The folks at Sony have revealed a lovely new tablet that you might feel like you recognize at IFA 2012 – the XPERIA Tablet S. Quite similar in shape to the Tablet S from last year, this device has a folded-over magazine shape, 1,280 x 800 IPS display, and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. This device is bringing in a lovely IR transmitter so you can use it as a universal remote, and it’ll have the awesome NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor under the hood as well.
This device is set to bring a slimmed down design to the market with a casing that’s between 35 and .47 inches thick and it’s much lighter than the previous model at just 1.26 pounds. This device has a massive 6,000mAh battery and is made to work with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The tablet is slated to move forward to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean soon, as well.
This device comes with the Watch Now app for live TV viewing, they’ve got a Guest Mode for working with multiple users on one device, and the whole thing works with Sony’s Music and Video Unlimited as well. The tablet comes with 5GB of space with Sony’s new cloud storage service PlayMemories, and is ready to rock in early September.
So early, in fact, that you’ll be able to get this device on September 7th, with pre-orders starting today. Prices will be $400 for the 16GB model, 32GB for $500 and the 64GB for $600. This device also has several accessories coming too, with a charging cradle, stand, dock speaker, and carrying case set up right out of the gate.
It’s time for the fabulous shape and style of the ASUS Transformer tablet line to work with Microsoft for Windows 8 glory with the ASUS Vivo Tab and Vivo Tab RT. This set of devices looks rather similar to the ASUS Transformer Prime, but with a bit of an updated set of specifications and Windows 8 or Windows RT under the hood. With the Vivo Tab we’ve got an 11.6-inch IPS display with 1,366 x 768 pixel resolution and an Intel Atom CPU inside. The Vivo Tab RT is just a bit smaller and makes the case with a Tegra 3 quad-core processor for mobile glory.
With the Vivo Tab you’ll be working with a 0.33-inch thickness – that’s without the dock. There’s an 8 megapixel camera on the back of the tablet piece with autofocus and LED flash, and there’s a 2 megapixel camera on the front. Inside you’ve got an Intel Atom CPU paired with 2GB of RAM. There’s also 64GB of storage built-in here and the device is coming stocked with NFC abilities as well. This tablet works with 10-point multitouch on its lovely 11.6-inch display, and it’ll support a Wacom digitizer input as well.
The Vivo Tab RT is of course running Windows RT rather than the Vivo Tab’s Windows 8. The Vivo Tab RT is coming with a 10.1-inch IPS display with 1,366 x 768 resolution. Inside you’ve got the lovely NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor with 12 GPU cores for graphic excellence, and you’ll be working with 2GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage. Just like the Vivo Tab, the Vivo Tab RT has NFC capabilities as well.
The docking keyboard you’ll be working with in both units is unique to the unit and will be coming with a full QWERTY set of keys, trackpad, 2 USB ports, and more battery power than you’ll know what to do with. Pricing and availability on both units is not yet known – stay tuned for more ASUS action this week at IFA 2012!
Google’s Nexus 7 may run NVIDIA’s cheaper Tegra 3 KAI chipset, but that doesn’t mean the 7-inch tablet isn’t capable of impressive speeds once carefully overclocked. Thanks to a new 2.0GHz ROM for the tablet cooked up by xda-developers, the Nexus 7 burned through Android Community‘s benchmarks and scored a whopping 8,082 in Quadrant testing. That’s double what HTC’s capable One X smartphone could manage.
The ROM itself uses an experimental kernel, not yet publicly available, to drive the Nexus 7 up to 2.0GHz rather than the 1.8GHz overclock we’ve seen in recent weeks. Even that slightly lower speed is enough for impressive performance, however, cracking the 7k mark in Quadrant.
Stability is described as having “a few issues” hence the absence of a public release, and according to Cory over at Android Community the Nexus 7 itself got somewhat warm during the tests. Still, the “Elite Kernel” is showing more than a little promise.
Out of the box, the Nexus 7 runs at 1.3GHz, ASUS and NVIDIA opting to prolong battery life rather than chase outright power. Thanks to the KAI chip, ASUS can use cheaper DDR3L memory for the tablet’s 1GB of RAM, helping Google hit its sub-$200 starting price goal.
