

As more people begin using digital cameras there is a growing need for a way to showcase these without the messy business of taking out prints. Digital photo frames cater to this need.
The Transcend PF810 Digital photo frame is one of their largest digital photo frames with an 8-inch screen, however with a rather medioce resolution of 800x600. It offers an internal storage capacity of 2GB, which is plenty for images, and supports a number of storage expansion via SD / SDHC / MMC / MS / CF cards. It can even read images from a pen drive.
The Transcend PF810 Digital Photo Frame has quite a few high end features which add to its price but not as much to the value. For instance, the PF810 features an orientation sensor which will automatically displays the images in their correct orientation based on how the device itself is oriented. While this feature is certainly welcome, it is of doubtful utility in a device which is expected to be kept at a single place for extended periods of time. A manual control for the same might have sufficed for those who do change the orientation only once in a while.

Some useful features which do add to value are its support for music, videos and an inbuilt FM radio. This stands to be of great utility to people who would like to keep the device on their desk and would like a little more out of it than just a picture which changes every couple of minutes. 

The Transcend PF810 Digital Photo Frame has inbuilt stereo speakers, and allows one to set it to play music while it is displaying images. The music player can play MP3, WAV, and unprotected WMA files, however leaves out AAC/MP4 format support. Using a supplied antenna, the device can also act as an FM radio, and sports an easy to use interface for configuring FM channels. It can also scan for and automatically configure channels. Another small point which increases its suitability as a desktop device is the presence of a calender which allows one to set alarms; and although it does not perform extraordinarily as an alarm clock or a media payer, it does each job sufficiently well.

The Transcend PF810 Digital Photo Frame quite easily connects to a computer for transferring images and videos. It shows up much like any other storage device such as a pendrive, and as such you can copy anything onto it besides image and videos. Any inserted cards will also appear on your computer, allowing you to manage all storage volumes on the photo frame together. However the copying speed isn't impressive, and despite being a USB2 device it only manages to give USB1 speeds. The device also seems to take quite long which enumerating folders containing images, videos and music, which is something it does every time you need to browse any of them.

The Transcend PF810 Digital Photo Frame features touch-sensitive controls right below the screen, which are usually not visible but light up when used. The controls are perhaps a bit too sensitive and give no tactile feedback. However, the control buttons are used consistently, and after a brief introduction, the device's controls are quite intuitive to use.

If you don't fancy using the controls on the device all the time, it also features a remote control, which is much simpler to use, and provides many more features -- besides the obvious advantage of allowing you to use the device from far. Since you can imagine keeping a photo frame in a more visually accessible but less physically accessible location a remote can come in quite handy.

In terms of configurations, the menu system of device seems a bit dated but works well. The Transcend PF810 Digital Photo Frame can be easily configured for the slideshow timing, transitions and effects. The display setting for brightness, contrast etc., are also available, and allow you to set the frame to display images the way you see them best.

Unfortunately like many other digital photo frames, the Transcend PF810 Digital Photo Frame runs entirely from a constant power supply. It has no internal battery and as such it cannot be used or run even for a shot while without a supply. As you can imagine, this is sure to create some restriction on its placement possibilities, and adds yet another clumsy mess of wires to the mix.

For any device which is centered around displaying images it is important that it be able to display anything you can throw at it, yet the Transcend PF810 Digital Photo Frame comes only with support for BMP and JPEG images, supporting a maximum resolution of 8000x8000 for JPEGs and BMP images up to the native resolution (800x600). While there are quite a few image formats out there, and it is impossible to have compatibility with all of them, at least support for PNG, which is a better loss-less format than BMP should have been present.

The screen is obviously a major part of the device, and considering how the device is to be used, one of the most important requirements is that the screen supports a wide viewing angle with as little distortion as possible. Here the Transcend PF810 Digital Photo Frame performs quite well and the display only begins showing a significant amount of distortion when viewed from impossible angles. However the screen of the device does offer poor contrast.

The device supports upgrading its firmware, and in fact one of the first things that was done before the device was tested, was a firmware upgrade to the latest version. The procedure for the same is simple. While this in itself might not seem like a significant feature, it does mean that any bugs in the device can possibly be resolved, as long as they are in the software.

