Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Monday, November 14, 2011

drag2share: Exclusive: Lenovo to release a 10.1-inch Ice Cream Sandwich tablet with Tegra 3 by year's end

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/exclusive-lenovo-to-release-a-10-1-inch-ice-cream-sandwich-tabl/

You wouldn't think a giant like Lenovo would stop at just three (or four) Android tablets now, would you? In fact, a little birdie has informed us that said Chinese company will release a new 10.1-inch tablet by the end of the year, and unsurprisingly, Ice Cream Sandwich along with NVIDIA's Tegra 3 T33 are on the menu. Other features include 2GB of speedy 1,600MHz DDR3 RAM, a standard USB host socket (covered by a not-so-elegant pop-out flap), a back-facing camera of unknown resolution, a "Special Fusion-Skin Body" and, most interestingly, a fingerprint scanner that apparently doubles as an optical joystick on the seemingly flat backside -- only time will tell whether this layout makes sense. Our source hasn't spilled any info on the dimensions and weight, but judging by the photos in our gallery, this 1.6GHz quad-core slate should be significantly thinner than the IdeaPad K1 or LePad sitting underneath. As always, you'll hear from us as soon as we find out more.

[Thanks, Anonymous]

Gallery: Exclusive: Lenovo to release a 10.1-inch Ice Cream Sandwich tablet with Tegra 3 by year's end

Exclusive: Lenovo to release a 10.1-inch Ice Cream Sandwich tablet with Tegra 3 by year's end originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Nov 2011 07:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of ! feeds.

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drag2share: Samsung Captivate Glide and DoubleTime hands-on

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/samsung-captivate-glide-and-doubletime-hands-on/

Samsung's got a pair of QWERTY-sporting Android handsets heading to AT&T, targeting distinctly different different ends of the smartphone spectrum. Sure, both the Captivate Glide and the DoubleTime attempt to woo messaging addicts with their physical keyboards, but that's about where the similarities end. The Glide is packing a full gig of RAM, a 1GHz Tegra 2 processor, 8GB of internal storage, an 8 megapixel camera (plus a 1.3MP front-facing cam), Gingerbread slathered with TouchWiz and a 4-inch Super AMOLED display. The 800 x 480 panel isn't the best we've ever seen, but it's brightness and superb contrast certainly don't disappoint. Like many Samsung handsets, the Glide is surprisingly light thanks to its all plastic construction, but the textured battery plate and satisfyingly firm sliding mechanism keep it from feeling cheap. The landscape keyboard is quite pleasant. The keys don't have much travel, but they're well spaced and we had no trouble quickly banging out a bunch of texts right away.

Gallery: Samsung Captivate Glide and DoubleTime hands-on

Continue reading Samsung Captivate Glide and DoubleTime hands-on

Samsung Captivate Glide and DoubleTime hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Intel's Sandy Bridge E gets rounded up and reviewed, the E is for Excessive

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/intels-sandy-bridge-e-gets-rounded-up-and-reviewed-the-e-is-fo/

You can guess how this one's gonna go: top marks for performance and a shriek of despair when it comes to value for money. Is there anyone out there who really needs an over-sized six-core CPU that requires its own chubby LGA-2011 socket and tailored X79 chipset before it'll even switch on in the morning? Could people seriously be persuaded to drop a grand on merely incremental improvements in technology, such as 15MB of L3 cache and a bigger 600MHz Turbo Boost for stock clock speeds up to 3.9GHz? Well now, let's not get distracted. Even if there were no market -- which there is -- Intel would probably carry on releasing world-beating desktop chips simply to remind us that its rivals can't, and we'd probably carry on reading about them. So here goes, a bunch of reviews covering both the i7-3960X and i7-3930K variants, which together represent the absurd awesomeness of Sandy Bridge E and are on sale at Newegg for $1,050 and $600 respectively:

AnandTech: bemoans the absence of an on-die GPU, criticizes the X79 chipset, and dislikes the "performance/functionality tradeoffs"

PC Pro: sedately noted that the i7-3960X shows an "improvement" over i7-2600K in real-world benchmarks, and that "AMD must be sweating."

HotHardware: regards the 3960X as an "excellent overclocker" despite its vast power consumption, and says it combines with the X79 chipset to make "the most potent" desktop for gaming, content creation or productivity.

Tom's Hardware: describes the 3960X is a "symbolic king in a crowd full of value," and the 3930K is the processor moneyed enthusiasts should be lusting over.

ExtremeTech: says "the 3960X is a great chip on a solid platform," but cautions that only the most demanding gamers and content creators need this kind of power.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Intel's Sandy Bridge E gets rounded up and reviewed, the E is for Excessive originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: VIA offers $89 processor and motherboard combo for custom HTPCs

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/via-offers-89-processor-and-motherboard-combo-for-custom-htpcs/

If you're looking to craft a small form factor HTPC to an equally small budget, then VIA's own-brand internals deserve some serious consideration. The company's 1.4GHz dual-core Nano X2 CPU was recently put to good effect in Zotac's ZBOX Nano VD01 and is now available as part of a DIY combo called the VE-900, which puts the processor on a compact mini-ITX motherboard alongside a VX900 dedicated media accelerator for smooth video handling up to 1080p. The board has a single PCI slot, room for up to 8GB of DDR3, two SATA pin headers and four USB 2.0 ports. The rear panel adds to this with HDMI and VGA video outs, three analog audio jacks, Gigabit LAN, four more USB 2.0 ports and other standard fare -- but alas, it seems that the $89 price tag won't fetch you digital audio outs or USB 3.0. You'll find a full PR and promo video after the break, plus some Nano X2 benchmarks at the More Coverage link.

Continue reading VIA offers $89 processor and motherboard combo for custom HTPCs

VIA offers $89 processor and motherboard combo for custom HTPCs originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: AMD ships '16-core' Bulldozer-powered Opteron 6200

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/amd-ships-16-core-bulldozer-powered-opteron-6200/

We seem to have mislaid our definition of fashionably late -- a fortnight after the promised "October" launch, systems packing AMD's Bulldozer-powered Opteron 6200 (formerly Interlagos) will commence shipping to enterprise customers. If you haven't been paying too much attention, you might just believe the claim about it having 16 cores -- Bulldozer's architecture has eight two-core modules rather than 16 independent ones. Despite the short delay and the conspicuous claims, the company reckons it's 84 percent faster, 73 percent more efficient and uses half the power of the equivalent Intel Xeon. At the same time, Sunnyvale firmed up news on the Valencia (Opteron 4200) and announced 2012's Opteron 3000 platform with the new Zurich chip -- designed to run on low-power web hosts. Enterprise customers can read the PR we've got after the break and then begin placing orders; the rest of us will have to keep waiting to see if Andre Yang can push his FX all the way to 9GHz.

[Thanks, Khan]

Continue reading AMD ships '16-core' Bulldozer-powered Opteron 6200

AMD ships '16-core' Bulldozer-powered Opteron 6200 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Nov 2011 10:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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