tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58039931887167993932024-03-17T20:03:05.791-07:00Hard and Software PlusComponent reviews from Hard and Software Plus. Expert verdicts on the latest motherboards, graphics cards, processors, hard drives, coolers and more.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.comBlogger451125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-39189663552045767552015-02-14T14:06:00.003-08:002015-02-14T14:06:55.957-08:00Comodo Antivirus 8<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgID_fEqQ5z0QJ6tK7JjlZZvXiV1zwMzzPyjzE1TckPG5MiDQUIP5YH0PMqy1HMNydU9Su1V3wMQuMevI46pR5_SUzCyPmL6GUQLuXPVfQcliLS0qgk-Qav2sRUUxtRQ5cE5OUm0VUHIpw/s1600/comodo-antivirus-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Comodo Antivirus 8" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgID_fEqQ5z0QJ6tK7JjlZZvXiV1zwMzzPyjzE1TckPG5MiDQUIP5YH0PMqy1HMNydU9Su1V3wMQuMevI46pR5_SUzCyPmL6GUQLuXPVfQcliLS0qgk-Qav2sRUUxtRQ5cE5OUm0VUHIpw/s1600/comodo-antivirus-8.jpg" height="234" title="Comodo Antivirus 8" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Comodo Antivirus is a powerful anti-malware program that keeps your PC safe from known and unknown (potential) threats. It offers real-time and on-demand protection, and gives you a choice of scans - Quick, Full, Rating (which checks the trustworthiness of files on your computer against a cloud database) and Custom.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As is the case with most recent software releases, Comodo Antivirus 8's interface has had a makeover and now features a flatter, more modern design. The Advanced Settings window has been redesigned, too, to make it easier to understand.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
If you download a program that you’re not completely certain is safe (even though Comodo Antivirus says It’s clean), you can run it sandboxed. This prevents the application from interfering with your PC should it suddenly start displaying worrying behaviour. The latest version adds an auto-sandboxing option which can be configured in various ways and isolates risky programs by default. The interface also contains a useful target area that you can drop files or folders onto, so Comodo can check whether they're infected or not.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Another useful feature is Viruscope, which monitors running processes for malicious activity and lets you reverse any potentially undesirable actions. This tool is now enabled by default and covers more activities than in previous versions, including those from sandboxed applications. It works more efficiently, too.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Finally, Comodo Antivirus 8 now sends logged events to the Windows Event Logs folder on your PC, which might come in handy if you use these logs to troubleshoot problems.</div>
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<b><a href="http://adf.ly/128PNL" target="_blank">Download Comodo Antivirus 8 free version </a></b></div>
Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-53442464778024299752015-02-13T08:42:00.001-08:002015-02-13T08:42:07.576-08:00D-Link DIR-868L Router Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDI2kdbSl-tTOkOWqK4ZPCjXYbyHLiAmLNs3zSo-bjp-qVp7Jg_6sKyfYebLQ_QekOY9YxZ9exGQyRfadJEKtummwlx811a8Xr-TDoXnw5HrDIjMt8bWs1_n1hyphenhyphen-mJNLqb_3QxtQ2lmlU/s1600/D-Link+DIR-868L+router.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="D-Link DIR-868L Router Review" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDI2kdbSl-tTOkOWqK4ZPCjXYbyHLiAmLNs3zSo-bjp-qVp7Jg_6sKyfYebLQ_QekOY9YxZ9exGQyRfadJEKtummwlx811a8Xr-TDoXnw5HrDIjMt8bWs1_n1hyphenhyphen-mJNLqb_3QxtQ2lmlU/s1600/D-Link+DIR-868L+router.jpg" height="320" title="D-Link DIR-868L Router Review" width="286" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The D-Link DIR-868L’S glossy, cylindrical shape is an unusual look for a router, but this gives it a small footprint so it can easily fit on even a narrow shelf.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It’s simple to set up and provides a handy wizard to guide you through the process. The secure passwords for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks come pre-configured. However, the rest of the interface has a lot of tabs and sub-menus, which can be confusing, though some configuration can be done through an optional app (available for Android and iOS).</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The router doesn't have an ADSL modem built-in, so you'll need a cable connection or an existing Ethernet modem or router to connect to its WAN port. All its Ethernet ports are Gigabit speed, which means they have a theoretical maximum speed of 1,000Mbps. The device has a USB3 port on the back, which can be used to share music, video or any other type of file via USB storage. Sharing can be done through the mobile app, either locally or via the internet, though the latter requires you to sign up for a free Mydlink account.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Both 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks can operate simultaneously and the router supports all Wi-Fi standards up to 802.11ac. Using our test laptops integrated 802.11n adapter, the 2.4GHz network reached 33.6Mbps at a range of 10m, dropping to 6.3Mbps at 25m. This is underwhelming, and only the tenth fastest among this group. However, performance improved dramatically on the 5GHz network where the D-Link router came top in all our tests. At 10m it reached 209.7Mbps. while at 25m it reached 97.9Mbps. Performance improved further when using D-Link’s own DWA-182 USB3 adapter (£38 from <a href="http://www.ballicom.co.uk/">www.ballicom.co.uk</a>), with 802.11n speeds of 256.3Mbps (10m) and 195.7Mbps (25m); and 802.11ac speeds of 362.2Mbps (10m) and 256.3Mbps (25m). It's worth shopping around for this router because the price varies wildly, selling for over £100 in some places, but available for as little as £65.97 from <a href="http://www.dabs.com/">www.dabs.com</a> at the time of writing, which is an absolute bargain.</div>
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ILH5FHW/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00ILH5FHW&linkCode=as2&tag=fianheatho-20&linkId=OG2YTWLAPKIINTJW">Dir868l - Wireless Ac 1750 Db Cloud Gig</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=fianheatho-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00ILH5FHW" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-71601451511834616272015-02-12T11:24:00.000-08:002015-02-12T11:24:40.075-08:00Don't let Twitter spy on your apps<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzwEpHmPkbH9UqDoaYGSpTri91sNK_YIzBumggG3jNnHXxomMXHZTDYmA_i7zmt-LoBIDtdAs6v6ECOSa4o2zqKDm5woc2Vg41S9hsaFz5gHd_qhkXWKBmpq6BtfyLlxiVyBebJVxZ5ck/s1600/twitter-logo_22.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Don't let Twitter spy on your apps" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzwEpHmPkbH9UqDoaYGSpTri91sNK_YIzBumggG3jNnHXxomMXHZTDYmA_i7zmt-LoBIDtdAs6v6ECOSa4o2zqKDm5woc2Vg41S9hsaFz5gHd_qhkXWKBmpq6BtfyLlxiVyBebJVxZ5ck/s1600/twitter-logo_22.png" title="Don't let Twitter spy on your apps" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Twitter's recent announcement that it will monitor which apps you have on your phone and tablet has annoyed many people Using its new 'app graph' feature, Twitter will try to work out what content - including 'promoted' tweets - you would like to see in your timeline, based on the apps you use. It will also suggest people to follow. If you don’t like the idea of that happening, disable the feature by <a href="http://bit.ly/twit360" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">following Twitter’s instructions</a>.</div>
Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-8255504599479915532015-02-11T10:37:00.000-08:002015-02-11T10:37:08.174-08:00Get 100GB of free OneDrive storage thanks to this loophole<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqBPkA2zYUs_T2ygujCx6h3AECGYBnZBM83I4EJqzoJLHnfQQq4wNQfDngCfUzivvlqZj8HRyJKrMBMZ6xSu73ASCC5qMHUtxMeicasj_v-VbMHTN-RKLywI3rlpCIx2kJ3C4uZdXble0/s1600/onedrive-970-80.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Get 100GB of free OneDrive storage thanks to this loophole" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqBPkA2zYUs_T2ygujCx6h3AECGYBnZBM83I4EJqzoJLHnfQQq4wNQfDngCfUzivvlqZj8HRyJKrMBMZ6xSu73ASCC5qMHUtxMeicasj_v-VbMHTN-RKLywI3rlpCIx2kJ3C4uZdXble0/s1600/onedrive-970-80.jpg" height="183" title="Get 100GB of free OneDrive storage thanks to this loophole" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Microsoft is attempting to entice more users to eventually use Office 365 and Windows 10 by offering 100GB of OneDrive storage completely free of charge for two years.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Users can take advantage of the offer through the Bing Rewards scheme, although no Bing credits will be deducted from your account and the only catch is that you must agree to receive promotional emails from the Redmond-based firm.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For now the offer is only open to customers in the United States and TechRadar Pro did reach out to Microsoft to find out whether it will be offered in other countries, but at the time of writing we hadn't heard anything back.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
However, use freely available VPN software to change your IP address to a US one and you will be able to get the deal. Chrome users can use Hola or Zenmate.</div>
<br />
<h3>
Make it cheaper with Office 365</h3>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
After the two years, Microsoft will be hoping that users decide to continue with the 100GB plan that costs $1.99 (about £1.31, or AU$2.56) per month, working out at approximately $24 (around £16 or AU$31 across the whole year.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
OneDrive and OneDrive for Business users can already blast that charge out of the water by subscribing to the Office 365 service, where you get unlimited cloud storage as part of the plan you're on.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Once the free two years are up, buying an Office 365 Personal subscription is by far the cheapest way to get unlimited OneDrive storage with a one-year subscription coming in at <a href="http://www.cclonline.com/product/147947/QQ2-00038/Office-Software/Microsoft-Office-365-Personal/SFT0536/?siteID=TnL5HPStwNw-GxpzPepjf7WqGcY0Y2vFCw" target="_blank">less than £50 at CCL</a>.</div>
Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-89689055410718292132015-01-29T13:32:00.000-08:002015-01-29T13:49:07.827-08:00Solid-State Drives Go 3D<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoiKnMIoDvRIcUwPxIMORiYnCdoyxwbJSOXdEjyYUEBEiLtDQ6Ih2JzyuGSQkBYc8MRPPeJQIJ1kxCxxrTllRlhlEYzcr6ERtxCHzWlTTHVO4e0BNa3Q81pWFrUhX6iLtqeNWhPdDPDlo/s1600/sony-ssd-850.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Solid-State Drives Go 3D - samsung ssd 850" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoiKnMIoDvRIcUwPxIMORiYnCdoyxwbJSOXdEjyYUEBEiLtDQ6Ih2JzyuGSQkBYc8MRPPeJQIJ1kxCxxrTllRlhlEYzcr6ERtxCHzWlTTHVO4e0BNa3Q81pWFrUhX6iLtqeNWhPdDPDlo/s1600/sony-ssd-850.jpg" height="243" title="Solid-State Drives Go 3D - samsung ssd 850" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Samsung was first to the 3D <br />
punch with its 850-series SSDs. <br />
Intel, Micron, and Toshiba are hot on its heels.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">Is 2015 the year of 3D ssDs? It will certainly see the SSD war hotting up, as Intel and Micron have teamed up against Samsung in the battle of 3D NAND memory and mighty tech empires. The most immediate impact of 3D memory will be a dramatic increase in drive capacities and in turn a major tumble in the bucks-pergigabyte metric. Solid-state drives should get both bigger and cheaper. Great.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Much like the stacked RAM coming to graphics memory, slabs of the NAND silicon that goes into SSDs is being built up in layers and linked with billions of pillars or connections.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Samsung was first to the punch in late 2014 with its Samsung 850 Pro and 850 EVO, which are just hitting store shelves as we go to press. Its 32-layer NAND comes in MLC densities of 86Gb and TLC densities of 128Gb per chip. The partnership between Intel and Micron, meanwhile, is set to produce far bigger MLC and TLC densities of 256Gb and 384Gb, respectively. That makes for dies with 32GB and 48GB capacities. The South Korean tech giant isn’t going to just let that fly, however. A new generation of Samsung’s V-NAND tech is expected in the second half of 2015. We anticipate some seriously highcapacity goodies at its SSD Summit later this year.</div><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">Having such high-density NAND modules means companies will be able to produce much higher capacity SSDs at affordable prices. Intel even expects 10TB SSDs within the next couple of years. When that happens, the current enthusiast paradigm of an SSD as boot and application drive paired with magnetic drives for mass storage may fade away rapidly. We’ll be going pure solid state.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The big SSD guys aren’t the only ones making the switch, either. Toshiba has started work on moving its 2D NAND fab in Mie, Japan, to 3D NAND production and is expecting to be shipping products in 2016.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">All of which means the next 12 months or so is looking a lot more exciting than last year for SSD tech in general. Sure, we had the first stirrings of the new M.2 and SATA Express interfaces in 2014. But the latter is looking increasingly stillborn. As for the former, it feels very much like the interface of choice for the future. However, we’re still waiting for it to deliver on its full promise.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">That’s because so far we’ve only seen half of the technical package promised by M.2—the high-bandwidth PCI Express part. What we’re still waiting for is the new NVMe control protocol. NVMe is a whole new control interface that’s designed from the ground up for SSDs. It replaces the magnetic driveoptimized AHCI protocol and should boost random access performance dramatically.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Put it all together, then, and this year promises to become a perfect storm of SSD technology. Cheaper and yet much more capacious drives will be enabled by 3D memory. Then PCI Express and NVMe will supercharge performance in terms of both peak throughput and random access. So that’s better, cheaper, faster. It’s the PC doing what it does best, all over again.</div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-59421591227927368852015-01-29T08:43:00.001-08:002015-01-29T13:41:47.629-08:00Asus Sabertooth Z97 Mark S review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDHRBprObj4Gct0BPRinWfwbEDeNHpc2DjzA-qhUq-SjPt2clRXakxtL6GDwIWZJX6oEC1-kXMWaDj2sF5jRFIRcOitbA2sgkyiySQN1rWZrpuBdASOciC03T-5kqvvxyPbNT7u8q_B2U/s1600/Asus+Sabertooth+Z97+Mark+S-1200-80.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Asus Sabertooth Z97 Mark S review" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDHRBprObj4Gct0BPRinWfwbEDeNHpc2DjzA-qhUq-SjPt2clRXakxtL6GDwIWZJX6oEC1-kXMWaDj2sF5jRFIRcOitbA2sgkyiySQN1rWZrpuBdASOciC03T-5kqvvxyPbNT7u8q_B2U/s1600/Asus+Sabertooth+Z97+Mark+S-1200-80.jpg" height="179" title="Asus Sabertooth Z97 Mark S review" width="320" /></a></div><br />
So, you want to stand out from the crowd and build an all-white PC? Well let's see how far you can get.<br />
<br />
Case, no problem. Many case manufacturers make them. PSU? Check. There's a few of those around as well. Graphics card? Tick. Harder to find but there are one or two available. White motherboard?<br />
<br />
Well, that's much more of a problem, sir.<br />
<br />
White motherboards are like the Holy Grail of the modding world. In fact, giving it some serious thought, we can only think of two board manufacturers that ever ventured into the expensive world of producing white PCBs: Sapphire and Soyo. Hold on, ancient Abit made one too, so that's three.<br />
<br />
And mentioning those last two long-forgotten names will give you an idea of how long ago it was.<br />
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<br />
<b>Battle ready</b><br />
<br />
All is not lost however because Asus has come to the rescue with a limited edition white version of its Z97 Sabertooth motherboard. The Sabertooth Mark S (which carried the codename Sabranco for a while) is an absolute stunner, too.<br />
<br />
It may seem a little shallow to get excited about how a motherboard looks, but it must be said that even this cynical old hack cracked a smile and must tip his hat in approval at just how classy the Mark S looks.<br />
<br />
The Mark S isn't an unrelenting sea of white, however, as the TUF Sabertooth 'thermal armour' sports a natty white and grey camo scheme, beloved of Arctic-based Special Forces teams and Battlefield 4 players alike.<br />
<br />
It's up to you to decide whether this enhances the white PCB or makes you wish Asus had gone the whole hog and made everything just plain white, we're still not sure.<br />
<br />
Even the reinforced back plate, or TUF Fortifier technology as Asus calls it, gets the camo treatment.<br />
<br />
But, why oh why Asus, do you go and compromise the scheme by adding a couple of green and beige ports when every other port and slot is black?<br />
<br />
<b>Benchmarks</b><br />
<br />
<b>CPU rendering performance</b><br />
Cinebench R15 - Index score: higher is better<br />
Asus Z97 Sabertooth Mark S - 756<br />
ASRock Z97 Extreme 4 - 778<br />
Gigabyte Z97X-SLI - 746<br />
<br />
<b>CPU encoding performance</b><br />
X264 v4.0 - Avg FPS: higher is better<br />
Asus Z97 Sabertooth Mark S - 45.69<br />
ASRock Z97 Extreme 4 - 47.12<br />
Gigabyte Z97X-SLI - 45.32<br />
<br />
<b>Sequential storage performance</b><br />
AS SSD - Reads (MB/s): higher is better<br />
Asus Z97 Sabertooth Mark S - 502<br />
ASRock Z97 Extreme 4 - 480<br />
Gigabyte Z97X-SLI - 482<br />
<br />
<b>4k storage performance</b><br />
AS SSD - 4k reads (MB/s): higher is better<br />
Asus Z97 Sabertooth Mark S - 24<br />
ASRock Z97 Extreme 4 - 21<br />
Gigabyte Z97X-SLI - 20<br />
<br />
Hardware-wise the board follows the lead of the Sabertooth Mark 1; two PCIe 3.0 x16 slots running at x16 with a single graphics card, or x8/x8 when two cards are used. Connectivity extends to a single PCIe 2.0 x4 slot which sits near the bottom of the board and another three PCIe x1 slots.<br />
<br />
Six edge-mounted SATA 6Gbps ports are supported by the chipset along with a SATA Express port. A further two SATA 6Gbps ports placed towards the base of the board are looked after by an ASMedia controller.<br />