The stock Nexus 7 peaks at a 1.3GHz clock speed when it’s at full burn. That’s certainly good enough for the $199 price tag, but eager adopters have just hit a new record in trying to wring out even more of a bang for the buck. Courtesy of a custom Elite kernel from XDA-Developers‘ Clemsyn, the Tegra 3 in the mini tablet will scale all the way to a heady 2GHz. You’d be right in suspecting that it leads to some dramatic speed boosts: the Nexus 7 at this pace can put a Transformer Prime to shame in common benchmarks, let alone most smartphones. Reaching the loftier heights of performance does require nerves of steel, however. The Elite kernel is very much a rough build that the creator doesn’t yet trust with the public, and NVIDIA’s processor is already known to get toasty under significantly added stress. There’s hope a refined kernel will make for a safer venture into unknown territory. If you can’t wait to throw at least some caution (and the warranty) to the wind, though, hit the second source link for code that will reach a slightly less melt-prone 1.8GHz.
Normally when I hear the words “gaming laptop,” I roll my eyes. It isn’t that I find the idea absurd, it’s just that I much prefer desktops because laptops more often than not end up being a letdown when it comes to gaming. iBUYPOWER has a new gaming laptop available – the Valkyrie CZ-17 – but the question is: can the Valkyrie CZ-17 deliver the gaming goods, or is this laptop just another one you should skip? Read on, because I think you might be pleasantly surprised with the answer.
Hardware
We simply have to begin with the Valkyrie’s screen. You’ve got 17.3-inches to work with on this bad boy, it’s LED backlit, and it’s capable of resolutions up to 1920×1080, which obviously means that we have 1080p resolution at our disposal. The screen is nice and bright (though as with most laptops you can adjust the brightness), but even better is that it sports a matte finish instead of a glossy one. Glossy finishes look nice, that’s true, but for gaming they can cause some headaches. Reflection and glare were never fun to begin with, but when you lose a game because of them, things get frustrating really fast. Thankfully, the Valkyrie doesn’t suffer from this problem, which makes this screen a winner in my book.
The build I received comes with an Intel Core i7-3610QM quad-core, eight thread processor. Clocked at 2.3GHz, it provides some significant processing power. Yes, there are other, better processors out there, and indeed if the 3610QM doesn’t meet your needs, iBUYPOWER will let you switch it out for a different processor when you go to purchase the Valkyrie. Still, the 3610QM gets the job done, and it delivers good results when gaming (or doing anything else on the computer, for that matter), so going with it over some more expensive processors might not be a bad idea.
As far as graphics go, iBUYPOWER has included a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M with 4GB of GDDR5 video RAM. Though this card isn’t the absolute best graphics card NVIDIA makes for laptops, it is one of their best (and one of the best period), and as a result makes the Valkyrie a delight for gaming. Make no mistake, you’re working with some serious graphics power, especially for a laptop, and that can’t be understated given the fact that many of us are used to seeing underpowered “gaming laptops.” It should also be noted that iBUYPOWER offers a Valkyrie model with a GeForce GTX 680M, so just in case you want to squeeze a little more power out of your graphics card, you have that option available. Like the processor though, the 675M will meet the needs of most who want to use the Valkyrie specifically for gaming, so jumping up to the 680M is not required by any means.
With RAM you’ll have a full 8GB of G.Skill DDR3-1333 at your disposal, so you’ll be set for the time being. Though some may prefer a little bit more RAM, 8GB is sufficient for any game around these days, and probably will be for a while yet. When you aren’t gaming, the 8GB of RAM keeps the Valkyrie CZ-17 moving along at a nice, quick pace, and when coupled with the processor, you’ve got a laptop that’s plenty fast for pretty much anything you need to do.
The speakers on this beast are actually quite good, though they would have to be considering how disappointing it would be to have a laptop packed with excellent hardware and then some crappy speakers. Using a good pair of headphones will still probably be preferred by most, but if you decide to let the speakers get a little work out, you won’t be disappointed with the sound they put out. Included on the hard drive is THX TruStudio Pro, which will allow you to tinker around with your speaker settings and get them to precisely the levels you want them at.
