Thread: Anandtech News

We recently spent some hands on time with the Galaxy Note II, Samsung's new 5.5-inch Jelly Bean equipped Android smartphone/minitablet. The Note II runs a 32nm 1.6GHz quad-core Exynos 4 part and features 2GB of memory. Like the original Note, the integrated S Pen is one of the major selling points of the Note II (in addition to its larger-than-life size). 
During our hands on Samsung told us that US carrier details were forthcoming, and the Note II would likely follow the Galaxy S 3 in being fairly consistent between international and US versions. Today we got our next piece of information: the Galaxy Note II will arrive on five major US carriers by mid November. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and US Cellular are all getting the device. Details on pricing and exact configuration on each carrier is unknown at this point, but we're getting there.
Gallery: Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Hands On

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We just sat down at HTC's NYC event. Specifics aren't being shared about what's being announced here but follow along with our live blog to see what's bound to be exciting.
 

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At an event today in NYC, HTC unveiled its first two Windows Phone 8 devices: the Windows Phone 8X and 8S by HTC. Similar to Nokia's next-generation Lumia stack, HTC's Windows Phone 8 lineup includes a high-end flagship and a more affordable mainstream option.
The 8X is the new high-end device, while the 8S is its more affordable sibling. The 8X features Qualcomm's dual-core Krait Snapdragon S4 (MSM8960) running at 1.5GHz. The 8S on the other hand uses a lower clocked MSM8627 (1GHz) with a slower Adreno 305 GPU. The two phones differ in the amount of on-package DRAM (1GB for the 8X and 512MB for the 8S). Connectivity differs between the two, the 8X features LTE while the 8S is single carrier WCDMA. 
Display is a big differentiator between the two devices. The 8X features a 4.3-inch 720p Super LCD 2 display, while the 8S uses a smaller 4-inch 800x480 display. 
Storage is split between the two as well, with the 8X featuring 16GB of NAND on-board (no microSD card slot), and the 8S with only 4GB integrated and a microSD card slot for expansion. 
HTC really ramped up its focus on the camera with the 8X. Aided by HTC's external imaging processor there's an 8MP f/2.0 rear facing camera with a 28mm lens. The front facing camera sounds pretty impressive at 2.1MP with a f/2.0 aperture and an 88-degree, ultra-wide-angle lens. The 8S features a 5MP f/2.8 camera by comparison. 
Audio is also a priority for the 8X, which gets a 2.55V amplified headphone output for what promises to be a much better implementation of Beats. The 8X also features two microphones for noise cancelling duty.
The 8X features dual-band WiFi while the 8S continues its cost-reduced theme by only supporting 2.4GHz.
Gallery: HTC Windows Phone 8X Gallery


Gallery: HTC Windows Phone 8S Gallery


Colors are big in HTC's Windows Phone 8 line. The 8X is available in california blue, graphite black, flame red and limelight yellow. The 8S will come in domino, fiesta red, atlantic blue and high-rise gray. Both the Windows Phone 8X and 8S will be available starting in the beginning of November. HTC will be bringing the devices to over 150 carriers in 50+ countries. In the US we'll see these devices on AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. Customers in Europe will find the new HTC Windows Phone 8 lineup on Orange, O2 Telefonica, MTS, Three UK, T-Mobile and Vodafone. In Asia-Pacific markets you'll see the 8X/8S on Chunghwa Telecom, Optus, Singtel Group, Smartone, Telstra and Vodafone Australia.
The only pricing announced at this time is $199 for the Windows Phone 8X on AT&T and T-Mobile with a standard 2-year contract.

Windows Phone 8 Devices - Physical Comparison
 	HTC Windows Phone 8X	HTC Windows Phone 8S	Nokia Lumia 920	Nokia Lumia 820
Height	132.35 mm	120.5mm	130.3 mm	123.8 mm
Width	66.2 mm	63 mm	70.8 mm	68.5 mm
Depth	10.12 mm	10.28 mm	10.7 mm	9.9 mm
Weight	130 g	113 g	185 g	160 g
CPU	Snapdragon S4 1.5GHz MSM8960	Snapdragon S4 1.0GHz MSM8627	Snapdragon S4 1.5GHz MSM8960	Snapdragon S4 1.5GHz MSM8960
GPU	Adreno 225	Adreno 305	Adreno 225	Adreno 225
RAM	1GB	512MB	1GB	1GB
NAND	16GB integrated	4GB + microSD slot	32GB integrated	8GB with up to 32GB via microSD slot
Camera	8MP f/2.0 + 2.1MP f/2.0 front facing camera	5MP f/2.8	8.7MP with OIS, f/2.0 + 1.2MP F/2.4 front facing camera	8MP f/2.2 + VGA front facing camera
Screen	4.3" 720p Super LCD 2	4" 800x480 Super LCD	4.5" 1280x768 IPS LCD	4.3" 800x480 AMOLED
Battery	Internal 6.66 Whr	Internal 6.29Wh	Internal 7.4 Whr	Internal 6.11 Whr

 

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Earlier this morning Microsoft and HTC announced the new Windows Phone 8X and Windows Phone 8S. The specs of the two phones is below, but basically you're looking at dual-core 1.5GHz MSM8960 and LTE for the 8X and dual-core 1GHz MSM8627 (not LTE) for the 8S. Screen size and resolution differ as well, with the 8X boasting a 720p display compared to 800 x 480 for the 8S. There are other features that separate the two as well, the 8X has the same camera assembly and image chip from the One X as well as a ultra wide angle front facing camera which the 8S lacks. 
Internally the device construction is pretty unique. HTC refers to it as a pyramid design, with the battery sandwiched between display and PCB layers rather than the normal display, PCB then battery stack. 