<br />
One thing notable by its absence is the chipset-supported M.2 slot. But pull off the 'thermal armour' and it becomes plain why it doesn't feature – there's simply no room.<br />
<br />
Asus' TUF range is all about cooling flexibility and thermal monitoring, and one look at the Thermal Radar 2 section in the Asus software AI Suite shows it isn't mucking around.<br />
<br />
It's probably the most comprehensive thermal management package available of any motherboard currently available, with no less than 13 pages of settings that enable you to tinker with just about everything on the board, cooling wise.<br />
<br />
A quick word about the dust prevention package Asus has included in the box; that word is comprehensive. If it's a port and it's not being used, there's a rubber bung for it, but keeping with the overall scheme, the covers for the spare PCIe and memory slots are coloured white.<br />
<br />
The problem is that the special edition premium adds a special premium amount onto the price tag.<br />
<br />
That wouldn't be an issue if there was the sort of feature set you get with the expensive RoG boards, or the same benchmark levels. Unfortunately the whitewash aesthetic is what you're paying for here, not some beefed-up PC performance.<br />
<br />
<b>We liked</b><br />
<br />
The general snowbound aesthetic may be an acquired taste, but for our money it looks fantastic. With the right Stormtrooper white chassis, and a large Perspex side panel, this could help make up the Heart of Gold-style PC of your dreams.<br />
<br />
<b>We disliked</b><br />
<br />
We understand it's a limited edition board designed for a specific audience, but surely they're going to want all the PCIe-based storage the Republic of Gamers guys get.<br />
<br />
And you're not getting the sort of performance numbers that something like the Asus Republic of Gamers Maximus VI Hero can offer.<br />
<br />
Neither feature-set nor performance would be so much of an issue if it wasn't so darned expensive…<br />
<br />
<b>Verdict</b><br />
<br />
In the end, if you're after a white-washed motherboard to complete your perfect PC modification then you'll be able to overlook its deficiencies. But for the rest of us the Sabertooth Z97 Mark S simply doesn't offer enough to justify its cost.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-87401612174805345402014-04-22T03:34:00.000-07:002014-04-22T03:34:32.970-07:00Android leaps to the top of the tablet market<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipySxPOJ73alG3cyJVVWhVUx1he2e1EKjLDIYgadK1bJs3McEpdDtdz0FygUJ1YlvH0fwKZ3j8qBhBjOeXoftjDjcek12uiqU7NYlA0Cr3Z6TZZraSH9Plqwjx_b3IssNMJTqgiqgXMrg/s1600/nexus-7-2013.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Android leaps to the top of the tablet market" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipySxPOJ73alG3cyJVVWhVUx1he2e1EKjLDIYgadK1bJs3McEpdDtdz0FygUJ1YlvH0fwKZ3j8qBhBjOeXoftjDjcek12uiqU7NYlA0Cr3Z6TZZraSH9Plqwjx_b3IssNMJTqgiqgXMrg/s1600/nexus-7-2013.jpeg" title="Android leaps to the top of the tablet market" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Nexus 7 still remains one of the most popular Android tablets today. Despite strong sales from the iPad mini, Apple’s marketshare has still dropped by 16%</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The iPad has long been at the pinnacle of tablet sales, helping Apple take a commanding lead over Android sales – until now. A recent report by research firm Gartner has shown Android to surpass Apple and become the number one operating system in terms of tablet sales. The Android operating system now equates for 62% of all tablets sold across the world, with a total of 121 million tablets sold in 2013. This is a massive jump from the 57 million sold worldwide in 2012. This is compared to Apple, who has seen its total tablet sales last year fall to 70 million and its overall market share drop to 36%.</div>
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Analysts at Gartner have found the large number of quality budget tablets that run the Android OS to be a large factor in this increase. Companies like Samsung and Google still pave the way with their quality yet affordable tablets, but it’s emerging manufacturers, such as Tesco, who make cost-friendly tablets at highly discounted prices. The market demand for such devices is incredible, with the likes of Tesco’s Hudl tablet going through patches of being unavailable in nearly every single one of its stores. The range of choice from these manufacturers vastly outweigh the offerings from Apple, despite the iPad still being a strong brand. “In 2013, tablets became a mainstream phenomenon, with a vast choice of Android tablets being within the budget of everyday consumers while still offering quality,” said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner. “In 2014, it will be critical for manufacturers to focus on device experience and solid technology to prevail.”</div>
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Another area in which Android tablet sales have been prolific is within emerging markets. Many countries in Africa and Asia now have access to budget Android tablets where they normally wouldn’t. These devices offer very basic features at budget prices. Within the same report by Gartner, it’s claimed that emerging markets recorded growth of 145% in 2013, where in developed and mature markets, there was growth of just 31%. Again, much of the growth found in mature markets stems from budget tablets, namely the Nexus 7.</div>
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With many more Android tabs announced for release this year and the inevitable release of a new Nexus and second Hudl device, we can expect sales to increase even further for the Android OS. With Windows being a distant third in terms of tablet sales, the race for tablet supremacy is very much between Android and Apple, but is there any visible way that Apple can turn it around? In terms of quality vs quantity, it’s the latter that seems to be winning, and one that Apple needs to address drastically if it wants to come out on top.</div>
Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-72590694524585490902014-02-27T14:48:00.004-08:002014-02-27T14:48:58.118-08:00Can you trust Google’s search results?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHElVt_xvlW1z06s2vuPF4Sun09q9ORsbaWE-KLAjjUzYFYyN46fTlnrfYQ0bNpNPo9zn4rfRcs9h3Ip0RsdwUEY-cgS2SHN7oRH_wMbXMvP3dGhU39A3vnKtybya6xyZSA1PmlfZ3oKY/s1600/gas+grill+-+Google.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Can you trust Google’s search results?" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHElVt_xvlW1z06s2vuPF4Sun09q9ORsbaWE-KLAjjUzYFYyN46fTlnrfYQ0bNpNPo9zn4rfRcs9h3Ip0RsdwUEY-cgS2SHN7oRH_wMbXMvP3dGhU39A3vnKtybya6xyZSA1PmlfZ3oKY/s1600/gas+grill+-+Google.jpg" height="320" title="Can you trust Google’s search results?" width="278" /></a></div>
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Like millions of people you probably use Google to search the web. Now a protracted scrap with rival companies has laid bare the bias in its search results</div>
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When you type a query into Google, you probably expect it to return the most useful, relevant results. But that isn’t the case. Having been threatened with a multi-billion euro fine for unfairly promoting its own services, Google is being forced to make some major changes.</div>
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You might not know it, but most of the results displayed near the top of a Google search are from other Google-owned services. This, according to rival companies, is hugely unfair. They’ve been lobbying the European Commission since November 2010 to try to stop Google’s search bias.</div>
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Google has a 75 per cent share of Europe’s search market, so being at the top of Google listings is crucial for most companies. But rather than just being a means to search the internet, Google also owns a plethora of other services. This means that when you search for something on Google, your eye might not be drawn to the most relevant result – instead, you’ll probably click on another service Google owns.</div>
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Let’s take a search for ‘gas grill’ as an example. At present Google shows pictures of grills available to buy at the top of the page, along with their price. These results are all from Google Shopping, which other price-comparison websites said was unfair.</div>
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The same is true for a location-based search such as ‘cafés in Paris’. The list of Parisian cafés displayed all link to Google services such as Google Maps and Google+. By placing its own results so prominently and including eye-catching images Google is distracting people from clicking results from rival companies and sucking up all the money in the process.</div>
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After years of wrangling Google has finally reached a legally binding agreement with the Commission which will see it avoid a multi-billion euro fine by making wholesale changes to how it displays search results in Europe.</div>
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Once the Commission approves the changes – a process that should be complete in a few weeks - that same search for ‘gas grill’ will give equal prominence to results from rival services alongside Google Shopping results (see above screenshot). A search for ‘cafés in Paris’ will also clearly display listings from rival services.</div>
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European Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia said he would not be seeking feedback on the deal from rival companies, saying that the changes would allow people to find “the best alternative”.</div>
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“My mission is to protect competition to the benefit of consumers, not competitors,” he added.</div>
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Rival companies are up in arms that Google’s proposals won’t be openly tested to see how effective they are. ICOMP – a lobbying group that counts Microsoft as one of its members – said that Almunia risked having “the wool pulled over his eyes”.</div>
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For many people Google is the internet. Until these changes are made, every Google search helps to extend its monopoly. But even after the changes, it’s important that you don’t blindly trust Google to always show you the best results.</div>
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<span style="background-color: red; padding: 5 5 5 5;"><span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><b>TIMELINE</b></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>In November 2010 companies, including Microsoft, complain to the European Commission about Google’sdominance</li>
<li>In July2012 the Commissionstarts talks with Googleto tryto make its searchresults fairer</li>
<li>Throughout 2013 anumber of Google’sproposalsare slammedas “deliberately ludicrous”byrivalswith the Commission sayingtheyare “notacceptable”</li>
<li>Finally, inFebruary 2014 the Commissionannouncesan agreementwith Google–despiteprotests from rivals</li>
</ul>
Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-14678789298041189192014-01-06T00:34:00.001-08:002014-01-06T00:38:09.366-08:00Nvidia announces next-generation 64-bit Tegra K1 SoC with 192 GPU cores<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg3L6-ujSIBVDTHcxpSKbL1S2WWPKR8W9leHt5OfypdTS3Ajr1paPJSsuN0ipgwnlP5o8sFiQQe1R0qORecF9z7XHCtG4OZbtZy0_wA_IZENkD_AIVLnqGp5fkzN7Hb0PR2SI4xTlb1MA/s1600/nvidia-tegra-k1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em;"><img alt="Nvidia announces next-generation 64-bit Tegra K1 SoC with 192 GPU cores" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg3L6-ujSIBVDTHcxpSKbL1S2WWPKR8W9leHt5OfypdTS3Ajr1paPJSsuN0ipgwnlP5o8sFiQQe1R0qORecF9z7XHCtG4OZbtZy0_wA_IZENkD_AIVLnqGp5fkzN7Hb0PR2SI4xTlb1MA/s1600/nvidia-tegra-k1.jpg" title="Nvidia announces next-generation 64-bit Tegra K1 SoC with 192 GPU cores" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Nvidia unveiled the next-generation version of its Tegra system-on-a-chip tonight at its CES press conference. The new Tegra K1 has two important selling points. The first is that it uses a GPU with 192 CUDA cores based on Nvidia's Kepler GPU architecture, the same used in the desktop GeForce GT 600 and 700-series GPUs. Secondly, some versions of the chip will be the first to ship with Nvidia's custom "Denver" ARM CPU, a 64-bit architecture that supports the ARMv8 instruction set.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style='float:left;clear:left;margin-right:10px;'><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<div style="text-align: justify;">Combining its desktop and mobile GPU architectures has been on Nvidia's roadmap for some time now, as we saw at the company's GPU Technology Conference in March of 2013. The difference is that now we have some idea of just how powerful that GPU will be: at 192 CUDA cores, the Tegra K1 has roughly the same raw processing horsepower as a GeForce GT 630 or 635, a low-end dedicated GPU from early last year. Memory bandwidth and throttling will also affect performance, but this gives us a decent idea of where Tegra K1 is relative to Nvidia's desktop cards.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang spent a fair chunk of time talking about the benefits of using the same GPU architecture across both PCs and mobile devices. Since the Tegra K1 supports the same API levels and hardware features as a full GeForce GPU, game and middleware developers will theoretically have an easier time porting their engines from desktops and game consoles to phones and tablets. Nvidia's current Tegra GPUs don't support newer APIs like OpenGL ES 3.0, so support for the full version of OpenGL 4.4 is a nice leap forward.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The CPU gets more complicated. There will be two different, pin-compatible versions of the Tegra K1 that are differentiated by their CPUs. One will use four ARM Cortex A15 cores (plus one power-saving "shadow" core) running at up to 2.3GHz. That's not much different from the CPU configuration used in the current Tegra 4. Only the higher-end version will use the new 64-bit Denver architecture, in a dual-core configuration running at up to 2.5GHz.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Other details about the chip, including the manufacturing process, weren't discussed. In one slide comparing the K1's performance to that of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Huang noted that the Tegra K1 used just five watts of power, but it's not clear under what conditions we can expect that kind of power draw.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Tegra K1 is the latest ARM CPU architecture to go 64-bit, but it's not the first: Apple's 64-bit A7 is already shipping in the latest iPhones and iPads, and Qualcomm will be bringing the 64-bit ARM Cortex A53 architecture to market in the mid-range Snapdragon 410. In the server room, AMD plans to bring its first ARM-based Opteron chips to market this year, which will be based on the 64-bit Cortex A57 architecture. 2014 is poised to be the year when 64-bit goes mainstream in ARM devices.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Huang didn't mention when either version of K1 would be available in shipping devices, but AnandTech reports that the A15 version will ship in the first half of this year and the Denver version will ship in the second half. It's a fair bet that we'll learn more at this year's GPU Technology Conference in March.</div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-69267435533909081672014-01-06T00:17:00.001-08:002014-01-06T00:18:53.649-08:00Acer launches 27-inch all-in-one Android PC<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPcwGumZRrxd9e740uh4QamJqPNsZ5UPNtdb2yjgUNLUuh1pjR4v9RqwZJbjJjjlSy79esp33hsdFLeiLQjRlVLoZO2EGFOP9Dx8zMLbB7zQqYq4bWwwjnEEwgLRQ5QhehAgM0zhqTD7o/s1600/acer-aio-android-pc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em;"><img alt="Acer launches 27-inch all-in-one Android PC" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPcwGumZRrxd9e740uh4QamJqPNsZ5UPNtdb2yjgUNLUuh1pjR4v9RqwZJbjJjjlSy79esp33hsdFLeiLQjRlVLoZO2EGFOP9Dx8zMLbB7zQqYq4bWwwjnEEwgLRQ5QhehAgM0zhqTD7o/s1600/acer-aio-android-pc.jpg" title="Acer launches 27-inch all-in-one Android PC" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">CES is around the corner and we are already evidenced with some products that are going to be unveiled at the event. Along with the Iconia family tablets, Acer has launched an All-in-one computer ahead of the event.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Called as Acer TA272 HUL, this all-in-one PC is already shipping around the world. It has a massive 27-inch screen that offers a 2560 x 1440 resolution, which is four times sharper than convenient high-definition monitors, according to the company.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The cherry on the cake is the touch screen. Yes, Acer TA272 all-in-one PC includes a 10-point touch screen so you can easily access anything by just tapping on the screen.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">What sets it apart from other all-in-one computer is its internals. Unlike other AIO’s, Acer TA272 HUL is not powered by Intel processor and doesn’t run Windows. This system is powered by Nvidia Tegra 4 quad-core processor and 2GB RAM.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is equipped with 16GB of internal storage and comes with 2MP webcam on the front side of the monitor accompanied with two front facing Dolby surround sound certified speakers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">This massive 27-inch all-in-one computer is runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. This is the first time an all-in-one computer is running Android instead of Windows. We are surprised to see Acer installing Android 4.2 on the system when Android 4.3 and Android 4.4 already available for certification.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The monitor can be tilted from 30 degrees to 80 degrees depending on your preferred viewing angle. There is a USB 3.0 port to connect your peripherals, game controllers and other accessories.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In addition to this, there is a HDMI port and a DisplayPort connection, this means that it can act as a 27-inch external display for your desktop or laptop. Acer TA272 HUL is certified to run Windows 8 as well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Acer TA272 HUL is available for $1099 at Acer’s online store or at third-party retailers as well.</div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-28890829764256226092013-12-27T13:09:00.000-08:002013-12-27T13:09:07.722-08:00AsusSabertooth Z87 Review<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>This will have engineers at Asus’s competitors either headbutting their workbenches in frustration or pacing up and down their labs like neglected zoo animals, because it’s going to really hurt.</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD5s4DJqreNGVUO9lDUlEn7V_mKAWrl6Hsrpte-3571Q1Mjap88DTYgDwo5mh6b6Abe061w6S-Y4I8M_hm0CDs8n8O7YxGm-A40FSLobtKm0AzTV3avZ3_j4jUejFT9FQMlCBTxpfwhx0/s1600/asus-sabertooth-z87-review.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em;"><img alt="AsusSabertooth Z87 Review" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD5s4DJqreNGVUO9lDUlEn7V_mKAWrl6Hsrpte-3571Q1Mjap88DTYgDwo5mh6b6Abe061w6S-Y4I8M_hm0CDs8n8O7YxGm-A40FSLobtKm0AzTV3avZ3_j4jUejFT9FQMlCBTxpfwhx0/s1600/asus-sabertooth-z87-review.jpg" title="AsusSabertooth Z87 Review" /></a></div>
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We’re suckers for the new Sabertooth Z87 just as much as we were for its Z77 daddy. In some ways, the Sabertooth is nothing special. For the cynical, the recipe goes something like this. Take a plain Jane motherboard. Cover it up with some bits of pointless plastic. And then flog it at a bit of a premium price point. Kerching, indeed.</div>
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And there’s a lot of truth in that position. The board that underpins the Sabertooth isn’t a fancy-pants high-end item, and it is clad in frankly fairly cheap plastic panels. Premium features like a debug LED readout, hardware power buttons, V-check points? Fuggedabowdit, you get none of that stuff, but here’s the thing: the result is greater than the sum of its parts.</div>
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<b>PRACTICAL CONCERNS</b></div>
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Let’s kick off with that cladding. It does actually serve a purpose: keeping dust off the board and out of unused ports and slots. Then there’s the metal brace on the rear that keeps the board flat and trim. Both are genuine boons if you plan to keep and run a board for the long term, making it that little bit more likely that it’ll keep on trucking.</div>
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Asus claims it helps to keep components cooler by better managing airflow. The metal brace also has thermal pads so acts as a large heat sink. Want to know how effective all that is? As it happens, Asus bundles an app called Thermal Radar along with nine hardwire temp sensors and a further three probes for preferential positioning so you can find out.</div>
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Then there’s the BIOS. Asus’s UEFI BIOS is one of our favourites. It’s clear, it’s easy to navigate, and it’s not excessively gimmicky. The labels and names Asus uses are familiar and make sense, and it offers all the options we realistically want.</div>
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It’s hard to argue with the performance numbers that the Sabertooth cranks out, too. It’s not the fastest board here in our stock-clocked performance tests, but it’s close enough for that not to matter. Moreover, it’s second only to the almost dubiously fast MSI GD43 in-game. The question is how much you care whether your board cranks out 8.3-something points in Cinebench or 8.5.</div>
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More importantly, it’s right on the pace for <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overclocking" rel="wikipedia nofollow" target="_blank" title="Overclocking">overclocking</a>, knocking up an easy 4.7GHz with our Intel Core i7-4770K test chip. Would the likes of MSI’s yield a slightly higher maximum frequency courtesy of extensive hand tuning by somebody who really knows their overclocking oats? Very likely. If that’s you, the MSI is probably the better choice. But for everyone else, the Sabertooth offers quick, painless overclocking that anyone will be able to achieve.</div>
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All of which brings us to the one and only significant issue we have with the Sabertooth Z87: pricing. Sure, the £200 sticker means it’s much cheaper than a true enthusiast-class mobo – they go for £300-plus – but it still feels like a lot for what is, ultimately, a jazzed up mainstream board.</div>
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<img alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=54b377e4-db51-4374-a089-f61c797de222" style="border: none; float: right;" /></div>
Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-57795573256150069472013-12-16T09:49:00.004-08:002013-12-16T09:49:40.789-08:00Asrock Z87 Extreme3 Review<div style="text-align: justify;">
Asrock Z87 Extreme3 Cheap and slightly shonky, but quirky and intriguing mobos. That used to be Asrock’s place in the world. These days, however, the manufacturer has gone a bit mainstream.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI9qM7288qpzWoCflhlEQyOACNImyVugEwhIb8NKVcsPS3nD1AzMN9jFoMJp8ZE_ja7yEG00R6f2lFfNje1SL-EzCDgGrR0jZV8V0a2_AqRCNrh-e3bkx3ww6bVjLd7BfZzXecw2FmS7U/s1600/ASRock_Z87_Extreme3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Asrock Z87 Extreme3 Review" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI9qM7288qpzWoCflhlEQyOACNImyVugEwhIb8NKVcsPS3nD1AzMN9jFoMJp8ZE_ja7yEG00R6f2lFfNje1SL-EzCDgGrR0jZV8V0a2_AqRCNrh-e3bkx3ww6bVjLd7BfZzXecw2FmS7U/s1600/ASRock_Z87_Extreme3.jpg" title="Asrock Z87 Extreme3 Review" /></a></div>
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On the upside, that means a range of more straightforward models, including some high-end clobber. That said, old affinities die hard, and we’re a little bit more comfortable with the prospect of this bargain basement board with an Asrock badge than one of its closest competitors, such as the rather disappointing entry from Gigabyte, the lacklustre Z87-D3HP.</div>
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Physically, they’re two peas in a pod. Both are based on very thin PCBs, with a sludgy colour and flimsy feel that give the unsavoury impression of being mashed up from recycled games cartridges from the 80s, or pressed peanut sweepings from the factory floor. Okay, the latter’s a bit of an exag geration, but you get the idea. Think cheap. Think commodity electronics banged out in big numbers in dingy factories.</div>
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<b><span style="color: red;">NO FRILLS</span></b> </div>
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Anyway, at this end of the market, you’d expect to miss out on a few frills, and that’s certainly the case here. LED debug display, on-board power and rest switches, fancy dual-BIOS tog gles, V-check points. No, no, no, and no. Which, for the most part, is fine by us. Kit like that is nice to have, but ultimately isn’t critical for extracting the best performance out of your card.</div>
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That said, there are a few so-called convenience features missing from the spec that might nig gle some depending on your specific preferences. There’s no DisplayPort for the integrated graphics output, for instance, and the back panel is limited to just four USB 3.0 ports. That’s pretty mean, but shaving off pennies in production costs is what it’s all about at this price.</div>
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However, it’s not all bad news. One feature you might not expect to find is support for Nvidia’s SLI multi-GPU tech. You don’t get it with the Gigabyte Z87-D3HP, but you do with this Asrock. Again, that sounds like a proposition that’s frill-free but presents no barriers to max performance. Is that really the case?</div>
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Kind of. In our stock-clocked benchmarks the Asrock doesn’t exactly blow away all comers, but it knocks out in excess of eight points in Cinebench and beats about half the boards here in x264 HD video encoding. If there’s a snag , it’s gaming performance, but even here we’re only talking about a single frame per second behind most other boards. In other words, you won’t know the difference.</div>
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As for overclocking , it’s good news. The auto-overclocking feature is a bit of a busted flush because it boots at very high speeds but downclocks under load, but force the multiplier settings and your reward will be an impressive overclock.</div>
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For the record, we squeezed a solid 4.7GHz and over 10 points in Cinebench out of a 4770K. That annihilates the Gigabyte Z87-D3HP. It’s as good as anything else on test this month, including the monster £350 MSI Z87 Xpower. Oh, and gives it a slight edge over the board that’s actually the closest rival, MSI’s Z87-GD43.</div>
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<h3>
Asrock Z87 Extreme3 Specifications</h3>
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<ul>
<li>A-Style : Home Cloud</li>
<li>Supports 4th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 / i5 / i3 / Xeon® / Pentium® / Celeron® in LGA1150 Package</li>
<li>Premium Gold Capacitor Design, Digi Power, 8 Power Phase Design</li>
<li>Supports Dual Channel DDR3 2933+(OC)</li>
<li>2 x PCIe 3.0 x16, 1 x PCIe 2.0 x1</li>
<li>Supports AMD Quad CrossFireX™, CrossFireX</li>
<li>Supports NVIDIA® Quad SLI™ and SLI™</li>
<li>Multi VGA Output Options : DVI-D, D-Sub, HDMI</li>
<li>Intel® Gigabit LAN</li>
<li>7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC892 Audio Codec)</li>
<li>6 x SATA3, 6 x USB 3.0, 6 x USB 2.0</li>
<li>Supports A-Tuning, XFast 555, Easy Driver Installer, FAN-Tastic Tuning, USB Key</li>
</ul>
Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-34300915809830753882013-12-10T09:35:00.000-08:002013-12-10T09:42:25.271-08:00Apple MacBook Pro 13in Retina - Review<div style="text-align: justify;">When the first 13-inch MacBook Pro Retina was released in Q4 of 2012, it received a mix response. It was praised for being one of the most beautiful 13-inch notebooks to date with an amazing retina display, however it was highly criticized for being way overpriced starting at $1,699 with only 128GB of storage with no dedicated graphics card. Just recently, Apple did a refresh of their notebooks and the 13-inch MacBook Pro received a slight upgrade in hardware and most surprisingly a $200 reduction in price. Is the 2013 13-inch MacBook Pro now worth it? Let's find out!</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaf4pBPgkZ2nBkVr0iKbhpzX2zdfqUag23p0bVx4cpzXRjooGqZ0GHi8FeJne8s2ax0dzM6KQ-tvbh43ioe4k4DLQOpU05TWmusK8uLO0fTyOagLjaGsuKcI_9UMcIqQTfYeillvBpBWM/s1600/apple-macbook-pro-13-inch-retina-display-top.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em;"><img alt="Apple MacBook Pro 13in Retina - Review" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaf4pBPgkZ2nBkVr0iKbhpzX2zdfqUag23p0bVx4cpzXRjooGqZ0GHi8FeJne8s2ax0dzM6KQ-tvbh43ioe4k4DLQOpU05TWmusK8uLO0fTyOagLjaGsuKcI_9UMcIqQTfYeillvBpBWM/s1600/apple-macbook-pro-13-inch-retina-display-top.jpg" title="Apple MacBook Pro 13in Retina - Review" /></a></div><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Build and Design</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Make no mistake that this is one of the best looking notebooks available right now. The 13-inch MacBook Pro Retina (rMBP) features a very thin and sleek design weighing in only at 3.57 lbs and 0.75 inches thick. The rMBP is about a pound lighter and 20% thinner than it's non-retina counterpart. Interesting enough, the rMBP weighs half a pound heavier than the 13-inch MacBook Air and only .07-inches thicker so you can say that this is more or less in between the non-retina display MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In real world testing when carrying this around vs. the MacBook Air 13-inch, I couldn't really tell the difference after walking a mile with both (trying to simulate walking around an airport) in a backpack and messenger bag. If half a pound is going to kill you or if weight is a huge factor, then the Air would be a more viable option.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The 13-inch rMBP has a similar aluminum unibody design of its larger 15-inch counterpart with the silver and black color scheme. Like all the Apple notebooks before it, the 13-inch Retina is solidly built and feels like a premium quality product. Open up the magnetic latch on the screen you will be greeted with a beautiful 13-inch Retina, a chiclet style backlit keyboard, and a large glass touchpad. On the left side, you'll find the MagSafe 2 power connector, two Thunderbolt ports, a USB 3.0 port, and a headphone/mic jack. Over to the right side, you'll be pleased to find a standard HDMI port, another USB port, and an SD card slot.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">What's missing on the device from the non-Retina MacBook Pros are the firewire and Ethernet ports along with the optical drive. Most people don't use these anymore but you can purchase an external drive separately as well as a USB to Ethernet adaptor.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>FaceTime Camera</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The rMBP comes with a built in 720p FaceTime camera for video conferencing. It works great in a well-lit room but if you are relying on sunlight and on a slightly cloudy day, there will be a lot of noise on the image. Other than that, on Skype and FaceTime calls; people could hear and see me very clearly.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Keyboard and Touchpad</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The keyboard on the 13-inch rMBP is a joy to type on. The chiclet style layout has been my favorite over the years and it doesn't feel cramped on this MacBook Pro even when coming from a 15-inch. If you are familiar with the 13-inch Air or even the non-retina counterpart of the MacBook Pro, you will be no stranger to the keyboard as they feel very similar which is great. You get the same responsiveness and bright backlit keyboard.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Let's not overlook the large 4.1 x 3-inch glass touchpad on this! It's also very responsive and being able to use gestures and swipes make navigating through the OS and applications very intuitive. For those not familiar with the Mac, you can pinch to zoom on Safari and swipe to go back a website, etc. which is very useful if you aren't carrying around a mouse. Mountain Lion utilizes the touchpad very well so be sure to look at the Touchpad Settings to learn all the swipes and gestures.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Retina Display</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As my colleague put it on his 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro Review, "Oh my god, the screen!" is going to be your first reaction when you look at how sharp the 13-inch's 2560x1600 display is. There is currently no 13-inch notebook that comes close to this resolution and the only other notebook that does is the 15-inch rMBP at 2800x1600. The 13-inch model has a higher ppi than it's 15-inch counterpart at 226ppi vs 217ppi. The retina display is absolutely gorgeous and is the biggest incentive of going with the rMBP instead of the 13-inch MacBook Air.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is huge difference in viewing photos over 8MP on a retina display vs a standard display as you can see more details without having to zoom. The retina display makes a world of difference in the sharpness of text, images, and videos when looking at the screen in all angles. If you watch the new Iron Man 3 or Star Trek Into Darkness trailer, they both look sharp on the Retina display. The colors are much warmer and black levels were darker when looking at HD videos.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since the Retina display first debuted about a year ago, more and more third party apps have been enhanced to take advantage of the high resolution such as Chrome, Office, and Evernote. The on the flipside of things, there are still many apps and non-retina enhanced content that look horrible on this display. If you look at some websites, or even Chrome extension icons such as Mighty Text on your browser, you will see the ugly blurriness. Then there's also sites like Facebook where there are some apps, icons, and texts that have a mix of Retina support, which makes everything look out of place. The Retina display is clearly still way ahead of its time and it will be awhile till we have even more apps that support its resolution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Performance</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">After clocking an impressive 8-10 second boot up from being powered off, it's time to test drive it's power!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Retina MacBook Pro 13-inch handled general multi-tasking very well. I had 9 tabs of Chrome open, Aperture, Evernote, and iTunes playing in the background while writing this review so in real world testing; it handles the daily essentials very well. Along with the quick bootup and wake from sleep, applications load almost instantly thanks to the SSD drive.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The base 2.5GHz model scores a high 6800 on Geekbench with decent overall performance but is crippled by the Intel HD4000 integrated graphics chip. What's frustrating is that the lag and stuttering is very apparent on websites with a lot photos such as Flickr and Google+ as the GPU struggles to output the images onto the screen when you try to scroll up and down; an issue that is not found on the non-Retina MacBook Pros, or even the MacBook Air.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you are in the market for a gaming notebook, the 13-inch rMBP is not a good choice. Sure it handles games like Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, Torchlight 2, and Counter Strike Source very well but if you are looking to play newer games such Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider, you can forget it. At the native resolution, Tomb Raider was almost unplayable even at Normal Mode with a lot of stutter. I had to lower the resolution to 1280x800 to get decent frame rates but the experience wasn't enjoyable. When running Portal even on 1680x1050, I only got 16-18 fps, which is 30fps lower than the 15-inch cMBP from 2011!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you have to have a MacBook for more than casual gaming, then I suggest getting the 15-inch rMBP or even the non-Retina version with a dedicated graphics card.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In running other benchmarks, the 13-inch rMBP scored a measly 645 on 3DMark11, which is much lower than the 15-inch rMBP, which scored 2,375. And finally on Cinebench, it scored 2.82 points, which is faster than the 13-inch MacBook Air at 2.08 but much slower than the 15-inch rMBP, which scored 6.12 points. Bottom line, the processor and graphics aren't as impressive as the screen resolution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The base configuration priced at $1,499 will get you a 2.5GHz Core i5, 8GB RAM and a 128GB SSD. If you go for the more expensive model at $1,699, you will get a 2.6GHz Core i5, 8GB and a 256GB SSD. You can configure to order up to a 3.0Ghz dual core i7 processor with up to 512GB SSD, Unfortunately you can't add a dedicated graphics card and this model MacBook Pro maxes at 8GB RAM.</div><br />
