Dell XT Latitute Tablet

Dell’s latest tablet PC, Latitude XT comes with groundbreaking touch screen technology. You will be able to touch the screen at different points and perform various activities. For an instance, user can spread-touch two fingers away from one point, and zoom in pictures. More tricks can be done, also with pen input. At 12.1″ with elegant design it is one of thinnest tablet out there. More details at DELL

Tablet PC That Boots Up VIA Flash Memory

Quaduro designs its laptop with no internal moving parts, minimising boot up and shut down. It uses flash memory drive at its core. “Quadads” enable interaction directly with the screen, instead of a mouse and keyboard, the tablet becomes convenient and easy to use, you can even use it while standing up, which is perfect for professionals on the move such as doctors, mechanics, warehouse staff. The Quaduro Quadpad E84 has an 8.4″ touchscreen display and uses an 8GB CompactFlash card to store data. The Quaduro E84 features a 1GHz Intel Celeron M processor with 1GB of RAM, while graphics are powered by a 64MB nVidia chip. The screen is readable under sunlight with its 300 nits brightness and resolution of 800 x 600. The Quaduro Quadpad E84 ruggedised tablet PC is due to go onsale through resellers from September.

Gigabyte M912x GoldenRod Tablet PC

Gigabyte has released the latest version of Gigabyte M912x TabletPC or also known as the M912x GoldenRod. The specs are a 8.9-inch touchscreen with 1280 x 768 resolution, Intel 945GSE chipset, 1.6 GHz Atom processor, 1 GB od DDR2 RAM, 160 GB of HDD, 4500 mAh Lithium-ion battery. Other features include 1.3 MP camera, Express card slot, three USB 2.0 ports, 3-in-1 card reader, Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi b/g, and Ethernet LAN. No word on pricing at this time.

M-and-A Companion Touch Convertible

M&A Technology has recently rolled out the Companion Touch. It is an education-oriented tablet PC based on Intel’s new Convertible Classmate netbook. The tablet PC offers a 8.9-inch touchscreen display that automatically adjust to landscape or portrait mode depending on the orientation of the device. Other specs are include the Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, a 60GB hard drive, 4-cell battery, 802.11 b/g/n wireless LAN and Ethernet LAN, two USB ports, a 2-in-1 media card reader, VGA output, and Windows XP Home operating system. Weighing at 2.8-pound, the Companion Touch also features a 1.3MP webcam, a built-in handle, and a skin that can be customized with school colors and logo. The M&A Companion Touch is priced at $499.99.

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Now for $99 with AT&T 3G Service Purchase

You can purchase the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 for $99 after $350 mail-in rebate at the AT&T 3G mobile broadband service. The company also announced that the users must also activate AT&T Data Connect service starting at $60 per month and maintain said service for 90 calendar days. Just remember that the mail-in rebate offer expires on January 31st, 2009. [Laptoping]

Asus F70SL With Dual Hard Drives

Asus F70SL is the first notebook in the world which offers dual hard drives with 1 TB total capacity. This model is more like a desktop replacement type, because the notebook is not only come with a huge capacity but also 17.3″ 16:9 widescreen mode which is the very first one in the world. No words on pricing yet, but I guess it wouldn’t be cheap. [Dotgizmo]

ModBook Pro

Some of you maybe tired in waiting for the release of the tablet version of the MacBook Pro. The why don’t you grab this one? Modbook Pro, a new model based on the unibody Macbook Pro. This new and modified device has been reengineered to offer pen and touch input, relying on Axiotron’s Quicktouch interface to give the user total control over Mac OS X. It also packs all technology you can found in the normal MBP, including an Intel Core 2 Duo processor running at up to 2.8 GHz, up to 4GB of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT graphics, FireWire 800, Mini DisplayPort, and more. [Ubergizmo]

Wooden MacBook Casing

This wooden MacBook case looks durable. Designed for Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro 15-inch, this case features a leather lining and magnetic closing device. You should contact the designer ‘Rainer Spehl’ in order to purchase this casing. See more pictures after the jump. [DoobyBrain]

AMD Phenom II X4 940 & 920: A True Return to Competition

The AMD we used to know and love is back. As I write this sentence, most of AMD is still on vacation. By the time you read this, that will have changed, but it's such a stark contrast to what happened when the original Phenom processor launched. In the months leading up to Phenom, AMD treated it like it would be its hero. "Just wait", we were told. So we did. And Phenom was the biggest disappointment AMD had ever left us with.

