Thread: Anandtech News

We've had a remarkably heavy backlog of cases in house in desperate need of review over the past couple of months, and one of the standouts has been BitFenix's Shinobi XL. We were generally pretty pleased with the original Shinobi when we first reviewed it. Seventy bucks for a solid budget enclosure with great styling was a killer deal, and the enclosure itself has a lot of room to grow for the budding enthusiast. As it turns out, the Shinobi has been a pretty big hit for BitFenix. Big enough, in fact, that they decided it needed to go...bigger.

And so it did. BitFenix released the Shinobi XL earlier this year, but reviews for it have been fairly scarce and even a little bit dismissive in some cases. We have an opportunity here to rectify that and determine if the newer, larger Shinobi lives up to the legacy of its little brother, or if BitFenix has lost some of the magic in enlarging their budget design. Read on for our impressions and testing results.


More...

While Anand is away on a well-deserved vacation (ed: and as such isn’t around to stop us from doing this), we wanted to give The Boss a very special shout-out to wish him a happy 30^th birthday.
For those of you familiar with our history, Anand has operated AnandTech since he was just 15 years old, which means he’s now been writing reviews (and breaking things) for half of his life. And while he has slowed down a bit with age – we understand that he sometimes sleeps now – his hard work still puts the rest of us (younger and older) to shame. But in all seriousness, even after having read AnandTech for most of those 15 years and worked for Anand for many of them, he continues to amaze us on a regular basis.
Of course they say that with age comes wisdom. On his 30^th birthday it’s clear that Anand acquired both of those in spades – which is probably why he’s on vacation while we’re still working (ed: hey!).
Happy 30^th birthday Anand!

Then & Now

More...

If you couldn't tell already, it's definitely refresh season around here and Dell has been sure to keep news about their comprehensive refreshes coming through in a steady trickle. On the docket today are the well-received XPS 14 and XPS 15, and the revisions are a little broader than you might expect. We reviewed the XPS 14z, XPS 15, and XPS 15z, and the message came in loud and clear: "z" is in, and that's "z" as in "z-height."
Well, the letter "z" itself is being eschewed, but that's due largely to Dell pushing both of these new entries as ultrathin notebooks, with the new XPS 14 qualifying as an ultrabook. Styling cues are now taken from the XPS 13 ultrabook, a system we reviewed and found to be generally solid aesthetically but suffering from some thermal issues.

The XPS 14 will come in two basic flavors distinguished by the material used on the lid. The mainstream model will be constructed primarily of machined silver aluminum with a magnesium soft touch palm rest (just like the XPS 13), while a model with integrated mobile broadband trades the aluminum lid for a black leather display back. You also get a 1600x900, 400-nit display covered in edge-to-edge Gorilla Glass and a backlit chiclet keyboard, and Dell has dispensed with the optical drive from the XPS 14z. CPU duties are handled by Ivy Bridge ultra low voltage i5 and i7 processors, but there's only one SO-DIMM slot so memory maxes out at just 8GB of slow DDR3-1333 in a single-channel configuration. On the plus side, though, it's also configurable with an mSATA slot for SSD caching, and even better: optional NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M graphics with 1GB of fast GDDR5 that should help it push that 900p display. Given the slim form factor of the XPS 14 (20.7mm thick), it's reasonable to expect they're using the 28nm GF117 instead of the 40nm GF108 for the GPU.
Not to be left out, the XPS 15 will also be enjoying the same chassis styling as the XPS 14 and its progenitor, the XPS 13, with the same aluminum and magnesium construction, backlit keyboard, and glass clickpad. The XPS 15 bumps the 900p display up to a full 1080p, 350-nit display with the same Gorilla Glass finish, but CPUs get a big boost to either an Intel Core i5-3210M dual core processor or an Intel Core i7-3612QM 35W quad core. We get the same combination of mSATA SSD and 2.5" mechanical hard disk option as the XPS 14, too, although we now have two SO-DIMM slots capable of supporting up to 16GB of DDR3-1600. The XPS 15 also benefits from an integrated slot-loading optical drive, offering either a standard DVD-RW or a blu-ray reader. Graphics get a boost with the XPS 14's GeForce GT 630M with 1GB of GDDR5 now coming standard, with a potential upgrade to the Kepler-based GeForce GT 640M with 2GB of GDDR5, an upgrade that should actually give the XPS 15 enough horsepower to do some light gaming at 1080p (at least if our review of the same GPU in the XPS One 27 is anything to go by).
In an unfortunate sign of the times, while both notebooks will supposedly offer an impressive amount of battery life (up to 11 hours on the XPS 14 and 8 hours on the XPS 15), they also feature integrated batteries that are not user-replaceable.
Both notebooks are available today, starting at $1,099 for the XPS 14 and $1,299 for the XPS 15.



More...

I just arrived in San Francisco, CA for Google I/O, which we'll be covering live tomorrow, providing the event's 5 GHz WiFi and backup Verizon LTE or AT&T LTE don't go down. There was much talk a few weeks ago about how T-Mobile had lit up some 1900 MHz WCDMA in time for WWDC and other events, and although I saw a few tech press members post speedtests, we never saw any FieldTest output showing exactly where ol' Magenta is running their 1900 MHz WCDMA.

I just headed over to pick up my badge and couldn't resist the temptation to bring along my unlocked iPhone 4S (how uncouth) with a T-Mobile SIM inside, alongside a pocket full of SGS3s. Anyhow, T-Mobile's PCS 1900MHz WCDMA network was still up inside Moscone Center, and on the sidewalk in front. Coverage is extremely localized however, walk even a hundred feet away from the event center and you'll be dumped back on EDGE 1900 MHz instead of T-Mobile's HSPA+. I managed to run three tests and some FieldTest screenshots. As a reminder, the iPhone 4S is just a Category 10, HSDPA 14.4 device, and results are pretty good for what's likely an unloaded single carrier.
Gallery: T-Mobile 1900 MHz WCDMA


FieldTest shows a DL UARFCN of 612, which corresponds to 1972.5 MHz and UL UARFCN of 212 at 1892.5 MHz. Andrew Shephard (@wiwavelength) beat me to analysis of which PCS block this corresponds to, and tweeted that this is F block PCS. Well, that finally satisfies my curiosity about T-Mobile WCDMA on 1900 MHz for the most part, at least in this region.

@nerdtalker T-Mobile in SF holds PCS B5, E, and F block 10 MHz licenses. UARFCN 612 = 1972.5 MHz center freq. So, W-CDMA is in F block.
— Andrew J Shepherd (@WiWavelength) June 27, 2012

More...

While notebook hardware has steadily improved over the years, outside of the recent MacBook Pro with Retina Display there haven't really been any moves forward in improving desktop real estate in some time. In fact, for productivity-oriented users this continues to be a major reason for sticking with a desktop setup (if not a desktop system): more monitors, more space to work in. This fact of life has resulted in a bit of a niche market in the form of small, USB-powered screens.

We've tested both of GeChic's OnLap monitors and found that while they were flawed in their own ways, they were still able to expand useful work space without incurring too much of an inconvenience in terms of size or power requirements. Yet GeChic's screens need an HDMI or D-SUB port in addition to a USB 2.0 port for power, and if for one reason or another your notebook doesn't offer one of these, you're out of luck. Enter solutions based off of DisplayLink's USB technology, which are able to add another screen driven entirely over USB. Solutions like the screen we have on hand today, Toshiba's catchily-named 14" USB Mobile LCD Monitor.


More...

Android Police broke this story, discovering assets for the Google Play Store that confirm earlier rumors that Google would be revealing a 7" Nexus branded Android tablet at their developer conference, I/O. Our Brian Klug is at the event and will be covering the keynote here. Pricing is not confirmed, but early speculation has it that the device will be priced at just $199, and feature a Tegra 3 SoC. From the leaked image, it's somewhat apparent that the new device, dubbed the Nexus 7, will be sporting Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean).

Alongside the Nexus 7, Google will expand the Nexus brand to media devices, it seems. Other assets found on Google servers indicate that a media player called the Nexus Q will also launch. The device is uniquely shaped for a device in this space, as just a sphere with a flattened bottom, and looks devoid of any on-device controls. Google actually previewed a similar device at I/O last year, in demonstrating their Android@Home home control initiative. The fact that these assets were found on the Play Store's servers could indicate that the initiative is finally making it to market.
Again, we'll have more as this story develops.



More...

We just got seated inside Moscone Center for Google I/O 2012. While some details of the Nexus 7 tablet and Q have been already released before the keynote, we're still looking for more details and will be covering the announcement live.
The kenote is shaping up to be incredibly packed already. The timer is counting down and the event is almost started. Vic just took the stage and is talking about how there are many surprises still left to announce today.