<i>3DMark 11 measures overall graphics card performance in games using DirectX 11 (higher scores mean better performance):<br />
</i><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/70424.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch Retina Display: Performance" border="0" src="http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/70424.png" title="Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch Retina Display: Performance" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Heat and Noise</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The 13-inch rMBP has asymmetrical fans to keep the system cool and they blow with the minimal amount of noise. Even when pushing the processor when running Windows 8 under Parallels with Aperture, Chrome, and iTunes open at the same time, you can hardly hear the fans even in a quiet room. Regardless of all of those applications running, the system stayed cool and was a little warm at most.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Battery Life</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Apple advertises the rMBP of having a 7-hour battery life, which is not too far from my own personal results when using the notebook. In my daily routine of emails, web surfing, web apps such as SalesForce, Slacker, etc. ... it took about 6 hours and 15 minutes before the warning came on to charge the device. The 13-inch Air on the other hand lasted 6 hours and 50 minutes in doing the same routine so you will lose about half an hour for a better processor and display, which is not too bad of a tradeoff depending on your needs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Conclusion</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro is just a beautiful device in general from how it is designed and the quality of images the high-resolution display produces. Everything that is physically good from Apple's line of notebooks will be found on this one but looks alone doesn't make this a winner.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">When comparing the 13-inch rMBP to the 13-inch Air, there really isn't that much incentive in spending the extra money for the faster screen and CPU. In real world use, you won't really notice a difference. In fact you might "feel" that the Air actually runs better because it isn't struggling to push that many pixels with the integrated GPU. What's disappointing is that Apple didn't include a more capable graphics processor to drive the higher resolution and ppi Retina display, but put the SAME GPU found on the 13-inch Air.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you can live without the Retina display, it is much more sensible to get the MacBook Air 13-inch if you are looking for a nice thin and light laptop. If you absolutely have to have a Retina display notebook, you will be a lot happier to find a refurbished 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro for a few hundred dollars more.</div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-20089163841703315852013-11-25T04:22:00.000-08:002013-11-25T04:24:10.913-08:00Laptop Review: Apple MacBook Air 13in<h3 style="text-align: center;">Laptop review: Apple MacBook Air 13in</h3><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUlaU0iYUZ0vsZkEwOoLDaVdr1n6CcZlZzc0NXsVFA5XrhMrlMHWuWYylXL_oi5QoQeBp364qxDz35J3rUmw8MVbBLdIn2K1u5dhgx4t9TyBFFLUj34SU3MiZV2pdymEO5tFjhS8y1VfE/s1600/Laptop-review_Apple-MacBook-Air-13in.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Laptop Review: Apple MacBook Air 13in" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUlaU0iYUZ0vsZkEwOoLDaVdr1n6CcZlZzc0NXsVFA5XrhMrlMHWuWYylXL_oi5QoQeBp364qxDz35J3rUmw8MVbBLdIn2K1u5dhgx4t9TyBFFLUj34SU3MiZV2pdymEO5tFjhS8y1VfE/s1600/Laptop-review_Apple-MacBook-Air-13in.jpg" title="Laptop Review: Apple MacBook Air 13in" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Apple has hit two notable ‘firsts’ with this, the 2013 incarnation of the iconoclastic MacBook Air. It packs several game-changing revisions. Not only is it the first mainstream laptop you can buy with an Intel Haswell processor, it’s also the first production laptop supporting the new ‘three-times-faster’ 802.11ac Wi-Fi draft standard.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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The use of a low-power Intel Core i5 processor means that the MacBook Air should now last longer than ever before – and quite possibly by a significant margin: Apple’s figures, based on wireless web browsing, spell out a total runtime that has been stretched from an already handy seven hours, all the way to 12 hours.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Externally there’s little to differentiate this year’s Air from the last refresh, refreshed as before at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference. Indeed there’s little cosmetically to separate it from the previous two generations, since the notebook’s main design revamp in 2010.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Apple MacBook Air 13in: Build and Features</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Apple MacBook Air (Mid-2013) sports the same supreme all-metal build quality that we’ve yet to see surpassed in other brands’ laptops, styled with a wedged taper from rear to front edge.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Despite Apple’s reputation for assembling premium products at premium prices, we’ve not seen any Microsoft hardware partner match the features, build and attention to detail, either at the same price or higher.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">One small visible change for the new MacBook Air is an extra pinhole on the left flank, marking an additional, second microphone. This trusted tech trickled down from the Retina MacBooks, adding noise cancellation to improve voice clarity in FaceTime and Skype calls.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Looking over the internal specs, there are two primary and significant changes. Most notably, we can see Apple has made a brave move in marketing terms by specifying a lesser-looking processor.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Where once was a 1.8 GHz Core i5 <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-core_processor" rel="wikipedia nofollow" target="_blank" title="Multi-core processor">dual-core chip</a>, there’s now just a 1.3 GHz processor. But here’s evidence that the megahertz and gigahertz wars are truly over.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Aside from the Intel Atom, the bargain-bin Pentiums and some AMD chips, every processor we test these days is quite capable of decent speed running OS X or Windows and the applications therein, certainly swift enough for most daily needs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The real ongoing battle today is device battery life. Long and reliable runtime is crucial now that people are familiar with Apple smartphones and tablets that last for days of active use. Why can’t a notebook PC do this too? Have we finally arrived in a brave new world where a laptop can match the life on an iPad?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Apple MacBook Air 13in: Performance</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The processor clock speed is down, but processor performance is up. That’s what we found when running the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCMark" rel="wikipedia nofollow" target="_blank" title="PCMark">PCMark</a> 7 benchmark in Windows 7 Home Premium.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The previous Mid-2012 MacBook Air with its 1.8 GHz Intel Core i5-3427U reaped 4497 points in this general test of computer speed and responsiveness.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This Mid-2013 version with its lowly 1.3 GHz Intel Core i5-4250U scored 4602 points, suggesting a modest but measurable 2.3% boost in overall performance.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It’s worth noting that this dual-core chip still includes Hyper Threading too, to process four concurrent threads, and will also dynamically overclock to twice its rated speed, 2.6 GHz in Turbo mode.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">While Intel talks of its <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core" rel="wikipedia nofollow" target="_blank" title="Intel Core">Core i-Series</a> chips’ baseline speed and their Turbo peak speed, one could also view this processor as a 2.6 GHz part that runs predominantly underclocked at half its baseline speed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since PCMark 7 also measures the speed of storage as part of the test suite, this better-for-less result could also be attributed to the upgrade in flash memory. There’s now 128 GB as standard across both 11.6in and 13.3in models, and importantly this takes a new form-factor that bypasses any SATA bus. Instead it uses a direct PCIe connection, obviating the intermediary and unneeded SATA stage.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In fact, turning to Geekbench 2 test, we can see that raw processor and memory performance is overall slightly down on last year’s model. The latter averaged 7903 points, while 2013 MacBook Air recorded 6770 points.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Memory for this generation and the last is 4GB as standard, configurable to order to 8 GB, and this is now low-power LPDDR3 SDRAM running at 1600 MHz.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Apple MacBook Air 13in: Battery life</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Apple seems to have taken several strategies to help eke out more runtime with the Apple MacBook Air (Mid-2013) 13.3in notebook.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The larger factor is still almost certainly the shift in Intel processor from third-generation IvyBridge to fourth-generation Haswell.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">But unplugged operation is also helped by a slightly larger battery, up 10% in capacity from 49 Wh to 54 Wh, and perhaps the use of low-power memory too.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">We put the 2013 MacBook Air to the test in Windows 7 Home Premium, using the venerable MobileMark 2007 (Productivity) benchmark test. And here we recorded a runtime that comfortably exceeded the specified 12 hours, hitting a new record figure of 13 hrs 57 mins.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Allowing for times when you may be working the machine harder than the MS office and Adobe apps that comprise this test, even an eight-hour stretch between charges means you can yet charge your laptop for the morning, take to work and comfortably last the day without dependence on a mains charger.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Apple MacBook Air 13in: Wireless</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first wireless routers with the upcoming standard of 802.11ac first appeared late last year, yet for the last 8 months whenever we looked for 11ac-capable laptops, all we saw was tumbleweed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Apple has finally broken ranks and included an 802.11ac wireless chipset, courtesy of the only manufacturer currently shipping 11ac components, Broadcom.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Broadcom BCM4360 is a three-stream capable wireless processor, although Apple appears to only fit the MacBook Air with two Wi-Fi antennae (hidden in the screen hinge).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This means the fastest wireless sync speed you’ll see is 867 Mb/s, and real-world throughput will always be much lower than this, even in ideal conditions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thankfully the company doesn’t make any of the routine mendacious claims for ‘gigabit wireless’. That’s patently impossible here, whatever your metric.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">We hooked up the Apple MacBook Air (Mid-2013) 13.3in initially to an existing 802.11ac wireless network, based on the Netgear R6300 11ac router.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Set up 3m from the router, the MacBook Air clearly indicated a sync speed of 867 Mb/s on 11ac’s higher-speed 5 GHz band.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In real-world file transfers, we measured actual throughput at a steady 176 Mb/s.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Turning to the new Apple Time Capsule with 802.11ac, the same results were seen with short-range transfers. While wireless throughput is less than one-quarter of the indicated wireless speed, we noted that longer range connections maintained better performance.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">At 10m from the 11ac Time Capsule, with one intervening plaster stud wall, transfer speed was measured at a relatively good 148 Mb/s. But that's only relative to 11n. In previous tests with 3x3 MIMO 802.11ac we've seen close to 500 Mb/s.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">To summarise the wireless performance, these are decent results for 802.11n on the 5 GHz radio band at 10m, but actual performance is still disappointing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Put into real terms, 802.11ac – with this 2x2 MIMO configuration anyway – is still some way behind what you’d expect when transferring files over the old USB 2.0 standard, for example.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">But you can expect to benefit from better Wi-Fi connections with the 2013 MacBook Air on 11ac, compared to 11n, and especially at more distant range where pre-11ac networks tail off so rapidly in quality.</div><br />
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<table border="1" class="tftable"><tbody>
<tr><th>TECHNICAL SPECS</th><th>Apple MacBook Air 13in</th></tr>
<tr><td><b>Best Price</b></td><td><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00746YPQI/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00746YPQI&linkCode=as2&tag=divat-20">Apple MacBook Air MD760LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop (NEWEST VERSION)</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=divat-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00746YPQI" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Processor</b></td><td>1.3GHz Intel Core i5-4250U</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>RAM</b></td><td>4GB DDR3L</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Storage</b></td><td>128GB SSD</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Screen size</b></td><td>13.3in glossy (anti-glare)</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Screen resolution</b></td><td>1440x900</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Graphics</b></td><td>Intel HD Graphics 5000</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Video memory</b></td><td>N/A</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Wireless</b></td><td>802.11a/b/g/n/ac</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Ethernet</b></td><td>Optional</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Bluetooth</b></td><td>4.0</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>USB</b></td><td>2x USB 3.0</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Thunderbolt</b></td><td>1x</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Audio</b></td><td>Headphone jack, mic</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Optical drive</b></td><td>N/A</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Extras </b></td><td>HD webcam, multitouch<br />
trackpad, backlit keyboard</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Operating system</b></td><td>Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Bundled software</b></td><td>iLife 11</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Battery</b></td><td>54Wh lithium-polymer</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Battery life</b></td><td>12 hrs 57</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>PC Mark 7 score</b></td><td>4602</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Dimensions</b></td><td>325x227x4-17.5mm</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Weight</b></td><td>1.35kg</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Verdict</b></td><td>Haswell processor<br />
802.11ac Wi-Fi support<br />
Stunning battery life<br />
Unsurpassed build<br />
Good performance</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-63030710094057878932013-11-20T10:53:00.003-08:002013-11-21T13:14:15.730-08:00Graphics Cards Review: AMD Radeon HD 7870<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>AMD</b> has a long history of providing top-notch <b>graphics cards</b>, and the <b>Radeon HD 7870</b> is no exception. This high-end video card boasts a base clock speed starting at 1GHz, processing and rendering graphics faster than you can say, "Fus Roh Dah!"</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpQvwC2OgVjw1aOrTDzsmmAjr3BlniXdbnFwZbuyQQSGJXd2DNI-scXrgTSJwzOWrnO4Z00WVuM-vjrqRU0_pQeSUfheF_ai-iHWndy_-Qt0EP3eOwF_pRgVjCveUVD_0K2XMsVSzK6NU/s1600/amd-radeon-hd-7870-review.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Graphics Cards Review: AMD Radeon HD 7870" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpQvwC2OgVjw1aOrTDzsmmAjr3BlniXdbnFwZbuyQQSGJXd2DNI-scXrgTSJwzOWrnO4Z00WVuM-vjrqRU0_pQeSUfheF_ai-iHWndy_-Qt0EP3eOwF_pRgVjCveUVD_0K2XMsVSzK6NU/s1600/amd-radeon-hd-7870-review.jpg" title="Graphics Cards Review: AMD Radeon HD 7870" /></a></div>
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The HD 7870 utilizes 1280 stream processors with AMD's <b>Graphics Core Next</b> processor architecture, more commonly known as GCN, and it has memory bandwidth of 153.6GB per second, providing blazing fast speed and steady high frame rates that are optimal for playing graphic intensive games, especially first person shooters. With the HD 7870 giving you high frame rates while running your game on the high or ultra settings, you have a better chance of surviving your next deadly encounter.</div>
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Like most high-end video cards, the HD 7870 has a longer board and is doublewide. This means that the card takes up two slots of room on your motherboard. At 10.16 inches long, you will need to have a case with plenty of room to accommodate this graphics card and give it enough space to cool properly. The HD 7870 is Windows 8 ready and supports DirectX 9, 10 and 11. It also handles all modern formats of HD video, including H.264, without any problems, thanks to the Unified Video Decoder support.</div>
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One of the best features of the HD 7870 is the incorporation of Power Tune, a technology that automatically monitors the power draw of the video card and overclocks depending on how much power the HD 7870 is currently using. For example, the HD 7870 can use a maximum of 250 watts of power, but if it is only using 130 watts, then Power Tune will boost the clock speed as much as it can up to the 250-watt maximum. This intuitive control lets you enjoy enhanced performance and graphics without having to exit your program and manually adjust the overclocking settings.</div>
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You will need to have at least two six-pin connectors and a 500-watt power supply to run the HD 7870. AMD recommends you have four six-pin connectors available and a 600-watt power supply if you want to use a <b>CrossFireX</b> setup with two HD 7870 cards. AMD's Zero Core technology is one of the outstanding features of the HD 7870. When your computer goes into idle or sleep mode, hardware, such as graphics cards, may still run at full capacity. Zero Core drops the power usage of the HD 7870 to a mere 3 watts when your monitor sleeps and shuts down extra cards if you are running a CrossFireX setup. This saves power and reduces heat output and wear on your video card.</div>
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<tr><th>Basic Specifications</th><th><br /></th></tr>
<tr><td><b>Part Code</b></td><td>HD 7870</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Interface</b></td><td>PCI Express x16</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Crossfire/SLI</b></td><td>CrossFire</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Slots taken up</b></td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Brand</b></td><td>AMD</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Graphics Processor</b></td><td>AMD Radeon HD 7870</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Memory</b></td><td>22GB GDDR5</td></tr>
<tr><td>M<b>emory interface</b></td><td>256-bit</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>GPU clock speed</b></td><td>1.00GHz</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Memory speed</b></td><td>1.20GHz</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Card length</b></td><td>242mm</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-7295739794075949272013-11-19T02:06:00.000-08:002013-11-19T02:06:01.020-08:00Amazon's Kindle Fire update brings the best of both worlds to the Fire HD and HDX<div style="text-align: justify;">
Amazon doesn't want to just be known as your entertainment portal--it wants to be your everything portal. The company hopes to continue to instill that vibe with the latest software update for its <b>Android-based</b> tablet line. Fire OS 3.1 begins rolling out Monday to <b>Kindle Fire HD</b> and <b>Fire HDX devices</b>, bringing with it a few new features, like enterprise support and wireless printing to turn your existing Kindle into more than just a destination for ebooks and video. The update also beefs up the last-generation Kindle Fire HD with some of the HDX's marquee features.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIS3VwqzOUfTBdCAyL9naN6XAnLsyKLxg2pYpTOQA2wkshmx2vHIwoXNY15Set9NIpRo9s6SBLDUTHaovROdwAMKBCMsJUsynNjNB_NK3H6hp383YUIxKNZKFto_CE9M8loqZzI3hIkvE/s1600/amazon-kindle-fire-hdx-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Amazon unveils Fire OS 3.1 update for Kindle Fire HD, Kindle Fire HDX tablets" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIS3VwqzOUfTBdCAyL9naN6XAnLsyKLxg2pYpTOQA2wkshmx2vHIwoXNY15Set9NIpRo9s6SBLDUTHaovROdwAMKBCMsJUsynNjNB_NK3H6hp383YUIxKNZKFto_CE9M8loqZzI3hIkvE/s1600/amazon-kindle-fire-hdx-7.jpg" height="227" title="Amazon unveils Fire OS 3.1 update for Kindle Fire HD, Kindle Fire HDX tablets" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Amazon unveils Fire OS 3.1 update for Kindle Fire HD, Kindle Fire HDX tablets</td></tr>
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<b>BYOD, finally</b></div>
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For Amazon to make its tablets a be-all, end-all device for consumers, it needed to cater to the business crowd, too. The device now includes better enterprise support with features like the ability to connect to secure Wi-Fi networks and log on to a corporate network via <b>VPN</b>. <b>Fire OS 3.1</b> also supports <b>Kerberos</b> authentication for more secure browsing of your company's internal Intranet through the <b>Silk browser</b>, as well as a Kindle-specific device management API to make life easier on your IT department.</div>
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<b>See what your friends are reading</b></div>
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Amazon aims to be more friendly with the integrated <b>Goodreads</b> social network for book lovers. The service lets you connect with friends to share things like your favorite quotes, what you're currently reading, and what you thought of the books you've read. You can also import every book you've ever bought or read through <b>Amazon</b> into your Goodreads account and sign up for a daily or weekly newsletter that offers suggestions on what's new to read in your favorite genres.</div>
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<b>Share your screen with your TV</b><br />
As if the Amazon Video app on almost every set-top box out there wasn't enough, the bundled Second Screen feature is now supported for the older <b>Kindle Fire HD</b>. Second Screen lets you "fling" movies from your Kindle to your television set through supported third-party devices. Amazon writes that the feature is meant to free up your device so that you can use it for apps like X-Ray or browsing the Web--a definite ploy to get you to always use the device when you're thinking of entertainment in your living room. The feature is currently limited to the PlayStation 3 and compatible Samsung TVs, though Amazon writes that it will be available later this year for the just-released PlayStation 4.<br />
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Other miscellaneous features in Fire OS 3.1 include things like wireless printing and voice dictation to convert your speech into text. Voice dictation is available in all languages when you're connected to a network, though only English is available offline.</div>
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If many of the new features sound familiar, that's because Amazon is taking a page out of the iOS/Android playbook to make its tablet lineup more attractive to those who want something more than just a content consumption device. You can pick up the update by heading into the Settings panel, Device, and then checking to see if there is a System update available, or by visiting Amazon's official software updates page.</div>
Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-57595000750603206592013-11-18T14:23:00.001-08:002013-11-18T14:23:17.449-08:00How To Get Back Chrome’s old New Tab page<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl0O5OSWW3LmdIFx22VFXILIdOzM23mt0QcgXw82lCc_NHss8Uq2D8ciCqm69kQtS7yBuF_qOrNxZJxmZah5m9u0nG_2f_OJjKswqcXGCiCNAPuyzKb7PicDxjSC8ZLEd70sqyxnalVIg/s1600/Chrome+old+New+Tab+page.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="How To Get Back Chrome’s old New Tab page" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl0O5OSWW3LmdIFx22VFXILIdOzM23mt0QcgXw82lCc_NHss8Uq2D8ciCqm69kQtS7yBuF_qOrNxZJxmZah5m9u0nG_2f_OJjKswqcXGCiCNAPuyzKb7PicDxjSC8ZLEd70sqyxnalVIg/s320/Chrome+old+New+Tab+page.jpg" title="How To Get Back Chrome’s old New Tab page" /></a></div>
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If you’ve upgraded to Chrome 31, you'll notice that the browser now only displays thumbnails of your four most-visited sites, and features the Google logo and a big search box.</div>
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The latter is rather unnecessary if you usually search from the address bar, and the logo just wastes space. To get back the old-look New Tab page, which had eight thumbnails, try the following trick.</div>
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Type <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">chrome: //flags</span> into the address bar and press <b><i>Enter</i></b>. Scroll down to the entry <b><i>Enable Instant Ectended API</i></b>, select <b><i>Disabled</i></b> from the drop-down menu and click<b><i> Relaunch Now</i></b>. This will restore the old New Tab page.</div>
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<img alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=d31dbc8a-fda5-411e-9a1b-f99e0facb407" style="border: none; float: right;" /></div>
Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-34597062939137984932013-11-17T10:51:00.000-08:002013-11-17T10:51:01.811-08:00Inside the AMD R9 290<div style="text-align: justify;">
AMD and Nvidia have played leapfrog with product performance for a long time now, if you include the ATI era. With an established six-month window between their respective releases, domination is often fleetingly short for either side. Over the past decade, it's often been Nvidia out in front, with AMD/ATI chasing. With the arrival of the new R9 series, AMD squarely aims to take back the initiative.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLZ_PkzD-nCOX9a-YNqlTSkCcLzXnqY1ukz7tbL2WvY4coKqDyJ38qBFYRv2R8V2MwLKpAmx0Sz3iuUMaje60gEj3o6kfJqUi7_udXY36V6Ft0fBvAh6ZZBQtNiCXopJFU19PbSaPJKUc/s1600/AMD-R9-290.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em;"><img alt="Inside the AMD R9 290" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLZ_PkzD-nCOX9a-YNqlTSkCcLzXnqY1ukz7tbL2WvY4coKqDyJ38qBFYRv2R8V2MwLKpAmx0Sz3iuUMaje60gEj3o6kfJqUi7_udXY36V6Ft0fBvAh6ZZBQtNiCXopJFU19PbSaPJKUc/s1600/AMD-R9-290.jpg" height="313" title="Inside the AMD R9 290" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>Top Dog</b></div>
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Technically, for those following GPU development, the AMD R9 290 isn't the flagship card of this new series. That accolade goes to the R9 290X. That said, in all but a few very minor clock values and shader numbers, this is best AMD has on offer, and a card that many gamers will be salivating over in the coming months.</div>
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What's also important about this and its R9 290X brother is that while AMD launched a complete range of new hardware, from the R5 210 upwards, these are the only ones with entirely new GPU designs in them. All the other cards, including the 280X and below, reworked cores from the 8000 series and before.</div>
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The new Hawaii Pro and XT cores are a major leap in complexity for AMD, containing 6.2 billion transistors, a 512-bit memory pathway and more than 2560 shaders.</div>
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Given all this power, when I was first presented with this card in early October it was positioned against the Nvidia Geforce GTX 770 - an impressive card but hardly the best the opposition offers.</div>
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Since that time, new drivers and increasing confidence from the AMD camp have now shifted the R9 290 to a more direct comparison with the GTX 780 series that includes the Titan class cards. By definition, that moves the R9 290X into an as yet unmatched performance level above the Nvidia 700 series range.</div>
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AMD has also released pricing for the R9 290, which at £319 seems oddly cheap for such a high end device.</div>
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So what's the R9 290 all about, and does it live up to any of AMD's hype?</div>
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<b>The AMD R9 290</b></div>
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With the level of complexity that a modern GPU involves, all new designs are by definition derivative. The Hawaii Pro therefore is a direct offspring of the Tahiti XT that preceded it. except it's enhanced in almost every aspect.</div>
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The key features of the new R9 290 GPU include:</div>
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<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">2,560 stream processing units</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Up to 947MHz engine clock</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">6.2 billion transistors</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">4GB GDDR5 memory</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Up to 5Gbps memory clock speed</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">320GB/S memory bandwidth (maximum)</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">4.85 TFLOPS Single Precision compute power</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">API support for DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.3 and Mantle</li>
</ul>
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While more shaders is always helpful, probably the most critical enhancement that this design sees over the HD 7970 is the amount of bandwidth available: a staggering 320GB/S. This is achieved with a relatively low GDRR5 clock speed by having a monster 512-bit wide memory pathway - something that could easily see AMD offer a +400GB/S in a later model. If you're intending to support 4K Eyefinity gaming where you're aiming to render a virtual display of 12888 x 2048 at more than 60fps, then you'll need that much.</div>
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Having this amount of power in a card isn't without the odd catch. The reference board is 27.5cm long, which is wider than a full ATX motherboard. It also requires both an eight- and six-pin PCIe power lines, delivering the 230 watts that the card needs as a minimum. At idle the power management features of this design reduced the power footprint to just over 62W, which is almost identical to the prior HD 7970.</div>
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When stressed, the wattage that the card consumes is converted mostly into heat, and the massive heatsink/shroud combination is designed to vent that out through the double end plate.</div>
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As AMD cooling designs go. this isn't radically different from the HD 6970 layout and relies on a single fan to drive air down over the GPU and GDDR5 to stop it getting too hot. A typical idle temperature is 35C. and when the pixels are being crunched, it can easily go up to 95°C. Temperatures like that cause the fan RPM to climb and stay high, so I'd expect the retail cards to focus on cooling the card so it doesn't get that warm.</div>
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If AMD can solve that problem, then the sensor-driven throttling the card exhibits could allow a thermally well managed design to inherently outperform a less effectively cooled one.</div>
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Much of what I've talked about so far isn't a major departure from previous AMD video cards, so what has AMD put in here that's actually new?</div>
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<b>New Thinking</b></div>
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Along with a good dash of the old and familiar, these cards do also have some radical new things that we've previously not seen on AMD products. Rather than concentrating on one specific area, AMD has spread these enhancements around to encompass a wider scope than just those who play games. Here are some of the highlights:</div>
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<b>Enhanced Eyefinity</b></div>
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I've been a big fan of this virtual display technology from the outset, but I've been disappointed by a number of significant catches that AMD seems to slide underneath what's generally a great feature.</div>
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The R9 290 supports six displays out of the box, with four connections provided on the card. The standard configuration is dual DVI and single HDMI and DisplayPort outputs. That allows you to get triple displays without using DisplayPort, and if you own a monitor that accepts that input, you can chain it on to a maximum of six.</div>
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<b>Enhanced CrossFire</b></div>
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The back-channel method of connecting the frame buffers using ribbon cables is now dead, because with the advent of PCIe 3.0 the bus has more than enough bandwidth to accomplish the task. In this new mode slave cards will render their frames directly into the memory of the master card. AMD claims this is much more efficient and allows dual cards to approach 2x speed scaling.</div>
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<b>True Audio Technology</b></div>
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If you've not noticed, the sound card as a concept has died. That was because Microsoft kept messing with the sound API, and Realtek put a good enough audio chip on almost every motherboard from the outset.</div>
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AMD sees game audio as an opportunity, and on the R9 290 it's added True Audio Technology, a dedicated programmable audio DSP. The purpose here is to improve the audio experience by processing the available audio streams independently, providing strong spatial effects even with stereo headphone output.</div>
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Normally the calculations for offering 3D audio effects or real-time reverb over headphones and 2.1 speakers are too great for typical game use. but with the TrueAudio DSP, it can be achieved with little or no significant overhead. GenAudio, which developed this technology, intends to provide plug-ins for the common PC audio middleware so that developers can easily incorporate the option in their titles.</div>
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<b>Mantle API</b></div>
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Another new aspect to these Volcanic Islands designs is the introduction of the Mantle API, a software interface layer designed to get more out of the available hardware.</div>
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For those who don't live and breathe game coding, this is the means by which most games are connected to their game engines. By having the API layer sitting between the game code and the hardware, the generation of 3D imagery can be managed in a way that allows developers to worry less about the vast range of video card capabilities.</div>
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The caveat to doing this is that software rarely fully exploits the hardware, because the API is designed for all possibilities, not the specific one in your PC.</div>
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In a presentation that AMD gave to journalists on its new hardware, it was explained in the context of the AMD video hardware that it provided for the Xbox 360 and upcoming Xbox One and PS4. People have long questioned how the Xbox 360 can deliver such high-quality graphics and consistent frame rate given its modest GPU and CPU facilities.</div>
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The answer, according to AMD, is that when you've got complete control over the hardware and are not working through an API like DirectX, the GPU hardware can be run much harder than it is currently on a PC.</div>
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AMD's answer to that is the Mantle API, where the software developer can get direct hardware access and therefore make a PC seem much more like a games console. The trouble, as is often the issue with APIs, is getting developers to use methods that they're not familiar, having invested massively in either DirectX or OpenGL previously.</div>
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EA has been convinced, via a sum reportedly in the $5m to $8m range, to bind Mantle into its recent flagship release. Battlefield 4. The official Mantle patch for Battlefield 4 won't be out for a month or so. and when it arrives it will be massively scrutinised. Should the Mantle version of Battlefield 4 deliver a substantial boost over its traditional API version, then a very large number of developers are likely to take a significantly greater interest.</div>
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Just before I finished writing this article, it was announced that joining the two original converts to the Mantle cause, EA and Activision, are <b>Cloud Imperium Games</b>, <b>Eidos-Montreal</b>, a part of the Square Enix Group.and Oxide Games. Perhaps that hints that the <b>Battlefield 4 Mantle</b> release will yield dramatic improvements, even if we've yet to see these numbers officially.</div>
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The release of Mantle enhanced titles from these and others could open the door to PC games playing much more like console titles and side line the DirectX API.</div>
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<img alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=b5a82ff6-3c6d-44f5-be2b-18d02eddac30" style="border: none; float: right;" /></div>
Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-26531646599049034122013-11-15T04:03:00.002-08:002013-11-15T04:26:40.004-08:00How To Format a hard drive<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>If your PC has been unlucky enough to contract a virus, you might want to reformat it. In this article we explain how to wipe your disk clean in Windows</b></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdEnwLayQeAYf0iYL_duWYEShyAGEPJSy-vWF0t0rOHw-0vC4jbwfYa-EEAwKcG6yoVY3FqRmb-wrUOBgTQ9Fu1FE-Tv_HjR3W2uj4YO7M1PF5wHIl2jTef5TAP8cHCntSmWnJjY-9UYs/s1600/how-format-hard-drive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="How To Format a hard drive" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdEnwLayQeAYf0iYL_duWYEShyAGEPJSy-vWF0t0rOHw-0vC4jbwfYa-EEAwKcG6yoVY3FqRmb-wrUOBgTQ9Fu1FE-Tv_HjR3W2uj4YO7M1PF5wHIl2jTef5TAP8cHCntSmWnJjY-9UYs/s1600/how-format-hard-drive.jpg" height="320" title="How To Format a hard drive" width="219" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are many reasons why you might want to format a <b>hard drive</b>, including a clean installation of Windows to get rid of a virus or malware, because you’re giving the drive to someone else, or throwing it away.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here, we’ll explain everything you need to know to get the job done properly. What you’ll need to format the hard drive depends on a few things, such as whether it’s your only hard disk and if you have a spare PC or not.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">You can’t, for example, format the hard drive on which Windows is running. In order to format the disk and reinstall Windows (or another operating system), you’ll need to boot your computer from a Windows installation disc, a <b>USB flash drive</b> or another <b>bootable disc</b>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Formatting is the process of deleting all the data on the hard drive, but beware of ‘Quick Format’, which leaves all your data in place and makes the drive appear to be empty. A quick format is okay if you have a brand new hard drive, or you want to reinstall Windows, but not if you’re disposing of the disk.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A word of warning: make sure you have successfully backed up any photos, videos, music and other documents from your drive before you format it. Although files can be recovered in some situations, prevention is always better than cure.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Partitions</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It’s important to understand about partitions before you start. A hard drive’s storage can be divided up into smaller sections, called partitions. It’s possible to format one partition while leaving the others untouched. While that’s useful in certain situations, if you want to format the entire hard drive and use the entire capacity in one block, you’ll also need to delete the partition information.</div><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ8p0LSCRptGQOgpSVEbyzdYvKGvsQacmy4_OZeT70fSNFrZisel14uSKqIbghn6Mm7KN_qhGuWkq2TX83IXz79MTyomD6ZuojP_33Jra_MNT-H3J77UESf8Tg4nwIkZYg3n19Gw-Z8wA/s1600/Hard-drive-partition.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Quick format" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ8p0LSCRptGQOgpSVEbyzdYvKGvsQacmy4_OZeT70fSNFrZisel14uSKqIbghn6Mm7KN_qhGuWkq2TX83IXz79MTyomD6ZuojP_33Jra_MNT-H3J77UESf8Tg4nwIkZYg3n19Gw-Z8wA/s1600/Hard-drive-partition.jpg" height="320" title="Quick format" width="307" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: medium; text-align: start;">Quick format</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table><b>Quick format</b><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Windows Vista, 7 and 8 have a built-in Disk Management tool, but the fastest way to format a hard drive is to click the <i>Start</i> button, then <i>Computer</i> and right-click on the <i>hard drive</i> you want to wipe (you can’t format the drive on which Windows is running for obvious reasons). Choose <i>Format</i>… from the menu and a new window will appear with a few formatting options.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">By default Quick Format is checked, and you can choose the file system and allocation unit size, as well as changing the volume label (the drive’s name). Typically, you can leave all settings unchanged and click the Start button. In under a minute your hard drive will be formatted. You should choose NTFS as the file system if it isn’t already selected for Windows Vista, 7 or 8.</div><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Windows’ Disk Management</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Type <b><i>diskmgmt.msc</i></b> into the search box in Vista or Windows 7 and then click on the only result that appears in the menu above, with the same name. This is the easiest way to launch Disk Management, but you’ll also find it in the Control Panel if you search for ‘disk’ or look under the Administrative tools section, where it’s called ‘Create and format hard disk partitions’.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Disk Management isn’t as powerful as a standalone partition management tool, but it’s still useful. When you install a new (additional) hard drive in your PC, you might wonder why it doesn’t appear in Windows Explorer. The reason is because it needs to be initialised and formatted – you can do this in Disk Management.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">When the tool loads, it will analyse all your computer’s drives and will prompt you to initialise a new disk that it finds. If your disk is larger than 2TB, you should opt for GPT (GUID Partition Table). This setting also lets you create more than four partitions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you don’t see a prompt, look in the list of drives and you should see one that says ‘Not Initialized’. Right-click on it and choose Initialize Disk. Once that’s done, right-click in the hatched Unallocated space and select New Simple Volume. Follow the instructions, choosing how big you want the partition to be (in MB – 1024MB = 1GB), and which drive letter you want (one will be chosen, but you can opt to change it if you wish).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">When you come to format the partition, our advice is the same as in the Quick Format section. If you select a size for the partition that’s smaller than the total capacity of the drive, say 500GB on a 1TB drive, you’ll end up with some unallocated space on the drive that you can format by repeating the process you’ve just completed.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Changing a partition’s size</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">You can use Disk Management to expand or shrink a partition. Right-click on one and choose the appropriate option from the menu that appears. If shrinking, the partition will be checked to find out how much empty space it contains.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It’s a little confusing as the numbers are displayed in MB rather than GB,but you can adjust the amount of space to shrink and the ‘Total size after shrink’ will be updated. You can’t shrink a partition beyond the point where files are located – you may be able to free up space by defragmenting the drive first. Conversely, you can only expand a partition if there’s unused space on the drive. If not, the option will be greyedout.</div><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxnPVkbhx6Oj_BGGzDI_X_rusLQt433MzBAEUoZogBaTVy-L4EeQkPQUyY-0HMaFpvQSVOLfVizibvwterNDr-6SgZp-X8oW6GRKRKoDcVwQXPcZMlUt2s-6600lSoV5pGh-dybZJmZ4o/s1600/format-scratch-disk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Scratch disk" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxnPVkbhx6Oj_BGGzDI_X_rusLQt433MzBAEUoZogBaTVy-L4EeQkPQUyY-0HMaFpvQSVOLfVizibvwterNDr-6SgZp-X8oW6GRKRKoDcVwQXPcZMlUt2s-6600lSoV5pGh-dybZJmZ4o/s1600/format-scratch-disk.jpg" height="320" title="Scratch disk" width="209" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Scratch disk</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPcW-T4t4lhlW2oMvka0brk1j-8vWPK8T19kr4DdEnHpzn1P_Eha4_YLn3zR_wIJt8vkQ8YYl-R20mPuF0v2c5cwmdWAZS_DZgOTX_CljxEyroRaG8jtL0YV6UCHB_26TTRbvqA0Pwxrw/s1600/initialize-disk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Initialise disk" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPcW-T4t4lhlW2oMvka0brk1j-8vWPK8T19kr4DdEnHpzn1P_Eha4_YLn3zR_wIJt8vkQ8YYl-R20mPuF0v2c5cwmdWAZS_DZgOTX_CljxEyroRaG8jtL0YV6UCHB_26TTRbvqA0Pwxrw/s320/initialize-disk.jpg" title="Initialise disk" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Initialise Disk</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: both; float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNln2yzCfpf61s5nBIQHS3B9mcTkDQP5wGTfkHJcWAuue6M4nLz_dT6cVZRlpPKOKvUt6tJkn0v5yIgqb05SXuf8baIJLjahxTaxt5FxmaE4qDBFfeWZEGluQWBrQm3NXszVdFLMRnc7k/s1600/Disk-management.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Disk management" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNln2yzCfpf61s5nBIQHS3B9mcTkDQP5wGTfkHJcWAuue6M4nLz_dT6cVZRlpPKOKvUt6tJkn0v5yIgqb05SXuf8baIJLjahxTaxt5FxmaE4qDBFfeWZEGluQWBrQm3NXszVdFLMRnc7k/s320/Disk-management.jpg" height="320" title="Disk management" width="260" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Disk management</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTiPChe21VtE3dRzZx84hOGgbElUaaHUpCTL_cu1vrv2LsCq1-r2IbnX4l0ZlnkMYzZwgtnDR-IVrAKWOWXChBVe8Kf9jbNEiif2ItfsdCebBaQgSiP_6OWrC_-thKxVxdrxEe-BYYbKM/s1600/shrink-partition.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Shrink partition" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTiPChe21VtE3dRzZx84hOGgbElUaaHUpCTL_cu1vrv2LsCq1-r2IbnX4l0ZlnkMYzZwgtnDR-IVrAKWOWXChBVe8Kf9jbNEiif2ItfsdCebBaQgSiP_6OWrC_-thKxVxdrxEe-BYYbKM/s320/shrink-partition.jpg" title="Shrink partition" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Shrink partition</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="clear: both;"></div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-47661072887782596132013-11-14T10:20:00.000-08:002013-11-14T10:20:07.095-08:00Reclaim your online privacy: Thinking you’re being watched is no longer a simple case of you being paranoid<div style="text-align: left;">
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<b>The documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden illustrated the startling reach of the world’s largest intelligence agencies. We learned that the agencies collaborated with technology companies to make it easier to spy on the public.</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYuXJJfTwBlvvPi_6k_vDn8WurD2aLzld4dxXKhs0UirfeTJPrfuR_bgqqIGT9fiMz_8r3GIOsw-aGIWf035UC4oeMMSnvs4v9KBO9V-NUqeb7WVcN5mwMg_WQpQLoSNfYUBVEXGeMVrM/s1600/online-privacy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Reclaim your online privacy: Thinking you’re being watched is no longer a simple case of you being paranoid" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYuXJJfTwBlvvPi_6k_vDn8WurD2aLzld4dxXKhs0UirfeTJPrfuR_bgqqIGT9fiMz_8r3GIOsw-aGIWf035UC4oeMMSnvs4v9KBO9V-NUqeb7WVcN5mwMg_WQpQLoSNfYUBVEXGeMVrM/s1600/online-privacy.png" title="Reclaim your online privacy: Thinking you’re being watched is no longer a simple case of you being paranoid" /></a></div>
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It’s no longer safe to assume anything about the security of your data – except that you’re not the only one who has access to it. Whether or not you’re on their radar, your activity may be indiscriminately sucked up by intelligence services, who have made it their right to know what you know.</div>
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One consequence is that average users are increasingly turning to open-source privacy tools. Much more transparent and often independently audited, they can’t be subverted as easily as a proprietary tool, making them the best means of retaining privacy in your online activities.</div>
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Encryption</h3>
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We know the NSA and GCHQ have collaborated with technology companies to install backdoors into security products, so it’s reasonably safe to assume proprietary encryption solutions are compromised.</div>
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That means no more BitLocker, even though it’s highly convenient as it comes with some versions of Windows. Instead, we recommend you use the open-source TrueCrypt to encrypt your data.</div>
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It’s a powerful tool, offering volume-, partition- and drive encryption, plus the ability to set up hidden volumes or an entire OS. If you’re compelled to reveal your main encryption password for whatever reason, a hidden volume will remain safely encrypted and undetectable inside the visible volume. Think of it as a saferoom within a saferoom.</div>
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Download <b>TrueCrypt</b> from <b><a href="http://truecrypt.org/">truecrypt.org</a></b> and install it on your PC. To set up an encrypted area in which to store your most important files, first launch TrueCrypt, then click <i>Create Volume</i> and choose ‘<i>Create an encrypted file container</i>’.</div>
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You’ll be offered the option of making a hidden volume, but these must be created inside an existing volume, so choose Standard.</div>
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Click <i>Select File</i> and choose a location and a file name for your <b>TrueCrypt container</b> (<b><i>don’t use an existing file name or it will be overwritten by the container</i></b>). Choose your encryption and hash algorithm – novices can safely stick to the defaults – then choose the size of your container and a strong password. When prompted, randomly move your mouse around the TrueCrypt window for at least 30 seconds – the longer you move, the stronger the encryption.</div>
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To access your container, open TrueCrypt, choose any spare drive letter, select your container file from the Volume drop-down menu, then click Mount. Enter your password and the volume will appear in Windows Explorer. Drag a file on to this and it will be automatically encrypted and added to the container; open an encrypted file and it will temporarily be decrypted in your PC’s RAM. When you’re done with your container, just click Dismount and it will disappear.</div>
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There’s lots more you can do from there. You could create a hidden volume inside your standard volume, and you can encrypt a partition or OS using similar steps to creating a container. It’s all well documented both in the software and on the TrueCrypt website.</div>
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Web browsing</h3>
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Tor is a free and open virtual network that bounces communications around the world to prevent sites from learning your physical location. It forms the basis of a range of security applications, the most common of which is the increasingly popular Tor browser. It’s based on a modified Firefox release, and if you follow some simple precautions it will grant you a level of anonymity online.</div>
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To set it up, go to <b><a href="http://torproject.org/">torproject.org</a></b> and download the <b>Tor Browser Bundle</b>. Run the downloaded file, choose an extraction location, then open the folder and click ‘<i>Start Tor Browser</i>’. The Vidalia Control Panel will automatically handle the randomised network setup and, when Tor is ready, the browser will open; close it to disconnect from the network.</div>
