Thread: Anandtech News

Six weeks after the release of Chrome 14, Google today released Chrome 15.0.874.102 to the stable channel - current Chrome users should be getting it now or soon, and curious fans of other browsers can pick it up from Google.
Chrome 15's most obvious new feature is a redesigned New Tab page, pictured above, which lets you toggle between apps and frequently visited sites and also includes a menu in the bottom-right corner for easily bringing up recently visited sites. There are also quite a few bug fixes, which you can check out in detail on the Chrome Releases blog.
Chrome, as usual, is available for Windows XP and newer, OS X 10.5 (Intel only) and newer, and many flavors of Linux.
Source: Chrome Releases blog



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We tested the Anctec HCP 1200W a while back, and now Antec is following up with their 750W model, which should be equally efficient (80 Plus Gold Certification). In this article we will see if the quality of this power supply can match the flawlessness of the higher rated HCP. The HCP-750 is a little different internally compared to the 1200W model. However, all of the HCP models are targeted at the high-end market, so our expectations are quite high for this product. Read on to find out how it compares to other offerings.


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Just seven months after announcing its intention to move to Windows Phone, Nokia its first WP based devices: the Lumia 800 and 710.
Both feature the same Qualcomm applications processor: a single-core Snapdragon S2 MSM8255 running at 1.4GHz with 512MB of memory on-package. The 800 has a more expensive chassis and Carl Zeiss optics, while the 710 is cost reduced in those aspects.

The 800 features a 3.7-inch AMOLED (RGBG PenTile) display, 16GB of integrated NAND (no microSD slot) and a 5.365Wh battery. The 800's camera has an 8MP sensor with a Carl Zeiss f/2.2 lens. The camera sensor and lens stack are borrowed from the N9, one of the ways Nokia was able to bring the 800 to market in such a short time after the Microsoft announcement.

I played with the 800 a bit at Nokia World and the feel is easily leaps and bounds beyond any WP devices available today. The 800 will be available in three colors (black, magenta and cyan) while the 710 comes in black and white.

The 710 keeps the screen size the same (3.7-inches) but moves to a standard TFT-LCD. The 710 has the same amount of DRAM as the 800 but it cuts NAND in half to 8GB. Unlike the 800 however the 710 features a microSD card slot that can accommodate up to a 16GB card (24GB total). Battery capacity drops to 4.81Wh.

Nokia Lumia Windows Phone Lineup
	Lumia 800	Lumia 710
SoC	Qualcomm S2 MSM8255 1.4GHz	Qualcomm S2 MSM8255 1.4GHz
Display	3.7-inch AMOLED PenTile RGBG	3.7-inch TFT-LCD
Camera	8MP LED Flash rear facing camera Carl Zeiss lens	5MP LED Flash rear facing camera
Memory	512MB, 16GB NAND	512MB, 8GB NAND (up to 24GB via microSD)
Dimensions	116.5 x 61.2 x 12.11 mm, 142g	119.0 x 62.4 x 12.5 mm, 126g
Battery	5.365Wh	4.81Wh
Network Support	WCDMA, EDGE Class B, GPRS Class B HSUPA 5.76Mbps HSDPA 14.4Mbps WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100 GSM 850/900/1800/1900	WCDMA, EDGE Class B, GPRS Class B HSUPA 5.76Mbps HSDPA 14.4Mbps WCDMA 900/1900/2100 GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Connectivity	802.11n b/g/n (2.4 GHz), BT 2.1+EDR, USB 2.0	802.11n b/g/n (2.4 GHz), BT 2.1+EDR, USB 2.0

Nokia announced its unique software bundle available on all Lumia Windows Phones including Nokia Maps and Nokia Music. The former is Nokia's own voice guided, turn by turn navigation app. Nokia Maps allows you to download and preinstall maps ahead of time to avoid streaming map data if you're roaming in another country. Map data can be downloaded on the fly however if necessary.

Nokia Music is a streaming music service that doesn't require a subscription or even so much as a login. You'll be able to stream live mixes as well as save them for offline listening, although Nokia didn't share much about what specific labels/artists would be available via the service.

