Hasta La Gadget!

Is there a tribunal where you can bring up marketing teams for crimes against common sense? NVIDIA’s epic rebranding exercise knows no bounds, as the company has now snuck out its very first desktop 300-series cards, but instead of the world-altering performance parts we’ve always associated with the jump into the 300s, we’re getting what are essentially GT 2xx cards in new garb. The GT 340 sports the same 96 CUDA cores, 550MHz graphics and 1,340MHz processor clock speeds as the GT 240 — its spec sheet is literally identical to the 240 variant with 1,700MHz memory clocks. To be fair to the company, these DirectX 10.1 parts are exclusively for OEMs, so (hopefully) nobody there will be confused into thinking a GT 320 is better than a GTX 295, but we’d still prefer a more lucid nomenclature… and Fermi graphics cards, we’d totally like some of those too.

NVIDIA GeForce GT 340 highlights introduction of 300-series cards, none are powerful enough to matter originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Electronista, Fudzilla  |  NVIDIA  | Email this | Comments

We know 3D isn’t for everyone, but if you’ve got your heart set on jumping that bandwagon nice and early, here’s a review for you. The folks over at Tom’s Guide have sat down with 23-inch 3D displays from Acer (GD235HZ) and Alienware (OptX AW2310) and sought to figure which one offers the better gaming experience. After some sobering notes about the need for a high end system to run 3D games — NVIDIA’s 3D Vision solution renders each scene twice, meaning you’ll need as much power to drive one 3D screen as you would a dual-monitor setup — they delve right into some benchmarking and real world testing. The key differentiator between the two panels is in the price, with the GD235HZ costing $399 and the AW2310 asking for a steeper $469, though on balance it was felt that the Alienware justified its premium with a superior feature set and better overall performance. Hit the source for the full verdict.

[Thanks, Ben]

Acer GD235HZ and Alienware OptX AW2310 do battle in 3D HD monitor faceoff originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Tom’s Guide  | Email this | Comments

We got a few minutes today to check out the latest build on Notion Ink’s Adam prototype that we first saw back at CES. Like we heard a week or so ago, there will indeed be two versions of the Adam — one which will be 12.9 mm thick and boast the Pixel Qi 3Qi e-paper screen, and another, thinner, non-Pixel Qi screen. The thinner, lighter version will measure in at 11.6 mm thick. As far as we know, the only difference in the two Tegra-powered Adams will be the display, and we also hear they are shooting for a third quarter of 2010 launch. The prototype on hand at MWC was not working, so one of the Adam’s developers was kind enough to shoot a demo video of a working unit for us (and its Flash support) — which is after the break.

Continue reading Notion Ink Adam hands-on (with video) at MWC 2010

Notion Ink Adam hands-on (with video) at MWC 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

HP promised us a mobile workstation refresh in February, and sure enough, today we are staring down the retail pages for its quartet of upgraded business laptops. The new top of the line EliteBook models come in 14- (8440p/w) and 15.6-inch (8540p/w) varieties, with the w-appended models sporting appropriately beefed up NVIDIA Quadro FX graphics with up to 1GB of dedicated GDDR5. If you want to grab one for under a grand, you’ll have to make do with the reasonably powerful Core i5-520M / 2GB DDR3 RAM combo, but we’re most excited by the future customization options, which include a low-voltage Core i7-820QM CPU with 8MB of internal cache, up to 16GB of RAM, and up to 256GB in SSD storage. Course, we can’t put prices to these spectacular beasts just yet, as HP is still only offering preconfigured rigs, but we think it’ll be less than five figures.

[Thanks, Jared]

HP’s 8440 and 8540 EliteBooks ready to ship with Core i7 inside originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  HP (8440p), (8440w), (8540p), (8540w)  | Email this | Comments

You could say 3D has hit the mainstream computer today (or something similarly bombastic and partially untrue), as Acer has just released its GD235HZ 120Hz LCD, specially prepped for working with NVIDIA’s 3D Vision active-shutter glasses system. The 23.6-inch, 16:9 display retails for $399, and while it’s going to be great for 3D gaming for the next few months until you grow bored of Avatar and frustrated by Left 4 Dead 2, the 1920 x 1080 resolution is going to really come in handy once the first crop of 3D Blu-ray movies starts hitting. Of course, the NVIDIA 3D Vision kit is sold separately for $199, and requires a compatible NVIDIA card, but that’s a small price to pay for total spatial immersion, right? PR is after the break.

Continue reading Acer’s GD235HZ 23.6-inch 3D display is ready for your glasses-equipped exploits

Acer’s GD235HZ 23.6-inch 3D display is ready for your glasses-equipped exploits originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments