Hasta La Gadget!

With the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11, we’ve got the smaller cousin of the IdeaPad 13, this 11-inch display-toting machine working with a size that’s not just smaller physically. Inside this device we’ve got the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor paired with Microsoft’s Windows RT and a 5-point multi-touch display. This display exists on a hinge that allows this notebook to fold 360 degrees back and flat.

Hardware

This machine’s screen is an 11.6-inch TFT LCD with 1136 x 768 pixel resolution working with LED Backlit technology and 350 nits of brightness. This display has a 170 degree viewing angle both vertical and horizontal, and its certainly good enough to work long hours worth during the day. If you’re thinking about working with this device in the dark, you might want to take a test-drive in the store first.

With blacks this dark and a keyboard that’s not backlit, you’ll want a bright lamp over your shoulder at least. If you want to bring this device to the coffee shop, you’re looking at a winner. This machine is 11.7 x 8 x 0.61 inches small, and save the MacBook Air itself, we’ve never experienced a more portable system. With just 2.73 lbs to its name, this machine is ready to be tossed in your backpack or large purse without effort.

Because this machine is made by Lenovo, it’s extremely rugged. While when we’re working with essentially any other notebook this size, there’s always a thought of “ah, gotta make sure I’m not dropping it.” With the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11, we’ve got a machine that we’re as close to “lemme toss this to you across the room” as we’ve ever gotten with a computer. With soft-touch plastic around magnesium aluminum alloy both on the top and on the bottom – in a lovely set of colors, might I add – you’ve got what feels like a top-notch complete package.

Inside you’ve got a few more specifications you might want to hear about if you’re planning on using this device for anything other than word processing, internet browsing, and some basic gameplay. Have a peek:

• 2 GB std / 2GB max / PC3-12800 1600MHz DDR3L*, soldered to system board, no sockets *System automatically clocks down to 1500MHz for NVIDIA Tegra3 T30 processor
• Audio: High Definition (HD) Audio, Realtek® ALC5642 codec / stereo speakers (0.5 watt x 2), microphone, microphone input and headphone combo jack (3.5 mm)
• 64 GB / eMMC (embedded Multi Media Card) flash memory onboard
• 2 x USB 2.0, HDMI, SD card reader, 3.5mm Mic/Headphone Combo
• Ambient Light Sensor, Accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope, Digital Compass
• OGS Panel – Single piece of glass as both cover lens and sensor substrate

The hardware is solid and really, really high quality. You’ll be considering the software it’s paired with next – and more than likely last, too. Make sure you know what you’re working with here and follow the Windows RT news before you jump in, feet first.

Software

It’s not easy reconciling the fact that this beautiful machine is working with Windows RT. Having a touchscreen up front that’s able to be used in several different modes is awesome, but when you’re crippled by an operating system that looks and feels like Windows 8 but isn’t – that’s confusing.

Using Windows RT is almost like eating an off-brand cereal without seeing the box: it certainly looks like the real deal, but once you taste it, you get wise. You’ll be unable to run Google Chrome, Valve’s Steam for games, or Geekbench for benchmarking your system. With Windows RT, you’re getting what’s closer to what seems to be intended as a tablet system rather than a full-fledged notebook setup.

That said, you do get the option of ordering this system with the full Microsoft Office suite running right out of the box. Microsoft has been pretty good about making sure their own basic set of apps works on Windows RT, and you do have access to the NVIDIA TegraZone Windows RT Edition as well – however limited that may still be. If Judge Dredd VS Zombies and Hydro Thunder are enough to wet your whistle, then by all means go for it – NVIDIA is also growing this collection too as the NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor (found inside this device) stays strong through 2013.

Up against the Competition

Your big question might be at this point what the benefit is in having this device over any other – especially one so inexpensive as, say, a Chromebook. When it comes down to it, this device has that same acceptance curve as a Chromebook has – you just can’t run everything you run on your full-powered PC. We’d even thought about trying to work with this device as a sort of top-tier Chromebook too to test how it’d be, but again, Chrome doesn’t work on Windows RT.

If you’re comparing this device to a full Windows 8 Lenovo notebook, you’ll be in for a trick – working with Windows 8 on the IdeaPad Yoga 13 is a good enough to feel a bit left out with the Yoga 11′s relative lack of oomph – and it’s certainly not a device you’re going to want to compare to a MacBook Air unless you only need it for word processing and browsing the web (on Internet Explorer). The price for this machine does remain enticing: anywhere from $599 to $849 USD and you’ve got a real draw. Compare it to the relative greatness of the Yoga 13, on the other hand, and you might as well drop the extra few bucks to work with full Windows 8 and the larger display.

