CrunchGear |  |
- Western Digital My Book VelociRaptor Duo Review: An Expensive Drive That Makes Good Use Of Thunderbolt
- Samsung Announces The Galaxy Camera: 4.8″ Display, 16MP CMOS Sensor, 21x Zoom, And Jelly Bean
- If Content Is King, Multiscreen Is The Queen, Says New Google Study
- Samsung ATIV S Revealed: Windows Phone 8, 4.8″ HD Display, 1.5GHz Dual-Core Processor
- Meet The Galaxy Note II, Samsung’s Most Important Phone Yet
- Oops! Galaxy Note II Gets Detailed Ahead Of Samsung’s Official Announcement
- Sony Pumps Up Mobile Lineup At IFA With New Xperia T, V, And J Smartphones
- Sony Takes On The MS Surface, Introduces The Full-Featured VAIO Duo 11 Windows 8 Slide-Out Tablet
- Motorola And Intel May (Officially) Reveal Medfield-Powered Smartphone On 9/18
| Posted: 30 Aug 2012 05:03 AM PDT  Short version: Western Digital finally releases a new Thunderbolt external hard drive to justify the existence of the Thunderbolt port on your laptop. The My Book VelociRaptor Duo is a desktop external hard drive, which uses two 3.5-inch 1 TB VelociRaptor hard drives. These disks spin at 10,000 RPM and are a good compromise between speed and storage inside a desktop computer. Yet, using them in an external enclosure comes with a major drawback: a hefty price of $899. Features:
Pros:
Cons:
Long version: Before diving into some read/write tests, let’s talk about the external features of the VelociRaptor Duo. It is a heavy and bulky desktop hard drive that will on your desk in a corner and never move again. At the same time, due to its speed and limited capacity compared to some desktop external hard drives — you can easily get a slower but comparable in size 6 TB drive for the same price — you will have to find a special use for it aside from storing backups of your computer. An entry-level NAS is another alternative that could be considered at that price. For example, it would be a good addition to a current-generation MacBook Air limited by its 128 GB or 256 GB SSD. But SSD prices will certainly come down in the coming years. The exterior of the VelociRaptor Duo is made entirely of plastic. It looks fine when sitting on your desk, but feels cheap when you are moving the drive around. A discrete LED indicates that the device is plugged correctly. The drive is also noisier than the MacBook Pro used to write this review, even when reading or copying files. It gets warm but it is not very important for a desktop external drive. You can change the hard drives quite easily without using a screw driver. Even though VelociRaptor drives are standard 3.5-inch SATA drives, there is a sticker that says “Only use VelociRaptor drives.” It remains to be seen if it is a serious claim as for the European patent-protected Nespresso coffee machine or only marketing advice. Finally, a Thunderbolt cable is in the box, a $50 value. Daisy-chaining multiple Thunderbolt devices is a convenient feature when using a laptop. For example, the VelociRaptor Duo is currently plugged to a MacBook Pro and a display is plugged to the VelociRaptor using a DVI to Mini DisplayPort adapter. Only one port is necessary on the laptop to use those two devices. When it comes to performances, the VelociRaptor duo is a nice surprise. In Raid 0, we could measure 352.3 MB/s and 374.1 MB/s respectively for writing and reading large files. Yet, dealing with a lot of small files was much slower with 13.2 MB/s for random writing. That is the disadvantage of mechanical hard drives, but the VelociRaptor Duo appeared faster than the Buffalo MiniStation Thunderbolt. Clearly, the bottleneck is not the connectivity but the drive. In real-world use copying a folder from the MacBook Pro to the VelociRaptor Duo would not be relevant because of the 5,400 RPM hard drive found in that Mac. That is why we copied a 69 GB folder containing small and big files already on the VelociRaptor Duo. It took 13’02″, at an approximate speed of 89 MB/s. The same test would have been many times slower using a USB2 drive. The VelociRaptor Duo is a particular drive filling a particular need for those that feel cramped using a small SSD as their main drive. It is expensive but makes good use of the Thunderbolt interface. Yet, it is very hard to recommend the drive because of the price. As SSD capacities will increase a lot in future laptops, a cheaper desktop external drive with Thunderbolt might be good enough. The rest of the money could be saved to buy your next laptop with a bigger SSD.