Both Nokia apps will come preloaded on all Nokia Windows Phone devices.

The Lumia 800 will be available in six countries in November (UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands). Before the end of the year Nokia will add Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan to the list. The Lumia 800 will be available for around 420 Euros.

The 710, priced at 270 Euros, will be available in Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan by the end of the year.

Nokia will bring a US-specific lineup to market in early 2012 on multiple carriers. The Lumia family will hit mainland China in the first half of 2012. Nokia also mentioned it has plans to release LTE/CDMA Lumia products but it didn't commit to any timeframe. Based on Qualcomm's roadmaps I'd expect to see LTE devices toward the middle/second half of next year.



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Google's Nexus One phone, manufactured by HTC and originally released in January of 2010, will not be receiving the Ice Cream Sandwich update along with other phones, says Google's Android product management director Hugo Barra, because the device is "too old."
The Nexus lineup has traditionally been used to showcase new, "stock" versions of Android without added manufacturer customizations, and as a result they typically receive access to new Android updates before other handsets. Google's decision not to support less-than-two-year-old Nexus One with its newest mobile OS stands in contrast to Apple's strategy for the oldest phone in its lineup, 2009's iPhone 3GS, which received most of iOS 5's new features when the update was released earlier this month.
Barra said that the Nexus S, the immediate successor of the Nexus One, would be getting the update over the air a few weeks after the launch of the new Galaxy Nexus next month. Nexus One owners hoping for an update will need to rely on the open source community to hook them up after Ice Cream Sandwich's source code is released to the public.
Source: PCMag



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For much of the past year I've been hearing SandForce wanted to be bought. The price? $300M - $400M. A bit too rich for OCZ's blood, but a figure that I felt wasn't too high given the immense technological advantage that SandForce enjoyed. SandForce's biggest issue? It needed a partner that would bring sound validation methodology and the resources to actually test SF drives. I mentioned to many players in the SSD and HDD space that they should simply buy SandForce and make this easier on everyone. Today LSI announced that it would be the company to try and do just that.
Pending the typical closing conditions and regulatory approvals, LSI will acquire SandForce for $322M in cash plus assume another $48M in unvested SF stock options. LSI isn't much of a player in the consumer space but it hopes to use SandForce's controllers in a go at the enterprise market. A look back at the Vertex 3 in our Intel SSD 710 review shows just how strong SandForce's architecture can be in database server workloads. As I've written before, the enterprise space is where the high margin sales are and as a result many players in the SSD space are focusing on it.
For now don't expect anything to change with regards to SF drives in the client space, but OCZ's timing with Octane probably couldn't have been any better.



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One of the main reasons for the move towards LED lighting in home TVs hasn’t been about lower power usage or better performance, but about making that flat panel TV in your living room look sexy. With the ML248H, ASUS is trying to do the same for your desktop.

With a 16.5mm thick profile, the ML248H has that thin panel look that makes you want to wall mount it to show off how thin it is. Of course, if you want to show it off you also want it to perform well, so we will see if the TN panel in the ASUS ML248H can keep up in that area as well.


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Sony has released a press statement which announces Sony's purchase of Sony Ericsson. Before today, Sony has owned 50% of Sony Ericsson while Ericsson has held the other 50%, making Sony Ericsson a joint operation of Sony and Ericsson. The price of the acquisition is €1.05 billion ($1.475 billion) in cash. Sony has not revealed whether they will keep the Sony Ericsson brand around or just brand products as Sony from now on.
A brief history lesson: Sony Ericsson was founded in 2001 by Sony and Ericsson (obviously). The aim of Sony Ericsson was to combine Sony's experience of consumer electronics with Ericsson's knowledge of telecommunications. Sony Ericsson is mostly known for their mobile phones, such as the Walkman brand. However, Sony Ericsson has lost a lot of their market share during the era of smartphones. In Q3'08, Sony Ericsson had over 8% market share but in Q2'11, their market share had dropped to below 2%.
The acquisition makes sense considering that Sony makes a variety of consumer electronics. In August, Sony announced their plans to enter the tablet market. Given that Sony's tablets run Android and so do Sony Ericsson's smartphones, this purchase allows Sony to develop their ecosystem even further. Sony is a major player in TV and PC market, hence they have the possibility to create an Apple-like ecosystem (sans the OSs), which has been proven to be very successful if you look at Apple's quarterly profits. What is certain, though, is that the smartphone market is extremely competitive at the moment, meaning that it won't be easy for Sony to gain market share.