Wrap-up

You’ll have to think this one through – unlike the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13, you’ve not got a full-powered PC on your hands here. This device is made to be a traveler, and certainly not your one single machine if you’ve got a computer-based job. Should you want to use your PC for nothing but social networking and play, this is a good choice – it’s relatively inexpensive and it’s good for travel.

Lenovo has created a bit of a bitter winner here. While many devices in this category are pretty awesome from top to bottom save their end product, the IdeaPad Yoga 11 is rough and tough and is something I’d put in my backpack for a trip. If I were going on a business trip with my SlashGear compatriots, I’d have to leave it at home.

Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 Review is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Is your smartphone social? Facebook isn’t convinced it is and so, in lieu of one true Facebook Phone, it wants to make over every Android smartphone in its image, courtesy of Facebook Home. The new launcher will start its spread on a select range of Android devices, as well as dedicated handsets like the HTC First, from April 12, but it demands a hefty commitment: gone is the usual, flexible Android homescreen, replaced by a new UI that puts sharing front and center. Walled garden or the place where social grows? Read on for the SlashGear review.

It’s social, stupid

Home is a launcher and a partial skin, and it takes advantage of the flexibility baked into Android for third-party modification. Unlike iOS and Windows Phone, which have tight controls on UI, Android is set up to allow for different launchers: when you download it, you can choose to have it load just the once, or set it as your default, in which case it’ll show up every time you hit the home button.

Arguably the easiest way to get Facebook Home will be to buy a handset with the launcher preloaded. Initially, that means just one device – the HTC First, which we’ve reviewed in full here – and one US network, AT&T, with the mid-tier First coming in at $100 with a new, two year agreement. Further partnerships with device manufacturers are in the pipeline, including Samsung and Sony among others.

A Facebook Home Program phone won’t be the only way to get hold of the new launcher, however. In fact, those users are more than likely to be the minority; for those with a compatible existing phone, Facebook Home will be available as a free download through the Google Play market. The first crop of supported handsets includes the Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy S 4, and Note II, as well as the HTC One X, One X+, and One. Broader support will follow on in time, Facebook says.

Cover Feed

Facebook certainly gets its money’s worth from Cover Feed: the social stream is both the lock screen and the homescreen for your device. At the bottom, in the center, is a single control – your profile photo in a small, circular bubble – which, if dragged, can be pulled across to launch the messenger, open the app launcher, or bring back your last-used app.

The bulk of the screen, though, is devoted to your Facebook friends. It’s an edge-to-edge view of their latest status updates, photos, links, and Open Graph entries, cycling through the recent content with a splash of mild animation to keep things visually pleasing. Individual photos pan across the screen, behind the status text, name, date it was posted, and location, while there are also small buttons in the lower left corner for immediately liking the post or reading/adding comments.

Double-tapping a status update “Likes” it, while single-tapping opens the comments. Small text in the lower right shows how many likes and comments there are, together with a preview of who made them. Alternatively you can long-press on the photo, and it will zoom so that you can see the whole picture in one go.

It certainly looks impressive, as long as you have some photo-addicted friends. On the flip side, Facebook adjusts the resolution and number of new photos you see depending on whether you’re using a mobile data or WiFi connection, to try to avoid hammering through your data allowance (you can also choose whether you want to see low, medium, or high image quality). Cover Feed is basically defined by who you’re friends with and how exciting their lives are; if they post text-only status updates, all you’ll see is an enlargement of their profile photo in the background.

Notifications

It also pays to have quite a few friends – though if you’re considering a Facebook Home phone or even just the launcher, perhaps that’s a given – since Home is quite an insular place. Too few and your Cover Feed will be relatively empty; on the flip side, however, with no way to filter out which groups of people feed the timeline, there’s a frustrating lack of control over what you see day to day. This is particularly the case with notifications: on the HTC First, you get alerts for all apps and services, but if you’re using Home on an existing handset, only Facebook notifications come through.

Either way, notifications bubble in as simple grey bars, with profile photos if they’re of new status updates, messages, or Facebook check-ins, or app icons – such as email, phone or Instagram – if they’re from elsewhere on your handset. You can tap them to open them, or swipe them away off the screen; long-pressing on one notification allows you to lasso multiple notifications and dismiss them simultaneously.

If you’ve got rid of them, though, you can call them back using the standard Android Jelly Bean notification bar, though it’s hidden by default. A tap at the top of the Cover Feed screen makes it briefly visible – complete with the usual clock, network signal, battery status, and any notification icons – and then dragging it down opens it completely.

Again, as with Cover Feed, it all works well in the context of Facebook. Using Home on a device other than the First, however, hides a lot of Android’s other glitz and features, not least any support for homescreen widgets. In fact, they’re completely absent from Home.