Since a Digital Photo Frame is essentially just a photo frame which uses a digital display for displaying images than a printed piece of paper, perhaps the most important factor in choosing one is aesthetics. If you leave out the "digital" bit in a digital photo frame all you have is a photo frame, and since the photo will be of your providing, all you are finally paying for is a frame. So the frame itself is as important -- if not more -- as any other part. Although this judgement is highly subjective to ones tastes, we can tell you this much, the frame does look elegant with a glossy black finish and inset rhinestones, if you aren't overly discriminatory over these sorts of things.

The Transcend PF810 Digital Photo Frame certainly does not lack in features, and overall, it is good choice for those looking for more something more than just changing images. Most of the features such as the media and FM player, and its orientation sensor make it more suitable for use where it will be interacted with often, such as on your desk -- these features are useless if you keep it in a corner somewhere, just to be glanced at occasionally. For many people though, the extra features might not justify the high price of Rs. 9,500. If you are looking simply for a photo frame to display a slideshow of your photographs, and nothing more, this device might be an overkill.

Pros of the Transcend PF810 Digital Photo Frame:

• Large 8-inch screen
• Plays videos, mp3s, and FM
• Inbuilt calender and alarm feature
• Upgradable firmware

Cons of the Transcend PF810 Digital Photo Frame:

• High price
• Very few image formats supported (JPEG and BMP)
• Slow file transfer speed
• No internal batteries for power

Specs of the Transcend PF810 Digital Photo Frame:

• Screen Size: 8-inch screen
• Screen Resolution: 800x600
• Internal Storage: 2GB 
• Additional Storage: SD/SDHC/MMC/MS/CF/USB 
• Image Formats supported: JPEG, BMP
• Audio support: MP3, WAV, non-DRM WMA
• Video support: MPEG1/4 (SP/ASP), Motion JPEG, AVI, MOV, MPG, MP4, 3GP; Up to 720x576 @ 30FPS 
• Remote: Yes
• Internal battery: No

ZOTAC GeForce GT220 review

The ZOTAC GeForce GT220 is an entry-level graphics card that provides quite a punch given its limited features. Armed with a 625-MHz core clock and a memory clock of 1580 MHz, the GeForce GT220 has 1-GB DDR3 memory.

The ZOTAC GeForce GT220 comes with an HDMI port which makes it deal as an HTPC graphics solution. It does not need any additional power.

The card was tested on our graphics card test bench comprising of an ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard on a Core i7 975 processor. For an entry-level graphics card, the ZOTAC GeForce GT220 performs well. It was better off than the ZOTAC GeForce 9500GT.

The ZOTAC GeForce GT220’s key advantage is that it does not tend to heat up a lot. We only saw a four to five degree difference between load and idle temperatures.

Priced at Rs. 5,500, the ZOTAC GeForce GT220 is slightly expensive, considering that the XFX GeForce 9600GSO, one of the winners in our entry-level graphics card test is marginally better and is also available at a lower price. If you’re planning to buy a new card, it’s better to wait a while.

Click here to download the detailed spec and performance log sheet for the ZOTAC GeForce GT220.

Specifications for the ZOTAC GeForce GT220

GPU Clock: 625 MHz
Memory Clock: 1580 MHz
Memory Interface: 128-bit
Video Memory: 1 GB DDR3

Dimensions: 365 x 156 x 22 mm

Contact information for the ZOTAC GeForce GT220

Aditya Infotech Ltd.
Phone: +91-93106 75585
Email: sales@adityagroup.com
Web site: www.zotac.com
Price: Rs. 5,500

D-Link DIR 685 review

The D-Link DIR 685 Router is a high-end feature-rich router. It has a smooth finish and a 3.2-inch LCD screen, making it one of the better looking routers in the market.

The D-Link DIR 685 comes with two USB ports for external storage devices and it also has a slot to attach a 2.5-inch SATA hard drive (up to 500 GB) on its rear side. It can also be used as a photo frame although we would have liked a larger screen to better suit that purpose, like the one on the Transcend PF810 Digital Photo Frame. The D-Link DIR 685 is easy to set up, although it takes a long time to start up. The touch screen buttons have a definite delay in the response time. The LCD is crisp and it displays information such as internet speeds. The router provides unique features such as FTP server and file sharing on the network. It even offers Bittorrent downloading capabilities.

