A year has passed without a significant Android competitor to Apple's iPad. Today that all changes as Google and Motorola unveil the world's first Honeycomb tablet: the Xoom. With better hardware than the original iPad, read on as we find out just how well the software stacks up.
Can Google build a tablet OS that's as appliance-like as iOS but without compromising on its Android roots?
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Friday, February 25, 2011
Samsung Intros NVIDIA Tegra 2 based Galaxy Tab 10.1 & New Superphone, Galaxy S II Debuts
Including Apple, we've covered six major players in the high end smartphone SoC space: Apple, Intel, NVIDIA, TI, Samsung and Qualcomm. Not all of these six will survive in the long run. We'll see acquisitions, poor execution and architectural inefficiency all contribute to the whittling down of this list. The process will take a while, but in the long run I don't believe the market will be able to support this many players in the SoC space. Today I believe we may have seen the first sign of weakness from one of the players.
Samsung's Galaxy S line of smartphones and the Galaxy Tab both used Samsung's own Hummingbird SoC. At its press conference before Mobile World Congress Samsung announced the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and a new Samsung superphone will both use NVIDIA's Tegra 2 SoC instead of something of Samsung's own creation.
All isn't lost for the Samsung SoC group as it also announced that the forthcoming Galaxy S 2 will use Samsung's recently announced Orion SoC.
I can't stress how big of a win this is for NVIDIA. To have the mobile arm of one of your competitors use a Tegra 2 in a tablet and phone is huge. While LG was first out the gate, Motorola brought the polish and name NVIDIA needed in a partner. Samsung will likely take that to the next level.
The move also makes sense for Samsung. By going with NVIDIA, Samsung gets access to the reference platform for Honeycomb and will likely get to market sooner than if it had waited.
The Galaxy S II
Samsung also announced the Galaxy S II based on Samsung's own SoC design.
The Galaxy S II has a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display and is only 8.49mm thin. The phone continues the Galaxy S tradition of being incredibly lightweight at 116g.
{gallery 946}
The Galaxy S II has a 1650 mAh battery and Samsung is promising improved standby and talk time vs. the original Galaxy S.
The phone also supports NFC, HSPA+ 21.1 Mbps, Bluetooth 3.0, 1080p full HD recording/playing, an 8MP rear facing camera with LED flash and WiFi Direct for wireless syncing. The Galaxy S II will run Android 2.3.
More info as we get it.
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Intel @ MWC 2011: Atom-Based Medfield SoC Now Sampling, Low-Power LTE Modems In 2012
Though we still like to think of Intel first and foremost as a computer CPU company, the fact of the matter is the company is trying its hardest to expand their horizons. Among their expansion efforts are a push in to the smartphone space, and to further that Intel is at Mobile World Congress 2011 making their latest smartphone-related announcements.
The first announcement, and of course the one nearest and dearest to our hearts, is on the CPU side of things. Medfield – Intel’s next-generation Atom-based smartphone SoC is now sampling and will ship later this year. Intel still hasn’t thrown out a solid timeframe for when Medfield will ship, but Q4 is as good a guess as you’re going to get.
Medfield is the follow-up to Moorestown, Intel’s first Atom smartphone-sized SoC design that was launched only 9 months ago, and did not ship until the later half of last year. Moorestown has not had any major design wins, so while it’s out there you probably never have and never will see a Moorestown powered smartphone. As Intel’s first foray in to smartphone SoCs Moorestown had its teething issues – the principle platform was a 2 chip family, with only the Z6xx CPU + GPU + MC manufactured in-house at 45nm, while the MP20 PCH containing the camera, audio, I/O, and other supporting hardware was a 65nm product manufactured at TSMC.
The importance of Medfield in Intel’s product lineup is that it should resolve Moorestown’s teething issues. The CPU and PCH are being integrated on to a single chip, and the entire product is being built on Intel’s 32nm process, which will allow handset makers to more easily fit Medfield in to phones thanks to the reduced chip count. Architecturally Medfield is not a significant overhaul – we’re still looking at a power optimized in-order Atom – but a die shrink for the CPU and effectively two die shrinks for the PCH should go a long way towards increasing performance; the last thing we heard in this respect is that GPU performance should double, while CPU performance has not been commented on. In any case at 32nm by the end of this year, Intel will have a process advantage over its SoC competition, who will still be on 4Xnm until they transition to 28nm some time next year.
Of course Medfield is not an entire smartphone on its own. Additional supporting chips – chiefly a modem – are necessary. As you may recall, Intel picked up Infineon’s wireless solutions business back in August of 2010, giving them modem technology to go with their Atom SoCs. Down the line we’ll see Infineon-derived modems integrated in to Atom SoCs, but for now Intel is still using separate modems developed by the new Intel Mobile Communications group, which is the basis of the other major piece of news coming from Intel today.
Intel announced their first compact, low-power multi-mode LTE modem (LTE/3G/2G), the XMM 7060 platform, powered by the X-GOLD 706 baseband processor. It will begin sampling in Q3 this year, and will ship roughly a year later in H2 of 2012. The multi-mode modem is important both for Intel and for Infineon’s traditional customers. For Intel it’s something to sell alongside Medfield, while for customers after just the modem it’s going to be among the first low-power LTE modems on the market. With the additional complexity of LTE, LTE modems had to be similarly beefed up compared to their 3G brethren, which in turn can hurt battery life. Low-power modems should bring power consumption back in balance with today’s 3G modems.
On a side note, given that Intel only recently acquired Infineon's wireless group, it shouldn't come as a big surprise that the X-GOLD 706 is being fabbed out of house. Intel says it will be a 40nm product, which means it's likely being fabbed over at TSMC.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
The first announcement, and of course the one nearest and dearest to our hearts, is on the CPU side of things. Medfield – Intel’s next-generation Atom-based smartphone SoC is now sampling and will ship later this year. Intel still hasn’t thrown out a solid timeframe for when Medfield will ship, but Q4 is as good a guess as you’re going to get.
Medfield is the follow-up to Moorestown, Intel’s first Atom smartphone-sized SoC design that was launched only 9 months ago, and did not ship until the later half of last year. Moorestown has not had any major design wins, so while it’s out there you probably never have and never will see a Moorestown powered smartphone. As Intel’s first foray in to smartphone SoCs Moorestown had its teething issues – the principle platform was a 2 chip family, with only the Z6xx CPU + GPU + MC manufactured in-house at 45nm, while the MP20 PCH containing the camera, audio, I/O, and other supporting hardware was a 65nm product manufactured at TSMC.
The importance of Medfield in Intel’s product lineup is that it should resolve Moorestown’s teething issues. The CPU and PCH are being integrated on to a single chip, and the entire product is being built on Intel’s 32nm process, which will allow handset makers to more easily fit Medfield in to phones thanks to the reduced chip count. Architecturally Medfield is not a significant overhaul – we’re still looking at a power optimized in-order Atom – but a die shrink for the CPU and effectively two die shrinks for the PCH should go a long way towards increasing performance; the last thing we heard in this respect is that GPU performance should double, while CPU performance has not been commented on. In any case at 32nm by the end of this year, Intel will have a process advantage over its SoC competition, who will still be on 4Xnm until they transition to 28nm some time next year.
Of course Medfield is not an entire smartphone on its own. Additional supporting chips – chiefly a modem – are necessary. As you may recall, Intel picked up Infineon’s wireless solutions business back in August of 2010, giving them modem technology to go with their Atom SoCs. Down the line we’ll see Infineon-derived modems integrated in to Atom SoCs, but for now Intel is still using separate modems developed by the new Intel Mobile Communications group, which is the basis of the other major piece of news coming from Intel today.
Intel announced their first compact, low-power multi-mode LTE modem (LTE/3G/2G), the XMM 7060 platform, powered by the X-GOLD 706 baseband processor. It will begin sampling in Q3 this year, and will ship roughly a year later in H2 of 2012. The multi-mode modem is important both for Intel and for Infineon’s traditional customers. For Intel it’s something to sell alongside Medfield, while for customers after just the modem it’s going to be among the first low-power LTE modems on the market. With the additional complexity of LTE, LTE modems had to be similarly beefed up compared to their 3G brethren, which in turn can hurt battery life. Low-power modems should bring power consumption back in balance with today’s 3G modems.
On a side note, given that Intel only recently acquired Infineon's wireless group, it shouldn't come as a big surprise that the X-GOLD 706 is being fabbed out of house. Intel says it will be a 40nm product, which means it's likely being fabbed over at TSMC.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
It's the World's Smallest SSD, and Pocket Knife
It's the "world's smallest SSD" encased in a Swiss Army Knife.data storage
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Thursday, February 24, 2011
Qualcomm Demos Remote Handwriting Recognition Using an Ultrasonic Pen
We've been talking about higher performance SoCs for quite a while now, but the number of applications for these things beyond making your UI faster is fairly limited today. With faster hardware comes more demanding software, and earlier today I got a glimpse of a pretty neat application that Qualcomm is looking at.
The technology comes from a company called epos. The device is a pen with two ultrasonic transmitters in it. You can write with the pen on any surface (e.g. a piece of paper) and use the microphone in your smartphone to pick up the sound signature emitted by the pen.
Pair it all up with some processing on Qualcomm's dual-core SoC and you can write on a piece of paper and have it automatically transcribe on your smartphone.
There are no changes that need to be made to the smartphone, you can rely on the standard microphone that ships on all smartphones. Epos mentioned that its software can pick up the pen's signature from a radius of around 30 cm from the mic.
The technology is pretty cool and I can see a number of real world applications for it. If you wanted a pen-and-paper feel but want your notes to be stored digitally, this is one option. Qualcomm mentioned that we could see smartphones or tablets featuring this technology starting next year.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
The technology comes from a company called epos. The device is a pen with two ultrasonic transmitters in it. You can write with the pen on any surface (e.g. a piece of paper) and use the microphone in your smartphone to pick up the sound signature emitted by the pen.
Pair it all up with some processing on Qualcomm's dual-core SoC and you can write on a piece of paper and have it automatically transcribe on your smartphone.
There are no changes that need to be made to the smartphone, you can rely on the standard microphone that ships on all smartphones. Epos mentioned that its software can pick up the pen's signature from a radius of around 30 cm from the mic.
The technology is pretty cool and I can see a number of real world applications for it. If you wanted a pen-and-paper feel but want your notes to be stored digitally, this is one option. Qualcomm mentioned that we could see smartphones or tablets featuring this technology starting next year.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Cubitek Tattoo Fire Review
The wonderful thing with the PC game is that while the huge firms always stick around – unless they’re bought by another – smaller ones tend to come and go, which keeps the industry relatively fresh faced; at least in certain areas. One that sees a revamp every now and again is the chassis market; [...]
Related posts:Wi-Fire Wi-Fi Adapter
Evercool Royal NP-901 Notebook Cooler Review
Thermaltake Element G Review
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Related posts:Wi-Fire Wi-Fi Adapter
Evercool Royal NP-901 Notebook Cooler Review
Thermaltake Element G Review
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Samsung's Galaxy S II Preliminary Performance: Mali-400MP Benchmarked
There's a lot of speculation about the SoC used in Samsung's Galaxy S II, thankfully through process of elimination and some snooping around we've been able to figure it out - and run some preliminary performance tests.
Read on to see how it stacks up against the latest NVIDIA Tegra 2 based smartphones.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Read on to see how it stacks up against the latest NVIDIA Tegra 2 based smartphones.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
HP's TouchPad at MWC 2011
HP stopped by a Qualcomm roundtable discussion to demonstrate the HP Veer, Pre 3 and TouchPad that it recently announced. Mithun covered the webOS event for us but this was the first time I was able play with the devices.
Everything HP announced at its event is powered by a Qualcomm SoC. The Veer runs webOS 2.2 and uses a MSM7230 with a single Scorpion core running at 800MHz. The primary take away from my experience with the Veer is that it is really, really tiny.