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| Samsung Announces The Galaxy Camera: 4.8″ Display, 16MP CMOS Sensor, 21x Zoom, And Jelly Bean Posted: 29 Aug 2012 11:00 AM PDT  At the IFA conference in Berlin, Samsung has just announced the Galaxy Camera, a 4.8-inch Android-powered camera with WiFi, 3G (or 4G) connectivity, and a quad-core SoC. See, digital cameras have lost their swagger. With the combination of pretty decent micro lenses and smartphones, the digital imaging sector has been left to the serious hobbyists and professionals. But Samsung, following a precedent set by the Nikon CoolPix S800c, is looking boost the point-and-shoot business with a dash of Android. The camera has a 16-megapixel CMOS sensor with 21x zoom. But when you flip that bad boy over, you won’t see a little 2-inch LCD. Instead, you’ll be met with the familiar Android homescreen (Jelly Bean, no less), on a 4.8-inch 720p SLCD display. An Exynos quad-core SoC will sit under the hood, along with a 3G (or 4G) radio, Wifi, an expandable memory card slot and a 1650mAh battery. It’s almost like an iPod touch, but with a focus on images instead of music. With the success of Instagram, and the general popularity of photo sharing, I wouldn’t be surprised if Samsung’s digital camera performance sees a slight bump thanks to the Galaxy Camera. The GalCam will be sold by wireless operators in the fourth quarter of 2012, much like smartphones. Click to view slideshow.
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| If Content Is King, Multiscreen Is The Queen, Says New Google Study Posted: 29 Aug 2012 10:48 AM PDT  New research out from Google, working with market analysts Ipsos and Sterling Brands, puts some hard numbers behind the often-noticed trend of how people in the U.S. are using a combination of phones, tablets, computer and TVs to consume digital content. While each of these has a significant place in our consumption today, their real power lies in how they are used together — in combination, 90% of all of our media consumption, or 4.4 hours per day, is happening across all four (which doesn’t leave much room for paper-based books and publications; or for radio). This not only has implications for how content is designed, but also for how companies like Google will continue to hedge their bets across all four screens. The state of TV viewing perhaps illustrates consumer usage best of all: polling 1,611 people across 15,738 media interactions and nearly 8,000 hours of activity during Q2, the study found that users are watching TV on average for 43 minutes per The study also found that although a lot of attention is being focused on smartphones and apps, this device is not only the smallest screen in our world, it’s also used for the shortest bursts, at 17 minutes per But, while smartphones may have the shortest sessions That effectively means that while your total content experience perhaps doesn’t need to be designed for a smartphone experience, at least the initial part of it should be, and that part should be integrated with how that content might be used on other devices — so, for example, watching a film first on a phone and then finishing it on a TV, or starting a shopping experience on a phone and finishing it on a PC. The survey also found that smartphones are the most common sidekick device used simultaneously with other screens. This is perhaps unsurprising, given that smartphones are small and in many ways complement the services we get on PCs, televisions and tablets, not just with apps but also with voice and text services. So what are the implications for a company like Google? Since the bulk of its revenue, despite all its other activities, still comes from ads alongside search, if Google eats its own dogfood, I think we’re likely to see more and more integration with how it lets users search on one device and then continue that experience on another, as well as joined up search experiences across third-party and Google’s own internet properties — both courtesy of their Google accounts. Given that Google will have advertising following users along the way, it also implies Google continuing to make sure that it has a role to play across all of the screens. Whether it does so as a software-only player, or also through an increasing role in the hardware itself, remains to be seen, although products like Google’s new tablet with Asus, and its new ownership of Motorola Mobility, seem to point in the latter direction. The full research findings are available here and embedded below.