The D-Link DIR 685 was tested for wireless performance in three zones. It runs quite smoothly with the wireless connection in the same room but the signal quickly weakens in the adjoining room and so does the performance. For all the grand features provided by the router, there is a grander price to pay. At Rs. 21,000, the D-Link DIR 685 is one of the most expensive routers we’ve tested.

Click here to download the detailed spec and performance log sheet for the D-Link DIR 685.

Specifications for the D-Link DIR 685

Compliant Standard: IEEE 802.3, IEEE 802.3u, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 892.11g, IEEE 802.11n (draft 2.0)
LAN Ports: 1 WAN port, 4 LAN RJ 45 ports
Dimensions: 4.4 in x 5.8 in x 1.2 in (W x D x H)

Contact information for the D-Link DIR 685

D-Link (India) Ltd.

Phone: +91-22-8659 5765
Email: divya.shetty@dlink.co.in
Web: www.dlink.co.in
Price: Rs. 21,000

James Cameron's Avatar: The Game [Review]

While Jame’s Cameron spent most of the last two decades working on his next magnum opus, Ubisoft Montreal decided to team up with Lightstorm Entertainment and bring stereoscopic 3D graphics to the small screen. Unfortunately, not having access to a display that is capable of delivering 3D graphics meant that the experience playing Avatar was not much different from any other third-person shooter. One thing that seemed to have worked in this game’s favor is the decision to develop the game independently from the movie storyline. Of course, the game is set in the same world as the movie and at least a couple of characters from the movie have reprised their roles in this game. However, the game’s story does not follow the exploits of Jake Sully from the movie; rather it explores the alien world of Pandora through the perspective of a code-breaker working for a private mining corporation called the RDA.

The games kicks-off by introducing the alien moon of Pandora and puts you in control of the game’s protagonist named Corporal Lance “Able” Ryder. After a brief sortie in the surrounding lands, the game picks up when Able Rider is initiated into the Avatar program.

Let me take a brief detour and skim through the premise of Avatar. After having discovered an alien world, the humans start aggressively mining the moon for a mineral called Unobtanium, which fetches a hefty price back home. However, Pandora has more than just deposits of minerals—the moon is lush with thick vegetation, sentient plants, animals and even sapient beings called the Na’vi. Even in the next millennium, humans have not given up on the idea that nicely asking someone to give up their freedom will work. So to facilitate diplomacy between the humans and the Na’vi, the humans start the Avatar program. This allows humans to remotely control human-Na’vi hybrid s that are ‘created’ by human scientists. Understandably, the Na’vi are not a big fan of the program and the relation between the two species is tenuous to begin with.
But these things have always failed to dampen man’s spirit for conflict and so, even all those millions of miles away what we have on Pandora is the all too familiar conflict for resources and territory.

Back to the game: pretty early on in the plot, the storyline forks into two. After the already very obvious intent of RDA is made even more obvious, Able Ryder gets the option to either continue with the RDA or to defect and join the indigenous resistance forces. Irrespective of which side you pick, they both share a common goal to locate and activate something called as a Well of Souls. Tapping into this allows communication and subsequently control over the entire ecosystem. The Na’vi believe that the moon’s life system is controlled by a single conscious being whom they refer to as Eywa. So whether you choose to play as Na’vi or as an RDA mercenary, the main objective of the game is to locate and activate the Well of Souls and then use its powers against your enemies.

In spite of following the same plot, this choice in the game offers an incentive to beat the game twice over. Siding with either faction, the game still maintains common design elements like the skills, weapons and combat systems. There are subtle differences with the weapons and mounts, and there is at least one skill that is unique to one particular species. Strangely, despite these similarities and the seemingly superior constitution of the Na’vi, the RDA still come out as the stronger of the two sides. After playing the single-player campaign with both the species, I found that playing as the Na’vi has a steeper learning curve and up till the very end, the combat is substantially more challenging.