The keyboard the Valkyrie CZ-17 comes equipped is nice, and due to the laptop’s size, it’s comfortable to use. You’ve got a full keyboard, numerical pad and all to work with, and above the keyboard we have a row of special buttons. Surrounding the power button, these buttons let you do things like change the power profile, put the screen to sleep (instead of the entire unit), and turn Wi-Fi on or off. The keyboard comes with an adjustable backlight, and though it looks nice, it’s rather unnecessary. The screen is bright enough to light up the keyboard when you’re playing in the dark, meaning that the backlit keyboard will just end up draining battery life. Luckily, you can turn the backlight off completely, so if it isn’t your cup of tea, you don’t have to deal with it.
There aren’t any gripes with the touch pad either. It isn’t as sensitive as most, which is definitely a big plus, and it’s stationed off-center of the unit so it’s in the perfect place for your thumbs while you’re typing. The touch pad lights up when you power on the unit as well, but unlike the keyboard light, this one actually comes in handy, as with it you can see the left and right mouse buttons easily.
On the outside, there are a total of three USB 3.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, and jacks for line-in, line-out, headphones and microphone. The Valkyrie CZ-17 comes with a 6x Blu-ray, 8x DVD+/-RW optical drive, which increasingly seem to be disappearing from laptops these days. There are full HDMI and VGA ports available if you want to use the laptop with a bigger display, but with as nice as the screen is, you don’t really need to. There is an also an eSATA port and a Gigabit Ethernet jack to take advantage of. This particular model came with a 750GB HDD, which will be large enough for most, but there are of course additional options, meaning you can choose the hard drive (or SSD) that suits your needs.
As you can probably see from the pictures and hands-on video, this isn’t necessarily a small unit. The Valkyrie weighs in at 6.9 pounds, measuring 16.9-inches wide and 2.2-inches thick. It has a considerable size to it, but thankfully it’s still easily portable. It’s also worth noting that an increase in size is inevitable when it comes to gaming laptops, and with all of that hardware under the hood, the Valkyrie was doomed to be a little on the bulky side from the start.
A few times in this review, I’ve mentioned that you can swap out components and hardware when you purchase the Valkyrie CZ-17 from iBUYPOWER. That’s true for pretty much everything – you can change the processor, upgrade or downgrade the graphics card, increase the amount of RAM, switch out the optical drive the Valkyrie comes equipped with, and choose different storage devices as well. For instance, if the 750GB HDD this model comes with doesn’t float your boat, you swap it out for a larger one, add a second one for more storage, or add a SSD to make things even faster. If you wanted, you’d be able to ditch the HDD entirely and go for a dual SSD setup. The point is the Valkyrie can be whatever kind of laptop you want it to be, so if for some reason talk of this model leaves you unimpressed, that can be changed.
System – MSI_NB GT70 0NC/GT70 0NC
Manufacturer
iBuyPower
Product Type
Notebook
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Motherboard
MS-1762
Processor
Intel Core i7-3610QM
Processor ID
GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 58 Stepping 9
Processor Frequency
2.29 GHz
Processors
1
Threads
8
Cores
4
L1 Instruction Cache
32.0 KB
L1 Data Cache
32.0 KB
L2 Cache
256 KB
L3 Cache
6.00 MB
Memory
8.00 GB DDR3 SDRAM 666MHz
FSB
99.8 MHz
BIOS
American Megatrends Inc. E1762II1.30H
Battery and Eco Environment
Next we come to the battery, which as you may have guessed by reading through the hardware section, leaves something to be desired. The removable lithium-ion 9-cell battery is quoted for 3 hours of continuous use, but when gaming, don’t expect it to last nearly that long. Playing Civilization V with medium settings and the Valkyrie’s Eco Environment turned on (more on that later), I was only able to get about 1 hour and 30 minutes of use before the battery quit. It’s a shame, but it isn’t all that surprising – with all of this high-end hardware and that beautiful screen, it’s inevitable that battery life is going to take quite a hit.