Chat Heads and Messenger

Passively consuming photos and links isn’t the only aspect of Facebook Home: instant messaging is also heavily integrated into not only the launch, but the Android system as a whole. New messages pop up as circular bubbles showing either the user’s profile photo or, in the case of group messages, a collage of those photos. By default, they bubble into view in the upper right corner, clustering across the screen as they stack up, but each can be dragged around (or, with a long-press and a lasso gesture, multiple Chat Heads can be grabbed) and either pushed to other areas of the screen or dismissed altogether.

That’s important, as Chat Heads permeate all through the OS, appearing on top of whatever app you’re using – Facebook or otherwise. It soon becomes second nature to snatch one up with your thumb and either open it or flick it away; however, you can also flick it to the side of the screen, where – after a little bounce – it will cling.

Tap to open it, and you get the usual Facebook messenger window on top of whatever you were looking at before, whether that be the Cover Feed homescreen, the Android browser, a game, or something else. You can also call up a Chat Head yourself, by long-pressing a person in the regular messenger list, and choosing to pop them out as a bubble.

Chat Heads works well, though again there’s a walled garden effect that will frustrate anybody who isn’t entirely committed to Facebook for their messaging needs. The latest iteration of the Facebook messenger app pulls in SMS text messages, but it doesn’t support Google Talk or other IM systems, and so the overall usefulness of Chat Heads is diluted.

App Launcher (and everything else)

Facebook Home may be all about Facebook, but the social company does at least recognize that Android users are likely to want to access other apps. For that, there’s the app launcher, a quick-launch hub from which you can jump to your most commonly used software.

Drag the profile picture on the homescreen up, and the app launcher pane loads, a 4×4 grid of shortcuts that can be dragged and reorganized at will. Above it, there are buttons to post a new Facebook status message, a photo, or to check-in at your current location. Multiple pages of apps are supported, and you can drag new icons in by swiping to the left to open up the full app drawer and then bring them over to the main launcher pane.

The app drawer also has a Google search bar at the top of the screen, but that’s the only widget-style action you’ll get. There’s no support for any native Android or third-party widgets, and no way of accessing the regular Android homescreen, since Facebook Home replaces it completely. You do still get Google Now access, however, with a long-press on the home button calling it up; a double-tap opens the Android app switcher.

Wrap-Up

On the one hand, you can see the argument for Facebook Home. The social network is hugely popular, and there’s no shortage of people who check in on the latest updates multiple times a day. It’s become a way for old school friends to rediscover each other, family members to share the latest events in their lives, and for colleagues to collaborate more casually with services like messenger.

Nonetheless, in its first iteration, Facebook Home doesn’t quite hit the spot. It feels like it should have been a beta; indeed, Facebook was keen to point out at its launch event that it’s definitely a work-in-progress. The problem is, Facebook hasn’t taken baby steps: it wants to be your new Android homescreen, and anything from third-parties is basically lost or hidden in the process.

Factor in things like the complete lack of support for widgets and the inability to tailor who gets included in Cover Feed, and Facebook Home stumbles out of the gate. As a result, it’s difficult to recommend it to anybody other than those solely committed to Facebook (and even those most fervent users of the site were mixed when we showed them Facebook Home and explained what it offered), and if you’re also a Twitter user, or a Google+ user, or rely on other messaging apps like WhatsApp, LINE, or others, for every advantage Facebook Home provides, there’s a compromise to be made elsewhere.

Facebook Home Review is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Is the HTC One the best Android smartphone around, and has the wait for the AT&T LTE version been worth it? We’ve already spent more than 6,000 words on the HTC One, back in our review of the European version, but this was our chance to put the first US-specific variant to the test. To do that we took it out into the wild to put the key selling points – specifically the UltraPixel camera and the 4G speed – on trial at the New York Auto Show, among other places, as well as to see if the non-removable battery is a deal-breaker in the face of the fast-incoming Samsung Galaxy S 4. Read on to find out how the HTC One fared.

Design, Performance, and Usability

We’ve already comprehensively covered the core proposition of the HTC One in our original review. Suffice to say, the appeal of the matte-finish metal handset hasn’t waned since then. Build quality keeps it at the top of the pile of Android devices in recent memory, for a start, and having weighed the One against the Galaxy S 4 at the Samsung phone’s launch, it’s clear that HTC has the edge in design and quality. One mild concern is the tendency of the white polycarbonate inset strip running the edge of the phone to pick up color smudges when we kept it in our jeans pocket, though these usually rubbed off.

Some of the details stand out after a longer period with the phone. BoomSound has a ridiculous name, but we can’t argue with the audio performance: we’ve found ourselves showing off more video, as well as reaching for the One in preference to other devices when it comes to consuming multimedia from services like Netflix, simply because the front-facing stereo speakers are simply that good. The power from the speakers is also incredibly useful when using the One as a navigation device in the car, while the screen they flank is no slouch either, with a combination of 1080p Full HD resolution and a color balance that’s refreshingly level rather than skewed to over-saturation.