Towards destruction of your enemies, the game offers the Na’vi an assortment of weapons that predate history back home. As a Na’vi the game will offer you access to melee weapons like clubs, axes and dual-blades and ranged weapons like bows and crossbows. Just to keeps things a little respectable, you can also carry one piece of human technology in the form of a machinegun. Playing as an RDA operative, you will have access to a decent collection of weapons. Surprisingly, the human weapons’ technology has not changed much in over a thousand years and the arsenal is a disappointing collection of handguns, machineguns, shotguns and flamethrowers. The game could potentially have been a lot more fun when using vehicles (or mounts) in the game; especially the RDA vehicles. Unfortunately, the game’s abysmal flight and vehicle control system sucks all the fun out and I had actually started to dread game sequences where you were forced to use one of these.

Providing an additional layer to the game’s combat system is the skills system. Each of the two species has access to a set of skills that can be a life-saver on the battlefield. Now, even though there are overlying differences with the skills available to the two factions, most of them effectively perform the same functions.
Weapons, skills and armor upgraded are awarded each time your character levels-up. Experience points can be earned by killing enemies, completing primary and secondary objectives or by collecting additional information about the habitat.

If the game’s combat system seems like a ho-hum experience, the storytelling does not help elevate the game from mediocrity. By contemporary standards, the voice acting is pretty weak and character animation during cut-scenes appears to be tacked on. Even the game world is not overtly imaginative as the landscape of Pandora looks like a spin-off of the Amazonian rainforest. Culturally, the Na’vi race comes- up as a blend of elves and the indigenous African tribes. Even stories— like this one about the plight of the Na’vi and the human aggression— can be found in numerous tomes in libraries throughout the world, as both works of fiction and historical documentation. Maybe the objective of the movie is to offer a visual treat and the uninspiring storyline is simply an excuse to do just that. Unfortunately with video games, eye-candy is not as effective in compensating for weak game-play, as it may be for making up for a weak plot in a movie.

Providing a break from the drudgery of what is mostly a point-and-shoot combat system is another game-mode called Conquest. It is actually a built-in mini-game that can be triggered from certain points in the main game. Conquest plays in a war-room like interface with a 3-D layout of Pandora, along with position of enemy and friendly troops. The objective is to expand your factions control over the moon by capturing enemy territories, while at the same time defending and reinforcing territories under your control. This mode also ties in nicely with the regular game-play—capturing specific enemy territories rewards the player with various bonuses to defense and attacking capabilities. In turn, earning experience points in the single-player mode will add credits in the Conquest mode. Credits can be used to recruit additional forces or to reinforce a territory’s defenses.

Avatar: The Game also has multiplayer support with customary game-modes like capture the flag, king of the hill and team deathmatch. Logging into the game servers requires an account registered with Ubisoft, along with the game’s product key. After logging in however, it was quite rare to find someone to match up with. Even using the server’s matchmaking service to join an existing match seldom threw up results. The best I could find, after several attempts at different times of the day, was a CTF match with no more than four players populating a relatively huge map.

The game is still a commendable effort as it tries to give the player a lot of options. However, it does not stray from the tired mechanics of a typical third-person shooter and this overly cautious approach makes for a very ordinary game. I was actually expecting a lot worse from this game given the stigma one tends to have against movie based games. It would actually be nice to see Ubisoft Montreal (or some other studio) return to the world of Avatar. Only next time it would be nice to see them approach the game with a lot less creative conservatism and a lot of polish to smoothen the rough edges.

Zoomin.com: photo printing, personalized gifting, and photo sharing service [Review]

The whole world is moving towards digital everything. We have eBooks, electronic forms and even electronic transactions and currency. We've been hearing several proclamations of print being dead and the promise of a paper less world. Still, when it comes to photos, you have to admit, there's no replacement for the good old feel of paper. The joy of sitting around a coffee table with family and friends passing around a bunch of photo albums is not only nostalgic, but also much more fun than looking at a computer screen.
Zoomin.com, one of India's top photo printing websites, and the winner of our 09 Web Award, recently went through a revamp. ZoomIn is a photo printing, personalised gifting, and photo sharing website all rolled into one. We decided to put it though the grind and see what it's cracked up to be.

Overview

Zoomin.com offers a host of different products, which make for excellent gifts, such as mugs, bags, mouse pads, calendars, t-shirts, and so on. Each of these products can be customised by having your favourite photos printed on them. Besides these items the website offers photo books and regular photo prints in 13 different sizes right from 2 x 3 inches to giant size 12 x 36 banner prints. You can even immortalise your precious memories on canvas prints as well as collages.

