ASUS Eee Keyboard - Spectrum-like PC with 5-inch display - review

From the very launch of Eee PC, ASUS do not stop to amaze us. Taking Apple as their example, they bring some sort of Apple style into PC world. Look for yourself: ASUS Eee Top PC is a PC version of Apple's iMac, all-in-one PC that keeps wire hassle away; ASUS Eee Box is a PC version of Apple's Mac Mini, ultra-portable PC made using "Bring Your Own Keyboard and Display" philosophy. Now, it's time for keyboards. ASUS Eee Keyboard PC looks similar to Apple keyboard; however, this gadget is not only a keyboard. It is a complete featured PC made into keyboard form! More details follow.

ASUS Eee Keyboard PC is a novelty from Asus, which was recently presented to public. Its form-factor reminds of the beginning of PC era, when computers were placed inside keyboards (like ZX Spectrum for instance). Eee Keyboard is fully equipped with most interesting and modern features: 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor, 1 GB of DDR2 RAM, 16 or 32 GB SSD, and full pack of wireless protocols, including Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi b/g/n and mysterious Wireless HDMI.

In the right side of this gadget is placed small, but useful 5 inched touchscreen display. It can be used as main display or, in the case if you connected external display via VGA port, as an additional display for media player, calculator, internet surfing or other purposes. Of course, if it will be supported by OS as additional display, it can be used for almost everything.

Another strong side of novelty from ASUS - it is very energy sufficient. This was achieved due to usage of modern Intel Atom platform, which was done especially for netbooks and low-power applications. Of course, Intel Atom cannot bring the same processing power as its fully-featured desktop brothers, but it is powerful enough for doing almost every task modern user needs. Performance was sacrificed to increase battery life - and it is a very smart move, because battery life is the most important parameter of portable devices.

Unfortunately, ASUS do not reveal all characteristics of this device, because it is on a concept stage right now. In the final version some minor features can change, no major changes will be done. Estimated price is 400-600 USA dollars, it is reasonable for such an interesting device. ASUS once again amazed the audience; let's wait until this keyboard will hit the store shelves.

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Source & Image : http://www.gadgets-reviews.com/

Gigabyte EX58-UD5 review

The cheapest i7 board we've seen so far – but can it perform?

Gigabyte has shaved £100 off the price, and ditched a few high-end features. But can the EX58-UD5's (rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?) performance match its more fully-featured brethren? All first impressions are good. Forgoing the Fisher Price-esque bright colours in favour of a pastel colour scheme makes it look a tad more subtle. The sheer number of SATA and USB ports here is also impressive – ten of the former neatly lined up at the front of the motherboard. There are no external SATA ports, but with many cases offering options on the front panel, motherboard-based ones are an unnecessary luxury.

Quality components

Despite the cheaper price, Gigabyte has not stinted on the components. It's doubled the copper on the printed circuit board, which apparently ensures better conductivity and lower temperatures throughout the board. It also features Japanese manufactured solid capacitors, said to be able to function for 50,000 continuous hours – unfortunately we didn't have three years to test this statistic so we'll have to take Gigabyte on its word. Unlike the Asus and MSI Core i7 boards we've looked at previously, Gigabyte's doesn't feature a daughter board for high quality audio, instead relying on an onboard solution. But audio quality doesn't suffer, with Dolby Home Theater certification and Blu-Ray lossless codecs ensuring clean and sparky sounds. Overclockers are in luck too. Gigabyte have smartly included a pair of BIOS chips, so if you destabilise your system you've always got a backup ready and waiting, without the frightening fumble of BIOS flashing. Gigabyte's smart six-gear power phase switching economically adjusts the power when needed, and a dynamic LED shows how much stress the system is under. It also includes the now de-facto handy numeric readout for diagnostics.