HTC One walkthrough:

Sense 5 and the BlinkFeed homescreen – which pulls together news, Facebook, Twitter, calendar, and tips from the phone – continues to draw our attention, even with the gloss of newness taken off it. With its Flipboard-style feed of headlines and images, BlinkFeed makes for a great distraction, though we can’t help but wish HTC would hurry up and add offline caching of articles, the ability to add your own RSS feeds, and Google+/Google Now integration. The latter would arguably make the biggest difference; we like the low-noise way the One slots your upcoming appointments into the first page of BlinkFeed tiles each day, and it would make a perfect fit for Google Now suggestions.

Overall, Sense 5 combined with Android 4.1 performs well, and with the exception of Photosphere we’ve not really missed anything from the very latest version of Jelly Bean. AT&T’s version of the One includes a customized browser, but despite our initial concerns, performance actually improved over the stock phone. In SunSpider, the test of JavaScript performance, the European One scored 1,118.9ms versus the 1,035.1ms of the AT&T version (in SunSpider, faster is better). Overall, we had no issues with the One’s quadcore 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600 processor pulling its weight running apps, and even AT&T’s preloaded software – which includes DriveMode, Family Map, Locker, Navigator, Ready2Go, Messages, myAT&T, Smart Wi-Fi, YPmobile, and Device Help – are neatly clustered into a folder rather than scattershot across the app launcher.

It’s not all perfect, though. A lingering frustration is the black menu bar that often appears in third-party apps, where HTC has followed Android guidelines and dropped a dedicated menu key, but apps aren’t yet putting the three-dot softkey where it should be, tucked out of the way in the corner. That means you lose a stripe of your 4.7-inch screen to a single control (the functionality of which varies widely) but, more annoyingly, the on-screen keyboard shifts up to accommodate it.

That has at times played havoc with our typing, our thumbs not extending sufficiently to avoid the menu key and thus interrupting text entry. Admittedly, it’s not HTC’s fault, but it’s an ongoing annoyance that apps not adhering to the latest Android UI guidelines continue to hit the Play store.

Camera and Multimedia

HTC’s UltraPixel strategy has proved divisive, with the company chasing more light instead of more megapixels. We’ve covered how the One uses its 4-megapixels extensively in our review, but we also gave the smartphone its chance to shine out in the wild, taking it to the New York Auto Show last month.

Your average tradeshow is tough going on a camera, whether it’s a DSLR, a point-and-shoot, or on a smartphone. The lighting ranges from ridiculously bright, meaning you get masses of reflections and glare, to moodily dark, making details difficult to pick out and the threat of noise a constant. In-between, there’s all manner of colored lights that can confuse a camera’s sensor.

The NY Auto Show was no different, but the HTC One held its own for the most part. All of the photos and video from our coverage of the new Chevrolet Camaro Z28 and the Corvette Stingray was taken using the One, for example, with us also using the Zoe “highlight” feature that creates summary videos based on 3.6s snippets of video and burst-stills.

For the photos, despite the mixed lighting conditions, the quality was surprisingly high. Blur is noticeably absent, the One being able to stick to faster shutter-speeds and lower ISOs thanks to its greater appetite for light, and photos which combine well-lit areas alongside much darker ones are impressively balanced. The phone is fast, too: back-to-back shots are roughly as swift as you can repeatedly tap the on-screen button.

Video, meanwhile, looks great at 1080p Full HD resolution, with the same impressive low-light and mixed-lighting performance as for stills. However, the noisy show floor proved a challenge for the One’s stereo microphones at times, however: you can certainly make out speech compared to background noise, but it lacks the pinpoint clarity you’d get with a directional microphone or a dedicated clip-on mic.

Nonetheless, for immediacy and convenience, the One certainly held its own. At full resolution and in perfect lighting, HTC’s choice of big pixels rather than lots of them struggles somewhat, but in more everyday situations the convenience of being able to take low-light situations in your stride wins out.

The downside with the One – and, specifically, with Zoe photography, which simultaneously grabs 20 stills and 3.6s of Full HD video – remains how multimedia is managed, particularly off the phone. We’ve already highlighted how poorly that plays with auto-upload services, such as those offered by Dropbox, Google+, and Facebook, which basically fill your cloud storage with dozens of nearly-identical shots. The AT&T version is no different in that respect, and HTC desperately needs to step up and address offloading media with its HTC Sync Manager app.