Features

The Zoomin.com website has a clean layout and the buttons are activity based – such as 'create', 'shop', 'share' etc. The entire site navigation is displayed at the bottom panel so you're never more than a click away from any feature on the website. Once you complete registration you can upload an unlimited amount of photos which can be shared with anyone. Zoomin.com also features Picasa and Flickr integration so you can even import albums from these services. Simply supply your username and password, and Zoomin.com imports all your data. You can specify which albums to import/upload, but each import from third-party image hosting services seems to create a new album; definitely a bug. Currently support for RAW and PNG is lacking but it is coming soon.

Yea we're obsessed with Quake and Warcraft III

The process of ordering a product from Zoomin.com is very simple. First pick the type of product you want – mugs, prints, mousepad etc. Then choose a photo from the albums and customise your product by resizing, adding text, choosing styles etc. And finally the payment. All creations are stored in My Creations, and can be opened later so that more copies can be ordered in the future. A feature to share creations would've been nice. There are also some designer styles available from IdeaSpice and others for certain products such as invites and mugs. The interesting thing about the customisation applet is that what you see is indeed what you get. More on that later.
The website also features interesting offers from time to time. For instance, the last week of December had the Deal of the Day scheme wherein members could pick up items for a whopping 90 per cent discount.

Pricing

The pricing offered by Zoomin.com is extremely reasonable. Standard 4 x 6 prints cost Rs. 4 each and carry a flat delivery rate of Rs. 25 for any quantity! A softcover 5 x 7 photo book will set you back by about Rs 495, while an eco-friendly tote bag will cost you Rs. 150. A customised mouse pad (perhaps with your clan logo) is a cool Rs. 225. The website offers various payment options including netbanking.

Service and quality

Zoomin.com offers doorstep delivery all over India and in fact to the US, UK and Canada. The website also assures you of prompt and speedy delivery. We decided to test the service and quality by actually ordering a few products. We ordered an assortment of 4 x 7 prints comprised of picturesque photos from a recent Mangalore trip, and a customised coffee mug. The customisation applet for creating the Coffee Mug was indeed very user friendly. There are several font styles, borders, backgrounds and clip art overlays you can put over your base photo or image. Once our creation was complete we were able to save it for later. Besides the mug we ordered 20 photo prints in both glossy and matte finish. A set of high quality images as well as some that were deliberately low-quality were used. It is interesting to note that while ordering prints the website instantly raised an alert for the photos that were of low quality. Apart from a choice of glossy, matte or metallic finish each photo could be tweaked in terms of cropping to adjust white spaces images that were of a different aspect ratio. Colour correction was also available. We ordered the same photographs both with and without colour correction and noticed a distinct difference in the two. Colour correction analyzes photos and adjusts color and contrast for best results (perhaps even red-eye reduction). The delivery was very prompt. In the next three days the photo prints arrived, which was the partial order, and we were indeed drinking from our Digit Mug on the 7th day. The order tracking system was also flawless, providing information on each step of the delivery process.

The print quality was exceptional for both the photo prints as well as the coffee mug. The paper used was Kodak Royal which is a high-quality paper. Even the low res image came out quite well. As for the mug, the quality of the underlying material (ceramic) and even printing was standard quality. The preview for the mug was exactly as the finished product. No shifting, cropping, or pixelation.

Who's the competition?

There are quite a few websites operating in this space in India. On the one hand, there are sites such as Snapfish.com backed by HP, and on the you have estudios.in, itasveer.com, gkvale.com. The last one is popular photo studio in Bangalore that has diversified into photo printing and sends printed copies and customised gifts anywhere in India. Each of these websites has one USP or the other. Either a product category that is not available with others or cut-throat undercutting on price. Take the case of picsquare.com, offering a customised wall calendar (11" x 17") for just Rs 649 – a size not available on Zoomin.com. Check them out and tell us about your experience with them in the comment section below.

Thunderbird 3.0 [Review]

In my review of Postbox entitled "Postbox: Thunderbird on steroids!", I came to the conclusion that Postbox, while being built entirely on Thunderbird, was a brilliant application, a powered-up version of Thunderbird, which added some much needed features.

Since then, Thunderbird itself has evolved to a point that it can match most of what you could have done with Postbox. Best of all of course, is the fact that Thunderbird is still free and open source, and has a huge library of add-ons to extend its functionality.

