mobile

Opera Browser for Android Out of Beta, Officially Launches

Paul Lilly — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:54:36 +0000

A meeting of the mobile minds.

Opera isn't uber popular on the desktop, though it's been able to spread its wings on mobile. The same can be said for Google's Android platform (which makes sense, considering Android is a mobile platform). If you want to mash these two together, feel free to do so starting today. Opera for Android is now officially launched for free from Google Play, Opera Software announced on Tuesday.

"Most people just see a fraction of what the web has to offer," says Rikard Gillemyr, EVP of Consumer Products at Opera Software. "We check out the same sites every day, and you can get through with the latest news after just a short bus ride. We wanted to give people a relaxed way of discovering interesting articles and checking them out without any extra effort."

One of the things Opera for Android introduces to mobile users is an "Off-Road" feature. Using data compression, the Off-Road algorithm reduces the amount of data traffic while browsing your Android phone so that you can surf a little more comfortably on crummy connections.

Opera for Android also sports a redesigned interface with a lighter color scheme that the Norwegian browser maker claims is "super intuitive to use."

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HGST Expands Notebook Drive Capacity to 1.5TB

Paul Lilly — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:52:58 +0000

Big storage, little drive.

HGST, a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Digital, announced on Tuesday what it claims is the highest storage density of any hard drive and highest capacity HDD for the mainstream mobile market, the Travelstar 5K1500. The new Travelstar 5K1500 is purportedly the industry's first 9.5mm to offer 1.5TB of storage capacity, though that's not all it brings to the table. High shock protection and low power performance are also traits of HGST's newest HDD.

That's all fine and dandy, but isn't the market shifting towards solid state drives?

"Contrary to popular belief, the mobile hard drive market is not being replaced by SSDs. We continue to invest in and serve both the traditional 9.5mm and 7mm thin and light HDD mobile markets as they offer the best cost-per-GB, performance and proven product reliability for high-capacity, mainstream, Ultrabook and A/V content creation notebook markets," said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing at HGST. "HGST continues to have a strong share in the 2.5-inch market and the new Travelstar 5K1500 hard drive is the latest addition to our broad line of 5,400 and 7,200 RPM 2.5-inch drives, giving OEMs, ODMs and integrators an opportunity to grow and differentiate their product lines."

The Travelstar 5K1500 serves up its storage capacity on three platters. It has 32MB of cache, a 5400 RPM spindle speed, and a SATA 6Gbps interface. According to HGST, it benches better in PCMark Vantage and PCMark 7 than its currently shipping two-platter 5400 RPM models.

HGST sees a broad market for its new drive, including notebooks, external HDD applications, gaming consoles, and all-in-one (AIO) desktop PCs. Initial drives will be available in June, followed by an optional self-encrypting version in the third quarter of this year. Pricing has not yet been announced.

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Retina Smetina, Samsung Showcases 13.3-inch Notebook with 3200x1800 Resolution

Paul Lilly — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:03:46 +0000

More pixels than you can shake a MacBook Pro at.

Samsung is taking high resolution displays seriously these days. How serious? Enough to launch a 13.3-inch WQXGA+ laptop at the Society for Information Display's (SID) Display Week 2013 convention in Vancouver. That works out to a 3200x1800 display resolution, packing more pixels per inch (276 PPI) than Google's Chromebook Pixel (239 PPI) or Apple's MacBook Pro 13 (227 PPI).

According to Samsung, the high-resolution notebook can deliver 30 percent greater power savings than that of existing LCD tablet displays, a feat it accomplishes by decreasing the number of driver circuits, thereby increasing the efficiency of the LED BLU.

Beyond that tidbit, Samsung refrained from revealing any other details about its upcoming laptop model. The company did say, however, that it also plans to show off a 10.1-inch WQXGA (2560x1600) LCD for tablets, a Full HD 1080p (1920x1080) mobile AMOLED display with the world's broadest color gamut, and an 85-inch Ultra HD (2840x2160) LCD TV panel with "extremely vivid color and low power consumption."

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Google I/O Part 1: $9.99/Month Streaming Music, Unlocked Galaxy S4

Paul Lilly — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:44:44 +0000

Plenty happening at Google I/O.

Google I/O kicked off this morning and is still going on at the time of this writing, but rather than make you wait for a roundup of the highlights, we thought we'd pass along some of the more interesting developments that have already occurred. One of the biggest ones is the introduction of a streaming music service, as previously rumored, to go up against the likes of Pandora, Spotify, Slacker, and eventually Apple, to name a few.

The search giant's All Access music service runs $9.99 per month, though you can sign up for a 30-day free trial before jumping in with your wallet. There is an incentive for being an early adopter -- sign up by June 30th and you'll only pay $7.99 per month.

In addition to streaming songs you've already purchased, which is a trick you can already do with Google, the All Access service also allows you to tap into millions of tracks you don't own.

Similar to Pandora, Google will provide personalized listening recommendations, including playlists curated by Google's music editors. No songs will be greyed out -- if you see it, you can play it. You can also turn songs into radio stations and peek at the related playlist. Notice a song on your station's playlist you don't like? Swipe it away! You can even rearrange songs, giving you unprecedented control in the streaming music space. Or as Google puts it, it's radio without rules.

All Access is available immediately in the U.S. and will roll out to other parts of the world shortly.

Moving along, the other big announcement thus far is that of an unlocked Samsung Galaxy S4 handset. This particular version of the S4 will be available from Google Play. It's built by Samsung, but is running a clean version of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean "with the same software experience" that Google ships on its Nexus devices. This version works with both AT&T and T-Mobile, has 4G LTE support, is equipped with 16GB of internal storage, has an unlocked bootloader, will receive Android updates "promptly" as they're made available, and will be available for $649 starting June 26 (an eerie silence from an otherwise energetic crowd emanated after the price was disclosed, followed by scattered nervous laughter).

So, what do you think about the All Access music service and unlocked Galaxy S4? Post your thoughts in the comments section below!

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AMD Bills New Radeon 8970M as World's Fastest Mobile GPU

Paul Lilly — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:01:00 +0000

There's a new mobile sheriff in town.

Mobile gamers rejoice, for AMD hasn't forgotten about you. On the contrary, the Sunnyvale chip designer just unveiled its Radeon 8970M, which AMD claims is the fastest laptop GPU on the entire planet. And not only is it smoking fast, it's also more efficient than previous designs, which means you can expect longer battery life, according to AMD.

AMD's 8000M series falls into three different tiers, including Mainstream (Radeon 8500M and 8600M Series), Performance + Gaming (Radeon 8700M and 8800M Series), and Enthusiast (Radeon HD 8900 Series). The 8970M part being launched today sits at the top of the mobile GPU totem pole and boasts 1,280 stream processors, an 850MHz engine clock (900MHz with boost), and 1,200MHz memory. That translates into 2304 GFLOPS of single precision compute power and 144 GFLOPS of double precision compute power.

Speaking of which, AMD tells us the 8970M is engineered for compute with support for OpenCL and GPU acceleration. DirectX 11.1 is obviously part of the package, as is improved image quality and video playback.

As for gaming performance, AMD provided a handful of benchmark comparisons that shine a positive light on its mobile part. For example, according to AMD's testing (Intel Core i7 3770K, 4GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM, Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive), a Radeon HD 8970M is 54 percent faster than a GeForce GTX 680M in Tomb Raider running at 1920x1080 with TressFX turned off (53.6 fps versus 34.8 fps). In Bioshock Infinite (also at 1920x1080), the 8970M benched 63.29 fps, which is 42 percent faster than the GTX 680M chip (44.52 fps). And so it goes across the board.

One of the first notebooks to feature the 8970M will be MSI's GX70 gaming laptop, which is an upgraded version of the GX60 AMD's latest and greatest mobile part. It will come with a copy of Crysis 3.

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Haswell Notebooks to Hit Retail by End of the Month

Paul Lilly — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:57:50 +0000

A new generation of notebooks is right around the corner.

Generally speaking, there's always something newer, faster, and shinier in the pipeline, and if you keep waiting for the next best thing, you'll never upgrade. That said, when the stars align just right, every once in awhile it's worth waiting for something that's just around the corner, and this happens to be one of those times. Haswell is about to launch, and you may even see laptops based on Intel's next generation architecture by the end of May, which is when you'll want to start shopping if you can hold off until then.

If you're in the market for a new laptop and can survive with what you've got for few more weeks, you might as well hang tight and see what Haswell brings to the table. According to Digitimes, Haswell-based products have mostly shipped and should show up in retail in the coming weeks, though new models are likely to carry higher price tags that what's currently available. Whether or not the pricing premium will be worth the additional performance is something that will become clearer once Haswell actually ships, but even if you decide Haswell isn't for you, Haswell's launch could lead to price drops on current hardware and notebook models as vendors look to clear out inventory.

Despite Haswell making a debut, notebook ODMs aren't expecting a huge increase in shipments, at least not right away. Vendors are also looking at the situation conservatively and are refraining from ordering scores of units until they see how the market reacts.