We get some help with battery life from the aforementioned Eco Environment. With Eco Environment, we have a number of different power profiles we can pick from, like gaming mode, office mode, movie mode, and presentation mode. When unplugged from a power source, Eco Environment automatically kicks in, attempting to extend all-too-precious battery life. Game performance takes a significant hit with this power-saving mode on, so you’ll probably have to lower your settings quite a bit. You can turn the power-saving mode off entirely by just switching to gaming mode, but that isn’t recommended, as doing so will probably make the already short battery life even shorter and the end to your session even more abrupt.
The good news is that this battery is removable, meaning you can buy one or two extras to have on hand at all times. It isn’t the most desirable situation, but it’s a hell of a lot better than having a battery that you can’t remove and being tethered to a wall plug all the time. Another perk is that the battery charges very quickly. Obviously, this won’t be the case if you plug in the computer and begin gaming with screen brightness at max and your game settings ramped up, but if you leave the computer alone for a bit, you can expect a recharge time in the area of 45 minutes to an hour.
Benchmarks
Unsurprisingly, the Valkyrie CZ-17 posted some strong Geekbench numbers. These numbers would be good enough for most desktops, but they’re excellent by laptop standards. Essentially, the Geekbench results confirm what the high-end hardware promises – that this is very powerful as far as laptops go, and a considerable gaming laptop to boot. Testing in Cinebench 11.5 gives a similar result – with a CPU score that sits at 6.22 and an OpenGL frame rate of 41.39 fps, the results may not be the best we’ve ever seen, but they are still pretty impressive.
Benchmark Score – MSI_NB GT70 0NC/GT70 0NC
Section
Description
Score
Total Score
Windows x86 (64-bit) – Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Integer
Processor integer performance
11542
13610
Floating Point
Processor floating point performance
20735
Memory
Memory performance
7790
Stream
Memory bandwidth performance
7560
Gaming
Now it’s time to talk gaming, because after all, the benchmarks can say all they want, but if the Valkyrie can’t handle gaming, then those results don’t matter very much. Luckily, that isn’t the case, as the Valkyrie is capable of delivering some impressive gaming performance – at 1920×1080 resolution no less, which is a huge plus (all games tested were tested with 1080p).
Playing Batman: Arkham City with Extreme settings (High FXAA, MVSS and HBAO, High DirectX 11 Tessellation), I was able to get a frame rate that ranged between 25 fps and 35 fps. The high end on that was around 43, while the low end was around 22. If you don’t mind playing a game around 30 fps, then you can play Batman: Arkham City with nearly all of the settings maxed. Playing at 30 fps shouldn’t be a problem for most gamers – even though 60 fps does look noticeably smoother, 30 fps is usually what console games are locked at, and those are typically smooth enough. When playing Batman: Arkham City on the Valkyrie, you’re essentially getting a console-quality frame rate, but you also get to enjoy much better graphics. That isn’t a bad trade-off by any means, especially when Batman: Arkham City looks so good with the graphics settings cranked up.
With Battlefield 3, the results were much the same. Putting all of the settings on Ultra, which includes 4x MSAA, high antialiasing post, motion blur on, 16x anisotropic filtering and HBAO on, I got a frame rate of 30 to 40 fps, with the frame rate staying around or above 30 fps more consistently than Batman: Arkham City. Once again, you’re sacrificing a full 60 fps for all the bells and whistles, but I don’t really see a reason why that would be a major issue.
I was able to squeeze a little bit more out of Skyrim than I was with Arkham City and Battlefield 3. Playing with the settings on Ultra – including 8x antialiasing, 16x anisotropic filtering, and Bethesda’s HD texture pack – produced a frame rate between 40 and 50 fps, only rarely dropping down below 40 fps. That definitely isn’t bad, and there really isn’t much to complain about when you get play with maxed settings and still have a frame rate between 40 and 50 fps.
Wrap-Up
So no, you’re not going to be able to get a full 60 fps with the graphics cranked up at the same time by using the Valkyrie CZ-17. Unless you take frame rate extremely seriously, that probably won’t be a problem. After all, enjoying games with max settings at 30 fps is just as easy as enjoying them at 60 fps. If frame rate is important to you, just bring the graphics settings down a notch, and then you can still enjoy excellent visuals while getting a frame rate that sits right around 60 fps.
It’s also important to keep in mind that this is a laptop, and even though the results when gaming aren’t perfect, they’re excellent by laptop standards. This is one of the best gaming laptops on the market right now, and the $1459 price tag bit easier to swallow than some pre-built desktops that will only deliver a marginal improvement when it comes to gaming.
