Archive for May, 2008
This is the XXX Alpha Dog GeForce 9600GT graphics card from XFX, it’s fast and offers an awesome bundle. The only problem would be justifying the high cost of this card. XFX have not released a product in a while and now they are back with a 9600GT and this model is far from ordinary, you can put this version of the 9600GT at the top of its class.
Tweak town have given the Alpha Dog GeForce 9600GT a hands-on review and covered the results over 17 pages, in their final thoughts they said, “The 9600GT from XFX is nothing short of blistering fast. It’s really able to nip at the heels of the more expensive 8800GT 1GB most of the time. Performance is what this card is all about and it does a damn good job at it. What’s also surprising is the impressive bundle; with a full version copy of Company of Heroes and a few extra goodies it really does stand out from the pack.
Not everything is perfect with the card though; the aftermarket cooler is loud and doesn’t cool as well as the stock ones. If XFX wanted to stay with a single slot design, we probably would have opted to stay with the reference cooler which is pretty good.
The other downfall to the product is the price; it’s one of the most expensive 9600GT cards on the market. Only you will be able to justify the cost to performance. For the price, you’re entering the realm of 512MB 8800GTs with stock clocks.
There’s no doubt however that if you’re looking for the fastest 9600GT on the market, this is the card to get. We do wonder though that at this price point your money may possibly be better spent on a different model.”
Read the 17 page hands-on review.
The latest news in the way of Blu-ray is that of Norwegian record label 2L releasing the first ever in the world a Blu-Ray record, oh and it’s Norwegian. “Divertimenti” is a milestone in many ways and it’s the 50th record release which marks the 20th anniversary of the Trondheim soloist whose concert in Selbu Church is captured on “Divertimenti.”
It is a label that is always at the forefront technologically, 2L (Linberg Lyd) found the occasion right to make “Divertimenti” a milestone also in format. Moving onto the Blu-ray technology, it makes use of five separate sound tracks which are complex indeed with a mixture of complex recording and mixing process which as been condition by very sophisticated equipment, 2L has cooperated with equipment manufacturers and the record now available is the fruit of a combined effort opening up new vistas of sound rendition. This is something special that is nothing you have ever heard before.
You will hear that each instrument has been clearly positioned which creates a multidimensional listening experience of stunning clarity and obviously with many not having the proper equipment to play Blu-ray discs you will never hear the clarity, this new release also includes a SACD disc, playable on all standard CD players and computers. Trondheimsolistene known as the Trondheim soloists is said to be one or the finest orchestras in Norway and under the leadership of Øyvind Gimse they have developed something special into an ensemble of international renown, and undertaken successful tours all over Europe, in America, Japan and Brazil.
The repertoire on “Divertimenti” is as follows: Bejamnin Britten: Simple Symphony,
Grazyna Bacewicz: Concerto for string orchestra, Terje Bjørklund: Carmina and Béla Bartók: Divertimento for strings.
You can see the PDF file here
All the brands are producing cell phones with the latest technology and gadgets, with each new major release of the brands latest design it comes with fancy features that we all want and 2008 is shaping up to be the best year yet for cool phones.
This year will be a major battle between the big names in the phone business and three of the biggest phones would be the HTC Touch Diamond, Apple 3G iPhone and Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. For the first time ever, you can see these phones side by side. Check out the photo above and the ones below to get a comparison of design between these phones and feel free to share your comment on your favorite.
What phone will you choose to be in your pocket in 2008?
The photos give a design comparison side by side, on top of each other (nothing like getting close), and on their own. Personally I still prefer the Apple iPhone for style and design, the HTC Touch just seems too square for my liking and the Xperia X1 has a Nokia N95 look to it, which I dislike.
When comes to flush lines, you cannot beat the iPhone in my opinion, but I am sure some users are dedicated to another brand. If you do find it a tough choice when upgrading your cell phone this year, then why not dig deep and buy all three…well at least it’s a dream.
When buying a new phone, what’s more important to you, the style and design or features of that phone?
See the full features and photos of them on their own, visit Phones Review
Its great when we get to see a new product in the wild and today we are hearing that Michael Dell bumped into the Gizmodo Staff at All Things D, now that might be good for them but what’s good for the gadget loving world is what photos they have shown us. Michael briefly showed them the laptop he was carrying, as you can see in the photos it’s much like the HP 2133 and Asus Eee.
This is a first look at this laptop and its never been seen before Michael Dell showed it, he confirmed that it’s a “low-cost notebook meant for developing countries” and it could be a Dell Mini Inspiron, although we have no official name yet.