The Pre 3 felt very good and snappy. It's based on the highest clocked single-core ARM based SoC on the market today: Qualcomm's MSM8x55 running at 1.4GHz. Qualcomm mentioned that this is a standard part that's available to everyone - why HP ended up being the first to launch with it is unusual.
One thing I did notice in using all of the devices is that there's still room for performance optimization. There are occasional slowdowns or dropped frames in the UI. The HP representative present indicated that there's still a great deal of work to be done on both the hardware and software side before the devices ship.
The TouchPad is by far the most interesting as webOS just begs to be used on a larger screen. The UI is smooth although again I saw some indications that HP needs to do more performance tuning. Given what we saw with the original Pre, I am concerned but we'll have to reserve judgement until final hardware hits the market. Performance optimizing can take a long time and we're still months away from a launch.
Check out the video above for a quick look at the HP TouchPad.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Everything HP announced at its event is powered by a Qualcomm SoC. The Veer runs webOS 2.2 and uses a MSM7230 with a single Scorpion core running at 800MHz. The primary take away from my experience with the Veer is that it is really, really tiny.
The Pre 3 felt very good and snappy. It's based on the highest clocked single-core ARM based SoC on the market today: Qualcomm's MSM8x55 running at 1.4GHz. Qualcomm mentioned that this is a standard part that's available to everyone - why HP ended up being the first to launch with it is unusual.
One thing I did notice in using all of the devices is that there's still room for performance optimization. There are occasional slowdowns or dropped frames in the UI. The HP representative present indicated that there's still a great deal of work to be done on both the hardware and software side before the devices ship.
The TouchPad is by far the most interesting as webOS just begs to be used on a larger screen. The UI is smooth although again I saw some indications that HP needs to do more performance tuning. Given what we saw with the original Pre, I am concerned but we'll have to reserve judgement until final hardware hits the market. Performance optimizing can take a long time and we're still months away from a launch.
Check out the video above for a quick look at the HP TouchPad.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
DNF Security Announces the Release of the FALCON USS?
DNF Security releases the Falcon USS, the company's first appliance that combines vms and video storage in an all-in-one hardware.data storage
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Thermaltake eSPORTS Dasher Gaming Mouse Pad
Testing a mouse pad involves the incredible subjective experience of using it in daily activities. As it is a gaming pad, I dropped it under my aging (albeit nice smooth and comfortable) Logitech MX 518 Mouse. I played mostly Call of Duty:Black Ops with it, but also jumped into some multi-player Unreal Tournament 3 for [...]
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CM Storm Sentinel Advance Laser Gaming Mouse
Thermaltake V9 Black Edition PC Gaming Case Reviewed
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Related posts:SteelSeries Ikari Optical Gaming Mouse Review
CM Storm Sentinel Advance Laser Gaming Mouse
Thermaltake V9 Black Edition PC Gaming Case Reviewed
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Webinar ? Simple and Comprehensive Disaster Recovery for Windows
StoneFly "Most Simple, Proven, Comprehensive, Affordable DR & Business Continuity Plan for Windows Environment" Webinar for January 12, 2011.data storage
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Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Intel Releasing SATA 6.0 Gbps SSDs Next Month?
Intel's 510 Series may arrive in February instead of the G3 SSDs.data storage
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ioSafe's Rugged Drive Meets a Shotgun and an M6
Are ioSafe's new hard drives as rugged as they claim? We head to the shooting range to find out!data storage
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Samsung Intros NVIDIA Tegra 2 based Galaxy Tab 10.1 & New Superphone, Galaxy S II Debuts
Including Apple, we've covered six major players in the high end smartphone SoC space: Apple, Intel, NVIDIA, TI, Samsung and Qualcomm. Not all of these six will survive in the long run. We'll see acquisitions, poor execution and architectural inefficiency all contribute to the whittling down of this list. The process will take a while, but in the long run I don't believe the market will be able to support this many players in the SoC space. Today I believe we may have seen the first sign of weakness from one of the players.
Samsung's Galaxy S line of smartphones and the Galaxy Tab both used Samsung's own Hummingbird SoC. At its press conference before Mobile World Congress Samsung announced the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and a new Samsung superphone will both use NVIDIA's Tegra 2 SoC instead of something of Samsung's own creation.
All isn't lost for the Samsung SoC group as it also announced that the forthcoming Galaxy S 2 will use Samsung's recently announced Orion SoC.
I can't stress how big of a win this is for NVIDIA. To have the mobile arm of one of your competitors use a Tegra 2 in a tablet and phone is huge. While LG was first out the gate, Motorola brought the polish and name NVIDIA needed in a partner. Samsung will likely take that to the next level.
The move also makes sense for Samsung. By going with NVIDIA, Samsung gets access to the reference platform for Honeycomb and will likely get to market sooner than if it had waited.
The Galaxy S II
Samsung also announced the Galaxy S II based on Samsung's own SoC design.
The Galaxy S II has a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display and is only 8.49mm thin. The phone continues the Galaxy S tradition of being incredibly lightweight at 116g.
{gallery 946}
The Galaxy S II has a 1650 mAh battery and Samsung is promising improved standby and talk time vs. the original Galaxy S.
The phone also supports NFC, HSPA+ 21.1 Mbps, Bluetooth 3.0, 1080p full HD recording/playing, an 8MP rear facing camera with LED flash and WiFi Direct for wireless syncing. The Galaxy S II will run Android 2.3.
More info as we get it.
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Cooler Master CM Storm SF-19 Strike Force Gaming Laptop Cooler
Cooler Master?s CM Storm SF-19 is a top shelf gaming laptop cooler that really delivers the goods in every aspect of its intended niche. Good cooling performance backed up with a rich feature set, including a USB 3.0 hub, fan control and innovative lighting effects make this an outstanding focused product for the mobile gamer. [...]
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data storage storage nas storage network attached
Related posts:Cooler Master Storm Inferno Gaming Laser Mouse Review
Cooler Master V6 GT Cooler Review
Thermaltake Massive23 CS Notebook Cooler Review
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Monday, February 21, 2011
The Motorola Atrix 4G Preview
A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to join a bunch of NVIDIA employees for dinner. Among those at the table were Michael Toksvig and Tony Tamasi. Michael, or Tox as he likes to be called, worked on the AA hardware for NV17, NV25, NV40 and G80. He managed to skip NV30. More recently Tox was the chief architect on GeForce ULV, the GPU integrated in NVIDIA's Tegra 2 SoC.
Tony Tamasi is someone I've known for around a decade. I first met him while he was working at 3dfx, and got the pleasure of working closely with him when he later moved to NVIDIA to do technical marketing. Both Tox and Tony are very passionate engineers at heart and are up for a good conversation.
The conversation we had at dinner that night was on the future of the smartphone and the mainstream PC. Tony argued that technically, within 3 years, a high end smartphone will be able to offer the performance of a (low end) mainstream PC today. Admittedly that isn't the highest bar possible as virtually everything above a netbook falls into that category, but it's a valid claim.
Motorola is attempting to jump start that evolution. The Atrix 4G is the second Tegra 2 based smartphone we've received in our labs, but unlike the Optimus 2X it hopes to be more than just a superphone. Equipped with 1GB of memory and the ability to run a full version of Firefox for Linux, Motorola hopes the Atrix 4G will be a smartphone, superphone and netbook replacement all in one.
A couple of days ago I got a package from Motorola. In it was the Atrix 4G, a multimedia dock, bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I'm currently on a flight to Barcelona to join Brian Klug as we cover Mobile World Congress for the first time on AnandTech. MWC is a very large mobility focused tradeshow that's held yearly. From a content standpoint it's like a smartphone/tablet CES.
It takes days for us to run through all of our battery life tests, and usually a couple of weeks of constant usage for us to put together one of our smartphone reviews. With Brian working on the Verizon iPhone 4 and both of us en route to MWC, it'll be a little while before we can bring you a full, in-depth Atrix 4G review.
That being said I wanted to get some of my thoughts out there as this is a highly anticipated device that attempts to do a lot.
What follows is by no means a full review, I wouldn't dream of calling it that. But rather an account of my experiences with Motorola's Atrix 4G thus far. Give me some time after MWC and we'll get a full review up. The Atrix hasn't left my side since it arrived and I'll be using it to keep up with emails and schedule meetings at the show as well.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Tony Tamasi is someone I've known for around a decade. I first met him while he was working at 3dfx, and got the pleasure of working closely with him when he later moved to NVIDIA to do technical marketing. Both Tox and Tony are very passionate engineers at heart and are up for a good conversation.
The conversation we had at dinner that night was on the future of the smartphone and the mainstream PC. Tony argued that technically, within 3 years, a high end smartphone will be able to offer the performance of a (low end) mainstream PC today. Admittedly that isn't the highest bar possible as virtually everything above a netbook falls into that category, but it's a valid claim.
Motorola is attempting to jump start that evolution. The Atrix 4G is the second Tegra 2 based smartphone we've received in our labs, but unlike the Optimus 2X it hopes to be more than just a superphone. Equipped with 1GB of memory and the ability to run a full version of Firefox for Linux, Motorola hopes the Atrix 4G will be a smartphone, superphone and netbook replacement all in one.
A couple of days ago I got a package from Motorola. In it was the Atrix 4G, a multimedia dock, bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I'm currently on a flight to Barcelona to join Brian Klug as we cover Mobile World Congress for the first time on AnandTech. MWC is a very large mobility focused tradeshow that's held yearly. From a content standpoint it's like a smartphone/tablet CES.
It takes days for us to run through all of our battery life tests, and usually a couple of weeks of constant usage for us to put together one of our smartphone reviews. With Brian working on the Verizon iPhone 4 and both of us en route to MWC, it'll be a little while before we can bring you a full, in-depth Atrix 4G review.
That being said I wanted to get some of my thoughts out there as this is a highly anticipated device that attempts to do a lot.
What follows is by no means a full review, I wouldn't dream of calling it that. But rather an account of my experiences with Motorola's Atrix 4G thus far. Give me some time after MWC and we'll get a full review up. The Atrix hasn't left my side since it arrived and I'll be using it to keep up with emails and schedule meetings at the show as well.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
The Motorola Atrix 4G Preview
A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to join a bunch of NVIDIA employees for dinner. Among those at the table were Michael Toksvig and Tony Tamasi. Michael, or Tox as he likes to be called, worked on the AA hardware for NV17, NV25, NV40 and G80. He managed to skip NV30. More recently Tox was the chief architect on GeForce ULV, the GPU integrated in NVIDIA's Tegra 2 SoC.
Tony Tamasi is someone I've known for around a decade. I first met him while he was working at 3dfx, and got the pleasure of working closely with him when he later moved to NVIDIA to do technical marketing. Both Tox and Tony are very passionate engineers at heart and are up for a good conversation.
The conversation we had at dinner that night was on the future of the smartphone and the mainstream PC. Tony argued that technically, within 3 years, a high end smartphone will be able to offer the performance of a (low end) mainstream PC today. Admittedly that isn't the highest bar possible as virtually everything above a netbook falls into that category, but it's a valid claim.
Motorola is attempting to jump start that evolution. The Atrix 4G is the second Tegra 2 based smartphone we've received in our labs, but unlike the Optimus 2X it hopes to be more than just a superphone. Equipped with 1GB of memory and the ability to run a full version of Firefox for Linux, Motorola hopes the Atrix 4G will be a smartphone, superphone and netbook replacement all in one.
A couple of days ago I got a package from Motorola. In it was the Atrix 4G, a multimedia dock, bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I'm currently on a flight to Barcelona to join Brian Klug as we cover Mobile World Congress for the first time on AnandTech. MWC is a very large mobility focused tradeshow that's held yearly. From a content standpoint it's like a smartphone/tablet CES.
