Hasta La Gadget!

How would you feel about a little Android 2.3.5 (!) action on that Nexus S 4G of yours? What about some WiMAX performance improvements? You should be getting all that plus WiFi connectivity and speakerphone quality tweaks, along with TTY support on Monday July 25th, which is when Sprint is expected to begin rolling out an OTA update for Samsung’s pure Gingerbread handset. We were given an exclusive first look at the new software, and while it’s still being finalized, we tested it side-by-side with the original, and our results show a welcome increase in 4G speeds across the board. As you may remember, we observed repeatable WiMAX performance issues with the old software, so this update is excellent news indeed. The amount of improvement will likely depend on your locale, but even in signal-challenged San Francisco and New York we noticed the difference right away — so kudos to Google, Samsung, and Sprint for addressing this. We also experienced performance in-line with our Epic 4G — the benchmark device used for our initial testing with the previous firmware version. Take a look at our gallery below, and peek at our hands-on video after the break.

Zach Honig contributed to this report.

Continue reading Sprint readies Nexus S 4G update with improved WiMAX performance, we go hands-on (video)

Sprint readies Nexus S 4G update with improved WiMAX performance, we go hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jul 2011 13:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Qualcomm’s not exactly a novice when it comes to sizing up phones — it’s already responsible for the graphics benchmark Neocore. Now, it also wants to show you just how much your mobile browser is lagging. The company just introduced Vellamo, a suite of 11 tests designed to gauge browser performance on Android phones and tablets. In case you’re curious, it takes its name from the Finnish goddess of the sea who lures away sailors web surfers (Qualcomm’s joke, not ours). And yes, it’ll work with any device running Android 2.0 or above, even if it doesn’t pack a Qualcomm-made processor. These tests span four broad categories — rendering, JavaScript, user experience, and networking — with only two requiring an internet connection (even then, you can cherry pick specific tests to run). We took it for a spin on our aging, Froyo-packing, Motorola Droid, whose score of 237 landed at the very bottom of the list of results, far behind tablets and newer handsets. (As of this writing, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 took the cake.) Curious to see how your device ranks? Hit the source link to download the free APK file.

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Continue reading Qualcomm launches Vellamo browser benchmark for Android devices

Qualcomm launches Vellamo browser benchmark for Android devices originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jul 2011 18:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve already established that the N9 is a delight of a phone, both inside and out, but our hands-on time with Nokia’s new flagship gave us only a brief look at its camera performance. Now the company is graciously filling that gap in our knowledge with some further disclosure about its new 8 megapixel imager, including the lofty claim that the N9 is the fastest phone yet when it comes to capturing an image — ousting the likes of the iPhone 4, the Galaxy S II, and even the Canon S95, perhaps the best pocket camera around at the moment. Measuring the time taken from activating the camera app to the completion of the first shot, the N9 clocks in at 2.6 seconds, whereas Apple’s latest does it in 3 seconds and Samsung’s takes a split second more. Aside from its speed, the N9 has Carl Zeiss optics, a wide F2.2 max aperture, dual-LED flash, continuous autofocus, and a 720/30p video mode to boast about, but the benefits of those items will need to be experienced first hand. So Nokia, when are you shipping this thing?

Nokia claims N9 is ‘the fastest image-capturing phone’ yet originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Jun 2011 05:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on January 19, 2008 by CyberNet.

One user over at the Futuremark forum decided to do an unofficial speed comparison of Vista SP1 vs. XP SP2, and in the end he was pleasantly surprised by Vista’s performance. Here’s a rundown on some of the results:

• File extraction (extracting 3.9GB RAR with WinRAR)
• Vista: 2min 16sec
• XP: 2min 22sec
• Program load times
• Vista:
  Photoshop CS3: 2 secs
  OpenOffice: 1.5 secs
  Crysis: 26 secs
• XP:
  Photoshop CS3: 8.5 secs
  OpenOffice: 6.5 secs
  Crysis: 33 secs
• Crysis GPU-test (1280×1024)
• Vista (”High”, DX10, 64-bit): 35fps
• Vista (”High”, DX9, 64-bit): 37fps
• Vista (”High”, DX10, 32-bit): 35fps
• Vista (”High”, DX9, 32-bit): 36fps
• XP (”High”): 39fps

He did more tests, but I summed up the most important ones. Generally Vista took home the crown, except in the gaming arena. When it came to computer games, such as Crysis, Vista was no match for what XP had to offer.

He concluded his results with a chart of what a difference having SuperFetch enabled in Vista makes. As many of you know Vista uses a new technology called SuperFetch to store your most used programs and data into memory when your computer starts up. I’ve had several people ask how they can disable the feature, but maybe these startup times (in seconds) will make you think otherwise:

–Facts from Microsoft–

Bill Gates announced back in January that there are over 100 million copies of Vista on computers that are being used around the world, and that’s a pretty big milestone for the young operating system. Over the last year Microsoft has been able to collect some significant stats in hopes of persuading more users to make the upgrade to Vista, many of which were collected from participants of the Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program. Here’s an overview of their findings:

• Majority of Windows Vista-based PCs boot in less than a minute.
• Majority of all Windows Vista-based PCs resume from sleep in less than 6 seconds.
• Windows ReadyBoost is a terrific new innovation in Windows Vista that lets you speed up your system in seconds, and PCs running Windows Vista that are equipped with 512 MB memory experience a performance boost of up to 40 percent.
• Windows Vista users generally experience 20 percent fewer application “hangs” than those running Windows XP.
• Based on their first 180 days of availability, Windows Vista has been shown to have fewer vulnerabilities than Windows XP or Mac OS X 10.4.
• Windows Vista security has improved so much that PCs running it are 60 percent less likely to be infected with viruses, worms, and rootkits than PCs running Windows XP SP2.
• And Windows Vista-based PCs are over 90 percent less likely to be infected than systems running Windows XP without a Service Pack.
• Windows Vista-based PCs are almost three times less likely to be infected with potentially unwanted software than Windows XP-based PCs because of Vista shipping with Windows Defender.
• Internet Explorer 7 is now blocking nearly 1 million attempts to access these fake sites per week. New phishing attacks are more than 25 times as common as new viruses. That’s right, over 20,000 of these fake websites are created every month.

Out of all those stats I would have to say that the most impressive is the one about phishing protection in Internet Explorer 7. I would have never guessed that it protects a million attempts to access phishing sites every week, and I’m glad that I’ve upgraded all of the “computer illiterate” people I know to that version. Because they are likely the ones who would fall for the scams.

[via WinBeta here and here]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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