The 8X alone features an integrated 2.55V amplifier that drives both the headphone jack and the internal speaker. Listening to music and movies on a set of beats headphones sounded very good on the 8X.
In hand feel of both devices is just amazing. The phones have a soft touch feel to them and both feel quite light without feeling cheap. I was skeptical about the low profile buttons on the 8X at first, but in use they are well defined and have good actuation feel.

Microsoft is still limiting Windows Phone 8 demos to the lock screen and some predefined demo paths so we weren't able to get a good idea for performance or anything like that.

New for the 8X/8S line are a series of vibrant color options. You can get the 8X in california blue, graphite black, flame red and limelight yellow while the 8S come in domino, fiesta red, atlantic blue and high-rise gray. The colors look great in person, check out our galleries below to really get a feel for them. The 8S is distinguished by its lower color stripe which isn't present on the 8X.

Just like the One X, auto focus and shot to shot time is lightning quick on the 8X. The new ultra wide angle front facing camera is pretty impressive as well. It's tough to judge image quality given the dimly lit launch venue but I'm sure we'll have plenty of shots when we get review samples later this year.

Overall the devices look very impressive. For not being able to do much software-level differentiation, HTC seems to have a great job in differentiating at the design level. 
Gallery: HTC Windows Phone 8X - Hands On


Gallery: HTC Windows Phone 8S - Hands On

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As expected, Apple has released Mountain Lion 10.8.2 today in conjunction with the release of iOS 6. A slightly updated build (12C53) was released to developers last week as a follow up to build 12C50 that originally introduced Facebook integration. 
Users had complained about significantly reduced battery life after upgrading to Mountain Lion, an issue that had not been addressed in 10.8.1. Battery life on the new Retina display MacBook Pros seemed to have taken a particularly bad hit on Mountain Lion. However, independent tests conducted by MacObserver have found that 10.8.2 significantly improves battery life on both HDD and SSD based MacBooks and brings it back up to the levels seen on OS X Lion 10.7.4.
In addition, 10.8.2 also brings a host of other improvements and bug fixes such as support for more languages for the built-in dictation feature, PowerNap support for the Late 2010 MacBook Air, shared Reminder lists and tigher phone number integration for iMessages and FaceTime calls, amongst others.
In any case, the update is now available via Software Update, so head on over and update away.
Source: Apple OS X Changelog

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By this point, we’re all familiar with Apple’s revised release cadence for iOS and iOS devices. Introduce a new iOS release at WWDC, beta test it through to the Fall event, and release it alongside the next iOS device. This year is no different with iOS 6 and the iPhone 5.

A lot has happened in the mobile OS space in the past few months; and with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and Windows Phone 8, the competition is really heating up. At this point however, all major mobile OSes have pretty mature feature set; notifications, copy/paste, multitasking and so on have all been implemented and checked off the list. The focus is now slowly shifting towards re-evaluating basic usage scenarios and implementing small tweaks and UI enhancements that improve the end-user experience.
For the most part, iOS 6 seems to focus on these smaller tweaks and under-the-hood refinements to build on iOS 5 and improve the end-user experience. There’s no way around saying it, iOS 6 is an evolution rather than revolution of the iOS platform. Today, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch make up a significant portion of Apple’s revenue, and as a result moving the platform along is more of a question of minimizing friction points rather than completely reinventing the OS. iOS 6 does exactly that, and builds on the platform with a number of noteworthy new features and UI changes. Let’s see what’s changed.

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I've always been a huge fan of apps that live in the OS X menu bar because they provide status updates, system information and quick access to program functions. These apps are popular becuse they pack a lot of functionality without taking up a lot of space.
iStat menus, is an excellent example of an app that provides a plethora of system information quickly and efficiently; apps like SkipTunes let you conveniently control your music without cluttering your desktop, right from the menu bar. So last week, I came across this new app for OS X called CloudPlay, developed by Amir Malik (check out his other projects here), which totally blew me away.