While it’s at it, we wouldn’t argue with more themes and flexibility for the Zoe highlights system: the One’s automatically curated showreels, which come complete with transitions, filters, and background music. We’re still impressed by how neatly the One knits these together, but the option for longer clips (currently it’s 30 seconds only) and the ability to use your own music would make the feature considerably more useful. We’ve found people are much more willing to watch our photos and video when they’re stitched into a highlight reel, and so a greater number of presets (out of the box there are six to choose between) would make it all the more engaging.

HTC Sense, Zoe, and Highlights demo:

One advantage those looking to AT&T for their One will have is capacity. The carrier has the US exclusive on the 64GB version, other networks making do with the 32GB model, and given the amount of data Zoe photography creates, and that there’s no microSD storage option, that makes a big difference. It’s not a cheap way to boost capacity, though: AT&T is asking $199.99 for the 32GB One, or $100 more to double the memory.

Phone, LTE, and Battery

HTC’s BoomSound speaker technology means the One has no problems pushing out in-call audio, and happily performance on AT&T’s network matched up with that. We had no problems keeping a signal, even though HTC squeezes the One’s antennas into the tiny polycarbonate notches in the unibody case, and hardly a dropped call, even in areas where coverage was patchy.

We tested LTE performance in multiple locations where AT&T currently offers service, including New York City, Denver, Wichita, and San Francisco. Speeds ranged from as much as 39Mbps downloads and nearly 19Mbps uploads, location depending, though averaged out at 15.95Mbps down and 7.06Mbps up. In contrast, we saw peeks of 37Mbps down and nearly 11Mbps up on an iPhone 5 using Verizon’s LTE network.

LTE has a reputation for being power hungry, and while the One’s 2,300 mAh battery isn’t small, the fact that it can’t be removed – unlike, say, the battery in Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 – has left some wary of the quadcore smartphone. In practice, we’ve found the One has sufficient legs to last through the day, particularly if its power management systems are turned on. These put data to sleep after periods of extended inactivity, waking them only occasionally to check for new messages and other updates, as well as reducing screen brightness and enabling other frugal systems.

Over the course of a sixteen hour day, then, with a mixture of cellular and WiFi connectivity, we saw roughly 30-percent of the battery left. More patchy use of WiFi saw LTE take a greater toll, with 20-percent left after just over twelve hours. However, even when we forgot to plug the charger in overnight, the One proved frugal, only dropping a few percentage points thanks to the data throttling.

Wrap-Up

Nothing about AT&T’s version of the HTC One has changed our positive impression of the smartphone. In fact, native LTE support for the US has only improved our takeaway opinion: the One is beautifully constructed, slickly designed, fast, has thoughtful software tweaks – a few third-party app UI glitches aside – and a great, flexible camera.

The road ahead for HTC isn’t going to be an easy one. Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 is the specter on the near horizon, and for however much it may offer an evolutionary step up from its Galaxy S III predecessor, it comes with the might of the South Korean company’s prodigious marketing machine (and its equally massive budget). In contrast, the One sees HTC take a far greater risk than it has in recent years – in investment in construction, camera strategy, and software – and, for the most part, that pays off in the quality of the overall device.

The Samsung Galaxy S 4 is, if last year’s model is anything to go by, likely to be the default choice for Android buyers in 2013. However, the HTC One is arguably the more thoughtful choice. In AT&T form, it’s our favorite Android handset of the moment.

AT&T HTC One Review is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Falcon Northwest Tiki is a custom-built pre-constructed gaming PC that emphasizes both a radically small form factor and high performance processing power. We had the opportunity to take a peek at this system thanks to NVIDIA – inside this tiny tower is the newest most fantastic consumer-aimed graphics card on the market: the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN, the consumer product riding the wave of the impact the TITAN supercomputer. We’ll be continuing to explore the ins and outs of the TITAN over the coming year as products such as Project SHIELD become available – for now, this review of the Tiki should serve as a primer for those of you considering a TITAN of your own – and/or a full Falcon Northwest build, of course.

Hardware

The Tiki case is one that those unfamiliar with the intricacies of custom-made computers will easily overlook. It’s certainly not the flashy rainbow LED light show that some gaming PCs opt for – it’s almost as if the Tiki dares those that look at it to ask what the big deal is. Up close and personal, you’ll find that the Tiki boasts a fabulously simple set of aesthetics, a subtly lit Falcon Northwest logo up front, and a granite base.

The granite base we’ve got here is what the company calls “Absolute Black”. While you’ve got more than one color choice if you’d like to explore several shades, we’d certainly recommend the black if you’re working with the straight-up black case – together they’re quite classy. The whole unit is light enough that you’ll be able to transport it to and from LAN parties with ease (if that’s your sort of thing) and is perfectly well balanced due in a large part to the granite – it does its job well.

Getting inside the Tiki is just about as simple as it gets without working with magnets – here you’ll be undoing two thumbscrews and pushing one side off – you’ll want to be careful doing so only because the 120MM Asetek liquid cooler (550LC) is attached to it, tubes running from the casing to the main hunk of the unit. This setup works awesome for getting down into the guts of the machine as quick as possible – the fewer screws we’ve got to deal with for customization, the better.

Inside this setup you’ll find an ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe mini ITX motherboard shining out in all its bluey glory amid the massive monsters that are the high-end components that this amalgamation is made of. We’re working with a 256GB SSD SATA3 (Crucial M4 with M500 available soon from Falcon Northwest – check on that when you’re picking up your own) as well as a 3TB WD “Caviar Green” SATA3 hard drive for all the data storage you could ask for.

Getting inside to remove / replace / give big kisses to your favorite components is only a few screw turns away. While there are wires here or there glued down for the trip between Falcon Northwest’s test shop and your home, they’re easily popped off and apart when you decide you want to move forward with any new components.

The two big monsters inside this build are the 3rd Generation Intel Core i7 processor (overclocked to 3.5GHz), and the 6GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN graphics card. When you’re picking up the TITAN, you’re not looking for a budget setup. You’ve got a beast right out of the box. Again, this isn’t the last time we’ll be working with NVIDIA’s TITAN GPU for video game reviews and cloud gaming action – stick around our NVIDIA tag portal as well as our NVIDIA Tegra hub for the full fireworks through the future.

Once you’re done rummaging around the insides, you’ll find more inputs and outputs than you’ll ever have a need for. The build we’ve got here works with a Sony Optiarc slot load DVD+-RW on top near a a headphone jack, microphone jack, and set of two USB 3.0 ports. You’ll also see a symmetrical set of vents that, when you peek through, you’ll be able to see the side of the TITAN: “GEFORCE GTX” in bright NVIDIA green lights just below the surface – only visible up close.

The back of this machine has its IO panel labels set in upside-down for easy reading whilst looking down over the top – as you’re prone to do with such a desktop. That massive set of connections includes two eSATA ports, four USB 3.0 ports, and four USB 2.0 ports. You’ll also find GigE, ASUS Wifi connections (you’ll get two external antenna in your package from Falcon Northwest), and standard optical and analog audio jacks. Ethernet and processor-powered display outputs DVI, HDMI, and Display Port are also down there if you want to make use of them.

Nearer the top you’ve got two DL-DVI ports as well as HDMI and DisplayPort outputs bringing the heat via your GeForce TITAN GPU. Your power supply (Silverstone ST-45B 450W) sits nearest the bottom on the back. On either side of the case you’ll more airflow action allowing this Tiki setup to remain impressively cool no matter what we throw at it. With that you’ll still be hearing next no noise – you’ll certainly not be having to dismiss a “hum” while you’re enjoying the greatness of the highest powered games on the market – those being the games you’re essentially obligated to test out and work with when you’re rolling with Tiki.

Software and Performance

Under the hood out of the box we’re working with 64bit Windows 8 Professional, and though it’s still a little odd working with this operating system without a touchscreen interface, it’s certainly starting to feel more natural than it did when Microsoft first pushed the system to consumers. That said, the real power here comes from the software we’re using outside the standard Microsoft experience: games, games, and more games. And with a system this size, big-time possibilities!

Steam Big Picture Mode

The size of this system suggests some rather unique use-cases, even before we consider the fact that NVIDIA has some big plans for GeForce and cloud computing in the home this year. The Tiki case isn’t much larger than the average major-label gaming console today, and even compared to what’s coming out later this year (more than likely), you can be confident you’ll have a size-to-power ratio that blows any gaming console out of the water. And unless the Xbox 720 or PlayStation 4 pull some real magic out of their sleeves with regards to digital game distribution soon, Valve’s Steam will continue to be the premiere destination for the universe’s greatest downloadable games.

NVIDIA GeForce Experience

NVIDIA has made some rather interesting strides recently in making sure the average citizen is able to have a top-notch gaming experience. Just this year the GeForce Experience was released – an NVIDIA-powered app interface where a collection of the world’s most fabulous games can have their settings optimized for your unique gaming hardware setup instantly and automatically. NVIDIA has released a new GeForce driver software update for esentially every major game delivered in the first quarter of 2013, each of them able to be accessed via this GeForce Experience with a single button click, a unique game settings interface appearing for you then if you’ve got said game on your computer.

With the automatic settings optimization feature, your games will become as excellent as they possibly can be – both aesthetically and performance-wise. With the Tiki rolling with a GeForce GTX TITAN under the hood and NVIDIA optimizing settings game-to-game, we’ve had nothing but the best gaming experiences we’ve ever seen on a gaming computer.