One of the things we're looking forward to is seeing how well Haswell's integrated graphics perform. Intel says select SKUs of its Haswell line will sport Iris graphics, which promises up to twice the performance of today's fastest mobile Intel HD Graphics solutions.

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ESPN Seeks Immunity From Wireless Data Caps

Paul Lilly — Mon, 13 May 2013 16:26:58 +0000

Mega sports site is working on a homerun deal with wireless carriers.

ESPN, the cable sports network that's mostly owned by Walt Disney Co., is reportedly knee-deep in discussions with at least one major wireless carrier in the U.S. to subsidize wireless connectivity for its users, meaning that its content wouldn't count towards a user's data cap. Sports fans would then be free to view as many videos on ESPN as they want without worrying about how much data they're chewing through.

No specific deal is yet in place, though one of the proposals floating around is that ESPN would pay a carrier a sum to ensure that its mobile content wouldn't be counted against a user's monthly data cap, The Wall Street Journal reports. Whether or not the deal ultimately comes to fruition will depend on the economics of it all, as well as any objections raised by telecom regulators.

There are different ways ESPN could go about this. Outside of paying a fee, ESPN could agree to share advertising revenue with wireless carriers in exchange for data cap immunity. It's a potential win-win-win situation in which ESPN could garner more viewers and site hits, wireless carriers could increase their pocketbooks, and wireless subscribers would have the peace of mind in knowing that last night's game highlights won't count against their data plan.

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Global Smart Mobile Device Shipments Topped 300 Million Last Quarter

Paul Lilly — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:14:47 +0000

Smart device shipments are booming.

Convenience is the name of the game, and today more than ever, mobility is playing a huge factor in consumers' buying decisions for electronic devices. Gadget makers are answering the call, and in the first quarter of 2013, they shipped more than 300 million mobile devices around the world, according to the latest data published by Canalys, a market research and analysis firm.

The number of mobile shipments in Q1 2013 is 37.4 percent higher than it was in the same quarter a year ago, Canalys says. No platform benefited more than Android, which is the OS of choice on nearly 60 percent of all smart mobile devices shipped, followed by iOS at 19.3 percent. Microsoft wasn't far behind Apple, grabbing 18.1 percent of the market.

It should be noted that Canalys isn't just counting tablets and smartphones, but also notebooks and presumably hybrid laptops, too. The tablet market grew the fastest, however, with tablet shipments more than doubling from last year to 41.9 million units.

There were 216.3 million smartphones shipped in Q1, up 47.9 percent year-over-year. Android handsets accounted for more than 75 percent of them, with Samsung leading the way by growing its volume by 64.3 percent, Canalys says.

As for notebook PC shipments, they totaled 50.5 million units, down 13.1 percent compared to Q1 2013. Western Europe saw the biggest decline, where shipments fell by 25.2 percent year-over-year.

"While there are macroeconomic factors that contribute to this ongoing trend, the impact of tablets must not be understated," said Canalys Research Analyst, Pin-Chen Tang. "The combination of ARM-based chipsets and Android has taken computing devices to new, lower price points. If Microsoft and Intel are serious about capitalizing on this exploding market, both will need to ensure that their OEMs can remain competitive on price."

Canalys is likely right, and the good news for Microsoft is that Windows 8 devices are starting to come down in price.

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Samsung Galaxy S4 Teardown Reveals $229 BOM (U.S. Version)

Paul Lilly — Thu, 09 May 2013 19:09:23 +0000

IHS iSupply tears down the Galaxy S4 from Samsung.

Barring a sale price or a promotion, you're liklely to pay $200 for a Samsung Galaxy S4 handset, not including the overall cost of a two-year service agreement to qualify for subsidized pricing. Data fees notwithstanding, that's $29 less than the bill of materials (BOM). Manufacturing costs add another $8.50 per device, so on paper, Samsung is paying $237.50 for every Galaxy S4 device it builds.

That's according to IHS iSuppli, which examined the BOM of both the U.S. and South Korean versions of the Galaxy S4 and determined that they're "as different as kimchee and coleslaw." How so?

The South Korean build uses slightly different parts, including a higher end Samsung Exynos 5 Octa (5410) processor versus the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core chip found in the U.S. variant. There are a few other hardware differences that make the South Korean model a bit more expensive to build at $244 for the BOM and $252.50 for the overall cost.