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| Samsung ATIV S Revealed: Windows Phone 8, 4.8″ HD Display, 1.5GHz Dual-Core Processor Posted: 29 Aug 2012 10:24 AM PDT  Sorry Nokia, consider your thunder stolen. It hasn’t yet made an appearance at Samsung’s big IFA press conference inside the Berlin Tempodrom, but Samsung’s first Windows Phone 8 device has just been made official thanks to a post on Microsoft’s Windows Phone Blog. That device in question is the ATIV (Ah-TEEV, not EYY-tiv) S, a rather handsome new handset that sports a (sadly unspecified) 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel rear camera, and a 1.9-megapixel front-facing counterpart to boot. Update (5:02PM ET): Neither Samsung nor Microsoft dug into what kind of processor the ATIV S has under the hood, but Qualcomm confirmed to PC Magazine that it’s an MSM8260A. That’s the same chipset seen in the U.S. variants of the HTC One X and Galaxy S III so the ATIV won’t leave you wanting for horsepower, but it means LTE is definitely off the table. The spec sheet may not be the most riveting you’ll ever see — Windows Phone has never really required bleeding edge hardware — but the move puts the pressure on Nokia to unveil something tremendous next week. The ATIV S features a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display swathed in Gorilla Glass, which may make it a bit of a handful (its size puts it right up there in Galaxy S III territory) — but there’s little question that Samsung knows how to make a big device feel smaller than it actually is. The fact that the ATIV S squeezes all that into a brushed aluminum 8.7mm thick chassis (the Galaxy S III is only just a hair thinner at 8.6mm) certainly doesn’t hurt. What really lends the ATIV some star power is that it’s the world’s first Windows Phone 8 device, though it may be a while before the rest of us get to see how well the software complements the hardware. Users will be able to pick up a 16 or 32GB model at some point in the near future — no one has mentioned availability yet — but they can rest easy knowing that at long last they’ll be able to throw a microSD card into their Windows Phone.
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| Meet The Galaxy Note II, Samsung’s Most Important Phone Yet Posted: 29 Aug 2012 10:16 AM PDT  The original Samsung Note was huge — in both physical size and popularity. Samsung sold over 10 million units of the huge phone, or rather, if you prefer, mini tablet. The Note II is more of the same, really. It sports a much more capable mobile SoC, which should make the Jelly Bean Android build run as smooth as, well, butter. Strangely, the new model features a lower resolution screen than the original, but that likely won’t hurt sales. In all, the new Note is like the old Note. Engadget likes what they see so far. That’s a good thing. It’s still a massive thing, likely too big for some users. But that’s fine with Samsung. The Note II shows Samsung’s swagger. It might not be the best selling phone in Samsung’s lineup, but it’s the most important. Samsung is fresh off a huge court loss that could have sweeping effects. Early reports from phone resellers indicate that users are actually dumping their Samsung phones twice as often as normal. Gazelle.com, a site that buys old phones from owners, reports a 50% increase in Samsung smartphones buybacks over the past three days. That’s just nuts. But Samsung is plowing forward even though some devices could face a ban in the U.S. The Galaxy Note II is the successor to the widely popular Galaxy Note. The original Note wasn’t the first 5-inch touchscreen phone, but it was the model to make it big. The 5-inch Dell Streak busted into the market in the summer of 2010 but failed to make much of an impact. The Streak shipped with outdated Android software and Dell failed to provide updates in a timely fashion. Plus, unlike the Note, the Streak wasn’t marketed to the general consumer; the Streak was intended for the business crowd. Samsung announced the Galaxy Note one year ago at IFA 2011. The phone hit the European market in late October and went on to sell one million units prior to launching in the U.S. the following February. Samsung went big with the Note’s marketing and went as far as showcasing it at CES in a huge booth by having artists draw caricatures of show goers. It was a widely popular stunt, and the booth often had a massive line. Samsung is likely to go even bigger with the Note II’s advertising. The original’s success shows that there is a big market for large screen phones. With the new iPhone using a larger screen, Samsung’s argument for huge screens could be made easier this time around. If nothing else, the Galaxy Note II is a fine halo device, designed to draw consumers’ attention to the Samsung brand — and to the Galaxy S III. Consider the Chevy Corvette — it’s too expensive and not practical for every buyer, but it brings people into car showrooms and that’s the Note II’s job too. The Note II is physically huge. It’s not for everyone. But Samsung would argue that the Galaxy S III, the Note’s smaller and cheaper counterpart, is for everyone. Where the Note II is Samsung’s Corvette, the Galaxy S III is the Chevy Camaro, an everyday driver. At $199 with carrier subsidies, the Galaxy S III is Samsung’s mainstay. The phone still features a large screen, but it’s rather small compared to the Note II. The GSIII lacks a stylus, tablet-ish flappy cover and, most important, the negative connotation that it’s too big. Samsung clearly knows what it’s doing. It’s the largest phone manufacturer in the world and the Galaxy S III will rival the new iPhone in sales; the Note series will not. But it doesn’t have to in order to accomplish its mission. The Note II gives Samsung’s lineup a bit of variety while still keeping the manufacturing simply by using parts similar to that found in the Galaxy S III. This way Samsung can offer more models while keeping manufacturing costs down. Expect to hear a lot about the Note II in the coming months. It’s scheduled to hit Europe in October, with a wider release to follow shortly. Click to view slideshow.