Performance crown

But the proof of the pudding is in the performance, and in spite of being relatively free of extras, Gigabyte's option outperformed both the Asus and MSI boards. Only by tiny amounts, but that's still enough to put its competitors in the shade. It's worth pointing out that we're dealing with the upper echelons of motherboards here, and the Core i7 is such a recent release that we still can't expect a huge amount of difference between the various boards. In cutting back on the optional extras, Gigabyte has produced a winning motherboard. If you want to build a Core i7 system with cash left over for a case and some decent RAM, the Gigabyte is the best option we've seen by a long way.

by Henry Winchester - pc format 224
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Source & Image : http://www.techradar.com/

MSI reveals two AM3 motherboards

by: Cristian

Arriving at the AM3 pre-launch party after Asus and Gigabyte, MSI has now presented its first AM3 motherboards, the 790FX-GD70 and 790GX-G65. Pictured below, the upcoming boards support AMD AM2 as well as the yet to be released AM3 processors, have four DDR3-1333 memory slots each and feature the APS (Active Phase Switching) technology for enhanced power conversion efficiency.

The 790FX-GD70 makes use of the 790FX + SB750 chip combo to provide four PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots (and CrossFireX support), has one eSATA and eight SATA 3.0 Gbps ports, the second-generation DrMOS, dual Gigabit Ethernet and 7.1 channel audio. Equipped with the 790GX and SB750 chips, the 790GX-G65 has two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots, DirectX 10-ready integrated graphics backed by 1Gb of DDR3 1333 MHz SidePort memory, six SATA 3.0 Gbps connectors, one Gigabit Ethernet port, an 7.1 channel audio.

Unfortunately, MSI has yet to provide a shipping date for the two motherboards but something tells us February will see them in stores.See the original posting
Source & Image : http://www.tcmagazine.com/

Chip giant whips out low-power quad-core CPUs

(Intel cuts prices too)
By Tony Smith

Intel has rolled out some new CPUs and cut the prices of old ones. The chip giant's desktop product list now includes the Core 2 Quad Q9550s, Q9400s and Q8200s. The suffix indicates they're all low-power version of existing quad-core chips, each sporting a reduced TDP of 65W, down from 95W.

Clocked at, respectively, 2.83GHz, 2.66GHz and 2.33GHz, the CPUs all sit on a 1333MHz frontside bus. They contain 12MB, 6MB and 4MB of L2 cache, and are priced at $369, $320 and $245 when ordered in batches of 1000.

The price cuts - of between 16 per cent and 40 per cent - take the 95W Core 2 Quads down to below those prices, leaving us in the unusual situation of a 3GHz Q9650 costing less than a slower, lower-model-number part, the Q9550s.

Intel also introduced the 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo E7500 - 3MB L2, 1066MHz FSB, $133 - and the 2.8GHz Pentium Dual Core E5400 - 2MB L2, 800MHz FSB, $84.

Both the Core 2 Duo and the Pentium Dual Core lines also experience downward price adjustments, of up to 15 per cent and 24 per cent, respectively. ®

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Source : http://www.reghardware.co.uk/

Stealth LPC-650 LittlePC unveiled

by Thomas De Maesschalck dvhardware.com

Stealth Computer introduced the LPC-650 Series LittlePC, this computer fits in the palm of your hand and uses a Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

The Stealth Model: LPC-650 is the most powerful small form Little PC we have ever offered. This full featured machine utilizes the latest Intel core 2 duo processor technology and we believe it offers the most processing power per square inch of any personal computer available today." stated Ed Boutilier President & CEO of Stealth.com Inc.

The LPC-650 mini PC features a multitude of I/O connectivity built into its impressively small design such as; Gigabit LAN, Wi-Fi 802.11g, 4-USB 2.0, Serial, 2-VGA Video, Audio and HDMI ports. The LPC-650 supports up to 4GB in memory and has a built-in 2.5� high-shock hard drive with up to 500GB's of storage space for archived data. For applications that require extra high shock, vibration and wide temperature ranges an optional SSD (Solid State Hard Drive) is available. A slim DVD/CD-RW optical drive comes standard with an optional DVD burner available. Systems are compatible with Microsoft Vista/XP, Linux etc and can be custom configured to meet the exact needs of the OEM or end user. Stealth's LittlePC products serve a demanding market where powerful solutions are being deployed in space-challenged applications around the world. Digital Signs, Kiosks, Embedded Control, Thin-Clients, POS & Human/Machine Interface are just a few of the applications that are ideal for Stealth's LittlePC products.