AMD re-launched Phenom the following year, in 2008, with slightly better reception. The CPU evolved from something unsellable to an honest alternative to Intel's CPUs, just not one we'd recommend. Phenom ran too hot, didn't offer better performance, and offered some strange behavior with Cool'n'Quiet enabled.

While AMD was very excited about the first Phenom, we heard relatively little about Phenom II. The first time we heard the name was at AMD's Financial Analyst Day a couple of months ago, and then a month later we had a chip. AMD invited us to overclock the CPU, but I was busy working on another AMD story at the time and couldn't make it. I was done with flying around for AMD CPU launches; if Phenom II was going to be good, the chip would have to prove itself without an exotic locale or delicious Texas BBQ to sweeten the deal.

Nikon Announces 24.5 Megapixel D3x

Nikon today announced the D3X, their newest professional Digital SLR. In a widely anticipated move, the D3x will feature a 24.5 MP CMOS sensor in a body that otherwise appears identical to the current D3 professional model.

As a concession to the doubling of sensor pixels, the new D3x will top out at a continuous 5 FPS, compared to the 9 FPS of the current D3. Shooting in 10 MP crop mode the D3x can reach a speed of 7 FPS.

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that the D3x sensor specifications exactly match those of the recently introduced Sony A900. Nikon makes no claims to have designed or manufactured the D3x sensor so it is likely the same sensor as the Sony A900 with customized Nikon image processing.

What was NOT expected is the $8000 price tag Nikon USA has announced for the new D3x. With the 24.5 MP Sony A900 selling for $3000 and the now shipping 21.0 MP Canon 5D Mark II with an MSRP of $2699 most expected a selling price nearer the $5000 D3.

Since the Nikon D3x and Sony A900 appear to use the same Sony 24.5 MP sensor it will be interesting to see if the D3x can effectively compete against a full-frame rival that uses the same sensor and is selling for about one-third the price. The Nikon features a 100-1600 ISO range, with expansion down to ISO 50 and two steps up to ISO 6400. This compares to the Sony A900 ISO range of 200-3200 with expansion to 100-6400, which is a virtually the same sensitivity rating.

No doubt Nikon has worked their normal magic with their Image processing chips in the D3x, but will that justify three times the price? The Canon 5D Mark II has also started shipping, and we will soon know if the newest Canon full-frame is truly useful at its expanded ISO range to ISO 25600.

The Press Release is on page 2. Images of the new D3x are on page 3. Nikon states the D3x will be available beginning in December 2008 at Nikon dealers.

DDR3 Will be Cheaper, Faster in 2009

50nm lowers cost and power consumption


New 50nm DDR3 DIMMs from Samsung and Elpida are entering mass production this month. The chips will feature higher densities and speeds while lowering latencies, power consumption, and costs.

Elpida's new 50nm process uses 193nm argon fluoride immersion lithography combined with copper interconnect technology, providing a 25 percent speed boost over standard aluminum interconnects. A standard chip size of less than 40mm2 means that there will be more dies produced per wafer, lowering costs once the line matures and yields are maximized.

The new chips are capable of 2.5Gb/s at a standard 1.5v, but can also be used at 1.2v up to 1.6Gb/s. Initial production will be at 1Gb densities. This enables new usage models in the mobile and server application space.

Corsair's Dominator GT 2GHz CL7 DDR3 DIMMs were shown at CES, and they may enter production this month using Elpida's latest.

Meanwhile, the world's only profitable DRAM producer is not standing still.

Samsung's own 50nm process is being used to manufacture 2Gb DDR3, and is expected to become Samsung's primary DRAM process technology this year. They claim a 60% increase in productivity over their DDR2 equivalents.

Qimonda taped out its 46nm DDR3 Buried Wordline technology in November, ahead of their internal schedule. They hope to start mass production by mid 2009.

Many other DDR3 producers are also looking to lower geometries in preparation for AMD's AM3 socket launch and Intel's Lynnfield launch, both of which will use DDR3 and accelerate market demand.

The price premium of DDR3 could drop from 100% to 10% by the time Lynnfield and Windows 7 launch together in Q3. Intel will be using DDR3 exclusively on its 32nm Westmere CPUs.

Due to a massive glut of DDR2 chips, there are almost no plans to upgrade factories to 50nm for DDR2. Instead, they will transition to surplus 65nm and 70nm equipment currently used for DDR3.