It takes days for us to run through all of our battery life tests, and usually a couple of weeks of constant usage for us to put together one of our smartphone reviews. With Brian working on the Verizon iPhone 4 and both of us en route to MWC, it'll be a little while before we can bring you a full, in-depth Atrix 4G review.
That being said I wanted to get some of my thoughts out there as this is a highly anticipated device that attempts to do a lot.
What follows is by no means a full review, I wouldn't dream of calling it that. But rather an account of my experiences with Motorola's Atrix 4G thus far. Give me some time after MWC and we'll get a full review up. The Atrix hasn't left my side since it arrived and I'll be using it to keep up with emails and schedule meetings at the show as well.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Tony Tamasi is someone I've known for around a decade. I first met him while he was working at 3dfx, and got the pleasure of working closely with him when he later moved to NVIDIA to do technical marketing. Both Tox and Tony are very passionate engineers at heart and are up for a good conversation.
The conversation we had at dinner that night was on the future of the smartphone and the mainstream PC. Tony argued that technically, within 3 years, a high end smartphone will be able to offer the performance of a (low end) mainstream PC today. Admittedly that isn't the highest bar possible as virtually everything above a netbook falls into that category, but it's a valid claim.
Motorola is attempting to jump start that evolution. The Atrix 4G is the second Tegra 2 based smartphone we've received in our labs, but unlike the Optimus 2X it hopes to be more than just a superphone. Equipped with 1GB of memory and the ability to run a full version of Firefox for Linux, Motorola hopes the Atrix 4G will be a smartphone, superphone and netbook replacement all in one.
A couple of days ago I got a package from Motorola. In it was the Atrix 4G, a multimedia dock, bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I'm currently on a flight to Barcelona to join Brian Klug as we cover Mobile World Congress for the first time on AnandTech. MWC is a very large mobility focused tradeshow that's held yearly. From a content standpoint it's like a smartphone/tablet CES.
It takes days for us to run through all of our battery life tests, and usually a couple of weeks of constant usage for us to put together one of our smartphone reviews. With Brian working on the Verizon iPhone 4 and both of us en route to MWC, it'll be a little while before we can bring you a full, in-depth Atrix 4G review.
That being said I wanted to get some of my thoughts out there as this is a highly anticipated device that attempts to do a lot.
What follows is by no means a full review, I wouldn't dream of calling it that. But rather an account of my experiences with Motorola's Atrix 4G thus far. Give me some time after MWC and we'll get a full review up. The Atrix hasn't left my side since it arrived and I'll be using it to keep up with emails and schedule meetings at the show as well.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
OCZ to Stop Memory Biz, Focusing on SSDs
OCZ said on Monday that it's leaving the DRAM market.data storage
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NVIDIA's Project Kal-El: Quad-Core A9s Coming to Smartphones/Tablets This Year
NVIDIA just dropped a bombshell. Not only is its third generation Tegra architecture, codenamed Kal-El, back from the fab but it's up and running Android after only 12 days. Kal-El will begin sampling soon and NVIDIA claims you'll be able to buy tablets based on it in August of this year, with smartphones following before the end of the year.
The SoC race just got a lot hotter, read on to find out what we know about Project Kal-El.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
The SoC race just got a lot hotter, read on to find out what we know about Project Kal-El.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Sunday, February 20, 2011
ASUS & MSI Announce 6-series Motherboard Replacement Programs
Let’s recap. Intel launched Sandy Bridge. Intel found a bug in the 6-series chipset, necessary for all Sandy Bridge systems. Intel issued a stop shipment on all 6-series parts. Due to some financial regulations, Intel had to make the stop shipment known publicly before it could inform its partners. As a result, companies like Apple, ASUS, Dell, Gigabyte and MSI found out when you and I did. They were not happy.
The bug, which we’ve documented here and further explained here, impacts the reliability of the four 3Gbps SATA ports on 6-series motherboards. It does not impact the two 6Gbps SATA ports on those boards. If a notebook uses the faulty chipset (B2 stepping) and only uses the two 6Gbps SATA ports, it is not affected.
Intel has since announced that it has resumed shipment of chipsets for use in systems that fall into the aforementioned category (only using the two 6Gbps ports). Everything else remains stopped until the fixed version of the chipset (B3 stepping) is available.
Gigabyte was first out with a replacement strategy for existing 6-series motherboard owners. You can exchange your board at the place of purchase, or return it for a full refund. Pretty simple.
ASUS and MSI quickly followed suit, however their policies were a bit different to what Gigabyte proposed early on.
If you want a full refund, that will be handled by your original place of purchase. Vendors are currently in the process of figuring out how long they need to extend their return policies in order to cover all customers.
If you are happy with your board and just want an exchange, both ASUS and MSI will be handling the exchange directly. ASUS’ page on the exchange is here, and MSI’s is here.
The terms are pretty similar between both companies. Fixed motherboards are expected to be available in April. You’ll ship your B2 stepping board in and you’ll receive a similar B3 stepping board in exchange.
ASUS will provide free 2-way “standard shipping” for both your B2 board and the B3 board. Your new board will have a warranty that starts from the time it is shipped. ASUS offers two options to expedite shipping. If you provide your credit card number ASUS will temporarily put a charge on your account for the MSRP of a replacement board and ship it to you in advance. Once ASUS receives your B2 board it will remove the charge from your account. The other option also involves you providing ASUS with your credit card number, however ASUS will not charge your card right away. As soon as you have shipped your motherboard (and the carrier lists the package as In Transit), ASUS will ship out a replacement board. As long as there are no issues with the board you send in (e.g. serial numbers match and it's eligible for RMA) then your credit card won't be charged. ASUS mentions that the scope for exchanges is limited but it doesn’t mention a specific date.
MSI also provides free shipping and has committed to 3-day shipping both ways. You’ll get a pre-paid UPS label, send your board off, and get your new board via UPS 3-day as well. Update: MSI says it has added an advance RMA option as well. MSI places a time limit on the exchange program: you must register your motherboard or MSI system by April 30, 2011.
Unfortunately none of the motherboard makers have been able to convince Intel to pay for a Z68 upgrade program. Intel’s Z68 chipset is due out sometime in Q2 (likely April/May) and adds the ability to overclock your CPU while using Intel’s processor graphics as well as support for SSD Caching.
Intel has done a good job in being proactive in addressing the problem early on, however I don’t see any favors being done for the end users. These are Intel’s most loyal customers, the ones willing to pay top dollar on day one to buy the latest and greatest. Free two-way shipping is an expectation, not a show of appreciation. Free upgrades to Z68 or maybe even work with vendors like Newegg to provide gift cards as a sign of appreciation would’ve been nice.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
The bug, which we’ve documented here and further explained here, impacts the reliability of the four 3Gbps SATA ports on 6-series motherboards. It does not impact the two 6Gbps SATA ports on those boards. If a notebook uses the faulty chipset (B2 stepping) and only uses the two 6Gbps SATA ports, it is not affected.
Intel has since announced that it has resumed shipment of chipsets for use in systems that fall into the aforementioned category (only using the two 6Gbps ports). Everything else remains stopped until the fixed version of the chipset (B3 stepping) is available.
Gigabyte was first out with a replacement strategy for existing 6-series motherboard owners. You can exchange your board at the place of purchase, or return it for a full refund. Pretty simple.
ASUS and MSI quickly followed suit, however their policies were a bit different to what Gigabyte proposed early on.
If you want a full refund, that will be handled by your original place of purchase. Vendors are currently in the process of figuring out how long they need to extend their return policies in order to cover all customers.
If you are happy with your board and just want an exchange, both ASUS and MSI will be handling the exchange directly. ASUS’ page on the exchange is here, and MSI’s is here.
The terms are pretty similar between both companies. Fixed motherboards are expected to be available in April. You’ll ship your B2 stepping board in and you’ll receive a similar B3 stepping board in exchange.
ASUS will provide free 2-way “standard shipping” for both your B2 board and the B3 board. Your new board will have a warranty that starts from the time it is shipped. ASUS offers two options to expedite shipping. If you provide your credit card number ASUS will temporarily put a charge on your account for the MSRP of a replacement board and ship it to you in advance. Once ASUS receives your B2 board it will remove the charge from your account. The other option also involves you providing ASUS with your credit card number, however ASUS will not charge your card right away. As soon as you have shipped your motherboard (and the carrier lists the package as In Transit), ASUS will ship out a replacement board. As long as there are no issues with the board you send in (e.g. serial numbers match and it's eligible for RMA) then your credit card won't be charged. ASUS mentions that the scope for exchanges is limited but it doesn’t mention a specific date.
MSI also provides free shipping and has committed to 3-day shipping both ways. You’ll get a pre-paid UPS label, send your board off, and get your new board via UPS 3-day as well. Update: MSI says it has added an advance RMA option as well. MSI places a time limit on the exchange program: you must register your motherboard or MSI system by April 30, 2011.
Unfortunately none of the motherboard makers have been able to convince Intel to pay for a Z68 upgrade program. Intel’s Z68 chipset is due out sometime in Q2 (likely April/May) and adds the ability to overclock your CPU while using Intel’s processor graphics as well as support for SSD Caching.
Intel has done a good job in being proactive in addressing the problem early on, however I don’t see any favors being done for the end users. These are Intel’s most loyal customers, the ones willing to pay top dollar on day one to buy the latest and greatest. Free two-way shipping is an expectation, not a show of appreciation. Free upgrades to Z68 or maybe even work with vendors like Newegg to provide gift cards as a sign of appreciation would’ve been nice.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
StoneFly will be at LISA ?10!
StoneFly will be participating at the 24th Annual Large Installation System Administration Conference (LISA) 2010 on November 10 to 11, 2010.data storage
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Zalman's Thanksgiving SSD Giveaway!
As a sign of gratitude for the continued support of our loyal fans, Zalman and Tom's Hardware are teaming up and giving away one of Zalman's brand new SSDs.data storage
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Back Up Data with this Glorious Delorean HDD
Tacky, novelty gadgets are something of a guilty pleasure for us, and tacky, novelty gadgets based on films from days gone by hold an even dearer, more secret place in our hearts. Our latest love is this Delorean HDD.data storage
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Saturday, February 19, 2011
New Hitachi HDD Could Lead to 4TB and 5TB
Hitachi's new 2.5-inch HDD crams 500 GB onto one platter.data storage
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Patriot Viper Xtreme Series DDR3 4GB 1600MHz Low Latency Memory Kit
Up on the review block today I?ve got another set of DDR3 ram, this time it?s from Patriot and it?s their Viper Xtreme� 4gb 1600Mhz kit. I?ve put it up against other 1600Mhz kits and even an 1866 kit as well and it performs very good. The Viper actually outperforms other 1600Mhz kits and comes [...]
Related posts:Patriot Viper 2 Sector 5 DDR3 2GHz (PVV34G2000LLKB for Core i5)
Patriot Viper-II DDR3 Lynnfield Memory Kit
Patriot Viper II PC3-16000 6GB DDR3 Kit
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Related posts:Patriot Viper 2 Sector 5 DDR3 2GHz (PVV34G2000LLKB for Core i5)
Patriot Viper-II DDR3 Lynnfield Memory Kit
Patriot Viper II PC3-16000 6GB DDR3 Kit
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Samsung's Tegra 2 Superphone: The GT-I9103
On Day 0 of this year's Mobile World Congress Samsung and NVIDIA announced that the new Galaxy Tab 10.1 will come to market with NVIDIA's Tegra 2 (T20) SoC. At the same time, the two quietly announced they would be working on a new superphone together also based on Tegra 2. At Samsung's press conference however all we saw was the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Galaxy S II, the latter using Samsung's own Exynos SoC.