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Pay-what-you-can indie game bundles are all the rage these days. By joining together, indie game developers can help to raise the profile of their titles and encourage customers to support their labors of love. If you consider yourself a patron of the indie scene, you now have one more way to buy games in bundles: Indie Royale.
Launched by the creators of IndieGames.com and the download service Desura, Indie Royale will offer new bundles (each with four games apiece) every two weeks. The sales will only last five days, so you’ll have to act swiftly.
Indie Royale’s variable pricing model also sets it apart from other purely pay-what-you-can bundles like the Humble Bundle. There is always a minimum price for an Indie Royale bundle and paying the minimum price actually raises it for the next customer by a small amount. Paying above the minimum, however, will lower the price for future customers. It’s perhaps a little odd, but it sounds like a fun way to encourage generosity (you are getting four games on the cheap, after all).
As of this writing, the current bundle’s somewhere in the $4-6 dollar range and offers four games that all cost more than that individually: A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda, Sanctum, Gemini Rue, and Nimbus. Of the four, I’ve only tried Sanctum, which is a decent entry in the current trend of third-person tower defense shooters. The bundle’s available until Sunday, if I’m reading their countdown clock correctly.
We’ll be keeping our eyes on Indie Royale in the weeks to come, and you should, too.
Source: Indie Royale



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Dell today announced its Latitude ST, a 10.1" 1.8 pound Windows 7 tablet aimed directly at Windows-centric IT shops.
There's nothing particularly inspiring about the Latitude ST's hardware: a 1.5 GHz single-core Atom Z670 and an Intel GMA 600 integrated graphics chip (which, like the GMA 500, is actually a licensed PowerVR SGX core) drive its 1280x800 screen, which is made of Gorilla Glass and accepts both stylus and multitouch input. 2GB of RAM comes standard, and storage (presumably in the form of an SSD) of up to 128GB will be available.
Wireless n (1x1 only, unfortunately) and Bluetooth 4.0 are standard, and an optional Dell Wireless 5550 HSPA+ card can provide cellular data and GPS functionality. Integrated rear (5 megapixel) and front ("720p HD") cameras, an SD card slot, and an HDMI port round out its multimedia capabilities.
Despite these rather weak specs, there are a few bullet points which might sway Windows-centric IT managers, including its wired gigabit LAN port, three USB 2.0 ports, and TPM chip (used primarily with disk encryption software like Bitlocker). An optional docking station can add a physical keyboard to the device. However, pricing information, one factor to which businesses are always sensitive, has not been revealed.
With these business-centric features, Windows compatibility, and the Latitude name, the ST may find a small niche in some IT shops, but with Windows 8 buzz building and increasing support for iOS and Android devices in the enterprise, it seems like a bit of a long shot.
Source: Dell



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Backtracking on the company's August decision to consider selling or spinning off its PC business, new HP CEO Meg Whitman today announced that the company would be holding on to its Personal Systems Group for the time being.
This decision was reached after conducting "strategic review" of the group and the impact its sale or spin-off would have on the company's business, which found that the PSG contributed significantly to HP's portfolio and brand, and that the cost of setting the group up as its own company would outweigh the benefits.
This is definitely a step in the right direction for the world's biggest PC maker, but nevertheless, the announcement that HP was considering the sale of its PC group ruffled quite a few feathers, and may have damaged the brand's mindshare: an anonymous source told the New York Times last month that "business customers who buy tens of thousands of these machines along with support contracts are shutting [HP] out. Dell and Lenovo are all over these accounts. They’re having a field day."
Source: Business Wire



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