According to International Data Corporation, an IT market research firm, DDR3 sales will account for 29 percent of the total DRAM market by units sold in 2009. This will grow to 72 percent in 2011.

Velocity Micro Edge Z55: Core i7-940 with CrossFire 4870

Introduction

We've looked at a number of systems here at AnandTech, and Velocity Micro has always been on our "to-do" list based on their popularity and prevalence in the market. The guys from Virginia sent one of their new Edge Z55 systems our way with a Core i7-940 to put through our review cycle. How does it hold up? As this is our first time looking at Velocity Micro, we'll look at the company themselves, and then try to answer that question. Worth note is that this is also our first Core i7 system review, so we may see some teething problems with the brand new technology.

Velocity Micro - Company Overview

Velocity Micro has seen tremendous growth in the past few years. Their introduction into Best Buy stores in 2005 was a huge step, as was their acquisition of Overdrive PC in 2007. Below is their summary from their webpage:

"Velocity Micro, Inc. is the premier high-performance personal computer provider in North America. Founded in 1992, Richmond, Va.-based Velocity Micro custom builds award winning gaming, mobile, multimedia, home office, small business, pro workstation, and visual supercomputer solutions. Velocity Micro consumer systems are available at Best Buy, MicroCenter, Circuit City, and select Staples retail stores nationwide, as well as online vendors Amazon.com, Newegg.com, TigerDirect.com, CompUSA.com, and many others."

Corsair DDR3-2133 - How high and fast will it go?

In our opinion, the current acceptance of 64-bit Vista is going to create a large demand for 4GB memory kits. For these users, buying a 2X1GB may appear as a half solution - almost an illogical purchase considering Vista's voracious appetite for memory. As such, we know our work is cut out with this preview and subsequent review of high-end DDR3 kits. Testing niche products always represents a challenge because it is impossible to justify the miniscule gains in real world testing against the premiums one has to pay for that last 1% of performance. However, for a certain group of users, that last 1% means everything - cost be dammed. There is a demand for such products; in fact, this demand sometimes shapes the course and direction of future products. Therefore, we will simply say tongue in cheek, "It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it."

When we first learned that Corsair was sending us this $515 kit for testing, we had just finished pushing the ASUS P5E3 Premium to its limits and found it to be a fantastic board for overclocking 1GB memory modules well in excess of 2000MHz. In order to obtain these results we used 2X1GB modules from Cell Shock that are based upon Micron's D9JNL part. These particular modules scaled all the way to 2160MHz at CAS 8 on the ASUS board, although it has to be said it took a decent amount of work getting there. Very impressive of course, but it's also no real secret that few of us really run our PCs with such a setup, simply because the voltages and time required to reach such lofty speeds is more than excessive for 24/7 operation.

While the X48 chipset can achieve over 2100MHz with good DDR3, it does so at a real push needing more voltage to hold it'self together than most of us are prepared to use. The other logical choice for high-end DDR3 overclocking is the NVIDIA 790i chipset, but after significant testing, we realized it is no different. In fact, it's not nearly as stable when really pushed to the limit with these modules. Corsair's decision to quickly market a high-speed 2133MHz kit based on Samsung's new ICs certainly roused our curiosity. At the same time, we questioned how such kits would be qualified to run at stock specifications, never mind overclocking. Let's look at our first results.

Intel X58 Motherboard

As of November 17th you can officially buy an Intel Core i7 processor - the new heavyweight champion of the world. When it comes to media encoding and 3D animation/rendering tasks, the Core i7 is not only without peer but also provides us the sort of generational performance gap that we've come to expect from Intel every two years. By now you've already decided whether or not you want to buy one, and if you're in a rush to spend money, the next question is what motherboard do you pick?

Current Core i7 CPUs work in Intel's new LGA-1366 socket, currently only found on motherboards based on the X58 chipset. While Intel did a great job of making sure the Core i7 was available at a wide range of price points ($284, $562, and $999), the X58 boards themselves are pretty pricey. We've got a consistent group of $300+ motherboards on the market, and honestly we're not expecting ~$100 Nehalem boards until the introduction of the mainstream Lynnfield/Havendale CPUs in 2H 2009. Boards using the P55 chipset should arrive early next year and at least bring in true sub-$200 options, but for now it's an X58 world.