So what happened to the NVIDIA based smartphone and why would Samsung bother with using Tegra if it already had an Exynos based smartphone? To understand why we need to look at the Galaxy S. At its MWC press conference Samsung mentioned that it sold 10 million Galaxy S phones in 2010. The Galaxy S II should sell at least as much, if not more, once it's officially introduced.
Exynos however is a brand new SoC, with a brand new GPU for Samsung. Meeting demand for the Galaxy S II in all markets across the world with an SoC that Samsung has never shipped is risky at best. If you saw our benchmarks yesterday you'll note that NVIDIA's Tegra 2 is a near equivalent in terms of CPU performance and notably better in GPU and Flash performance. In other words, Tegra 2 isn't a bad alternative.
Meet the GT-I9103:
The GT-I9100 is the normal Exynos based Galaxy S II, the I9103 is the Tegra 2 edition. As one of our readers (thanks sarge78), Samsung lists its own dual-core Application Processor in the Galaxy S II as not being used in all regions. It's too early to tell if that means that we'll get Tegra 2 or Exynos depending on physical region.
I suspect Samsung didn't want to confuse users by announcing both a Tegra 2 and an Exynos based superphone at MWC. An unknown user managed to benchmark the GT-I903 at MWC and submitted the data to the GLBenchmark database. The GT-I9103's performance looks comparable to the Atrix 4G, meaning it's going to deliver the same experience we've seen in our Optimus 2X and Atrix 4G articles.
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So what happened to the NVIDIA based smartphone and why would Samsung bother with using Tegra if it already had an Exynos based smartphone? To understand why we need to look at the Galaxy S. At its MWC press conference Samsung mentioned that it sold 10 million Galaxy S phones in 2010. The Galaxy S II should sell at least as much, if not more, once it's officially introduced.
Exynos however is a brand new SoC, with a brand new GPU for Samsung. Meeting demand for the Galaxy S II in all markets across the world with an SoC that Samsung has never shipped is risky at best. If you saw our benchmarks yesterday you'll note that NVIDIA's Tegra 2 is a near equivalent in terms of CPU performance and notably better in GPU and Flash performance. In other words, Tegra 2 isn't a bad alternative.
Meet the GT-I9103:
The GT-I9100 is the normal Exynos based Galaxy S II, the I9103 is the Tegra 2 edition. As one of our readers (thanks sarge78), Samsung lists its own dual-core Application Processor in the Galaxy S II as not being used in all regions. It's too early to tell if that means that we'll get Tegra 2 or Exynos depending on physical region.
I suspect Samsung didn't want to confuse users by announcing both a Tegra 2 and an Exynos based superphone at MWC. An unknown user managed to benchmark the GT-I903 at MWC and submitted the data to the GLBenchmark database. The GT-I9103's performance looks comparable to the Atrix 4G, meaning it's going to deliver the same experience we've seen in our Optimus 2X and Atrix 4G articles.
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Sony Ericsson Announces Xperia Play, Neo, and Pro
Sony Ericsson’s big news from Barcelona is obviously the Xperia Play, the mysterious and oft-rumoured PSP-phone. But they’ve also announced two new additions to the Xperia line - the Pro and the Neo. Between today’s new phones and the Xperia Arc from CES, SE has a complete stable of new devices to take on the rest of the smartphone world.
Read on for more details.
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Read on for more details.
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Friday, February 18, 2011
HP's TouchPad at MWC 2011
HP stopped by a Qualcomm roundtable discussion to demonstrate the HP Veer, Pre 3 and TouchPad that it recently announced. Mithun covered the webOS event for us but this was the first time I was able play with the devices.
Everything HP announced at its event is powered by a Qualcomm SoC. The Veer runs webOS 2.2 and uses a MSM7230 with a single Scorpion core running at 800MHz. The primary take away from my experience with the Veer is that it is really, really tiny.
The Pre 3 felt very good and snappy. It's based on the highest clocked single-core ARM based SoC on the market today: Qualcomm's MSM8x55 running at 1.4GHz. Qualcomm mentioned that this is a standard part that's available to everyone - why HP ended up being the first to launch with it is unusual.
One thing I did notice in using all of the devices is that there's still room for performance optimization. There are occasional slowdowns or dropped frames in the UI. The HP representative present indicated that there's still a great deal of work to be done on both the hardware and software side before the devices ship.
The TouchPad is by far the most interesting as webOS just begs to be used on a larger screen. The UI is smooth although again I saw some indications that HP needs to do more performance tuning. Given what we saw with the original Pre, I am concerned but we'll have to reserve judgement until final hardware hits the market. Performance optimizing can take a long time and we're still months away from a launch.
Check out the video above for a quick look at the HP TouchPad.
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Everything HP announced at its event is powered by a Qualcomm SoC. The Veer runs webOS 2.2 and uses a MSM7230 with a single Scorpion core running at 800MHz. The primary take away from my experience with the Veer is that it is really, really tiny.
The Pre 3 felt very good and snappy. It's based on the highest clocked single-core ARM based SoC on the market today: Qualcomm's MSM8x55 running at 1.4GHz. Qualcomm mentioned that this is a standard part that's available to everyone - why HP ended up being the first to launch with it is unusual.
One thing I did notice in using all of the devices is that there's still room for performance optimization. There are occasional slowdowns or dropped frames in the UI. The HP representative present indicated that there's still a great deal of work to be done on both the hardware and software side before the devices ship.
The TouchPad is by far the most interesting as webOS just begs to be used on a larger screen. The UI is smooth although again I saw some indications that HP needs to do more performance tuning. Given what we saw with the original Pre, I am concerned but we'll have to reserve judgement until final hardware hits the market. Performance optimizing can take a long time and we're still months away from a launch.
Check out the video above for a quick look at the HP TouchPad.
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Virtualization Takeover
Virtualization is becoming an ever popular computing practice in the IT world. Here are some great news and resources about virtualization.data storage
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OCZ Vertex 3 Pro Preview: The First SF-2500 SSD
For the past six months I've been working on research and testing for the next major AnandTech SSD article. I figured I had enough time to line up its release with the first samples of the next-generation of high end SSDs. After all, it seems like everyone was taking longer than expected to bring out their next-generation controllers. I should've known better.
At CES this year we had functional next-generation SSDs based on Marvell and SandForce controllers. The latter was actually performing pretty close to expectations from final hardware. Although I was told that drives wouldn't be shipping until mid-Q2, it was clear that preview hardware was imminent. It was the timing that I couldn't predict.
A week ago, two days before I hopped on a flight to Barcelona for MWC, a package arrived at my door. OCZ had sent me a preproduction version of their first SF-2500 based SSD: the Vertex 3 Pro. The sample was so early that it didn't even have a housing, all I got was a PCB and a note:
Read on for our full, in-depth preview of OCZ's Vertex 3 Pro.
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At CES this year we had functional next-generation SSDs based on Marvell and SandForce controllers. The latter was actually performing pretty close to expectations from final hardware. Although I was told that drives wouldn't be shipping until mid-Q2, it was clear that preview hardware was imminent. It was the timing that I couldn't predict.
A week ago, two days before I hopped on a flight to Barcelona for MWC, a package arrived at my door. OCZ had sent me a preproduction version of their first SF-2500 based SSD: the Vertex 3 Pro. The sample was so early that it didn't even have a housing, all I got was a PCB and a note:
Read on for our full, in-depth preview of OCZ's Vertex 3 Pro.
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ASUS & MSI Announce 6-series Motherboard Replacement Programs
Let’s recap. Intel launched Sandy Bridge. Intel found a bug in the 6-series chipset, necessary for all Sandy Bridge systems. Intel issued a stop shipment on all 6-series parts. Due to some financial regulations, Intel had to make the stop shipment known publicly before it could inform its partners. As a result, companies like Apple, ASUS, Dell, Gigabyte and MSI found out when you and I did. They were not happy.
The bug, which we’ve documented here and further explained here, impacts the reliability of the four 3Gbps SATA ports on 6-series motherboards. It does not impact the two 6Gbps SATA ports on those boards. If a notebook uses the faulty chipset (B2 stepping) and only uses the two 6Gbps SATA ports, it is not affected.
Intel has since announced that it has resumed shipment of chipsets for use in systems that fall into the aforementioned category (only using the two 6Gbps ports). Everything else remains stopped until the fixed version of the chipset (B3 stepping) is available.
Gigabyte was first out with a replacement strategy for existing 6-series motherboard owners. You can exchange your board at the place of purchase, or return it for a full refund. Pretty simple.
ASUS and MSI quickly followed suit, however their policies were a bit different to what Gigabyte proposed early on.
If you want a full refund, that will be handled by your original place of purchase. Vendors are currently in the process of figuring out how long they need to extend their return policies in order to cover all customers.
If you are happy with your board and just want an exchange, both ASUS and MSI will be handling the exchange directly. ASUS’ page on the exchange is here, and MSI’s is here.
The terms are pretty similar between both companies. Fixed motherboards are expected to be available in April. You’ll ship your B2 stepping board in and you’ll receive a similar B3 stepping board in exchange.
ASUS will provide free 2-way “standard shipping” for both your B2 board and the B3 board. Your new board will have a warranty that starts from the time it is shipped. ASUS offers two options to expedite shipping. If you provide your credit card number ASUS will temporarily put a charge on your account for the MSRP of a replacement board and ship it to you in advance. Once ASUS receives your B2 board it will remove the charge from your account. The other option also involves you providing ASUS with your credit card number, however ASUS will not charge your card right away. As soon as you have shipped your motherboard (and the carrier lists the package as In Transit), ASUS will ship out a replacement board. As long as there are no issues with the board you send in (e.g. serial numbers match and it's eligible for RMA) then your credit card won't be charged. ASUS mentions that the scope for exchanges is limited but it doesn’t mention a specific date.
MSI also provides free shipping and has committed to 3-day shipping both ways. You’ll get a pre-paid UPS label, send your board off, and get your new board via UPS 3-day as well. Update: MSI says it has added an advance RMA option as well. MSI places a time limit on the exchange program: you must register your motherboard or MSI system by April 30, 2011.
Unfortunately none of the motherboard makers have been able to convince Intel to pay for a Z68 upgrade program. Intel’s Z68 chipset is due out sometime in Q2 (likely April/May) and adds the ability to overclock your CPU while using Intel’s processor graphics as well as support for SSD Caching.
Intel has done a good job in being proactive in addressing the problem early on, however I don’t see any favors being done for the end users. These are Intel’s most loyal customers, the ones willing to pay top dollar on day one to buy the latest and greatest. Free two-way shipping is an expectation, not a show of appreciation. Free upgrades to Z68 or maybe even work with vendors like Newegg to provide gift cards as a sign of appreciation would’ve been nice.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
The bug, which we’ve documented here and further explained here, impacts the reliability of the four 3Gbps SATA ports on 6-series motherboards. It does not impact the two 6Gbps SATA ports on those boards. If a notebook uses the faulty chipset (B2 stepping) and only uses the two 6Gbps SATA ports, it is not affected.
Intel has since announced that it has resumed shipment of chipsets for use in systems that fall into the aforementioned category (only using the two 6Gbps ports). Everything else remains stopped until the fixed version of the chipset (B3 stepping) is available.
Gigabyte was first out with a replacement strategy for existing 6-series motherboard owners. You can exchange your board at the place of purchase, or return it for a full refund. Pretty simple.
ASUS and MSI quickly followed suit, however their policies were a bit different to what Gigabyte proposed early on.
If you want a full refund, that will be handled by your original place of purchase. Vendors are currently in the process of figuring out how long they need to extend their return policies in order to cover all customers.
If you are happy with your board and just want an exchange, both ASUS and MSI will be handling the exchange directly. ASUS’ page on the exchange is here, and MSI’s is here.
The terms are pretty similar between both companies. Fixed motherboards are expected to be available in April. You’ll ship your B2 stepping board in and you’ll receive a similar B3 stepping board in exchange.