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| Oops! Galaxy Note II Gets Detailed Ahead Of Samsung’s Official Announcement Posted: 29 Aug 2012 09:10 AM PDT  With Sony’s big IFA press conference out of the way, Samsung is next in line to show off its new (and oft-rumored) wares. That said, it looks like one of the company’s most anticipated products has gotten its share of spotlight ahead of schedule — PocketNow has come into possession of some Galaxy Note II press images, and some technical details to go with them. First up, the rumors about the screen appear to be true — the new Note indeed sports a 5.5-inch display that runs at 720p, which is a bit of a bummer since the original had a higher resolution (1280×800) panel and higher pixel density to boot. C’est la vie, I suppose. That said, the new model is just a hair thinner than the original, but has put on an extra 2 grams in comparison. Inside the little behemoth is a 1.6 GHz quad-core chipset of unspecified make (PocketNow thinks its an Exynos, I don’t see how it couldn’t be), and 2GB of RAM. A quick look around the back reveals a standard 8-megapixel camera, while a 1.9-megapixel counterpart sits just to the right of the front speaker. All of those components could make for some sketchy battery life, but the Note II crams a whopping 3,100mAh hour battery into its svelte frame to make sure users can doodle into the wee hours of the morning. Expect to hear about 16, 32, and 64GB variants during the official announcement, as well as LTE-enabled models for certain markets. In fairness, these sorts of last minute leaks are nothing new for Samsung — half-decent photos and a full spec listing for the Galaxy Nexus appeared online just a half hour before the device was officially unveiled in Hong Kong — but it does put a bit of a damper on Samsung’s show. With any luck, the Korean electronics giant will pull something crazy (like an Android-powered camera) out of its hat to keep us on our toes.
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| Sony Pumps Up Mobile Lineup At IFA With New Xperia T, V, And J Smartphones Posted: 29 Aug 2012 07:50 AM PDT  After a bit of on-stage patter (and a rather pointless Wonderbook video), Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai officially pulled back the curtains on a slew of new Xperia handsets — the Xperias T, V, and J — at IFA in Berlin. The Xperia T (previously known as the Mint, left) is the clear standout in this crowd with its 4.6 inch display, which also takes advantage of the company’s Mobile Bravia Engine to produce to eye-popping (some would say “lurid”) visuals. Taking a look inside the T reveals a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Krait MSM8260-A chipset, and the whole package runs Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, though a Jelly Bean update is in the works. As previously reported, the flagship Xperia T also packs NFC and a 13-megapixel camera, which Hirai says can go from sleep mode to snapping shots “in just over a second.” Sadly, the other two models didn’t warrant more than a sentence apiece from Hirai. The new Xperia V (center) packs support for LTE, and “highest level of water resistance” seen in a smartphone. Hirai didn’t dive into much detail about how exactly that works — he’s bounding from topic to topic like a madman — but expect more to come shortly. The slightly-tinier V keeps the same 13-megapixel camera and Ice Cream Sandwich build as its big brother, but Sony opted for a slightly smaller 4.3-inch display and a slightly different dual-core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm MSM8960 processor. Meanwhile, Hirai didn’t have much to say about the Xperia J (right) aside from pointing out that it’s cheap, which I suppose is better than nothing. A recent leak revealed that the wallet-friendly J features a single core 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a 4-inch display, and 512MB of RAM, which explains why Hirai was so quick to talk about something else. Of course, hardware is only part of the equation, and Sony has plenty of audio and video content at its disposal. Just to get people on board with Sony’s oft-overlooked Music Unlimited service, anyone who purchases one of these new Xperia handsets will get a 60-day premium service trial. No word yet on pricing and availability yet, so on the off-chance you’re downright smitten with one (or more) of these things, you may be in for a bit of a wait. In the meantime, you may want to peek at these promo videos that Sony has whipped up to help keep the heartache at bay:
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| Sony Takes On The MS Surface, Introduces The Full-Featured VAIO Duo 11 Windows 8 Slide-Out Tablet Posted: 29 Aug 2012 07:48 AM PDT  It’s half-tablet, half-notebook, but all awesome. Sony briefly announced the VAIO Duo 11 at its IFA 2012 press conference in Berlin today. It’s a powerhouse, too. The Duo 11 will be available with several different Intel Core CPUs with the Core i7-3517U topping the range. Alongside the CPU will either be 4GB or 8GB of system memory with 128GB or 256GB SSD for local storage. But it’s the 11.6-inch 1080p capacitive display that will surely attract the attention. Window 8 (or Window 8 Pro) will look fantastic on this device — and it should run well, too. The VAIO Duo 11 leaked online earlier this week. The slide-out tablet seems to be a classic Sony device with a fantastic industrial design, which will no doubt give the Surface some competition. However, like most classic Sony devices, it will probably be expensive. Sony failed to detail pertinent release information about the upcoming device. A good design is only half the formula for success. A good price is equally important and Sony is no doubt waiting to see where Microsoft prices its upcoming tablet as well. The devices are similar but the Sony features an important difference: an always-connected, backlit keyboard. The Duo 11 seems to use a retractable keyboard, but yet one that’s very thin. Depending on how this keyboard works — Sony has yet to provide hands-on demos — it could provide the Duo 11 with a distinct advantage over the Surface with its fabric keyboard. The Duo 11 ships with everything that’s expected of an x86 platform: WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports, VGA out, HDMI out and a memory card slot. There are two cameras, front and rear, along with an optional extended life battery pack. It weighs just 1.3kg, which is nearly twice as much as the new iPad for those keeping track. The Sony Duo 11 will launch this October alongside Windows 8 — and the Microsoft Surface.
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| Motorola And Intel May (Officially) Reveal Medfield-Powered Smartphone On 9/18 Posted: 29 Aug 2012 06:37 AM PDT  Motorola and Intel have been in cahoots since this past January, but so far their relationship hasn't yielded any new gadgets to lust after. That should all change very shortly though, as the two companies have been busy sending out invitations to a big September 18 press event in London this morning. As for what the two companies plan to share, well, that's still tough to discern. The (frustratingly vague) invitation urges us members of the tech press to let them take us "to the edge" — should one succumb to the urge to read too much into things, it's possible that the line is a not-so-sly reference to a smartphone or tablet design with an edge-to-edge display. There is also the matter of that striking Medfield-powered smartphone design that first started making the rounds back in February — Motorola may finally be planning to push that little guy (or some variant thereof) into the market. Considering that Motorola and Intel told us to expect a Medfield device launch in 2012, this is likely our winner. It's worth noting that the newly-leaked Droid RAZR M for Verizon bears a striking resemblance to that early render though, so it wouldn't be a shock to see an Intel-powered smartphone with a slightly different look to help differentiate it. Even though other Intel-powered Android devices have beaten Motorola to market — there's the oddly-named (and India-exclusive) Lava XOLO X900 for one — Motorola's is the biggest hardware name attached to the chipset maker right now. Whatever those crazy kids end up unveiling is going to be worth paying attention to, although I imagine some people will still be too wrapped up in whatever Apple announces the week before that to care much.
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 8/30/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 8/30/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 8/30/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 8/30/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 8/30/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 8/30/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 8/30/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 8/30/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 8/30/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 8/30/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 8/30/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 8/30/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 8/30/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 8/30/2012 05:22:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 8/30/2012 05:23:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 8/30/2012 05:23:00 AM
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