"With at least four different known incarnations of the Galaxy S4, Samsung is demonstrating its strategy of offering a mobile product that has appealing features and pricing—and then adapting the device to suit the tastes of varying markets or regions," said Vincent Leung, senior analyst, teardown services, for IHS. "This approach is in stark contrast to the one-size-fits-all philosophy used by Apple Inc., Samsung’s primary competitor in the wireless space. While the Korean and U.S. versions of the S4 look pretty much the same and have in terms of their core electronics many same core features—such as the enclosure, display, camera and battery—the products are as different from each other as kimchee and coleslaw."

The primary difference between the two is the processor, as stated above. Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa chip is an eight-core part, though not in the way you might be thinking. It has four 1.6GHz Cortex A16 cores that fire up when playing games or other processor intensive-tasks, and four 1.2GHz Cortex A7 cores that handle less demanding tasks. Only one cluster runs at any given time, so in reality, it still functions as a quad-core phone.

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Origin PC Starts Shipping Beastly EON17-SLX SLI Laptops, Bundles Gaming Peripherals

Paul Lilly — Thu, 09 May 2013 15:20:30 +0000

Desktop power in a laptop form factor.

When you fire up Origin PC's EON17-SLX SLI laptop, it should play George Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone," lest anyone can think of a more appropriate song to describe the hardware inside. As the name suggests, this badass notebook has been fed not one, but TWO Nvidia GeForce GTX 680M graphics cards, both of which Origin PC takes the time to overclock before shipping out.

The ready-to-ship configuration includes an Intel Core i7 3840QM processor, a quad-core chip clocked at 2.8GHz (3.8GHz via Turbo) with 8MB of cache. You're not going to want for power with this thing, which also wields 16GB of Corsair Vengeance 1600MHZ RAM, 240GB solid state drive, 1TB hard drive for storage duties, a DVD burner, and Windows 7 Home Premium.

This particular model isn't customizable, hence the ready-to-ship status, though you can opt to increase the standard 45-day zero dead pixel guarantee to 90 days and/or increase the 1-year warranty up to 3 years, both for a fee. You can also add software and accessories to the package.

In addition to the above parts, Origin PC is bundling a few gaming peripherals, including a Razer Lachesis mouse, Corsair HS1A headset, and an Origin brand messenger bag.

Ready for the price? Take a deep breath -- it checks in at $3,399, a hefty sum for a laptop these days, albeit representative of a $500 savings, Origin PC says. Should you take the plunge, your system will ship out the next business day after payment is processed.

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Crysis Not Averted: MSI's GX70 Gaming Laptop Can Handle Crysis 3

Paul Lilly — Tue, 07 May 2013 15:09:17 +0000

Yes, it can run Crysis 3.

Ultrabooks and tablets are fine for what they're intended to do, but if you want to play a game like Crysis 3 at a high resolution, good luck trying to so on Integrated graphics. Gaming notebooks, while bulky, flex significantly more pixel pushing power, and that's especially true of MSI's new GX70 laptop, a system the company claims is "officially recommended for Crysis 3." MSI's marketing spin aside, this thing wields a pretty powerful Radeon HD 8970M GPU.

MSI also tapped AMD for central processing chores, which is handled by an A10-5750M quad-core APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) clocked at 2.5GHz to 3.5GHz. It's not Ivy Bridge, but respectable nonetheless, especially when paired with the high-end discrete graphics.

Other hardware features and options include up to 32GB of DDR3L-1600 memory (two DIMM slots), 128GB solid state drive (RAID 0) paired with either a 500GB or 750GB hard drive (7200 RPM), up to a Blu-ray writer for optical duties, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, SD card reader, HD webcam, 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, Killer Gaming LAN, HDMI 1.4 output, DisplayPort, D-Sub, 9-cell battery, and Windows 8. It also has a full color backlit LED keyboard built by SteelSeries.

No word on price or availability.

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Sony Launches Line of Affordable Vaio Fit Laptops Starting at $549

Paul Lilly — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:41:56 +0000

When's the last time you saw "Vaio" and "affordable" in the same sentence?

Sony's Vaio line doesn't have a reputation for being friendly to budgets, but that's about to change with the introduction of new Vaio Fit laptops and Ultrabooks. Pricing starts at $549, which isn't exactly netbook territory but is a far cry from being expensive for a notebook. For that kind of dough, Sony will sell you a Fit E 14E model, which is a 14-inch laptop that's thin, light, and made of aluminum.

If you need something a little bigger, there's a 15-inch variant (Fit E 15E) that starts at $579. Both are available in a few different color options, including black, pink, and white, and both are outfitted with 3rd Generation Intel Core processor options.

There are also non-E models to choose from, with the 14-inch Fit boasting a 1600x900 resolution and the 15-inch Fit featuring a Full HD 1080p display (1920x1080). Nvidia graphics are optional, as are hybrid hard drive and straight-up solid state drive storage. Pricing for the Fit 14 and 15 start at $649 and $699, respectively.