ASUS will provide free 2-way “standard shipping” for both your B2 board and the B3 board. Your new board will have a warranty that starts from the time it is shipped. ASUS offers two options to expedite shipping. If you provide your credit card number ASUS will temporarily put a charge on your account for the MSRP of a replacement board and ship it to you in advance. Once ASUS receives your B2 board it will remove the charge from your account. The other option also involves you providing ASUS with your credit card number, however ASUS will not charge your card right away. As soon as you have shipped your motherboard (and the carrier lists the package as In Transit), ASUS will ship out a replacement board. As long as there are no issues with the board you send in (e.g. serial numbers match and it's eligible for RMA) then your credit card won't be charged. ASUS mentions that the scope for exchanges is limited but it doesn’t mention a specific date.
MSI also provides free shipping and has committed to 3-day shipping both ways. You’ll get a pre-paid UPS label, send your board off, and get your new board via UPS 3-day as well. Update: MSI says it has added an advance RMA option as well. MSI places a time limit on the exchange program: you must register your motherboard or MSI system by April 30, 2011.
Unfortunately none of the motherboard makers have been able to convince Intel to pay for a Z68 upgrade program. Intel’s Z68 chipset is due out sometime in Q2 (likely April/May) and adds the ability to overclock your CPU while using Intel’s processor graphics as well as support for SSD Caching.
Intel has done a good job in being proactive in addressing the problem early on, however I don’t see any favors being done for the end users. These are Intel’s most loyal customers, the ones willing to pay top dollar on day one to buy the latest and greatest. Free two-way shipping is an expectation, not a show of appreciation. Free upgrades to Z68 or maybe even work with vendors like Newegg to provide gift cards as a sign of appreciation would’ve been nice.
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Thursday, February 17, 2011
Cubitek Tattoo Fire Review
The wonderful thing with the PC game is that while the huge firms always stick around – unless they’re bought by another – smaller ones tend to come and go, which keeps the industry relatively fresh faced; at least in certain areas. One that sees a revamp every now and again is the chassis market; [...]
Related posts:Wi-Fire Wi-Fi Adapter
Evercool Royal NP-901 Notebook Cooler Review
Thermaltake Element G Review
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Related posts:Wi-Fire Wi-Fi Adapter
Evercool Royal NP-901 Notebook Cooler Review
Thermaltake Element G Review
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Samsung Intros NVIDIA Tegra 2 based Galaxy Tab 10.1 & New Superphone, Galaxy S II Debuts
Including Apple, we've covered six major players in the high end smartphone SoC space: Apple, Intel, NVIDIA, TI, Samsung and Qualcomm. Not all of these six will survive in the long run. We'll see acquisitions, poor execution and architectural inefficiency all contribute to the whittling down of this list. The process will take a while, but in the long run I don't believe the market will be able to support this many players in the SoC space. Today I believe we may have seen the first sign of weakness from one of the players.
Samsung's Galaxy S line of smartphones and the Galaxy Tab both used Samsung's own Hummingbird SoC. At its press conference before Mobile World Congress Samsung announced the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and a new Samsung superphone will both use NVIDIA's Tegra 2 SoC instead of something of Samsung's own creation.
All isn't lost for the Samsung SoC group as it also announced that the forthcoming Galaxy S 2 will use Samsung's recently announced Orion SoC.
I can't stress how big of a win this is for NVIDIA. To have the mobile arm of one of your competitors use a Tegra 2 in a tablet and phone is huge. While LG was first out the gate, Motorola brought the polish and name NVIDIA needed in a partner. Samsung will likely take that to the next level.
The move also makes sense for Samsung. By going with NVIDIA, Samsung gets access to the reference platform for Honeycomb and will likely get to market sooner than if it had waited.
The Galaxy S II
Samsung also announced the Galaxy S II based on Samsung's own SoC design.
The Galaxy S II has a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display and is only 8.49mm thin. The phone continues the Galaxy S tradition of being incredibly lightweight at 116g.
{gallery 946}
The Galaxy S II has a 1650 mAh battery and Samsung is promising improved standby and talk time vs. the original Galaxy S.
The phone also supports NFC, HSPA+ 21.1 Mbps, Bluetooth 3.0, 1080p full HD recording/playing, an 8MP rear facing camera with LED flash and WiFi Direct for wireless syncing. The Galaxy S II will run Android 2.3.
More info as we get it.
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OCZ: Die Shrink Will Lead to Cheaper SSDs
OCZ claims to be the first SSD manufacturer to use 2Xnm NAND flash.data storage
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Puget Systems Serenity SPCR Edition: Blissful Silence
We've had the opportunity to look at a few custom builds from different boutiques so far. While most have generally been well-rounded builds using cherry picked off-the-shelf parts and components, so far only AVADirect's Nano Gaming Cube has really emphasized the word "custom." That changes today with the Puget Systems Serenity SPCR Edition tower, a system that proves once and for all that you can have a lot of power in your desktop without it sounding like it's getting ready for takeoff.
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Wednesday, February 16, 2011
StoneFly Inc. introduces the StoneFlex QUSS
StoneFly releases the StoneFlex QUSS, an all-in-one server and storage appliance ideal for datacenter consolidation.data storage
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Hitachi Ships 3 Drives, 3 TB Each
Hitachi is shipping internal and external 3 TB hard drives, one of which comes with a consumer-oriented kit for legacy setups.data storage
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Super Talent Shipping Dual-Interface SSD
It's an SSD with mini-USB and SATA 3Gbps interfaces.data storage
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It's the World's Smallest SSD, and Pocket Knife
It's the "world's smallest SSD" encased in a Swiss Army Knife.data storage
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Hitachi Ships 3 Drives, 3 TB Each
Hitachi is shipping internal and external 3 TB hard drives, one of which comes with a consumer-oriented kit for legacy setups.data storage
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OCZ Beefs Up Solid State Drive Portfolio
Z-Drive R3 and Vertex 3 Pro top long list of new parts.data storage
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Nokia and Microsoft Announce Strategic Partnership
Today Nokia and Microsoft have announced partnership that will collectively leverage Microsoft and Nokia's strengths and resources. Although the fruit of this long-term partnership will primarily affect Windows Phone 7 and Nokia's smartphone line-up, other areas of either companies business' will also be getting some of the good stuff.
Read on to see more details of today's announcement.
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Read on to see more details of today's announcement.
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Monday, February 14, 2011
Hitachi Debuts 7,200 RPM 3TB HDD
Hitachi's latest 3.5-inch, 7200 RPM HDD has a tasty 3 TB capacity.data storage
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DNF Security Announces the Release of the FALCON USS?
DNF Security releases the Falcon USS, the company's first appliance that combines vms and video storage in an all-in-one hardware.data storage
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Silicon Power Announces Ultra-Fast E20 SSD
Silicon Power introduced a new, turbo-charged 2.5-inch SSD with TRIM and GC support.data storage
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OCZ to Stop Memory Biz, Focusing on SSDs
OCZ said on Monday that it's leaving the DRAM market.data storage
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Sunday, February 13, 2011
ioSafe's Rugged Drive Meets a Shotgun and an M6
Are ioSafe's new hard drives as rugged as they claim? We head to the shooting range to find out!data storage
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ioSafe Announces 'Full Metal Jacket' Rugged HDDs
ioSafe usually uses CES to launch the next model in its line of super-tough external storage solutions and this year is no different.data storage
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ASUS & MSI Announce 6-series Motherboard Replacement Programs
Let’s recap. Intel launched Sandy Bridge. Intel found a bug in the 6-series chipset, necessary for all Sandy Bridge systems. Intel issued a stop shipment on all 6-series parts. Due to some financial regulations, Intel had to make the stop shipment known publicly before it could inform its partners. As a result, companies like Apple, ASUS, Dell, Gigabyte and MSI found out when you and I did. They were not happy.
The bug, which we’ve documented here and further explained here, impacts the reliability of the four 3Gbps SATA ports on 6-series motherboards. It does not impact the two 6Gbps SATA ports on those boards. If a notebook uses the faulty chipset (B2 stepping) and only uses the two 6Gbps SATA ports, it is not affected.
Intel has since announced that it has resumed shipment of chipsets for use in systems that fall into the aforementioned category (only using the two 6Gbps ports). Everything else remains stopped until the fixed version of the chipset (B3 stepping) is available.
Gigabyte was first out with a replacement strategy for existing 6-series motherboard owners. You can exchange your board at the place of purchase, or return it for a full refund. Pretty simple.
ASUS and MSI quickly followed suit, however their policies were a bit different to what Gigabyte proposed early on.
If you want a full refund, that will be handled by your original place of purchase. Vendors are currently in the process of figuring out how long they need to extend their return policies in order to cover all customers.
If you are happy with your board and just want an exchange, both ASUS and MSI will be handling the exchange directly. ASUS’ page on the exchange is here, and MSI’s is here.
The terms are pretty similar between both companies. Fixed motherboards are expected to be available in April. You’ll ship your B2 stepping board in and you’ll receive a similar B3 stepping board in exchange.
ASUS will provide free 2-way “standard shipping” for both your B2 board and the B3 board. Your new board will have a warranty that starts from the time it is shipped. ASUS offers two options to expedite shipping. If you provide your credit card number ASUS will temporarily put a charge on your account for the MSRP of a replacement board and ship it to you in advance. Once ASUS receives your B2 board it will remove the charge from your account. The other option also involves you providing ASUS with your credit card number, however ASUS will not charge your card right away. As soon as you have shipped your motherboard (and the carrier lists the package as In Transit), ASUS will ship out a replacement board. As long as there are no issues with the board you send in (e.g. serial numbers match and it's eligible for RMA) then your credit card won't be charged. ASUS mentions that the scope for exchanges is limited but it doesn’t mention a specific date.
MSI also provides free shipping and has committed to 3-day shipping both ways. You’ll get a pre-paid UPS label, send your board off, and get your new board via UPS 3-day as well. Update: MSI says it has added an advance RMA option as well. MSI places a time limit on the exchange program: you must register your motherboard or MSI system by April 30, 2011.
Unfortunately none of the motherboard makers have been able to convince Intel to pay for a Z68 upgrade program. Intel’s Z68 chipset is due out sometime in Q2 (likely April/May) and adds the ability to overclock your CPU while using Intel’s processor graphics as well as support for SSD Caching.
Intel has done a good job in being proactive in addressing the problem early on, however I don’t see any favors being done for the end users. These are Intel’s most loyal customers, the ones willing to pay top dollar on day one to buy the latest and greatest. Free two-way shipping is an expectation, not a show of appreciation. Free upgrades to Z68 or maybe even work with vendors like Newegg to provide gift cards as a sign of appreciation would’ve been nice.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
The bug, which we’ve documented here and further explained here, impacts the reliability of the four 3Gbps SATA ports on 6-series motherboards. It does not impact the two 6Gbps SATA ports on those boards. If a notebook uses the faulty chipset (B2 stepping) and only uses the two 6Gbps SATA ports, it is not affected.
Intel has since announced that it has resumed shipment of chipsets for use in systems that fall into the aforementioned category (only using the two 6Gbps ports). Everything else remains stopped until the fixed version of the chipset (B3 stepping) is available.
Gigabyte was first out with a replacement strategy for existing 6-series motherboard owners. You can exchange your board at the place of purchase, or return it for a full refund. Pretty simple.
ASUS and MSI quickly followed suit, however their policies were a bit different to what Gigabyte proposed early on.
If you want a full refund, that will be handled by your original place of purchase. Vendors are currently in the process of figuring out how long they need to extend their return policies in order to cover all customers.
If you are happy with your board and just want an exchange, both ASUS and MSI will be handling the exchange directly. ASUS’ page on the exchange is here, and MSI’s is here.