These boards are very high end - with the exception of Intel's own X58, these motherboards all feature six DDR3 DIMM slots, easily enabling 12GB of memory on a desktop platform. Certification for 24GB and 48GB is coming, but that's absolutely ridiculous on a desktop motherboard. Combine that with the fact that all three Core i7 parts are capable of working on 8 threads at a time and you've got the makings of an extremely powerful system. A desktop Core i7 system has the potential to embarrass quite a few upper end workstations already on the market.

What we've put together today is a roundup of the "midrange" X58 motherboards currently on the market, a sort of first look at the state of the X58 realm for early adopters who are lucky enough to be buying today. We've got motherboards ranging from $220 to $390 in the labs that we will go through over the next couple of weeks; if you're building a Core i7 system before the end of this year, we'll help you pick a motherboard in each category.

GeForce GTX 285: 55nm Enabling Higher Performance

Just last week, NVIDIA announced both the GTX 295 and GTX 285. Today we have availability on both and test results for the GTX 285. As we weren't able to get power tests done time to include in the GTX 295 review, we also have those available today.

EVGA was kind enough to provide the hardware for this review. They sent us two GTX 280s for single and SLI testing. They provided us with overclocked cards, but for this article we underclocked them to stock GTX 285 speeds in order to learn what we can expect from non-overclocked variants.

The hardware looks the same as the current GeForce GTX 280. There really isn't anything aside from the GPU that appears different (except the sticker on the card that is).

We've already indicated the changes that have gone into the GTX 285, but here's another look at the updated clock speeds and the test setup.

The price point for the GTX 285 is $400, but newegg has parts for $380 right now and overclocked variants for not too much more.

CES 2009 - Cases, Coolers, and Power Supplies

There was a difference at this year's CES: fewer companies with coolers, chassis, and power supplies were actually on the show floor and more in suites around the Strip. This is why we have toured hotel suites for the first couple of days and didn't even come close to the actual show floor until Saturday. Some companies had many new products to show or at least initial samples. Some others came with products that already launched and didn't show anything new. Antec is one of the companies with a whole new lineup of products, the P1000 chassis perhaps being the most interesting.

Antec's New P1000 Gamer Chassis

Antec is showing off their new P1000 at this year's CES. It's a new gamer chassis that Antec put a lot of work into creating. Even though this chassis is still in development it could be out very soon. Antec showed it at the show to get feedback from editors and customers and it seems that feedback was very positive so far. Please give us your thoughts about in the comment section, and you can be sure Antec will see them.

The chassis has a metal structure covered with plastic sheets to improve the appearance. The surface is rough instead of smooth, which we found appealing. There are handlebars on all four corners to aid in moving the case around, with the chassis standing on the two on the bottom.

AMD Athlon™ XP 2800+, 2.8 GHz (AXDA2800BOX)

The AMD Athlon XP processor with QuantiSpeed architecture powers the next generation in computing platforms, delivering extra performance for cutting-edge applications and an extraordinary computing experience. The AMD Athlon XP processor is the latest member of the AMD Athlon family of processors designed to meet the computation-intensive requirements of cutting-edge software applications running on high-performance desktop systems. AMD delivers tremendous performance by increasing the amount of work done per clock cycle and improving the operating frequency at the same time. The end result is a processor design that produces a high volume of work done per cycle and high operating frequencies - an optimum combination for compelling application performance.??The AMD Athlon XP processor offers fast results when working with digital media like audio, video, and image files. It provides for outstanding near real-time voice, video, and CAD/CAM as a result of features like larger cache

Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard

Logitech today introduced what they deem a "Game-Changing Gameboard" called the Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard. Hyperbole aside, the Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard is an interesting concept. It sports a naturally contoured design, on-board memory, customizable backlighting, and programmable keys. A keyboard with memory? What's next? A keyboard which is a full-fledged PC? Oh wait, that's been done.

Anyway, the Logitech G13 advanced gameboard is a hybrid gaming keyboard designed to complement your Logitech keyboard and mouse. It gives you 25 programmable keys and an analog stick, as well and three game modes to help the PWN factor against your gaming buddies.

The Logitech G13 is basically a mini-version of the Logitech G15, which is a full-sized traditional keyboard that costs just about the same as the G13. Personally, I prefer full-sized keyboards for gaming, with programmed buttons & macros, but to each their own.

Logitech stated, "Whether you're rescuing hostages, on a quest with your guild or saving humanity, you don't want to worry about hand fatigue or hitting the wrong key."