While email clients haven fallen out of favour of late as web interfaces continually evolve, there is still a strong case to be made for keeping your email on your computer. Before Google changed the game, the utility of email clients was to download your email to your computer to ensure it didn't overflow the quota allocated to your inbox; a task no longer required. Why move your data offline when everything else is doing the opposite?

Another reason people avoid using a desktop email client is the fact that you are required to configure a number of settings for your own provider, IMAP / POP server, SMTP server, the correct ports, the correct security settings, the authentication procedure for SMTP, and other such things. These settings vary among different services further confounding users.

Thunderbird tackles these issues quite well, and provides enough of an incentive to consider a switch back to email clients.

What's new in Thunderbird 3? A lot

Thunderbird 3 has completely ruffled the feathers of the this fiery bird! It has seen the addition of a large number of important features which stand to make it much better than your online email provider. The new changes in Thunderbird 3 make it much more productive, much faster and make your emails easier to access, find and organize.

If you are a returning Thunderbird user, you are bound to find the new account wizard a refreshing change. The new "wizard" is just a single step which asks you to enter your name, email and password, after which Thunderbird 3 automatically checks online for the correct settings for configuring your particular email service. It is quite possible, of course, to override these settings, and if you are using an unknown provider or one provided by your ISP / school / university / company odds are are Thunderbird might not be able to configure it automatically. In such  cases you will need to provide settings yourself, however on the whole this does make it much easier for a majority of people.

Thunderbird only asks you for the bare minimum details needed. Your name, email address and password are all that is required.
It then automatically downloads the settings for your email provider and sets up your account.

The new Smart Folders feature in Thunderbird 3, which groups together special folders from multiple accounts.

Thunderbird 3 comes with an interesting new interface for arranging your emails which is especially useful if you are using it to handle multiple email accounts. The new "Smart Folders" view automatically bundles special folders from multiple accounts. In the smart folders view, all the Inbox folders from your multiple accounts get bundled together under one global Inbox, containing messages from both accounts. Similarly your Draft, Sent mail and Trash folders are all consolidated. This makes it considerably easier to work with multiple accounts -- a scenario which is becoming more common nowadays.

Already you will see that Thunderbird 3 comes out as a better mail managing solution than having multiple accounts opened in multiple tabs in a browser, and we have just scratched the surface of its new features.

Visual and usability changes in Thunderbird 3

Thunderbird 3 also features a tabbed interface for browsing your email. While message composition still opens in a new window, you can open tabs for browsing multiple folders or single emails. Thunderbird 3 will remember the opened tabs and reopen them when you restart it, making this an excellent feature for keeping multiple accounts open in different tabs.

Thunderbird 3 has gone through many design changes which make the interface easier to use and more intuitive. For example, actions such as deleting and replying to messages -- which are more relevant to the context of a single message have been removed from the toolbar, and placed in the message header instead.

Another nice feature which GMail fans might like, is the new message summary view, which allows you to get an overview of multiple selected messages. While this is certainly not as powerful as the conversation view in GMail, combined with the threading support in Thunderbird 3, it is quite powerful and is able to give the same effect. In the summery view, Thunderbird 3 displays the author of each message along with the a short extract from each email. Clicking on the author's name in this view takes you to that message in the thread. The summary view is also activated if you select multiple messages from different conversations, in which case Thunderbird will instead list the summaries by subject.

The new messages summary view in Thunderbird 3

In the upcoming version of Firefox (3.6) we will see a new themeing system emerge which allows for quick installation of themes without needing a restart of the browser. This new feature called Personas has been available for a while via plugins, and in Thunderbird 3 it is possible to use personas with as well. Personas aren't as powerful as regular themes available for Thunderbird and Firefox, however they are much lighter and install instantly, without needing a restart.

You can browse through a collection of personas and chose which one to "wear".
Personas are more like the themes available for Google Chrome.

The changes are more than just visual, many many new features have been added to Thunderbird 3 which make it a pleasure to use. There have also been many performance improvements, Thunderbird 3 is supposed to have faster speed while synchronizing email messages over IMAP. In one instance I was pleasantly surprised when I found about a hundred messages open in multiple tabs within a second after I accidentally double clicked on the conversation thread.