The terms are pretty similar between both companies. Fixed motherboards are expected to be available in April. You’ll ship your B2 stepping board in and you’ll receive a similar B3 stepping board in exchange.
ASUS will provide free 2-way “standard shipping” for both your B2 board and the B3 board. Your new board will have a warranty that starts from the time it is shipped. ASUS offers two options to expedite shipping. If you provide your credit card number ASUS will temporarily put a charge on your account for the MSRP of a replacement board and ship it to you in advance. Once ASUS receives your B2 board it will remove the charge from your account. The other option also involves you providing ASUS with your credit card number, however ASUS will not charge your card right away. As soon as you have shipped your motherboard (and the carrier lists the package as In Transit), ASUS will ship out a replacement board. As long as there are no issues with the board you send in (e.g. serial numbers match and it's eligible for RMA) then your credit card won't be charged. ASUS mentions that the scope for exchanges is limited but it doesn’t mention a specific date.
MSI also provides free shipping and has committed to 3-day shipping both ways. You’ll get a pre-paid UPS label, send your board off, and get your new board via UPS 3-day as well. Update: MSI says it has added an advance RMA option as well. MSI places a time limit on the exchange program: you must register your motherboard or MSI system by April 30, 2011.
Unfortunately none of the motherboard makers have been able to convince Intel to pay for a Z68 upgrade program. Intel’s Z68 chipset is due out sometime in Q2 (likely April/May) and adds the ability to overclock your CPU while using Intel’s processor graphics as well as support for SSD Caching.
Intel has done a good job in being proactive in addressing the problem early on, however I don’t see any favors being done for the end users. These are Intel’s most loyal customers, the ones willing to pay top dollar on day one to buy the latest and greatest. Free two-way shipping is an expectation, not a show of appreciation. Free upgrades to Z68 or maybe even work with vendors like Newegg to provide gift cards as a sign of appreciation would’ve been nice.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Nexus SM-7000B Silent Mouse
The Nexus SM-7000B silent mouse is a unique wireless optical mouse that has been designed for the user who wants silent working environment. It was never intention for this mouse to be competitor to the high end, feature heavy mouses. The unique power of the Silent mouse shows as soon as you start to work [...]
Related posts:Nexus NX-5000 PSU Review
Cooler Master Storm Sentinel Advance & CS-M FPS Tactics Pad
Review of Be Quiet! Silent Wings USC case fans
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Related posts:Nexus NX-5000 PSU Review
Cooler Master Storm Sentinel Advance & CS-M FPS Tactics Pad
Review of Be Quiet! Silent Wings USC case fans
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Hitachi Debuts 7,200 RPM 3TB HDD
Hitachi's latest 3.5-inch, 7200 RPM HDD has a tasty 3 TB capacity.data storage
storage
nas storage
network attached
CES 2011: Qualcomm Demos Snapdragon MSM8660
Qualcomm used CES to showcase their new dual-core Snapdragon parts, and they invited a group of bloggers to get their thoughts on the new chips. Qualcomm gave us a demo of the next generation Snapdragon development platform, with a Snapdragon MSM8x60 processor inside. The MSM8x60 has two Scorpion cores clocked at 1.2GHz and the Adreno 220 GPU, is built on the 45 nm process, and is set to show up in smartphones and tablets later this year.
Read on for more details.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Read on for more details.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Friday, February 11, 2011
StoneFly will be at LISA ?10!
StoneFly will be participating at the 24th Annual Large Installation System Administration Conference (LISA) 2010 on November 10 to 11, 2010.data storage
storage
nas storage
network attached
Next-Gen SandForce Controller Seen on OCZ SSD
OCZ's Vertex 3 Pro, seen at CES 2011, was shown to have sustained read speeds of 550 MB/s and sustained write speeds of 525 MB/s. Kapow!!data storage
storage
nas storage
network attached
Cubitek Tattoo Fire Review
The wonderful thing with the PC game is that while the huge firms always stick around – unless they’re bought by another – smaller ones tend to come and go, which keeps the industry relatively fresh faced; at least in certain areas. One that sees a revamp every now and again is the chassis market; [...]
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Evercool Royal NP-901 Notebook Cooler Review
Thermaltake Element G Review
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Related posts:Wi-Fire Wi-Fi Adapter
Evercool Royal NP-901 Notebook Cooler Review
Thermaltake Element G Review
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Thursday, February 10, 2011
The Source of Intel's Cougar Point SATA Bug
I just got off the phone with Intel’s Steve Smith (VP and Director of Intel Client PC Operations and Enabling) and got some more detail on this morning’s 6-series chipset/SATA bug.
The Problem
Cougar Point (Intel’s 6-series chipsets: H67/P67) has two sets of SATA ports: four that support 3Gbps operation, and two that support 6Gbps operation. Each set of ports requires its own PLL source.
The problem in the chipset was traced back to a transistor in the 3Gbps PLL clocking tree. The aforementioned transistor has a very thin gate oxide, which allows you to turn it on with a very low voltage. Unfortunately in this case Intel biased the transistor with too high of a voltage, resulting in higher than expected leakage current. Depending on the physical characteristics of the transistor the leakage current here can increase over time which can ultimately result in this failure on the 3Gbps ports. The fact that the 3Gbps and 6Gbps circuits have their own independent clocking trees is what ensures that this problem is limited to only ports 2 - 5 off the controller.
You can coax the problem out earlier by testing the PCH at increased voltage and temperature levels. By increasing one or both of these values you can simulate load over time and that’s how the problem was initially discovered. Intel believes that any current issues users have with SATA performance/compatibility/reliability are likely unrelated to the hardware bug.
One fix for this type of a problem would be to scale down the voltage applied across the problematic transistor. In this case there’s a much simpler option. The source of the problem is actually not even a key part of the 6-series chipset design, it’s remnant of an earlier design that’s no longer needed. In our Sandy Bridge review I pointed out the fair amount of design reuse that was done in creating the 6-series chipset. The solution Intel has devised is to simply remove voltage to the transistor. The chip is functionally no different, but by permanently disabling the transistor the problem will never arise.
To make matters worse, the problem was inserted at the B-stepping of the 6-series chipsets. Earlier steppings (such as what we previewed last summer) didn’t have the problem. Unfortunately for Intel, only B-stepping chipsets shipped to customers. Since the fix involves cutting off voltage to a transistor it will be fixed with a new spin of metal and you’ll get a new associated stepping (presumably C-stepping?).
While Steve wouldn’t go into greater detail he kept mentioning that this bug was completely an oversight. It sounds to me like an engineer did something without thinking and this was the result. This is a bit different from my initial take on the problem. Intel originally characterized the issue as purely statistical, but the source sounds a lot more like a design problem rather than completely random chance.
It’s Notta Recall
Intel has shipped around 8 million 6-series chipsets since the launch at CES. It also committed to setting aside $700 million to deal with the repair and replacement of any affected chipsets. That works out to be $87.50 per chipset if there are 8 million affected chipsets in the market, nearly the cost of an entire motherboard. Now the funds have to cover supplying the new chipset, bringing in the affected motherboard and repairing it or sending out a new one. Intel can eat the cost of the chipset, leaving the $87.50 for shipping, labor and time, as well as any other consideration Intel provides the OEM with (here’s $5, don’t hate us too much). At the end of the day it seems like enough money to handle the problem. However Intel was very careful to point out that this is not a full blown recall. The why is simple.
If you have a desktop system with six SATA ports driven off of P67/H67 chipset, there’s a chance (at least 5%) that during normal use some of the 3Gbps ports will stop working over the course of 3 years. The longer you use the ports, the higher that percentage will be. If you fall into this category, chances are your motherboard manufacturer will set up some sort of an exchange where you get a fixed board. The motherboard manufacturer could simply desolder your 6-series chipset and replace it with a newer stepping if it wanted to be frugal.
If you have a notebook system with only two SATA ports however, the scenario is a little less clear. Notebooks don’t have tons of storage bays and thus they don’t always use all of the ports a chipset offers. If a notebook design only uses ports 0 & 1 off the chipset (the unaffected ports), then the end user would never encounter an issue and the notebook may not even be recalled. In fact, if there are notebook designs currently in the pipeline that only use ports 0 & 1 they may not be delayed by today’s announcement. This is the only source of hope if you’re looking for an unaffected release schedule for your dual-core SNB notebook.
Final Words
Intel maintains that Sandy Bridge CPUs are not affected, and current users are highly unlikely to encounter the issue even under heavy loads. So far Intel has only been able to document the issue after running extended testing at high temperatures (in a thermal chamber) and voltages. My recommendation is to try to only use ports 0 & 1 (the 6Gbps ports) on your 6-series motherboard until you get a replacement in place.
OEMs and motherboard manufacturers are going to be talking to Intel over the next week to figure out the next steps. Intel plans to deliver fixed silicon to its partners at the end of February, however it’ll still take time for the motherboard makers to turn those chips into products. I wouldn’t expect replacements until March at the earliest.
I maintain that the best gesture of goodwill on Intel’s part would be to enable motherboard manufacturers to replace P67/H67 motherboards with Z68 boards for those users who want them.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
The Problem
Cougar Point (Intel’s 6-series chipsets: H67/P67) has two sets of SATA ports: four that support 3Gbps operation, and two that support 6Gbps operation. Each set of ports requires its own PLL source.
The problem in the chipset was traced back to a transistor in the 3Gbps PLL clocking tree. The aforementioned transistor has a very thin gate oxide, which allows you to turn it on with a very low voltage. Unfortunately in this case Intel biased the transistor with too high of a voltage, resulting in higher than expected leakage current. Depending on the physical characteristics of the transistor the leakage current here can increase over time which can ultimately result in this failure on the 3Gbps ports. The fact that the 3Gbps and 6Gbps circuits have their own independent clocking trees is what ensures that this problem is limited to only ports 2 - 5 off the controller.
You can coax the problem out earlier by testing the PCH at increased voltage and temperature levels. By increasing one or both of these values you can simulate load over time and that’s how the problem was initially discovered. Intel believes that any current issues users have with SATA performance/compatibility/reliability are likely unrelated to the hardware bug.
One fix for this type of a problem would be to scale down the voltage applied across the problematic transistor. In this case there’s a much simpler option. The source of the problem is actually not even a key part of the 6-series chipset design, it’s remnant of an earlier design that’s no longer needed. In our Sandy Bridge review I pointed out the fair amount of design reuse that was done in creating the 6-series chipset. The solution Intel has devised is to simply remove voltage to the transistor. The chip is functionally no different, but by permanently disabling the transistor the problem will never arise.
To make matters worse, the problem was inserted at the B-stepping of the 6-series chipsets. Earlier steppings (such as what we previewed last summer) didn’t have the problem. Unfortunately for Intel, only B-stepping chipsets shipped to customers. Since the fix involves cutting off voltage to a transistor it will be fixed with a new spin of metal and you’ll get a new associated stepping (presumably C-stepping?).
While Steve wouldn’t go into greater detail he kept mentioning that this bug was completely an oversight. It sounds to me like an engineer did something without thinking and this was the result. This is a bit different from my initial take on the problem. Intel originally characterized the issue as purely statistical, but the source sounds a lot more like a design problem rather than completely random chance.
It’s Notta Recall
Intel has shipped around 8 million 6-series chipsets since the launch at CES. It also committed to setting aside $700 million to deal with the repair and replacement of any affected chipsets. That works out to be $87.50 per chipset if there are 8 million affected chipsets in the market, nearly the cost of an entire motherboard. Now the funds have to cover supplying the new chipset, bringing in the affected motherboard and repairing it or sending out a new one. Intel can eat the cost of the chipset, leaving the $87.50 for shipping, labor and time, as well as any other consideration Intel provides the OEM with (here’s $5, don’t hate us too much). At the end of the day it seems like enough money to handle the problem. However Intel was very careful to point out that this is not a full blown recall. The why is simple.