The iconic contoured design complements the natural shape of your hand and fingers, while the smooth, concave home-row keys make it easy to locate buttons by touch. With three game modes, 25 programmable keys and a programmable analog stick, the G13 gameboard offers up to 87 ways for you to control your game (software installation required). And you can set up custom button-profiles for each one of your favorite titles. You can even create macros on the fly without having to pause your game.

And for another tactical advantage, the 160-by-43-pixel GamePanel LCD shows live game stats, system info and even messages from other players. Though look away from the computer screen at your own peril!

With the G13 gameboard, you'll also get backlit keys that help you easily locate the right key in low-light conditions or lights-out play. And you can select from hundreds of available backlight colors.

A handy solution for the laptop gamer, the G13 gameboard includes onboard memory, letting you program up to five ready-to-play profiles and take them with you to your next LAN party. The G13 gameboard also offers pre-configured settings for many popular games, including World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade, Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™, Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare™ and many others.

SanDisk G3 SSD Memory Blows Away Hard Drives' Performance

SanDisk today unveiled its third-generation family of solid-state drives (SSDs). Using multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory technology, SanDisk's G3 Series of SSD memory has incredible performance benchmarks. The G3 SSDs are more than five times faster than the fastest 7,200 RPM hard disk drives and more than twice as fast as SSDs shipping in 2008, clocking in at 40,000 RPM and anticipated sequential performance of 200MB/s read and 140MB/s write. Even the fastest hard drives I've seen to date, which I have installed on serveral servers at TMC, currently max out at 15,000 RPM.

They were designed as drop-in replacements for hard-disk drives (HDDs) in notebook PCs, the initial members in the SanDisk G3 family are SSD C25-G3 and SSD C18-G3 in the standard 2.5" and 1.8" form factors, respectively, each available with a SATA-II interface. Available in capacities of 60, 120 and 240GB*, the unit MSRPs are $149, $249 and $499, respectively. The G3 SSDs provide a Long-term Data Endurance (LDE) of 160 terabytes written (TBW) for the 240GB version, sufficient for over 100 years of typical user usage. Using such fast memory instead of a hard drive in a netbook, laptop, or even PC desktop should make these computers nearly instantly boot. Sweet!

According to Sandisk: Three key features developed by SanDisk enable this new design: a new SSD algorithm called ExtremeFFSTM allows random write performance to potentially improve by as much as 100 times over conventional algorithms; reliable 43nm multi-level cell (MLC) all bit-line (ABL) NAND flash; and SanDisk's new SSD controller, which ties together the NAND and the algorithm.

The SanDisk G3 SSDs will be available in mid 2009, in a 2.5" PATA configuration. Now we just need SSD RAID5 or SSD RAID10 using multiple SSD cards and then we can finally say goodbye to current expensive RAID5/10 server configurations that require expensive hard drives and RAID controllers! Wow, servers would also be blazingly fast using multiple SSD cards working in parallel in a RAID configuration.

Easily Change or Switch the Default Audio Sound Output in Windows Vista and XP

If you have an audio card (or some people call it sound card) that supports multiple outputs and actually using it for different purposes such as playing games, watching movies & listening to music, you’ll have to go through the hassle of changing the audio output in Windows Vista Control Panel.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you have a headphone and speakers. In order to change the audio output, you’ll have to close the program that is currently outputing the audio and right click on the speaker icon, choose Playback Devices, right-click on the playback device that you want and select Set as Default. Then click OK to close the sound configuration window and relaunch the program and play the audio. That will make it change from one output to the other, but it is troublesome and involves many steps.

Step-By-Step on How To Download, Install and Activate Windows 7 Beta Without Messing Currently Installed OS and Dual-Boot

I bet you’d have heard about Windows 7 by now, the next release of Windows operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers. Few days ago Microsoft released Windows 7 Beta Build 7000 to public and allowing everyone to download the ISO image and test it out. The word BETA means it is tested for bugs, crashes, errors, inconsistencies, and any other problems before releasing it out to the public as stable version. There are 3 situations that I’d never use a BETA and that is an operating system, patches/updates and security software (antivirus and firewall)

Until today I was never satisfied with Windows Vista, so I was curious to test out Windows 7 and see if it could be as good as Windows XP. I don’t want to mess around with the master boot records to create a dual boot and also re-partitioning my hard drive for extra space to install Windows 7. The best way is to test drive Windows 7 in a virtual environment. Today I will show you step by step on where to download Windows 7, how to get Windows 7 product key for activation and how to install it on VirtualBox so you can mess around with it. I chose VirtualBox because it’s free and also much easier to use compared to other virtualization software.