Really, the only big drawbacks are the battery life and the size of the unit. As stated above though, those are to be expected in a gaming laptop, and concerning the size specifically, it isn’t as if the Valkyrie isn’t portable. It’s slightly more bulky than other laptops that are on the market, but that 7 pound weight isn’t terribly huge. All in all, if you’re looking for a laptop that hold its own when it comes to gaming, you won’t be disappointed by picking up a Valkyrie CZ-17.
While we managed to get our hands on Gigabyte’s latest graphics card-toting Ultrabook back at CeBIT, we’ve just finished handling the P2542G (its high-end gaming sibling) at the laptop and motherboard maker’s UK launch event. Packing a 15.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080 display, it runs on an Ivy Bridge Core i7-3610QM, with a 2GB NVIDIA GTX 660M card to power PC gaming’s latest and greatest. Add in a Blu-ray player and THX-certified dual-woofer sound system and you have the makings of pretty capable beast — not to mention looking the part with a yellow paint job and dual exhaust vents along the back edge. Read up on our impressions and check out our video hands-on after the break.
This summer HP has brought on a beast of a business machine in the Z1 all-in-one Workstation, complete with an upgradable set of innards and all-in-one style. The display is a massive LED-backlit 27-inch IPS panel at 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution and inside you’ve got several configurations available straight from HP, each of them landing in at right around $2,700 USD in the end. You’ll be working with an Intel Core i3 processor, Windows 7 or Linux, and the whole machine is easier to modify than your sub sandwich – fabulous for the tech-friendly business owner.
Setup
This beast is heavier than you’ll ever want to wish to carry at a back-breaking 21.32 kg (47 lbs). You’ve got a beast of a display up on two different hinges, this allowing you to adjust both the angle and the height at which the display sits. Once you’ve got it where you want it, you’ll probably want to leave it alone, though, as the weight of this conglomeration of metal, plastic, and glass is not the easiest thing to move around.
The monitor sits on its two hinges mightily, both of them making sure that this heaving beast does not move even the slightest bit once its set in place. In addition to being able to set this computer up with its “traditional display” setup (on the stand it comes attached to) you can mount it to the wall with industry standard VESA mounts. This unit utilizes a 100×100 VESA mount pattern, making it easy to set up with 3rd party display gear.
HP has done an amazing job of making sure this computer both looks and feels fabulous with a black and silver metal setup both on front and back. While most workstation-aimed computers are made to sit out of the way or under a desk, this all-in-one unit looks great from all sides. The one odd point that appears off as far as aesthetics go is the power cord port which sits under the display – it feels like HP went so far to keep the front and the back clean that they nudged that rather unsightly cord to the underside.
Connectivity
That said, the rest of the computer is indeed rather clean looking. You’ve got your power button up top on the right, a system activity LED below that right near the eject button for your optical drive. The optical drive is always a Slot Load 8X SuperMulti DVDRW no matter what configuration you pick up, and it sits right above a 4-in-1 Media Card Reader as well. Next on the right is a standard Firewire 1394a port above two USB 3.0 ports and ports for Audio in and out. Each of these buttons and ports are super easy to access.
What’s not so easy to access – and perhaps rightfully so – are the ports below the monitor. This collection of ports includes the power port (as mentioned above), one standard DisplayPort in/out, digital audio via a S/PDIF port, audio in/out and subwoofer out, and a set of four more USB 2.0 ports. There’s also a hidden USB 2.0 port under the hood which HP has used up with a dongle that connects with a couple of packaged accessories: keyboard and a mouse – both of which are relatively high quality.
Software
You can work on this system with Windows 7 or HP provided Linux, the Linux builds including drivers from 32 and 64-bit OS versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 Workstation, RHEL 6 Workstation, and 64-bit SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 11 for your convenience. For Windows 7 you’ll either get 32-bit or 64-bit Genuine Windows 7 Professional installed right out of the box.
With a computer that’s made to be updated in the hardware universe for years into the future, you’ll also want to be sure you’ve got the software to back it up as well. Windows 8 will of course be able to be loaded here, and with HP Performance Advisor included in the out-of-box experience, you’ll have HP’s own software wizard to help out out along the way as you continue to optimize your system towards its constant full potential.