If you have a desktop system with six SATA ports driven off of P67/H67 chipset, there’s a chance (at least 5%) that during normal use some of the 3Gbps ports will stop working over the course of 3 years. The longer you use the ports, the higher that percentage will be. If you fall into this category, chances are your motherboard manufacturer will set up some sort of an exchange where you get a fixed board. The motherboard manufacturer could simply desolder your 6-series chipset and replace it with a newer stepping if it wanted to be frugal.
If you have a notebook system with only two SATA ports however, the scenario is a little less clear. Notebooks don’t have tons of storage bays and thus they don’t always use all of the ports a chipset offers. If a notebook design only uses ports 0 & 1 off the chipset (the unaffected ports), then the end user would never encounter an issue and the notebook may not even be recalled. In fact, if there are notebook designs currently in the pipeline that only use ports 0 & 1 they may not be delayed by today’s announcement. This is the only source of hope if you’re looking for an unaffected release schedule for your dual-core SNB notebook.
Final Words
Intel maintains that Sandy Bridge CPUs are not affected, and current users are highly unlikely to encounter the issue even under heavy loads. So far Intel has only been able to document the issue after running extended testing at high temperatures (in a thermal chamber) and voltages. My recommendation is to try to only use ports 0 & 1 (the 6Gbps ports) on your 6-series motherboard until you get a replacement in place.
OEMs and motherboard manufacturers are going to be talking to Intel over the next week to figure out the next steps. Intel plans to deliver fixed silicon to its partners at the end of February, however it’ll still take time for the motherboard makers to turn those chips into products. I wouldn’t expect replacements until March at the earliest.
I maintain that the best gesture of goodwill on Intel’s part would be to enable motherboard manufacturers to replace P67/H67 motherboards with Z68 boards for those users who want them.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Hitachi Debuts 7,200 RPM 3TB HDD
Hitachi's latest 3.5-inch, 7200 RPM HDD has a tasty 3 TB capacity.data storage
storage
nas storage
network attached
OWC Debuts First SandForce-Based IDE/ATA SSD
OWC said its new SandForce-based line of SSDs is the first and fastest to utilize an IDE/ATA connection.data storage
storage
nas storage
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New Hitachi HDD Could Lead to 4TB and 5TB
Hitachi's new 2.5-inch HDD crams 500 GB onto one platter.data storage
storage
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Wednesday, February 9, 2011
DNF Security Announces the Release of the FALCON USS?
DNF Security releases the Falcon USS, the company's first appliance that combines vms and video storage in an all-in-one hardware.data storage
storage
nas storage
network attached
Westinghouse Brings LED & Netflix Enabled TVs to Budget Conscious Consumers
At CES 2011, Westinghouse introduced flat screen TVs ranging from 26" to 60" in size. All the models are targeted towards the budget conscious customer, implying probably lowest cost in that particular class. With a good retail presence in the US, the targeted consumers are going to find it easy to purchase one from their favourite big box stores. Further, the warranty and return grace period provided by retailers like Costco should help cautious consumers.
The new CFL model flat screens are perfect for consumers who are still in the CRT age and those that have taken advantage of the recent DTV box program. Westinghouse is the only value brand which doesn't buy the whole display module, but just the panels and adds the backlighting and other circuitry themselves. The new LED backlit models come with either red or silver trims.
The 26" model is perfect for hooking up notebooks in dorm rooms or other similar situations. Netflix and Vudu (currently planned) only available on one of the 46" models which runs on the Zoran chipset. Other models of larger size running on the Zoran chipset are also capable of Netflix, and are planned for enabling based on demand. Smaller sized models dont get Netflix because there is not enough margin in the smaller TVs to compensate for the licensing costs. Consumers with smaller TVs also run some other Blu-Ray player or media streamer capable of Netflix, so this is not much of a concern.
Other than Zoran, Broadcom DTV chipsets are also being used in the Westinghouse TVs. Both the Broadcom and Zoran chipsets enable a decent level of video postprocessing such as noise reduction, 3:2 pulldown support etc. which are quite necessary in the consumer market segment towards which the models are targeted.
Pricing and full lineup details in the press releases linked below:
Westinghouse - 46 LED Press Release
Westinghouse - CES 2011 Lineup Press Release
data storage storage nas storage network attached
The new CFL model flat screens are perfect for consumers who are still in the CRT age and those that have taken advantage of the recent DTV box program. Westinghouse is the only value brand which doesn't buy the whole display module, but just the panels and adds the backlighting and other circuitry themselves. The new LED backlit models come with either red or silver trims.
The 26" model is perfect for hooking up notebooks in dorm rooms or other similar situations. Netflix and Vudu (currently planned) only available on one of the 46" models which runs on the Zoran chipset. Other models of larger size running on the Zoran chipset are also capable of Netflix, and are planned for enabling based on demand. Smaller sized models dont get Netflix because there is not enough margin in the smaller TVs to compensate for the licensing costs. Consumers with smaller TVs also run some other Blu-Ray player or media streamer capable of Netflix, so this is not much of a concern.
Other than Zoran, Broadcom DTV chipsets are also being used in the Westinghouse TVs. Both the Broadcom and Zoran chipsets enable a decent level of video postprocessing such as noise reduction, 3:2 pulldown support etc. which are quite necessary in the consumer market segment towards which the models are targeted.
Pricing and full lineup details in the press releases linked below:
Westinghouse - 46 LED Press Release
Westinghouse - CES 2011 Lineup Press Release
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Zalman's Thanksgiving SSD Giveaway!
As a sign of gratitude for the continued support of our loyal fans, Zalman and Tom's Hardware are teaming up and giving away one of Zalman's brand new SSDs.data storage
storage
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Next-Gen SandForce Controller Seen on OCZ SSD
OCZ's Vertex 3 Pro, seen at CES 2011, was shown to have sustained read speeds of 550 MB/s and sustained write speeds of 525 MB/s. Kapow!!data storage
storage
nas storage
network attached
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Back Up Data with this Glorious Delorean HDD
Tacky, novelty gadgets are something of a guilty pleasure for us, and tacky, novelty gadgets based on films from days gone by hold an even dearer, more secret place in our hearts. Our latest love is this Delorean HDD.data storage
storage
nas storage
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Thermaltake eSPORTS Dasher Gaming Mouse Pad
Testing a mouse pad involves the incredible subjective experience of using it in daily activities. As it is a gaming pad, I dropped it under my aging (albeit nice smooth and comfortable) Logitech MX 518 Mouse. I played mostly Call of Duty:Black Ops with it, but also jumped into some multi-player Unreal Tournament 3 for [...]
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CM Storm Sentinel Advance Laser Gaming Mouse
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Related posts:SteelSeries Ikari Optical Gaming Mouse Review
CM Storm Sentinel Advance Laser Gaming Mouse
Thermaltake V9 Black Edition PC Gaming Case Reviewed
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Intel Intros New Ultra-Compact 310 SSD Series
Intel's new line of SSDs offers X25 performance at one-eighth the size.data storage
storage
nas storage
network attached
ioSafe Announces 'Full Metal Jacket' Rugged HDDs
ioSafe usually uses CES to launch the next model in its line of super-tough external storage solutions and this year is no different.data storage
storage
nas storage
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Monday, February 7, 2011
Top 5 things you need to know about StoneFly?s SCVM?
Key features and advantages of using StoneFly's SCVM iSCSI software.data storage
storage
nas storage
network attached
StoneFly will be at LISA ?10!
StoneFly will be participating at the 24th Annual Large Installation System Administration Conference (LISA) 2010 on November 10 to 11, 2010.data storage
storage
nas storage
network attached
Westinghouse Brings LED & Netflix Enabled TVs to Budget Conscious Consumers
At CES 2011, Westinghouse introduced flat screen TVs ranging from 26" to 60" in size. All the models are targeted towards the budget conscious customer, implying probably lowest cost in that particular class. With a good retail presence in the US, the targeted consumers are going to find it easy to purchase one from their favourite big box stores. Further, the warranty and return grace period provided by retailers like Costco should help cautious consumers.
The new CFL model flat screens are perfect for consumers who are still in the CRT age and those that have taken advantage of the recent DTV box program. Westinghouse is the only value brand which doesn't buy the whole display module, but just the panels and adds the backlighting and other circuitry themselves. The new LED backlit models come with either red or silver trims.
The 26" model is perfect for hooking up notebooks in dorm rooms or other similar situations. Netflix and Vudu (currently planned) only available on one of the 46" models which runs on the Zoran chipset. Other models of larger size running on the Zoran chipset are also capable of Netflix, and are planned for enabling based on demand. Smaller sized models dont get Netflix because there is not enough margin in the smaller TVs to compensate for the licensing costs. Consumers with smaller TVs also run some other Blu-Ray player or media streamer capable of Netflix, so this is not much of a concern.
Other than Zoran, Broadcom DTV chipsets are also being used in the Westinghouse TVs. Both the Broadcom and Zoran chipsets enable a decent level of video postprocessing such as noise reduction, 3:2 pulldown support etc. which are quite necessary in the consumer market segment towards which the models are targeted.
Pricing and full lineup details in the press releases linked below:
Westinghouse - 46 LED Press Release
Westinghouse - CES 2011 Lineup Press Release
data storage storage nas storage network attached
The new CFL model flat screens are perfect for consumers who are still in the CRT age and those that have taken advantage of the recent DTV box program. Westinghouse is the only value brand which doesn't buy the whole display module, but just the panels and adds the backlighting and other circuitry themselves. The new LED backlit models come with either red or silver trims.
The 26" model is perfect for hooking up notebooks in dorm rooms or other similar situations. Netflix and Vudu (currently planned) only available on one of the 46" models which runs on the Zoran chipset. Other models of larger size running on the Zoran chipset are also capable of Netflix, and are planned for enabling based on demand. Smaller sized models dont get Netflix because there is not enough margin in the smaller TVs to compensate for the licensing costs. Consumers with smaller TVs also run some other Blu-Ray player or media streamer capable of Netflix, so this is not much of a concern.
Other than Zoran, Broadcom DTV chipsets are also being used in the Westinghouse TVs. Both the Broadcom and Zoran chipsets enable a decent level of video postprocessing such as noise reduction, 3:2 pulldown support etc. which are quite necessary in the consumer market segment towards which the models are targeted.
Pricing and full lineup details in the press releases linked below:
Westinghouse - 46 LED Press Release
Westinghouse - CES 2011 Lineup Press Release
data storage storage nas storage network attached
How The Grinch Stole Christmas! Android App
I think everyone knows who Dr Seuss is right? A few generation of kids have grown up with him and his stories, and I?m sure many more generations will be enjoying them as well. One of his most famous characters is the Grinch, and considering it?s close to Christmas it?s a good time to read [...]
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Managing Your Audio to Keep Neighbors Happy
How many CPU Cores do you need?
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Related posts:Samsung Galaxy Tab
Managing Your Audio to Keep Neighbors Happy
How many CPU Cores do you need?
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Sunday, February 6, 2011
The Brazos Review: AMD's E-350 Supplants ION for mini-ITX
AMD has been curiously absent from the value netbook and nettop segments since Atom’s arrival nearly three years ago. These markets are highly profitable only for component vendors, as the OEMs that sell netbooks and nettops must survive on very slim margins in order to hit aggressive price points. It wasn’t too long ago that we were shocked by $699 desktop PCs, but to now be able to get a fully functioning portable PC with display at below $300 is impressive. In order for the profit equation to work out however, you can’t simply scale down a larger chip - you need an architecture targeted specifically at the type of very light workloads you expect to encounter in these segments. Underclocking and undervolting an architecture targeted at high end desktops or servers won’t cut it.