Currently we have no word on pricing or what OS it’s running, but we do know this Mini Dell Inspiron does have Ethernet, VGA out, a card reader, three USB ports and that bright red shell. The screen size is anyone’s guess and it would be interesting when we find out the exact size as this determines which other UMPC’s it will compete with. This new mini Dell laptop will certainly be in competition with HP 2133 and Asus Eee PC. The photo below is one that was released after they saw the laptop.
It’s great to see more companies producing cheaper laptops for developing countries, there are some really great minds in these countries and we need to help them get connected with the rest of the world. What do you think of this new UMPC and it’s position in the market place?
Source: Read
This product might be the next big thing from Asus but it has certain design lines from the Nintendo Wii and Apple Mac Mini, although its nothing like the Wii as it wants to handle your desktop computer needs. This is the new Asus Eee PC desktop that could end up competing with the Mac Mini for your desktop computing needs in a small space.
The product has been named the Asus Ebox and we are hearing that this Mac Mini competitor will be on show at the Computex trade show, and that’s not long away as it’s all happening from the 3rd of June in Taiwan. The real question is why would you want an Ebox and not an Apple Mac Mini?
For starters the price of the famous Asus Eee PC laptop is only around $230.00, with that in mind, what could the Ebox sell at? It’s bound to be on the cheap side and if the design does not get you, then the savings in your pocket could end up taking some of Apple’s Mac Mini market share.
With the Credit Crunch in full swing, most peoples spending budgets are getting very tight and cheaper products are needed for both the consumer and the business if they want to keep selling them. Asus knows this and they are planning ahead with computer products that give great value for money.
We are hearing that the new Ebox will be sold as a standalone computer, and to keep costs down it will not include peripherals like a keyboard or monitor. Other features will be a 160GB solid-state drive, so this is confusing, considering they cost a lot of money still. The Ebox should have 2GB of RAM and measure around 8.75×7 inches and about one inch thick. We will update you when get more information.
Source: Read
When I first moved from a wired network at home to a wireless network, it was such an improvement that the power of wireless gave you. Now in 2008, its funny how I have moved away from wireless networks and towards a wired network via the home electrics, this is more secure and gives higher data speeds of 200MB plus.
These days it seems that “wireless” does not give all the freedom you hope it will, in some cases it can give you more hassle than enhancements. Recently I was looking at wireless options for the Nintendo Wii and found some interesting products that are going to come out soon and also some that are out already.
When I visited my local computer store, I found a couple of wireless senor bars for the Nintendo Wii and one was priced at £20 and the other at £10. Thinking, “lets get the best”, I went for the dearer of the two.
After trying the wireless sensor bar for a few weeks, I can now tell you that it does give more hassle than the wired version that comes free with the Nintendo Wii. This model will make a loud buzzing noise if left on for so many minutes and does not detected any Wii remote activity. Now this is great for saving battery life, but its not good if you are playing games such as Wii Fit. When you’re using the Wii balance board you do not always need the Wii remote, so the wireless senor bar keeps buzzing. Other devices include the Nintendo Wii Wireless Nunchuk Kit that aims to give you more movement, thanks to no wires between Nunchuk and Wii remote.
This year we will see many more wireless devices launched for the Wii, but how many of these will we really need? In most cases, the wired versions are good enough.
Lenovo have come a long way since changing their name from Legend back in 2003, but what has this $13 billion brand done with the ThinkPad X300 Notebook and its 64GB Solid State Drive. Tweak Town have taken the laptop for a ride and reported the results over eight pages, in their summery they said, “Lenovo is an excellent brand. It is consistent in manufacturing products of high quality and durability. The company sticks to its strengths, which are business platforms, and so it excels at delivering the end-user what he or she wants.
The notebook has heaps of features, starting from a 64GB Solid State Drive, which has been proven to be considerably faster than traditional HDDs, not only in the speed of access, but also in general performance. The 7mm DVD burner on such a small device is an engineering feat worth mentioning, as well as the thin profile of less than 2cm wide, the host of wireless communications and standard LAN, Bluetooth and WAN capabilities.
The multimedia aspect is solid and capable, with good working speakers, good connectivity options and also an integrated web camera for VOIP conference calls with families or colleagues while traveling. All in all, the entire product exudes quality and craftsmanship.
We have been extremely impressed by this product, mainly due to the engineering feats such as very small profile and footprint, while retaining all the essential ingredients for the target customer. In this case the target customer is a business person on the move, and with almost every aspect of functionality geared towards portability, ease of use and convenience, we have no doubt that it deserves the “Best Features” award.