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Barnes & Noble Slashes Nook HD and HD+ Prices for Mother's Day

Paul Lilly — Mon, 06 May 2013 15:16:50 +0000

Yet another reason to consider the Nook HD/HD+.

With so many low-cost tablets entering the fray, Barnes & Noble wants to make sure it's Nook HD and Nook HD+ don't get overlooked. To help put them both in the spotlight, B&N last week issued a firmware update that added Google Play access to the tablets, making it much more difficult to pigeonhole them as glorified eBook readers. And if that wasn't enough incentive, B&N just dropped the price by about 30 percent for Mother's Day.

"In recognition that the best gift for Mother’s Day is now even better, we’re proud to offer this special limited-time offer for our award-winning 7- and 9-inch tablets," said Jamie Iannone, president of Nook Media. "Nook HD and Nook HD+ are not only beautifully designed, lightweight devices with stunning displays, they now offer customers the most reading and entertainment content we’ve ever offered, at the best prices ever."

Here's a look at the new pricing:

Nook HD 8GB: $149 (down from $199)
Nook HD 16GB: $179 (down from $229)
Nook HD+ 16GB: $179 (down from $269)
Nook HD+ 32GB: $209 (down from $299)

That's not a typo -- the 16GB Nook HD and HD+ are priced the same at $179, with the latter arguably the best value of the bunch. They're all priced competitively with the competition, though not to be outdone, Amazon is offering $20 off its Kindle FireHD line with coupon code FIRE4MOM:

Amazon Kindle Fire HD 16GB: $199 - $20 = $179
Amazon Kindle Fire HD 32GB: $229 - $20 = $209

The coupon doesn't work on the Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch models, however, so B&N still has an edge overall.

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Microsoft Reportedly Prepping a Smaller, Cheaper Surface Tablet

Paul Lilly — Fri, 03 May 2013 15:29:22 +0000

Second generation Surface rumors are heating up.

Multiple sources are saying that Microsoft is currently working on another Surface tablet, one that will likely be smaller in size than the current models, and less expensive as well. If the rumors are true, then it means Microsoft received the memo that $500 tablets without an Apple logo are a tough sell. which is the same memo Google's hardware partners received long ago in reference to Android.

If you recall, Android tablets didn't fly off of store shelves when they were first introduced, either. A big reason for that is because manufacturers were trying to compete at a premium price point with an open-source operating system that many assumed would lead to lower cost devices. It may have taken longer than most people expected, but Android tablets from name-brand vendors have certainly come down in price, and size, and they're selling extremely well as a result.

Whether or not Microsoft can enjoy the same sort of success by launching a smaller, cheaper version of Surface remains to be seen, but it's worth exploring. According to NPD DisplaySearch, Microsoft is planning to launch a 7.5-inch version of Surface with a 1400x1050 resolution (233 pixels per inch), CNET reports. However, mass production won't begin until the first quarter of 2014.

News and rumor site Digitimes is also saying a smaller Surface is in the works, though it pegs the panel as being between 7-9 inches in size. Citing sources from the upstream supply chain, Digitimes says Microsoft is likely to make an announcement at the company's Build Developer Conference.

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Lenovo Unveils ThinkPad S431 Touchscreen Laptop for Businesses Starting at $699

Paul Lilly — Wed, 01 May 2013 15:06:28 +0000

A laptop you can touch for well under a grand.

Go ahead Joan Jett fans, touch Lenovo's new ThinkPad S431. Lenovo's latest business friendly laptop sports a 14-inch touchscreen display wedged into a 13-inch frame and encourages finger tapping and swiping with Windows 8. According to Lenovo, it's also dressed to impress customers with an "elegant floating design," offering users a combination of style and substance.

"The progressive design of our ThinkPad S431 will help small businesses impress their customers. We pack a punch behind that style, however, as we are committed to delivering genuine substance," said Jerry Paradise, executive director, Think Business Group. "The ThinkPad S431 offers an intuitive Windows 8 experience with the power needed to accelerate productivity."

Lenovo says the S431 is one of the first ThinkPads to feature the company's OneLink technology, which allows users to connect to the ThinkPad OneLink dock using a single cable for dedicated video, additional USB 3.0 ports, and a GbE while powering the system.

The system comes with 3rd Generation Intel Core processor options, up to 8GB of memory, and 500GB of storage space.

Look for the ThinkPad S431 to ship in June of this year. The OneLink Dock will be available May 21.

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