Generally a single microprocessor architecture can cover an order of magnitude of power envelopes. You can take an architecture from 10W - 100W using clock speed, voltage scaling and disabling features (e.g. cutting cache sizes). You can’t efficiently take a 100W architecture and scale it down to 1W. Intel realized this with Atom, and what resulted was a new architecture designed to span the 0.5W - 5W range. Given the constraints of the process (Atom was built at 45nm) and a desire to keep die size down to a minimum (and thus maximize profits), Intel went with a dual-issue in-order architecture reminiscent of the old Pentium - but with a modern twist.
AMD came to the same realization. For it to compete in these value markets, AMD couldn’t rely on its existing Phenom II derived architectures. The Phenom II and its relatives currently span a range of TDPs from 9W to 140W, and at the lower end of that spectrum we’re talking about some very low clock speeds and performance targets. Getting down to 1W was out of the question without a separate design.
What AMD came up with was a core called Bobcat, initially targeted for netbooks, notebooks, nettops and entry level desktops. Architecturally Bobcat is a significant step ahead of Atom: while still dual-issue, it features an out-of-order execution engine making it the Pentium Pro to Atom’s Pentium.
It isn’t just CPU architecture that AMD surpassed Atom with, the first incarnation of Bobcat is an integrated SoC with on-die DirectX 11 GPU. AMD calls this combination a Fusion APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) as it places both a CPU and GPU on a single die. Read on for our full review of AMD's first Fusion part: the E-350.
data storage storage nas storage network attached
Generally a single microprocessor architecture can cover an order of magnitude of power envelopes. You can take an architecture from 10W - 100W using clock speed, voltage scaling and disabling features (e.g. cutting cache sizes). You can’t efficiently take a 100W architecture and scale it down to 1W. Intel realized this with Atom, and what resulted was a new architecture designed to span the 0.5W - 5W range. Given the constraints of the process (Atom was built at 45nm) and a desire to keep die size down to a minimum (and thus maximize profits), Intel went with a dual-issue in-order architecture reminiscent of the old Pentium - but with a modern twist.
AMD came to the same realization. For it to compete in these value markets, AMD couldn’t rely on its existing Phenom II derived architectures. The Phenom II and its relatives currently span a range of TDPs from 9W to 140W, and at the lower end of that spectrum we’re talking about some very low clock speeds and performance targets. Getting down to 1W was out of the question without a separate design.
What AMD came up with was a core called Bobcat, initially targeted for netbooks, notebooks, nettops and entry level desktops. Architecturally Bobcat is a significant step ahead of Atom: while still dual-issue, it features an out-of-order execution engine making it the Pentium Pro to Atom’s Pentium.
It isn’t just CPU architecture that AMD surpassed Atom with, the first incarnation of Bobcat is an integrated SoC with on-die DirectX 11 GPU. AMD calls this combination a Fusion APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) as it places both a CPU and GPU on a single die. Read on for our full review of AMD's first Fusion part: the E-350.
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Silicon Power Announces Ultra-Fast E20 SSD
Silicon Power introduced a new, turbo-charged 2.5-inch SSD with TRIM and GC support.data storage
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webOS 2.0 Overview
Seeing Palm, one of the pioneers in the PDA space, stagnate towards the end was sad. But in the Linux-based webOS, Palm would find their much needed shot in the arm--or at least, some part of it. Purely as a mobile operating system, webOS brought a lot to the table on the usability front. While previous iterations of PalmOS, Symbian, and later Android/iOS did support multitasking, it was webOS that placed it at the very center of the mobile user experience. In fact, I honestly feel webOS has one of the most useful and user-friendly multitasking implementations currently available.
Other manufacturers have taken note of this and have slowly but steadily included webOS-inspired features in their respective platforms. And it wasn't just the multitasking ability; the notifications, message, and contact management along with the browser are all top-notch in webOS. It is because of these reasons I have found it very difficult to let go of using the Pre Plus as my primary phone. In spite of the variety of smartphones available these days with vastly superior specifications, platform eco-systems, and build quality, reliance on webOS has made it very difficult for me to upgrade. But that doesn’t mean webOS doesn’t have any flaws or room for further improvement.
Read on to see if webOS 2.0 builds on it's predessors strengths.
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Other manufacturers have taken note of this and have slowly but steadily included webOS-inspired features in their respective platforms. And it wasn't just the multitasking ability; the notifications, message, and contact management along with the browser are all top-notch in webOS. It is because of these reasons I have found it very difficult to let go of using the Pre Plus as my primary phone. In spite of the variety of smartphones available these days with vastly superior specifications, platform eco-systems, and build quality, reliance on webOS has made it very difficult for me to upgrade. But that doesn’t mean webOS doesn’t have any flaws or room for further improvement.
Read on to see if webOS 2.0 builds on it's predessors strengths.
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How a .07-second Power Cut Killed Memory Chips
Death to memory chips due to just a blink in the power.data storage
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Saturday, February 5, 2011
Silicon Power Announces Ultra-Fast E20 SSD
Silicon Power introduced a new, turbo-charged 2.5-inch SSD with TRIM and GC support.data storage
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3DMark 11 Advanced Edition
Futuremark is well known for their benchmarks, and now they?re also known for their games too. The most popular of their software is the 3DMark series, and now the newest one is here. They were kind enough to send me over the newest in the series for review, 3DMark 11 Advanced Edition. As with all [...]
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Windows 7 (Final OEM) vs. Windows Vista VGA Performance
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Related posts:3DMark record broken halfway through world’s largest overclocking competition
Windows 7 (Final OEM) vs. Windows Vista VGA Performance
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5870 Video Card Review
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Westinghouse Brings LED & Netflix Enabled TVs to Budget Conscious Consumers
At CES 2011, Westinghouse introduced flat screen TVs ranging from 26" to 60" in size. All the models are targeted towards the budget conscious customer, implying probably lowest cost in that particular class. With a good retail presence in the US, the targeted consumers are going to find it easy to purchase one from their favourite big box stores. Further, the warranty and return grace period provided by retailers like Costco should help cautious consumers.
The new CFL model flat screens are perfect for consumers who are still in the CRT age and those that have taken advantage of the recent DTV box program. Westinghouse is the only value brand which doesn't buy the whole display module, but just the panels and adds the backlighting and other circuitry themselves. The new LED backlit models come with either red or silver trims.
The 26" model is perfect for hooking up notebooks in dorm rooms or other similar situations. Netflix and Vudu (currently planned) only available on one of the 46" models which runs on the Zoran chipset. Other models of larger size running on the Zoran chipset are also capable of Netflix, and are planned for enabling based on demand. Smaller sized models dont get Netflix because there is not enough margin in the smaller TVs to compensate for the licensing costs. Consumers with smaller TVs also run some other Blu-Ray player or media streamer capable of Netflix, so this is not much of a concern.
Other than Zoran, Broadcom DTV chipsets are also being used in the Westinghouse TVs. Both the Broadcom and Zoran chipsets enable a decent level of video postprocessing such as noise reduction, 3:2 pulldown support etc. which are quite necessary in the consumer market segment towards which the models are targeted.
Pricing and full lineup details in the press releases linked below:
Westinghouse - 46 LED Press Release
Westinghouse - CES 2011 Lineup Press Release
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The new CFL model flat screens are perfect for consumers who are still in the CRT age and those that have taken advantage of the recent DTV box program. Westinghouse is the only value brand which doesn't buy the whole display module, but just the panels and adds the backlighting and other circuitry themselves. The new LED backlit models come with either red or silver trims.
The 26" model is perfect for hooking up notebooks in dorm rooms or other similar situations. Netflix and Vudu (currently planned) only available on one of the 46" models which runs on the Zoran chipset. Other models of larger size running on the Zoran chipset are also capable of Netflix, and are planned for enabling based on demand. Smaller sized models dont get Netflix because there is not enough margin in the smaller TVs to compensate for the licensing costs. Consumers with smaller TVs also run some other Blu-Ray player or media streamer capable of Netflix, so this is not much of a concern.
Other than Zoran, Broadcom DTV chipsets are also being used in the Westinghouse TVs. Both the Broadcom and Zoran chipsets enable a decent level of video postprocessing such as noise reduction, 3:2 pulldown support etc. which are quite necessary in the consumer market segment towards which the models are targeted.
Pricing and full lineup details in the press releases linked below:
Westinghouse - 46 LED Press Release
Westinghouse - CES 2011 Lineup Press Release
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Thermaltake Armor A60 Mid-Tower Case Review
The Armor A60 mid-tower case has the quality and features that people expect from Thermaltake. The interior is roomy and will fit almost all modern video cards. The inclusion of USB 3.0, keyboard/mouse security lock, and the SideClick hard drive tray shows how Thermaltake is looking forward rather than keep everything as is. Read more [...]
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Related posts:Thermaltake Element T Mid-Tower PC Case
Thermaltake Armor A90 Mid-Tower
Zalman GS1000 Plus Tower Case
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Friday, February 4, 2011
AT Bench Update: Now with Mobile, Smartphone, and GPU 2011 Results!
Since starting our Bench results databases, they've grown by leaps and bounds. Bench is a central place where you can compare products based on the variety of tests and benchmarks we throw at them, and if you haven't checked it out already, you should, because it's downright huge. Our CPU bench alone has exploded, with test results for 121 different processors across 47 different disciplines. Today, Bench virtually doubles in size as we've added three new Benches.
First, and nearest and dearest to my heart, we introduce the Mobile Bench, a database of test results from over fifty different notebooks and netbooks across more than twenty different disciplines. Nearly every notebook we've tested since the beginning of 2010—and even a few towards the end of 2009—is represented here, although not all results are available on every notebook (i.e. high-detail gaming on a netbook isn't a concern). If you want to find the fastest gaming notebook or the best battery life on the market, check out our Mobile Bench.
Second and no less impressive is our Smartphone Bench. Featuring 27 different smartphones, our Bench contains results across 16 different tests, all easily searchable and sortable. If you're looking for the most talking time, the nicest screen, or the snappiest web browsing, the phone you're looking for is probably in our Smartphone Bench.
And finally, Ryan has been working overtime to produce our 2011 GPU Bench. It features the results of 29 different GPU configurations across 48 different tests, updated with DirectX 11 class hardware and the benchmarks to go with it along with some DirectX 10 hardware to use as a frame of reference.
Our Benches are updated regularly as new products get reviewed and entered into them (hence the staggering mass of our CPU Bench), and you find them all through the main AnandTech Bench page. As we review future phones, laptops, GPUs, and CPUs, the database will continue to grow. If you have any questions about or suggestions for the new Benches, please let us know in the comments!
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First, and nearest and dearest to my heart, we introduce the Mobile Bench, a database of test results from over fifty different notebooks and netbooks across more than twenty different disciplines. Nearly every notebook we've tested since the beginning of 2010—and even a few towards the end of 2009—is represented here, although not all results are available on every notebook (i.e. high-detail gaming on a netbook isn't a concern). If you want to find the fastest gaming notebook or the best battery life on the market, check out our Mobile Bench.
Second and no less impressive is our Smartphone Bench. Featuring 27 different smartphones, our Bench contains results across 16 different tests, all easily searchable and sortable. If you're looking for the most talking time, the nicest screen, or the snappiest web browsing, the phone you're looking for is probably in our Smartphone Bench.
And finally, Ryan has been working overtime to produce our 2011 GPU Bench. It features the results of 29 different GPU configurations across 48 different tests, updated with DirectX 11 class hardware and the benchmarks to go with it along with some DirectX 10 hardware to use as a frame of reference.
Our Benches are updated regularly as new products get reviewed and entered into them (hence the staggering mass of our CPU Bench), and you find them all through the main AnandTech Bench page. As we review future phones, laptops, GPUs, and CPUs, the database will continue to grow. If you have any questions about or suggestions for the new Benches, please let us know in the comments!
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