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It won’t be browsing as usual, as the Tor browser is necessarily stripped of many of Firefox’s modern trimmings. Plug-ins, such as Flash and QuickTime, are by default blocked as they can reveal your non-Tor IP address, as can opening any downloaded document that’s handled by an external application such as Word. The makers strongly advise against using BitTorrent over Tor, too.</div>
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Don’t go switching to Chrome, though: Tor is not protecting your PC’s internet traffic, only the traffic that goes via the Tor Browser, so it’s no good just having Tor running in the background.</div>
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Because of these restrictions, not to mention the reduced speed of browsing as data flies around the world en route to your PC, it’s not practical to use Tor for everything online. It’s fine to keep using your current browser for everyday online activities – if you want things a bit more private, search with <b><a href="http://duckduckgo.com/">DuckDuckGo.com</a></b> rather than Google – but try to at least get into the habit of switching to Tor when it’s time to do your banking, shopping or any other sensitive tasks.</div>
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Messaging</h3>
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Public key cryptography is no longer only for IT experts, as more and more people are using tools such as OpenPGP to keep their communications private.</div>
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In very simple terms, with PGP you generate two unique keys. Your public key is what you give to others, and they can use it to encrypt any messages meant for your attention. Your private key is what you keep secret and safe, as it works in conjunction with your public key to unlock those messages when they arrive. The public key alone can never decrypt a message, which means you’re safe to hand it out even to people you’ve never met.</div>
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The most popular implementation of OpenPGP is the free GnuPG (<b><a href="http://gnupg.org/">gnupg.org</a></b>). Unless you’re skilled with the command line, scroll down to the Binaries section on the Downloads page to find the special setup files for each OS. Note that both sender and recipient need the software installed.</div>
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For Windows that’s Gpg4win, a suite that contains GnuPG plus a few other useful tools and extensions, as well as a PDF of the excellent ‘Gpg4win Compendium’. The ‘<i>For Novices</i>’ chapter is a great place to start learning about PGP.</div>
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Gpg4win includes everything you need: there are plug-ins for Outlook 2003 and 2007, and a standalone email client called Claws Mail that works with the keys you generate in Kleopatra.</div>
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To generate your own pair of keys, run Kleopatra (it’s installed with Gpg4win), then click <i>File</i>, <i>New Certificate</i>. Choose the first option that pops up, enter your name and email address, then click <i>Create Key</i>. Your chosen passphrase is important, as it determines the strength of your encryption; try to use a phrase at least four- or five-words long, but be sure you’ll remember it. Back up your newly created key pair, then <i>Export</i> the certificate to your PC. Opening that file will give you your public key in text form.</div>
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That’s the very basic setup, but there’s an awful lot more to it. The Gpg4win Compendium document has walkthroughs for everything, so the best thing you can do is work through the examples until you’re confident enough to start using OpenPGP with your friends, relatives and colleagues.</div>
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One area of messaging that Gpg4win doesn’t cover is instant messaging. Skype uses industry-standard encryption to keep private your conversations. However, if you don’t want to put your trust in a mainstream app, you might like to try Off-the-record (<b><a href="http://otr.cypherpunks.ca/">otr.cypherpunks.ca</a></b>). This encryption toolkit works with the Pidgin IM client (<b><a href="http://pidgin.im/">pidgin.im</a></b>).</div>
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Disk cleaning</h3>
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The final tool in your privacy arsenal is a vital one: a good disk cleaner. BleachBit is a simple piece of software that can shred files to prevent recovery, and overwrite free disk space to hide traces of old files. It also automatically hunts down and deletes unnecessary files on your hard disk, from caches and cookies to the temporary folders of thousands of applications.</div>
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Head to <b><a href="http://bleachbit.sourceforge.net/">bleachbit.sourceforge.net</a></b> to download and install the software. The interface will show you any supported applications installed on your PC on the left, along with information on what will be deleted for each on the right. Just tick what you want to clean, leave anything you’re unsure of, and click Preview to see how much room you’ll free up. Then tap Clean.</div>
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The extra privacy tools are all in the <i>File menu</i>. <i>Shred Files</i> and <i>Shred Folders</i> will delete and overwrite your selected data. <i>Wipe Free Space</i> will go through a drive or partition and overwrite files previously deleted by any software, so they can’t be easily recovered. After doing this, BleachBit will also attempt to wipe metadata about those files by filling Windows’ Master File Table.</div>
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Tails</h3>
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If you want a bit of everything we’ve covered in one package, try Tails. It’s a live Debian-based OS that you can run on any PC from a DVD or USB drive. As it uses only the host system’s RAM, it leaves no trace when you switch off and disconnect. You can rock up at an internet café or use the PC in your hotel lobby without worrying about viruses and spyware on the host OS, and you can also use Tails to circumvent regional locks and censorship. Bear in mind, though, that you must boot it from a disc or external drive.</div>
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Download the Tails ISO image from <b><a href="http://tails.boum.org/">tails.boum.org</a></b> and follow the instructions to verify the image. To install it on a USB drive, first go to <b><a href="http://pendrivelinux.com/">pendrivelinux.com</a></b> to download and run the <i>Universal USB Installer</i>. Choose <i>Tails</i> from its drop-down list and click <i>Browse</i> to select your downloaded ISO image, then select the drive letter of your USB stick. Finally, click <i>Create</i> to build a <b>bootable Tails OS drive</b>.</div>
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Tails includes a range of tools, all of which are preconfigured to connect to the internet through the Tor network – it blocks any attempts by applications to directly access the internet.</div>
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Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-11514661795507164402013-11-14T00:40:00.005-08:002013-11-14T01:17:44.196-08:00Processor Review: Intel Ivy Bridge-E Core i7-4960X<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEislchAl4zrYV-JdI0LEm-_aiqg-mIKYXX6WqNH7AjY13MIi_2VqbX1sS75pyM0syx5g8qh0xkykqOIm-XIZaKciy9kAmEiZWzhOl2Ppp3t4MM3m9eSAdjNERWQ0nYEB9IAY5T3wgW80i0/s1600/Intel+Ivy+Bridge-E+Core+i7-4960X.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Processor Review: Intel Ivy Bridge-E Core i7-4960X" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEislchAl4zrYV-JdI0LEm-_aiqg-mIKYXX6WqNH7AjY13MIi_2VqbX1sS75pyM0syx5g8qh0xkykqOIm-XIZaKciy9kAmEiZWzhOl2Ppp3t4MM3m9eSAdjNERWQ0nYEB9IAY5T3wgW80i0/s1600/Intel+Ivy+Bridge-E+Core+i7-4960X.png" height="283" title="Processor Review: Intel Ivy Bridge-E Core i7-4960X" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Intel reserves extreme branding for its fastest chips, but its Ivy Bridge-e range has been a long time coming – sandy Bridge-e emerged in 2011 and, four months ago, Intel released Haswell. The three new chips use 2012’s Ivy Bridge architecture rather than Haswell. That’s because they’re based on workstation Xeon parts, which are released behind the curve of Intel’s consumer chips for reasons of longevity and reliability.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The new chips use a 22nm manufacturing process. This an improvement on sandy Bridge-e’s 28nm, and makes for a die that’s smaller, cooler and more efficient. The flagship <b>core i7-4960X</b> has a fearsome specification: six <b>Hyper-Threaded cores</b> clocked to 3.6GHz, a top <b>Turbo Boost</b> speed of 4GHz, and 15MB of L3 cache.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Ivy Bridge</b> improves on its <b>sandy Bridge</b> predecessor with better branch prediction, improved out-of-order execution and more cache bandwidth. And the extreme-edition of these chips have their own enhancements too: support for 40 <b>PcI-express 3.0</b> lanes and quad-channel 1866MHz <b>DDR3 memory</b> both improve over sandy Bridge-e.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The <b>core i7-4960X</b> isn’t the only Ivy Bridge-e chip. The i7-4930K also has six cores, but they’re clocked to 3.4GHz with a Turbo speed of 3.9GHz, and it’s got 12MB of cache. The i7-4820K is a quad-core 3.7GHz chip that maxes out at 3.9GHz and has a 10MB cache.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The LGA 2011 socket and X79 chipset remain from sandy Bridge-e, so you won’t need to buy a new motherboard, old heatsinks will work, and so will the vast majority of motherboards – although most need a BIosupdate.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The older chipset has its down sides, especially if you’re building a fresh machine. There’s no native UsB 3.0 support, and support for only two SATA 6Gb/s sockets. Both of these are rectified by third-party chips on motherboards, but these increase the price and the potential for instability.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The core i7-4960X returned great benchmark results, but don’t expect this chip, made from an older architecture, to always outpace Haswell. Its overall PcMark 7 score of 6099 points beats the 5246 points scored by the sandy Bridge-e based i7-3960X, but it’s a little slower than the Haswell-based i7-4770K. That’s disappointing, but not surprising – Haswell is newer, and PcMark 7 doesn’t necessarily make the best use of the i7-4960X’s six cores.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">other tests show off the i7-4960X’s multithreaded advantage. The i7-4960X’s score of 11.85 points in the cinebench video rendering benchmark is excellent: the core i7-4770K managed just 8.12 in the same test, and the sandy Bridge-e based i7-3960X scored 11.01.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">We were easily able to overclock the i7-4960X to a stable 4.4GHz. In PcMark 7, the tweaked chip returned a lower overall score of 5851 points, but that was caused by just one test: in the Productivity benchmark – which measures basic system tasks – the i7-4960X’s score nearly halved from a superb 5648 to a still quick 2733.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In every other PcMark 7 test, the overclocked chip improved: its entertainment score rose from 4915 to 5109 points, the creativity test leaped from 7811 to 8042, and the i7-4960X’s computation result jumped from 8879 to 9604. The overclocked i7-4960X also scored 13.3 points in the cinebench test – a stunning result that demonstrates the part’s multicore abilities.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Our final test, wPrime, calculates prime numbers using every available thread to evaluate multicore performance. The i7-4960X finished the 1024MB test in 132 seconds – the i7-3960X needed 151 seconds.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Intel has upped its extreme-edition chip’s multithreaded performance levels without compromising on heat or power draw. The i7-4960X’s top temperature of 63°c is fine, and the peak power draw of 247W during the cinebench test is only 4W more than sandy Bridge-e managed, while providing a hefty performance leap.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Verdict</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Benchmarks show that the i7-4960X is the most powerful processor around in multithreaded tasks and when running intensive apps because of its six cores, but it’s marginally slower than Haswell in less demanding single-threaded tasks. Its mixed performance, ageing ancillary hardware and stratospheric price means this is only worth buying if you need the extra power its six cores provide.</div><br />
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Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-77783390293450992012013-11-13T08:13:00.004-08:002013-11-13T08:13:56.390-08:00Laptop Review: Samsung Ativ Book 9 Lite<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The Ativ Book 9 Lite is Samsung’s first laptop since it rebranded the confusing Series 3, 5, 7 and 9 ranges. This affordable ultraportable aims to balance premium features with a low price.</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJDTOh4xowZ8tW4hYbDZsQ9Lzs6jRIGM6QHr27aKQqUFxwuP5xco0EkQlE0chDu9vn0TlKD5vLQ1yD4GQWB0xtBv91VYdv8A1zBpvWMMmApX0b8-gDCPukijNUXLyc0wioxiJ-kDTnbvg/s1600/Samsung_Ativ_Book_9_Lite_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Laptop Review: Samsung Ativ Book 9 Lite" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJDTOh4xowZ8tW4hYbDZsQ9Lzs6jRIGM6QHr27aKQqUFxwuP5xco0EkQlE0chDu9vn0TlKD5vLQ1yD4GQWB0xtBv91VYdv8A1zBpvWMMmApX0b8-gDCPukijNUXLyc0wioxiJ-kDTnbvg/s1600/Samsung_Ativ_Book_9_Lite_01.jpg" title="Laptop Review: Samsung Ativ Book 9 Lite" /></a></div>
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Samsung says it shares the same ‘design identity’ as the flagship Ativ Book 9 Plus (reviewed opposite). It certainly looks similar, which is no bad thing since the Plus is a sleek and attractive laptop.</div>
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Although the name ‘Lite’ might suggest that this is lightweight, it’s pretty thick and unavoidably heavy. Not by a huge amount, though. It’s 18mm thick and weighs 1.5 kg, which puts it at the chunkier end of slim ultrabooks. It also has a plasticky build, though, it still feels well-made, and is available in Marble White or Mineral Ash Black.</div>
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Its keyboard feels very plastic to the touch, but offers a comfortable and tactile experience. The trackpad is more impressive, with a large area to work with and the kind of responsiveness not regularly associated with cheaper laptops.</div>
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Although the Ativ 9 Book Lite might superficially resemble the Plus, it’s been downgraded internally to reach that sub-£600 price.</div>
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Samsung is vague about exactly what <b>processor</b> is inside the laptop, stating only that it’s a quad-core chip running up to 1.4GHz. We did a little digging, though, and discovered that it’s an <b>AMD A6-1450</b> auxiliary processing unit (APU) with a <b>Radeon HD 8250</b> graphics core. What Samsung is less ashamed about is the 4GB of memory and 128GB SSD.</div>
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The Lite produced adequate results of 2142 points in <b>PCMark 7</b>, but only 15fps in Stalker: Call of Pripyat at our lowest standard 720p/Medium-detail test. The graphics framerate especially shows that gameplay will be limited even more than with Intel integrated graphics.</div>
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<b>Battery power</b></div>
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Battery life, according to Samsung, is up to 8.5 hours from the built-in 32Wh battery. In our tests, however, the Ativ Book 9 Lite streamed a looped movie on BBC iPlayer over Wi-Fi for 6.5 hours.</div>
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Our review sample came with a 13.3in <b>touchscreen</b>, but a non-touchscreen version is also available if you don’t think you’ll need Windows 8 or its gestures – it will save you £100.</div>
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The screen looks reasonably good, but its 1366x768 resolution is a long way from the Plus, which offers 3200x1800 pixels and IPS technology.</div>
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Viewing angles from this budget TN panel are narrow, too.</div>
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The Lite’s hinge allows you to push the screen back so that it’s flat to the desk, in case you find a use for this other than playing a two-player air hockey game.</div>
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There’s no room for an ethernet port, but Samsung includes an adaptor dongle in the box. The proprietary connector looks like <b>Micro-USB</b>, but don’t try to force one of these cables in. Other options include a <b>USB 3.0</b> port, a <b>USB 2.0</b> socket,<b> Micro HDMI</b>, <b>mini-VGA</b> and an <b>SD card reader</b> hidden away under a flap.</div>
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As with most laptops these days,a 720p webcam allows you tomake video calls.</div>
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Pre-loaded software normally falls into the ‘bloatware’ category, but Samsung adds some useful apps – SideSync and HomeSync Lite. The latter lets you create a personal cloud to share media between devices, while SideSync allows you to control your phone with a keyboard and mouse, mirroring the display on the laptop’s screen. This only works with Samsung Galaxy Android devices, though.</div>
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<b>Verdict</b></div>
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Samsung’s Ativ Book 9 Lite is around half the price of the Plus. This means a plastic chassis and a cheap screen and processor have been used, though, it has an impressively thin and light form factor. Component downgrades also mean that this laptop is no powerhouse, but it does the job well and few laptops at this price point are so thin and light.</div>