This machine also includes HP Remote Graphics Software, (loaded standard with every new-age HP workstation,) an environment which allows you to access your setup remotely from other machines connected to the web with ease. Just as it was with each of the other HP workstations we’ve tested over the past year or so, this machine plays nicely with a vast array of machines outside its build – Directory Mode allow you to access workstations throughout your office, RGS functionality works with pixels (as opposed to data) to expand your workspace to a wide variety of 3rd party monitors automatically, and the whole RGS suite works on both Windows and Linux.
This device also comes with ISV certification so you know its up to snuff according to the Independent Software Vendor set of tests – standard stuff! Along those same lines is the fact that this machine is Energy Star certified with 90% efficient power supplies, and each HP Z1 comes with a warranty that includes limited 3-year parts, 3-year labor and 3-year onsite service extendable up to 5 years with HP Care Pack Services – business friendly indeed!
System – Hewlett-Packard HP Z1 Workstation
Manufacturer
Hewlett Packard
Product Type
Desktop
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)
Motherboard
Hewlett-Packard 3561h
Processor
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E31280 @ 3.50GHz
Processor ID
GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7
Processor Frequency
3.49 GHz
Processors
1
Threads
8
Cores
4
L1 Instruction Cache
32.0 KB
L1 Data Cache
32.0 KB
L2 Cache
256 KB
L3 Cache
8.00 MB
Memory
16.0 GB DDR3 SDRAM 666MHz
FSB
99.8 MHz
BIOS
Hewlett-Packard J52 v01.04
Above and below you’ll see some additional components listed as well as our standard Geekbench benchmark results. This machine does extremely well for itself, both in benchmarks and in practice with everyday light and heavyweight tasks like video processing. And again, you can switch essentially every piece out and make it more powerful as you deem necessary.
Benchmark Score – Hewlett-Packard HP Z1 Workstation
Section
Description
Score
Total Score
Windows x86 (64-bit) – Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)
Integer
Processor integer performance
12316
15079
Floating Point
Processor floating point performance
23630
Memory
Memory performance
8518
Stream
Memory bandwidth performance
7951
Versatility
This machine is fabulous in its ability to be modified. Push the display down horizontal and lift the face up like the hood of a car and poof! Like magic, you’ve got a vast array of plug-n-play pieces at your fingertips. You can change out essentially anything under the hood at your leisure, and several expansion slots and bays are available for your DIY modifications. You’ve got one internal 3.5-inch bay OR 2x 2.5-inch bays, one MXM expansion slot for graphics (requiring NVIDIA custom cards, you may want to note) the base model uses Intel integrated graphics, but Quadro 500M, 1000M, 3000M and 4000M graphics cards are optional. You’ve also got 3 miniPCIe full-length expansion slots as well.
Four zones separate this device’s insides, with the 400w power supply, Quadro graphics card, CPU, and memory sitting behind fans and panels. Your power supply, hard drive chassis, and DVD/Blu-ray drive are easily removable, of course, and up to four 8GB full-sized memory DIMMs can be added as well.
Everything under the hood is able to be clipped in and out with ease using the simple to understand green arrows and hard-plastic holds. The hands-on video earlier in this review shows how simple it is to switch components in and out. Business owners pay attention here: upgrading your whole office will be so easy that you won’t need to hire Nick Burns to do it – for real!
Wrap-Up
This computer is a fabulous choice for an office in need of massive displays and Windows 7 (or Windows 8 later this year). You’ve got a perfectly solid build, HP has made the entire structure out of high-end components, and you’ll be able to modify this beast to your liking well into the future. As long as you’re not planning on lifting this monster up and lugging it around on a regular basis, you’ll be glad this was your business-oriented Windows choice for your next-generation standard workstation situation.
Video editors, web designers, graphic designers, and those working with massive files on the whole will find this machine quite satisfying.
Have a peek below at additional HP Z-series hands-on, review, and news posts we’ve published over the past two years, all the way back to the official launch of the series at an event we attended with HP!