Right this minute we’ve done just our standard fare as far as benchmarks go, Geekbench showing this build to be amongst the most powerful gaming PCs we’ve reviewed. Also be sure to check out similar results on much larger machines, too: AVADirect Quiet Gaming PC and NEEDLETAIL SX – and have a peek at a couple relatively small machines so you know what the Tiki is up against physical size-wise: MainGear Potenza and iBuyPower Revolt.

Whilst playing Batman: Arkham City, we’ve experienced a been a bit of a re-birth of interest with the much higher-definition display than we used when originally reviewing the game, not to mention a system that’s on a whole different level than the Alienware notebook (pre 3rd-gen Intel Core processors and so-forth). While it’s not that working with a beast like the MX-17 from a couple years ago is a bad thing (it’s actually still quite amazing), there’s just no comparing to the smoothness and detail we’re getting here.

In Hawken the only thing that stops one from having the miraculous non-stop smoothness we’re seeing in Arkham City is the fact that part of our experience is based online. If we’d be working with the connections our friends in Japan have with wires so thick you could drive a truck through them, we’d be golden – here we’ll have to settle for just “destroys all gaming experiences we’ve had before this year.” Have a peek at our first look at Hawken while you’re at it.

Even Star Wars: The Old Republic looks great. As it’s included in NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience list of games that can be optimized for greatness automatically, we certainly had to give it a go. As it turns out, the difference between what you get in this game on a basic level and what NVIDIA can give you is immense. While the gameplay remains the same – you’re still firing blasters at your opponents and rolling in the Force like mad – you can take part in the deepest visual details the developers intended you to see. Just look at that water ripple!

We’ll be continuing to benchmark the build we’ve got here through the future, so be sure to ask if you’ve got any tests you’d like us to run. We’ll be putting this setup through the punches in any and all ways you desire!

Wrap-Up

The Falcon Northwest Tiki is not a machine made for penny-pinchers. If you’re planning on working with any gaming PC packing an NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN GPU, you’re going to be paying quite a chunk of change – this isn’t the sort of situation where you’re paying just a little bit of cash for a just-good-enough helping of performance. Instead you’re going to want to save up for a couple months – the build we’ve gotten from Falcon Northwest here will cost you more than $3k.

You can make your Tiki cost quite a bit less if you don’t want to pack it full of the top-of-the-line components we’ve got here – and you’ll still have an amazing build – but that’s not what NVIDIA’s TITAN brand is about. With the Falcon Northwest Tiki packing NVIDIA’s TITAN, you’ve got a gaming masterpiece, plain and simple.

Falcon Northwest Tiki Review is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The opportunity to design a new, next-generation Corvette doesn’t come along too often, particularly when it’s the iconic Stingray, and so GM has wasted no chances in putting together a car that demands performance benefits from every aesthetic decision. SlashGear caught up with GM at the New York International Auto Show to take a look at the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray coupe and convertible and talk authentic design – inside and out – with the execs responsible for guiding the changes in the new model.

From the outside it’s clearly a Corvette at first glance, but take a longer look and the evolution of the design becomes clear. The 2014 car is 4mm lower than before, as well as being wider and 15mm longer; the wheelbase has increased by an inch, pushing the front wheels forward and giving the car a better footprint and handling, in addition to making it look more composed and aggressive. New lights front and rear, as well as a new collection of vents, perforate the bodywork, which has a new blend of creases and sweep-lines.

Importantly, the design elements aren’t done solely for the sake of appearance, but also invariably serve a performance element too. “You want a compelling design, you want a strong aesthetic” GM’s Kirk Bennion, Exterior Design Manager for Corvette, told us. “We try to do things where, okay, this gives us a new look that we like, we think it’s attractive, but if we can also benefit with some functionality then it’s a double win. We like to do that with Corvette especially.”

So, the front grill and the hood vents aren’t just for show, but sit at either end of a new, ducted extractor that feeds cool air across the radiator. That itself has taken on a whole new angle: where Corvette radiators of old went from upright to leaning back, Bennion explained, the 2014 model actually tips its radiator forward, into the flow of air. Each of the grill blades in the hood sits at its own, specific angle for the best flow.

That’s not the only trick ducting. The 2014 Stingray sees the return of intakes on top of the rear arches, sitting on the long swathe line that runs from the back of the car, down the shoulder-line, and blends in interesting angles with the hood and arch creases. They’re not for cooling the brakes, but instead are the rear trans and diff coolers, which are just visible through the upright outlet vents at the back of the car. They also saw GM’s engineers take on the challenge of delivering a huge eight cubic meters of air per minute through each intake, while simultaneously avoiding debris. Side vents – finished in carbon-fiber – are also fully-functional, delivering a reduction in drag as well as cooling benefits.