for more details specifications
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Source & Image : http://www.dvhardware.net/

Running 12GB of Memory on Intel Core i7 Motherboards

By: Nathan Kirsch

Over the weekend I was looking around at various forums and some readers on Corsair's House of Help Forum were asking Corsair if running 12GB of DDR3 memory on an Intel Core i7 platform was possible. The answer from the staff over there was it is possible and a couple people have shown it done. With many enthusiasts getting into photo editing using CS4 and more people starting to edit HD movie content this subject that will come up more as time goes on. Since I have some matching Corsair 6GB triple channel memory kits I figured why not give it a shot this weekend to see what would happen, if anything, and answer some questions about running 12GB of memory. The results from tinkering around with 12GB of memory on a Core i7 platform was more than impressive, so sit back and read along about my journey of going to 12GB of system memory.

Armed with two Corsair DOMINATOR 6GB 1866MHz CL9 memory kits with the AIRFLOW fan I set out to see how easy it would be to run 12GB of memory on an Intel Core i7 desktop system. These TR3X6G1866C9DF memory kits retail for $449 each and are fastest Core i7 triple channel memory kit that Corsair has to offer. Since these kits go through the tightest screening and binning at Corsair I figured that a pair of these kits should provide not only the best chance at getting 12GB of memory running, but also the best performance should overclocking be in order.

The ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard with BIOS version 1102 was used since the boards price point is in the middle of those LGA 1366 boards available today ($285 new and $229 open box at Newegg) and has proven itself to be very stable.

When I fired up the system with X.M.P. settings the system immeditally hung at 1866MHz with 1.6 Volts, so I turned off/on the power supply and restarted the system. I went back into the BIOS and lowered the memory speed to 1600MHz and tried again. The system posted and was fully Prime 95 stable as you can see in the video clip above. If you think that is impressive you better sit down and go on to the next page to see how things went when I manually set the BIOS settings on the next page.

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Source & Image : http://www.legitreviews.com/

Intel to delay mainstream Core i7 processors?

By: Jose Vilches

Intel could push back the launch of its mainstream Core i7 desktop processors, codenamed Lynnfield, along with its P55 chipset by at least a month. This according to DigiTimes, which claims the poor economic conditions have created significant overstock problems that will require motherboard makers to continue selling their current P4x-based hardware for a bit longer.

The two products were initially scheduled to be launched by the end of July this year, but apparently won't arrive until late August or early September, perhaps even at a later time depending on the market situation. Considering that Intel just announced its Q4 2008 profits were down 90 percent from the same quarter in 2007, one can only assume the chipmaker itself has plenty of unsold inventory, and is in no condition to argue with its motherboard partners.

In fact, rumor has it that these same overstock problems will force Intel to announce a price cut on Monday, affecting its line of Core 2 Quad processors. Meanwhile, it is also being reported that Intel has been forced to put off their transition to DDR3-only products until 2010 over pricing concerns, and they will be joined by AMD which has also delayed adoption due to technical difficulties.

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Source & Image : http://www.techspot.com/

10 Best Photo Printers (Reviewed)

By Krissy Rushing

Your office printer is great at churning out documents, and your home printer is a jack of all trades, master of none—it prints fine, but your photos don’t have that luster that screams “frame me and put me on the wall.” Thankfully for aspiring paparazzi or those simply hoping to fill family picture albums with timeless portraits, here are 10 of our favorite printers that excel at creating spectacular prints. We’re not talking super-expensive, professional photo printers either: Just great models that produce photos as good as, or in some cases better than, your local Eckerd or Walgreens.

(picture left to right)

1. Epson Artisan 700
   
2. Canon Pixma iP4600
   
3. Polaroid Pogo
   
4. Hp Photosmart B8550
   
5. Kodak ESP 9
   
6. Epson PictureMate Dash
7. Canon Pixma MP980
   
8. HP A286 Home Photo Center
   
9. Sony PictureStation DPP-FP90
   
10. Lexmark X7675
    

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Source & Image : http://reviews.digitaltrends.com/