When it comes to modern day smartphones, there is this particular trend which works like an elastic. Remember more than a decade ago, you had the state of the art handsets from Nokia that seemed to get smaller and smaller? The Nokia 8250, Nokia 8810 and Nokia 8850 were all miniature wonders, sporting a pocket friendly form factor that packed quite a punch in terms of performance as well. After that, with the advent of color displays and a decade later, touchscreen displays, we get phones with a form factor that starts to increase, getting larger and larger again.
It is like a bad dream that Alice could not wake up from, where she ate the cake and drank a potion to shrink and grow as she needed to, depending on the situation which she is in at the moment. Well, I guess you can say the same applies to the world of modern day smartphones, with the overall screen size getting larger on average, crossing the lines between the tablet market as well, leading some to call such devices a “phablet”. The LG Optimus Vu which managed to debut successfully in South Korea and Japan has now been announced to debut globally in select markets in Europe, Asia, Middle East/Africa and Latin America from September onwards.
Just what kind of hardware can we look forward to with the LG Optimus Vu? Well, this is touted to come with the world’s first 5-inch 4:3 aspect ratio display at a rather impressive 768 x 1024 resolution, delivering a truly unique smart device experience in a phablet form factor. Having sold more than half a million units in South Korea since it debuted earlier this March, the LG Optimus Vu has also experienced a positive Japanese reception.
The global version of the LG Optimus Vu will run on the NVIDIA Tegra 3 mobile processor, sporting a speedy 4-PLUS-1 Quad-Core with the fifth battery-saver core, where it is touted to deliver a superb balance of performance and power requirements. The quartet of cores will see action for high performance tasks including games and multitasking, while when it comes to less taxing tasks such as voice calls, handling email, music and video playback, only the fifth core will be used. Other than that, it comes with a 8-megapixel camera at the back and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, augmented by 32GB of internal memory. Any takers for the LG Optimus Vu?
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day — we dig deep into each topic’s history and how it benefits our lives. You can follow the series here. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com.
As you’re hopefully aware, this is a gadget blog. As a result, we’re innately biased towards stuff that’s new and preferably fandangled. More cores, more pixels, more lenses; just give it here and make us happy. The risk of this type of technological greed is that we don’t make full use of what we already have, and nothing illustrates that better than the Graphics Processing Unit. Whether it sits in our desktops, laptops, tablets or phones, the GPU is cruelly limited by its history — its long-established reputation as a dumb, muscular component that takes instructions from the main processor and translates them into pixels for us to gawp at.
But what if the GPUs in our devices had some buried genius — abilities that, if only we could tap into them, would yield hyper-realistic experiences and better all-round performance from affordable hardware? Well, the thing is, this hidden potential actually exists. We’ve been covering it since at least 2008 and, even though it still hasn’t generated enough fuss to become truly famous, the semiconductor industry is making more noise about it now than ever before.
So please, join us after the break as we endeavor to explain why the trend known as “GPU compute,” aka “general purpose GPU (GPGPU),” or simply “not patronizing your graphics processor,” is still exciting despite having let us down in the past. We’ll try to show why it’s worth learning a few related concepts and terms to help provide a glossary for future coverage; and why, on the whole, your graphics chip is less Hasselhoff and more Hoffman than you may have imagined.
Origin’s introducing the brawny EON17-SLX to its adoring public of hardcore gamers. The 17-inch laptop comes packing professionally overclocked Ivy Bridge CPUs and the option to add dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M or similarly paired AMD Radeon HD 7970M units — offering performance that might even be able to run Crysis 3. While you’ll only be able to pick up the gear in a traditional-style body initially, the company’s working on custom paint options including matte black and red. The base unit will set you back the very specific price of $1867, with the options beyond limited only to the size of your imagination or, you know, your wallet.
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When it comes to modern day smartphones, there is this particular trend which works like an elastic. Remember more than a decade ago, you had the state of the art handsets from Nokia that seemed to get smaller and smaller? The Nokia 8250, Nokia 8810 and Nokia 8850 were all miniature wonders, sporting a pocket friendly form factor that packed quite a punch in terms of performance as well. After that, with the advent of color displays and a decade later, touchscreen displays, we get phones with a form factor that starts to increase, getting larger and larger again.