For GMail users, Thunderbird 3 comes with greater integration with the service and can recognize special folders such as Trash, Sent, and can handle Archiving better.

A better look inside

To keep track of your message download, upload and indexing progress Thunderbird 3 also includes a new Activity Manager, which displays the activities which are in progress. This activity manager can also be populated by add-ons, so any installed features can also include support for displaying the progress of the activities they perform.

The new Activity Manager gives you a look inside Thunderbird 3, at the different tasks being performed in the background.

Since Thunderbird is based on the same flexible base as Firefox, it comes with the support for adding features using add-ons, and the Thunderbird add-ons directory has some very powerful ones indeed. From syncing your contacts with your Google account, to browsing websites in your email client. Many Firefox extensions can work in Thunderbird as well. So now Thunderbird 3 includes the same powerful add-ons manager that comes with Firefox, and in fact, Seamonkey (another Mozilla product) also features the same.

Search improvements in Thunderbird 3

The new page for searching and filtering messages in Thunderbird 3.

One of the most powerful features of Thunderbird 3, is its new Search and Indexing system. A new interface for searching messages in now in place in Thunderbird 3 which is faster and more powerful than the one before. A large global search bar in the toolbar in Thunderbird 3 now leads to a powerful search page which allows for easy searching and filtering of messages. This search bar will also automatically suggest contacts from your addressbook, so it is quite easy to find an email by a specific person.

Thunderbird 3 makes suggestions from your addressbook while typing search queries, making it easier to search for email from or to a specific person.

The new search and filtering page is a powerful way to narrow down on exactly what you need to find, by gradually including or eliminating parameters. Simply put, you can construct your search visually by adding and removing participants in the emails, the folders (labels applied to the conversation in GMail), accounts and mailing lists. The search filter page also allows you to filter out emails based on your own involvement in them (was it sent to you or by you), whether it is starred or not, and whether it has any attachments. All the time it will show you just how many emails in your search are associated with each search parameter. A visual timeline of the messages in the search result also allows you to filter messages by date with great ease, and without needing you to type any dates.

As a point of note, Thunderbird's starring corresponds neatly with that of GMail, so any message which has been "starred" in GMail will appear as starred in Thunderbird and vice-versa.

A powerful new contacts management system

Like other email applications, including GMail, Thunderbird 3 will disable loading of remote content such as images included in an email unless you allow it. You can change this setting on a per contact basis for those you add to your address book.

By default, Thunderbird 3 will block loading of remote content.

Thunderbird 3 includes a very powerful way of adding contacts to your addressbook, as this is achieved by simply clicking on a star next to the person's name in a header. After that point you can click on someone's name in the header of a message and edit their contact details. If you'd rather not undertake the painstaking task of entering all your contact details all over again, there are contact synchronising tools available which will allow you to automatically sync your contacts in Thunderbird with those in GMail and other services.

Adding the sender or one of the participants of an email to your addressbook is easy, simply click on the star next to their name.
By clicking on the name of a contact, you can get easy access to common contact related tasks, such as adding them to your address book, editing contact details, creating a filter etc.

Some issues apart, Thunderbird 3 is a real winner

Thunderbird 3 now has a much better update system which automatically keeps it updated with the latest version available. The new system reduces the amount of data you need to download by only downloading patched content rather that the whole application all over again. Thunderbird will now also have a shorter release cycle and Thunderbird 3.1 will come in a few months. This means you will see more features implemented in the email client faster.

Mozilla Messaging has made a winning email client here which manages to be incredibly simple to use while managing to become even more powerful than before. While it suffers from a few small flaws, which are certainly not unique to Thunderbird itself, such as the fact that it will download the same message multiple times if it exists within multiple folders (i.e. has multiple labels applied to it in GMail), a problem which plagues many other clients. Also, while Thunderbird has the brilliant ability to save search results as folders, this is not possible with searches constructed with the new search and filter page. These are but minor things,  which might possibly be fixed as feature enhancements in versions to come.

While the strength of Thunderbird has always been its heavily extensible core with great support for all manner of extensions, addons and themes, with Thunderbird 3 most users are sure to find the client is more than sufficient with even a bare install. Ultimately, it is a great choice for an email client for novices and experts, new and old users alike.