We've all been to house parties; there's always a laptop, and its almost always playing music from YouTube or Soundcloud or some other music streaming service. But sometimes it's cumbersome to search for music on the internet with so many diferent websites. This is where CloudPlay comes to the rescue; it's an absolute godsend if you listen to music from a lot of different sources. 
With CloudPlay, you can search for any song, across multiple sources and play it almost instantaneously. Its searches across popular sources such as YouTube, Soundcloud and also across some not-so-well known places such as ex.fm, Jamendo, BandSoup and Official.fm. In addition, you can also listen to livestreams from online radio stations as well. It goes without saying that it searches your iTunes library too.
Even if you have a subscription to a music streaming service like Spotify, depending on your location, there's always a few songs that you'll never find; and CloudPlay is a lightning fast way to look them up and start listening. There's also support for keyboard shortcuts and ability to create playlists from within the app. CloudPlay has has a clean, resizeable UI that doesn't take up too much space. It also supports the Retina display on the new MacBook Pros.
CloudPlay is currently in a free beta and available for OS X 10.7+ until it hits the Mac App Store in the near future. Hit up the link below to try it out for yourself.
Source: CloudPlay for OS X

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While today we already have a review up of Dell's enterprise all-in-one, the OptiPlex 9010 All-in-One, our meeting with them in San Francisco bore fruit with two additional pieces of hardware absolutely worthy of your attention.
The first generation of ultrabooks from vendors focused primarily on the 13.3" form factor, but this generation has seen a lot of hardware taking advantage of the expanded definition. Dell announced the new Latitude 6430u, a 14" ultrabook that starts at just 3.7 lbs with dimensions of 13.3" x 9" x 0.82", or roughly 20.9mm thick.

I had a chance to talk with Dell reps about the Latitude 6430u, and it was an enlightening conversation. Hardware-wise the 6430u is pretty much what one would expect, with Ivy Bridge ULV processors, a pair of DDR3 slots, and mSATA storage along with support for Intel's vPro (pretty much bog standard on an enterprise-class notebook). Unfortunately we're still stuck on a 1366x768 TN panel.
Two major points stand out about the 6430u, though. First, it features a removable battery, and Dell will be making it available with both 3-cell and 6-cell batteries. Second, Dell made a conscious effort to avoid making one of the major sacrifices often made with ultrabooks: shallow key depth. Ultrabook keyboards are adequate for some users but poor for others due to how shallow they have to be to manage the form factor, but Dell decided to go the opposite route of most ultrabook vendors (save HP and their Folio 13) by maximizing the z-height under the ultrabook spec in order to fit in a more usable keyboard. I'll admit I'm still not a huge fan of the 6430u's keyboard, but that has less to do with depth and more to do with the style and feel of the keys themselves.
The other piece of hardware on display was Dell's Windows 8 tablet, and like most vendors we've met with they're pushing Intel's Clover Trail Atom to deliver "the complete Windows 8 experience."

The Latitude 10 employs a 10.1" IPS display and features both a full-size USB 2.0 port and full-size SD card reader alongside a docking connector, headphone jack, micro-USB charging port, mini-HDMI, and micro-SIM for WWAN. It weighs in at 1.6 lbs and interestingly, like the Latitude 6430u also enjoys a user-removable battery.
Availability for these is expected around the Windows 8 launch.

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Since the launch of the MacBook Pro with Retina display in June, Microsoft had announced full compatibility of Office for Mac 2011 with Mountain Lion, but had neither confirmed, nor denied the possibility of a future update to the suite to fully support the Retina display. Up until now, Outlook 2011 was the only app that had support for the Retina display.
Well today, Microsoft has released an update to Office for Mac 2011 (14.2.4) that finally adds support for the Retina display across the suite. Owners of the rMBP can now enjoy a crisp UI and sharp text and finally get back to being productive on their notebooks. In addition, the update features several bug fixes and improvements for Outlook 2011 as well.
The Office for Mac 2011 14.2.4 update should now be available via Microsoft AutoUpdate, or you can manually download it from here.
Source: Microsoft

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Micron recently announced the availability of their 30nm DDR3L-RS (formerly DDR3Lm) memory, which could prove particularly beneficial for Ultrabooks and other ultrathin computing devices. Just what is DDR3L-RS memory? It’s a new type of memory that improves overall system power consumption by reducing self refresh power (IDD6). That may not matter much for desktops where an extra watt of power draw is hardly noticeable, but when you’re using an Ultrabook that idles at well under 10W even a 250mW reduction in power draw can yield a significant improvement in battery life. Micron also notes that the new 2Gb and 4Gb solutions will reduce standby power requirements, allowing a laptop to remain in suspension for much longer. Perhaps more importantly, DDR3L should be able to do all of this while providing the same high performance of traditional DDR3 memory, and pricing will be “competitive”.
Micron is also the first vendor with DDR3L-RS products to be validated by Intel, giving them a leg up on the competition. In addition t the current 2Gb and 4Gb devices, Micron has also begun sampling 8Gb x 32 DDR3L-RS and is delivering 8Gb x 16 DDR3L-RS. Production for both is slated for December 2012. These products should help reduce board space by increasing density, which is again particularly beneficial for the new wave of ultrathin computing devices—and hopefully it spells the end of 4GB non-upgradeable Ultrabooks. Finally, Micron expects additional power and footprint savings with the launch of DDR4-RS in early 2013. 

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