Like many other recent cars, the 2014 Corvette Stingray makes ample use of LED lighting; however, GM has taken a few new approaches in how it implements those lamps. Up front, there’s a new single, bi-functional headlamp with daytime running lights replacing separate fog lamps. That’s something we’ve seen on models from Audi and others, but GM has played with the positioning and angles of the LEDs to make the lighting more consistent.

“We wanted to avoid ‘carnival light’ spacing” Bannion told us, referring to the tendency for LED lamps to look like a string of individual bulbs rather than a solid bar of light. “We really worked hard to keep the LEDs close together, to diffuse the light.” To do that, the LEDs are actually downward-firing, into a diffuser lens that smooths out the individual brightness of each into a consistent whole. They’re set next to a stack of amber LEDs for the turn signals, which also blend together into a solid lozenge of light, and everything is embedded into a black stainless steel assembly which creates interesting reflections depending on the angle from which you’re looking at the car.

That same attention to detail is continued at the rear of the car. GM has stuck with the dual-element tail lamps that have been a feature of Corvettes since 1961, but it has used the same downward-firing LED technology as on the headlamps for some extra visual flourish. “The technology here again is indirect LEDs, so the LEDs are horizontal, they’re throwing the light down into the cavity, for even-lit appearance. They kinda avoid having the spottiness” Bannion explained. “Also, with the lamps being three-dimensional, is very new for the car as well.”

The result is a car that treads the line between classic and contemporary, just as GM expects a Corvette Stingray buyer to demand. “They’re still dual-almond shape, but we really felt we needed to break tradition, have a car that’s more distinctive, more unique at night” Bannion pointed out. “There’s a lot going on with lighting technology right now, and you can see manufacturers are doing more and more to have their cars be seen, or be seen as exclusive with the night-time signature.”

It’s when you’re inside that the changes are most obvious, however, particularly if you’ve ever found yourself behind the wheel of a previous-gen Corvette. The dashboard and seats are less of an afterthought compared to the exterior, Helen Emsley, Interior Design Director for Performance Cars at GM, told us. So, the 2014 dash is more like a jet-fighter cockpit, surrounding the driver in an arc of controls and gages. Those gages have been redesigned for the new Corvette Stingray, with a choice of digital and analog views in the 8-inch instrument binnacle, and variations according to which of the three driving modes – touring, sport, and track – the car is currently set to.

Just as the exterior design has sought to make aesthetic details serve a functional purpose, so part of Emsley’s focus with the new Corvette has been to make the interior more authentic. “This is a Corvette. If it’s metal, if it’s aluminum, it should be real – it is real aluminum. If it’s carbon fiber, it’s real carbon fiber,” she explained to us. “It was very important to us that we show real, authentic materials.”

That approach has continued over to the passenger seat, with Emsley saying that GM wanted to make the 2014 Corvette Stingray just as much of an experience for the person not driving. So, the “co-driver” gets a separate interior, in Emsley’s words, a second cockpit arch with their own speed gage and heating controls. Materials all round have taken a step up in quality, with hard surfaces replaced by soft-finish plastics and contrast-stitched leather. In fact, GM has even cooked up two new, exclusive leather colors for the Corvette: black may well be the most popular, Emsley concedes, but the new beige and new red finishes are expected to draw some buyer attention, along with the existing black & grey and black & dark brown options.

Everywhere you look there are thoughtful design decisions, showing just how much consideration the GM team has put into the interior of the new car. Recognizing that many Corvette buyers want to replace the standard seats with more sports-focused alternatives, Emsley points out, GM will offer a choice of two styles with the 2014 model: either the normal touring seats, or special sports seats as a cost-option. More mundane – but no less important – considerations like storage have been addressed in clever ways, too, like a sizeable storage cubby hidden behind an 8-inch motorized drop-down infotainment display.

The Stingray convertible – which made its North American debut at the New York show – is certainly beautiful, but those who opt for the coupe also get a choice of roofs. Three targa tops are on offer: the standard, carbon-fiber roof which is painted to match the body; a premium version which is left in exposed carbon; and a polycarbonate version which is translucent, allowing more light into the cockpit. There’ll also be various body/performance packages, such as the Z51 with its tall rear spoiler – helping reduce lift – and larger wheels.

All in, it’s a suitably considered approach to what’s undoubtedly a muscle-car icon. “When you think of the opportunity, every time you get to do a new next-generation Corvette, you realize that there has to be certain calculated moves in order for it to be seen as the next-generation, and that’s why we felt we needed to make some of these changes” exterior design chief Bannion told us. Throw in a new LT1 6.2L V8 engine capable of 450 HP and 450 kb-ft of torque, and you’ve got performance that matches the great looks, too. The new 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray will go on sale this fall, in both coupe and convertible versions.

2014 Corvette Stingray: GM talks authentic design is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.