The only area that it is let down in is the price, but since it is a premium product, the above $3000USD price tag is to be expected. What should also be noted is that it doesn’t have an SD card reader, or PC Card slot, but these are essentially legacy devices and are seldom needed since most media devices, from cameras to cell phones connect directly through the USB port anyway.”
Read the 8 page hands-on review.
When it comes to motherboards, the consumer has never had so much choice and Intel have now got a total of 12 different chipsets. This gives you a great range of performance levels and features for all types of users. NVIDIA have entered the market with its nForce 790i and 780i chipsets to increase this choice even further, and with Intel’s P45 replacing the P35 and becoming the brands mainstream chipset…the motherboard world is looking good.
Tweak Town have created a 17-page report on the specifications, benchmarks and more for two-GIGABYTE motherboards based around the P45 chipset. In their final thoughts they said “Intel’s P45 Express chipset hasn’t officially hit the market yet (it will launch shortly at Computex in Taipei), this is why we haven’t been able to give a huge amount of detailed features on the P45 Northbridge or its ICH10R companion chip, however, what we were able to get is based on testing as well as early information from our board provider.
P45 in its early form looks the goods! While it’s early days, we haven’t been able to test its overclocking ability, and this is something that will really determine if the board is able to take the crown away from the P35 – we are just waiting for the final revision boards to start arriving for testing. We have been able to hit speeds beyond 550MHz with P35 based boards, so P45 has some big shoes to fill, that’s for sure.
Some of the major changes are welcomed especially the inclusion of PCIe 2.0 interface, increased DDR-2 speeds of 1066MHz, matching the speeds AMD is now supporting with its Phenom X3 and X4 processors, making Intel still a major player in DDR2, even though they are still pushing for DDR3.
GIGABYTE’s EP45-DS3R and EP45-DQ6 in our early tests have proven to be fantastic. We managed to get the system perfectly stable, running Vista without any problems. We were very happy with the feel of the board as well as the initial performance. We will continue with overclocking tests and power usage using the DES as soon as we are able to get more time with the boards. For now we hope you enjoyed our preview into some upcoming P45 boards and there will be plenty more on this subject from us once we are finished at Computex early next month.”
Read the 17 page review.
When collectors keep products they feel will be worth a lot of money in time or want to keep a piece of history intact, most times its best to keep these products in their original packaging as this increases the products value. When someone has been careful enough to keep a 20th Anniversary Macintosh sealed for ten years and then it’s been decided to open it after all that time, how does that make you feel? This topic is wide open for discussion, but is it right or wrong?
There will be different views on that question, some will feel it’s a waste keeping a product that does nothing and others (normally collectors) will cry at the sight of this mint piece of history being touched. You can see an unboxing video below this post; it shows the owners unbox a piece of Apple history.
Although you cannot do much these days with such an old Apple Mac, unboxing of vintage equipment like this is very rare and something that has been shared with the world thanks to the YouTube video below. This new in box 20th Anniversary Macintosh cost a massive $7,500 back in 1997 and with that kind of price, it must have been hard to just leave it sitting untouched for more than ten years.
Take your time to watch the 23-minute video; don’t skip any as this product has waited ten years to see daylight. If it hurts too much to watch, then we understand but remember to share your view on opening products that have not been touched for so long.
As you know SSD are now being used in a number of our mobile technology products like the Asus Eee 900 and the Apple MacBook Air, but the downside is that they still have limited storage capacity. The Asus at the moment only has a 12 - 20GB SSD, and the Apple MacBook Air comes with a larger 64GB SSD. The latter has a larger capacity, but it is still not enough for what people need in their laptops and UMPC’s. However; this could be about to change towards the end of the year, as PC World reports that Samsung Electronics who are the largest consumer electronics company on the planet are to release a 256GB solid-state disk, which should be on the shelves by the end of the year.
If Samsung do keep hold of their promise to release the larger more reliable hard drive, then future owners of mobile technology like the Eee PC and the MacBook Air will be hoping that both Asus and Apple decide to go with the larger SSD. It is not just laptops and UMPC’s that could benefit from such a device, even MP3 players might get a smaller version of this larger solid-state-disk, and I would put money on it that Apple will be the first to use it on their iPod range.
SSD as we know is the future in storage solution as there is nothing spinning like a conventional hard drive, this will save power which is the holy grail in portable technology, as well as reduce the risk of failure. However; there is one problem with the solid-state-disc, and that is the price. There is one problem with all new technology, the price is always high but as time goes on the price will become lower. If you do not believe me, just look how the price of Cell Phones have reduced in price, who would have thought 10 years ago that you could purchase as a cell phone for les than $10.