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Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-2011208896922528332013-11-13T08:07:00.002-08:002013-11-13T08:07:49.839-08:00Laptop Review: Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus is an Ultrabook that’s been designed to rival Apple’s MacBook Air and Pro. It also looks very similar to the old Series 9 laptop it replaces, which is no bad thing. The thin aluminium unibody looks sleek and attractive in its blue tinted ‘Ash Black’ colour, with arcing lines and cleanly finished silver edges. The Plus has a classy, premium feel with excellent build quality. There’s no scrimping here as even the underneath of the laptop is metal, matching the MacBook Air.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_j5oPORikJJ2p6FzNZq8UC0UC9ayHYLO8UuUnrLkxtLb7gYtzxVddPr9dPJdUShoXJO0KyNmhVQKysTiEuNS2F8j_Ouvab4cYXjeaE6LFQqjXv4aplD4Z4FBBjnmQSjrVqhyphenhyphenXCPMS_6M/s1600/Samsung_Ativ_Book_9_Plus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Laptop Review: Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_j5oPORikJJ2p6FzNZq8UC0UC9ayHYLO8UuUnrLkxtLb7gYtzxVddPr9dPJdUShoXJO0KyNmhVQKysTiEuNS2F8j_Ouvab4cYXjeaE6LFQqjXv4aplD4Z4FBBjnmQSjrVqhyphenhyphenXCPMS_6M/s1600/Samsung_Ativ_Book_9_Plus.jpg" title="Laptop Review: Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus" /></a></div>
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It’s a 13in laptop, measuring 13.5mm at its thinnest point and only a millimetre more at its thickest, and weighs 1.4kg. That’s as portable as a MacBook Air, but Samsung has included specifications that rival the MacBook Pro.</div>
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We like the backlit typing experience, even if it is the same plastic keyboard found on the Ativ Book 9 Lite (opposite). The trackpad is outstanding with a smooth feel and responsive nature that only requires the lightest of touches.</div>
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The star of the show here is the touchscreen, which has a resolution of 3200x1800 pixels and a high pixel density of 275ppi, the highest we’ve ever seen on a laptop. Windows isn’t equipped for this, though. You’ll need to change the display settings to 200 percent zoom to make the desktop a usable size. And even then, many Windows applications aren’t compatible with this scaling, so you’ll be peering at the tiniest of small print when using these.</div>
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Aside from the high resolution, the display has good contrast, rich colours and great viewing angles with Samsung’s IPS-like PLS panel. All are slightly tainted by the highly reflective glossy sheet of glass, though. If you should want to, it folds flat and the hinge cleverly stiffens at around 105 degrees. This means you can easily open the laptop, and the screen isn’t pushed back when you use touch input.</div>
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The Plus is powered by an <b>Intel Haswell</b> (4th-gen) processor and built-in HD 4400 graphics. In this case, it’s a 1.6GHz dual-core Core i5-4200U that’s backed up with 4GB of memory and a 128GB SSD.</div>
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Samsung says it can boot up from cold in under six seconds, and although our review sample couldn’t achieve this, it managed a still impressive eight seconds. Note that this isn’t a cold boot, but Windows 8’s restore from hibernation mode.</div>
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The Plus fared well in benchmark tests, too, achieving an impressive 4648 points in PCMark 7, but only outpacing the MacBook Air by 50 points, or one percent.</div>
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Graphic performance is capable at low quality settings but the laptop is no gaming rig. In Stalker: Call of Pripyat at our lowest standard test of 720p/Medium-detail, the Ativ Book 9 Plus managed a playable 31fps. Increasing the resolution to 1080p halved the framerate to 16fps, while cranking it to the screen’s full 3200x1800-pixel resolution made the game plummet to 7fps.</div>
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Samsung claims a battery life of up to 11 hours from the 55.5Wh non-removable battery. In reality, the Plus was found to last for a considerably shorter time. Our usual video rundown test comprises looping an <b>MPEG-4 HD video</b>, streamed over <b>Wi-Fi</b>, with screen brightness set to 120cd/m2. It lasted just five hours and one minute.</div>
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Connectivity is good, even if there isn’t room for full-size ports other than USB. The Plus has two USB 3.0 ports, <b>Micro HDMI</b>, mini VGA, mini ethernet, combined headset jack and an <b>SDXC card reader</b> is hidden behind a flap on the underside. To use the VGA or ethernet options, though, you’ll need to carry around Samsung’s proprietary dongles.</div>
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A 720p webcam for video calls and a decent pair of stereo speakers also make an appearance. There’s no 11.ac wireless, though, meaning the Plus is behind the curve here, which is a shame.</div>
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Like the Ativ Book 9 Lite, Samsung pre-loads some software in the form of SideSync and HomeSync Lite. These only work with certain Samsung Galaxy devices, though, and respectively allow you to take control of the smartphone or tablet and share content between devices.</div>
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<b>Verdict</b></div>
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The Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus is one of the nicer Windows ultrabooks around, with stylish design and impressive specifications. But it comes at a high price and has disappointing battery life. Unless you specifically want Windows 8 and that super high-res display, the equivalent MacBook Air has better overall performance and is cheaper.</div>
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Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-33812704080487376252013-11-10T09:40:00.003-08:002013-11-10T09:40:29.867-08:00Laptop Review: Toshiba Satellite L50T-A-130<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Toshiba</b> has been a bit slow off the mark to produce laptops with <b>Haswell processors</b>, and even the <b>Satellite L50T-A-130</b> is a modest effort that’s unlikely to grab any headlines.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRwdoPBZbHFgBh6POT1vrDn6tOu0fxI_7BSkvE45g2VWvR0iabFO_UORtHf9JAiZfrPj3otPB29glywwAmTgMR-uRGtlucS-hGDQZG3DLyJbht5ZYG3HLkkeAWv4Tq4efdlj83Bq79ilE/s1600/Toshiba+Satellite+L50T-A-130.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Laptop Review: Toshiba Satellite L50T-A-130" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRwdoPBZbHFgBh6POT1vrDn6tOu0fxI_7BSkvE45g2VWvR0iabFO_UORtHf9JAiZfrPj3otPB29glywwAmTgMR-uRGtlucS-hGDQZG3DLyJbht5ZYG3HLkkeAWv4Tq4efdlj83Bq79ilE/s320/Toshiba+Satellite+L50T-A-130.jpg" title="Laptop Review: Toshiba Satellite L50T-A-130" /></a></div>
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It has the same unassuming design as many other models in the Satellite range, with a silver-grey plastic case that looks smart but not particularly exciting. It’ll probably be equally deskbound, too, as the 15in screen and built-in <b>DVD drive</b> mean that it measures 29mm thick and weighs in at a 2.5kg.</div>
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The build quality is perfectly good, though, with a sturdy panel to protect the screen, and a keyboard and trackpad that are both roomy and comfortable to use. The one stand-out feature is the large speaker grille that runs almost the entire width of the keyboard panel.</div>
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Designed by <b>Onkyo</b>, the <b>stereo speaker</b> system produces a decent amount of raw volume, while the bundled DTS Sound software includes a 10-band equalizer, as well as options for quickly adjusting bass, treble and vocals on music. A few quick tweaks here allowed us to produce a better sound than most laptop speakers – and we even had to turn it down on occasion as they were too loud in our office.</div>
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That’s the one real highlight, though, and other aspects of the L50T’s design are much more mundane. The 15.6in screen is bright and clear, and perfectly adequate for browsing the web or watching some streaming video. However, the entry-level 1366x768 resolution is disappointing in a mid-range laptop that costs almost £650 – especially as Toshiba is specifically positioning it as a multimedia machine.</div>
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Points of view</h3>
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There’s also some room for improvement in the viewing angles, which were only around 120 degrees both horizontally and vertically. Even so, that’s still perfectly adequate for general use and didn’t cause us any real problems during testing. It’s also worth pointing out that the screen is touch-sensitive, which adds to the overall value for money – although we suspect that many people would gladly swap the touch controls for a higher quality screen.</div>
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Performance is a similarly mixed bag. There are less expensive models in the L50T range that use <b>Ivy Bridge</b> and even <b>AMD processors</b>, but the L50T-A-130 comes in at around £650 with a Haswell i5 running at 1.6GHz, along with a healthy 8GB of memory and <b>1TB hard drive</b>.</div>
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We know that the Haswell processor is capable of strong performance even at relatively modest clockspeeds, but Toshiba does itself no favours by pairing the state-of-the-art processor with an aging 5400rpm hard drive. The end result is a score of just 2850 when running the PCMark 7 benchtests. That’s perfectly adequate for running Microsoft Office, web browsing or a spot of photo-editing but, again, is still the sort of performance we’d associate with entry-level laptops costing closer to £500.</div>
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Thankfully, the improved performance of the Haswell processor’s HD 4400 integrated graphics means that the L50T can just about handle some casual gaming action, reaching 26.5fps when running Stalker: Call Of Pripyat at 1280x720 resolution with medium graphics settings.</div>
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Haswell also comes to the rescue on battery life, providing a five hours and 15 minutes of streaming video via its onboard <b>Wi-Fi</b>. That’s not going to break any records, but it’s above average for a model with a 15in screen and ensures that you will be able to get plenty of work done – as long as you have the strength to carry it around with you.</div>
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<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
Verdict</h3>
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Looking back over this review, we do seem to have used the word ‘adequate’ rather a lot. That pretty much sums up the L50T-A-130, as it’s adequate in most respects but – apart from the beefy speakers – really doesn’t stand out in any particular way. Cut the price by £100 and it’d be a good budget offering, but at £649 it may struggle to compete with its many mid-range rivals.</div>
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Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803993188716799393.post-44353457675328003222013-11-09T04:10:00.004-08:002013-11-09T04:10:37.069-08:00Laptop Review: Schenker XMG P503<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHrpQqerj9YUNlqzK4btmvEW-RTMdXOy3seG-h-0vX9-SiTIbZwrjIjabmU0AXngahshyphenhyphenvCLSh8QG1hSptdA2FsKDgjXGkJOyQFNeul_VVO2K9fcYsjx497uAkbuKnGQ71SVklqWEA3gE/s1600/Schenker_P503_review.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Laptop Review: Schenker XMG P503" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHrpQqerj9YUNlqzK4btmvEW-RTMdXOy3seG-h-0vX9-SiTIbZwrjIjabmU0AXngahshyphenhyphenvCLSh8QG1hSptdA2FsKDgjXGkJOyQFNeul_VVO2K9fcYsjx497uAkbuKnGQ71SVklqWEA3gE/s1600/Schenker_P503_review.jpg" height="285" title="Laptop Review: Schenker XMG P503" width="320" /></a></div>
Schenker’s range of XMG gaming laptops generally provide good performance and value for money, but not even their mother would accuse them of being good-looking. Rivals such as Alienware adorn their gaming machines with all sorts of flashing lights and go-faster stripes, while Schenker tends to opt for generic black-box designs that look rather dull.</div>
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However, the XMG P503 suggests that Schenker is finally starting to pay a little more attention to that sort of detail. The chunky matt-black chassis isn’t exactly elegant – it measures 50mm thick and weighs in at 3.4kg, which is a lot even for a 15.6in model with a built-in optical drive. But turn it on and the keyboard backlight smoulders gently, while the trackpad lights up and displays a dramatically spread set of ‘tribal wings’. There’s also a utility that allows you to select a variety of different colour schemes, as well as settings such as ‘dance’ or ‘wave’ that make the lights strobe across the keyboard and trackpad at different speeds. It’s utterly pointless, of course, but it’s the sortof thing that everyone expects from an expensive gaming rig.</div>
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And the P503 is certainly expensive. Prices start at around £1,100 for a model with a Haswell i5 processor, 4GB of memory and 320GB hard disk. However, we reviewed a top-of-the-range model that comes in at £1,516 with a <b>quad-core Haswell i7</b> chip running at 2.4GHz (3.4GHz with Turboboost), 8GB of memory, and both a <b>750GB hard drive</b> and <b>256GB solid-state drive</b>. It also includes a <b>Radeon HD 8970M</b> with <b>4GB VRAM</b> and a Blu-ray drive, although you can customise most of these components and easily save £200-£300 by ditching the Blu-ray drive and opting for a smaller <b>SSD</b>.</div>
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Most of these components are well chosen and will earn their keep. The 15.6in screen isn’t touch-sensitive, but few gamers will worry about that. They’ll prefer the matt finish that helps to reduce glare and provide maximum visibility during gaming sessions. The screen is bright and colourful, with 1920x1080 resolution and a horizontal viewing angle close to a full 180 degrees. Oddly, though, the vertical viewing angle is more limited – closer to 120 degrees – although we didn’t find this a real problem during our tests.</div>
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The Onkyo speakers are good, too – a little harsh on higher frequencies, but the built-in subwoofer adds welcome depth to the sound and will work well with games and film soundtracks.</div>
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<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
Big hitter</h3>
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Performance is impressive, too. The inclusion of the secondary solid-state drive helps the P503 hit a score of 6205 when running the general-purpose <b><a href="http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/pcmark8" target="_blank">PCMark</a></b> 7 benchtest. That’s one of the highest scores we’ve seen so far, so the P503 can certainly handle everything from web browsing to video-editing or audio-recording with ease. We were a little concerned about the two large cooling vents on the back of the unit, but while the fans fire up noisily when you first turn it on, the P503 still ran cool and quiet during all our tests.</div>
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We started our gaming tests by running Stalker: Call of Pripyat with medium graphics at 1280x720 resolution, and saw the P503 breeze to 176fps with no trouble at all. Stepping up to 1920x1080 only reduced that to 129fps, so we fired up Batman: Arkham City next and still managed to get 57fps at 1920x1080 with all the DX11 trimmings. That sort of performance should satisfy even hardcore gamers, and you can also experiment with Intel’s Extreme Tuning utility, which is included to help you squeeze every last frame out of your games.</div>
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The only real disappointment is the battery life. Even with the Haswell processor and switching to the integrated HD 4600 graphics, the P503 could barely manage two and a half hours (160 minutes) of streaming video. You’d expect much better from a laptop in this price range – especially with a Haswell processor. Even so, that’s unlikely to be a dealbreaker for most gamers, as the size and weight of the Schenker means that it’s not likely to get outdoors very often.</div>
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<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
Verdict</h3>
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It’s baby steps as far as the move towards a more stylish design is concerned, and there’s certainly room for improvement when it comes to the battery life. However, the P503 provides all the performance you’d expect from a high-end gaming laptop. Schenker’s website also provides plenty of build-to-order options, so you can probably trim the price down a bit without compromising performance too much.</div>
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<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
TECHNICAL SPECS</h3>
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Specification: 2.4GHz Intel Core i7-4700MQ (3.4GHz Turbo)</div>
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Windows 8 (64-bit)</div>
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8GB DDR3 SDRAM</div>
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750GB HDD (7200rpm) + 256GB SSD</div>
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15.6-inch matte-finish LED with 1920x1080 resolution</div>
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Intel HD 4600/Radeon HD 8970M (4GB)</div>
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802.11b/g/n</div>
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Bluetooth 4.0</div>
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Blu-ray drive</div>
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HDMI/mini-DisplayPort</div>
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mini-FireWire</div>
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Gigabit Ethernet</div>
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3x USB 3.0 + 1x USB 2.0</div>
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SD/SDHC/SDXC/MMC/MS Pro card reader</div>
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2.0MP webcam with built-in mic</div>
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headphone socket, Line-In, SP/DIF</div>
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77Wh Lithium-Ion battery</div>
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375x268x50mm</div>
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3.4Kg</div>
Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133301827360493806noreply@blogger.com1