Tags: drive, free radical, haze, racing, wait

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing

Smooth controls and a bunch of awesome tracks make this an exciting kart racer.

Hitachi's portable drive is a serviceable external drive that doesn't stand out in a market awash with them.

Need for Speed: Nitro

Need for Speed: Nitro gets off to a fast start, but lacks enough variety to make it into the winner's circle.
Colin McRae: DiRT 2

If you have any interest whatsoever in off-road racing you'd do well to take this beautiful and thrilling game for a spin.
Cars Race-O-Rama

Cars Race-O-Rama is a terribly generic racer aimed at the younger crowd. It's neither great nor awful, just absolutely middle-of-the-road gaming.
Asus SDRW-08D1S-U External DVD-RW Drive

External DVD writers are never going to be exciting, but at least Asus' effort looks pretty.
Pure

Pure doesn't blaze many new trails, but this off-road racer still delivers an intense, tricked-out thrill ride.
Corsair Flash Voyager 64GB

With more than enough space, some will be using Corsair's 64GB as a replacement for an external hard drive. Transferring this much data though will leave you wishing for more speed.
Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli

Exciting for Ferrari fans, but take away the licence and you're left with a competent racer with only average looks, poor AI opponents, and not enough variety.
Asphalt 3: Street Rules

Fans of classic racing games will want to check out Asphalt 3 on N-Gage. The racing is fast paced and can be thrilling, but the repetitive level design robs it of replay value.

Desktop shopping checklist

Home PCs still have their place in the sun, thanks to falling prices and ease of upgradeability.
MP3 players with great battery life

Check out these MP3 players to find out which one puts the Energizer Bunny to shame.
Best burning combos: speedy CD/DVD drives and great software packages

Getting a great CD/DVD burner is only half the battle when it comes to having a winning disc-creation package.
MP3 players with advanced equaliser and surround sound options

Feel like massaging your sound? There are quite a few MP3 players with advanced equaliser options and special sound-processing effects.

Iomega announces Home Media Network Drive

This year's CES saw the release of Iomega's Home Media Network Drive, a new addition to its line of external storage devices with a few simple changes.
Samsung unveils 'world's smallest' 256GB SSD drive

Samsung Electronics has unveiled a 256GB SSD solid state drive that is less than 10mm thick.
One in four SSD-based laptops fail

Notebooks with solid state drives (flash-based) cost more than traditional hard drives, are "an order of magnitude" less reliable and do not perform as well when using Microsoft Outlook.
Sony introduces US$200 Blu-ray player

Sony has dropped a Blu-ray player for US$200, as the format approaches the affordable point.

Wipe your hard drive clean

Get out your virtual scrub brush and let's get busy.
Notebook shopping checklist

Processors, memory, hard drives, screens, graphics cards, optical drives, connectivity. What should you be looking out for?
DIY: Grab music from another computer with your iPod

Remember: Your iPod is a hard drive as well as an MP3 player. If you need to, say, move your music from one computer to another, simply use your iPod. Here's how.
Planning makes perfect -- know your PC components

Your new PC will only be as good as the sum of its parts. Here's a quick guide to the main PC components you'll find available in 2006, so you can match your performance requirements and budget realities.

Rocket Jockey demo

Compete in gladiator-style combat racing.
Eat My Dust demo, large version

Join in a road race with quirky, colorful opponents.
Eat My Dust demo, medium version

Join in a road race with quirky, colorful opponents.
Eat My Dust demo, small version

Join in a road race with quarky, colorful opponents.