Hugo Barra is next on stage talking about Android momentum. Last year at Google I/O there were 100 million devices, now there are 400 million activated android devices. Daily activations are also now up to over 1 million.

Next up - Jellybean is now official, Android 4.1.

Part of Android 4.1 is project butter, which is a number of improvements in smoothness. Fast UI is the number one priority of project butter. Triple buffering have been added in the Android 4.1 graphics pipeline, along with some touch anticipation and improvements to the governor to quickly ramp the CPU appropriately.

Google has added a new system trace tool aptly named systrace, which appears to show the time for each step taken in drawing a frame to the framebuffer. Systrace is now a part of the Android SDK as well.

Some comparisons in device framerate between ICS 4.0 and JB 4.1 is up next. At very high framerate capture speeds, the difference is substantial. I'm super excited about seeing how much improvement project butter has made to the UI smoothness.

Some JB 4.1 features are up next. Widget placement is now dynamic - moving widgets around snaps the adjacent ones around complete with dynamic resizing.

Keyboard dictionaries have been improved, along with predictive typing enhancements that look somewhat similar to Swiftkey 3. Voice recognition and typing is now also available offline without a data connection. Arabic and Hebrew input support have been added, alongside a few others.

Jellybean adds improvements to accessibility for disabled users, including external braille support and gesture based input control.

Camera has also been improved in JB 4.1 as well. There are some gesures here that look very similar to the Windows Phone camera UI, including a simple live preview alongside captured photos, which can be deleted by swiping up.

Android Beam is now improved with NFC pairing for bluetooth devices, and files can be sent using NFC (I'm guessing similar to WiFi Direct).

Notification improvements are next, including swipe to dismiss notifications and shortcuts from the notification shade. Quick responses are available, and no doubt other developers can add their own shortcuts. For example liking or dismissing items from social networks that appear in the shade.



More...

Google just announced its first Nexus tablet, the Nexus 7. The specs are pretty much what we expected, including a 1280x800 LCD display, Tegra 3 SoC (probably T30L, we're clarifying on clocks). No word on RAM yet but we'll find out shortly. Other features include a front facing camera, and all the requisite Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity. The Nexus 7 runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean which was just announced this morning.

No word on pricing just yet but we're staying tuned.



More...

VIZIO has announced their new XVT 58” HDTV, the first ultra-widescreen HDTV to hit the US market, is now available for purchase. Sporting a 21:9 (2.33) aspect ratio that matches up nicely with the 2.35 AR used on most major films, the greatest benefit of the XVT is that you’ll no longer have to deal with black bars at the top and bottom of your HDTV when watching the latest widescreen content. How important you find such a feature will depend in a large part on how you use your HDTV, naturally, as broadcast 16:9 AR content will result in black bars on the left and right of the display. But there are other uses for such a wide screen, of course.
Besides being wider than normal display—the XVT sports a native 2560x1080 resolution—the new HDTV also includes other modern features like VIZIO’s Theater 3D functionality (four pairs of lightweight passive 3D glasses are included), SRS StudioSound HD, built-in WiFi, and smart TV technologies. That last item is perhaps the best example of what you might do with the added width when viewing 16:9 content, as VIZIO supports Internet Apps in a column on the left side of the screen that can be used for checking scores, tweeting, or other web-browsing activities—all while still watching HDTV.
The VIZIO XVT3D580CM is currently available exclusively on VIZIO.com with a limited time pricing of $2499 (down from the initial $2799 target). I'd expect the displays to eventually show up on retail shelves, if you're willing to wait.



More...

Earlier today we saw the Nexus Q leak somewhat, and now we know exactly what the Nexus Q is. It's a Google Play and YouTube companion streaming device which includes both analog and digital audio output. For audio, you can use the onboard 25 watt amp, or digital HDMI or optical TOSlink outputs. Google showed off the Nexus Q playing back YouTube videos and media from onboard a Galaxy Nexus. I'm looking forward to learning more about the details of how this sharing and pairing work, hopefully all will be revealed shortly.

The device includes an OMAP4460 SoC with 1 GB of LPDDR2, and 16 GB of onboard NAND. More importantly this is Google's first direct consumer electronic device. Just like the Nexus 7, shipping is mid-July and up for preorder now on the Play Store.
Source: Nexus Q, Play Store



More...