Hasta La Gadget!

It’s odd, because we were under the impression that Nokia was doing just fine shunning capacitive touch all these years, but apparently one in three readers of Nokia Conversations find the capacitive touchscreen to be the number one feature of the new X6 handset. Sure, Nokia uses some of the greatest resistive screens in the business, but we’ve always maintained that capacitive is simply the best when it comes to a finger-based touchscreen interface, and hopefully the Nokia X6 can usher in a new era of peace, understanding and higher-than-average WPM scores for all mankind. Oh, and perhaps some proper it’s / its differentiation.

Nokia asks own blog readers what their favorite part of the X6 is, gets funny answer originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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All is not well in the land of the E6400– and E6500-series lappytops. What looks to be hundreds of owners of these machines have been complaining of massive performance issues, throttling themselves down by as much as 95% under what would seem to be normal operating conditions. Whenever the devices get slightly warm the BIOS automatically starts dialing down the performance until they basically crawl to a halt, some indicating that even when cool they won’t go over 50% of maximum clock. Users have been reporting this issue since early in the year and Dell has apparently started censoring some posts on its forums, including a link to a PDF created by (now-banned) user Tinkerdude describing the problem in detail. It’s entitled “Performance loss during normal operation in a Dell Latitude E6500 laptop due to processor and bus clock throttling”, and if you think that’s long wait until you see all 59 pages of analysis (at the read link). As of now there’s no official fix provided by Dell, leaving many to call this Throttlegate, and we do love a good Stargate reference.

Update: Ibrahim e-mailed to let us know that these two series aren’t the only ones being gimped. The Studio XPS 1645 is said to be having similar (but somewhat less drastic) issues according to this thread, seemingly thanks to an inadequate AC adapter. In this case Dell seems to be shipping replacement adapters to those who call up and complain.

Update 2: Dell’s Chief Blogger Lionel Menchaca dropped the following in comments, which is something of a positive step:

We’re aware of concerns raised in this post and others like it. At this point, our teams are looking into the details. When we have more information to share, we’ll update customers via a post on Dell’s blog, Direct2Dell.

Dell facing massive E6400 and E6500 overheating and underclocking problem? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The days of OLED wallpaper are still some years away, but you can finally start thinking about replacing those tired light fixtures with something a little more two-dimensional. After testing the waters with its Early Future lamp and then boosting efficiency of its product, OSRAM is announcing availability of Orbeos OLED panels for general consumption. The discs are 80mm wide, only 2.1mm thick, and emit light at a temperature of 2,800K, meaning they’re much closer to an average incandescent than those awful CFLs. They’re not as efficient, though, managing just 25 lumens per watt compared to your average CFL’s 60 – 72. Still, they’re about twice as thrifty as traditional bulb tech and can be configured in a variety of interesting ways (shown after the break), but since the company isn’t saying just how much any of those configurations will cost we have to figure it’s still going to be awhile before you’re mounting these under your cabinets.

Continue reading OSRAM Orbeos OLED lights are small, flat, right behind you

OSRAM Orbeos OLED lights are small, flat, right behind you originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Like the looks of Oregon Scientific’s solar-powered +ECO Clima Control unit but don’t need something that sophisticated — or expensive? The company has just expanded the line with two (slightly) more affordable options for budget and environmentally conscious folks like you. First up is the $100 +ECO Solar Weather Station, which provides the same functionality as its $20 more expensive predecessor, monitoring temperature and humidity in multiple locations and recharging itself via detachable solar panel, but does so with a smaller screen capable of showing indoor and outdoor temperature, time, and an icon representing the coming weather. Also on offer is the $70 +ECO Solar Weather Clock, pictured below, which ditches the weather display and the ability to display humidity, things that may or may not be much of a loss depending on your meteorological inclinations.

Continue reading Oregon Scientific’s +ECO Solar Weather Clock and Station don’t predict solar weather

Oregon Scientific’s +ECO Solar Weather Clock and Station don’t predict solar weather originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In typical Dell style, the new Precision M6500 17-inch workhorse laptop has shown up on the company’s website with nary a peep of self-congratulatory PR from Round Rock. Notable as the successor to the well-juiced M6400 and its even gaudier Covet variant, the M6500 boasts wallet-busting specs like a Core i7-920XM allied to a maximum of 16GB DDR3 memory speeding along at 1,333MHz, a choice of ATI FirePro M7740 or NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M workstation graphics chips, support for up to three storage devices with optional RAID configurations, and a 1920 x 1200 LED-backlit display. The machine is not quite yet available to purchase, meaning it’s safe to go beyond the read link without fearing any heart-stopping sticker shock.

[Thanks, Jonty]

Dell Precision M6500 mixes Core i7 with business savvy originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 06:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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