Thread: Anandtech News

As promised, Apple today began offering a USB installer for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion in its online store for a price of $69, a $40 premium over the OS's price in the Mac App Store. This price hike is not just for the price of the drive and its packaging, which aside from the Lion branding is identical to the recovery media that began shipping with MacBook Airs after the late 2010 refresh, but as a way to push customers toward the Mac App Store for as much of their software as possible.
Apple notes that customers installing Lion from the USB drive cannot use the Lion Recovery partition to reinstall OS X in the future. The installer likely creates the Recovery partition (as does an OS X USB or DVD created from the App Store installer, a process we detailed in our review of Lion), but your computer's serial number won't be associated with a valid Lion purchase through the Mac App Store, rendering your Mac unable to re-download Lion via the recovery partition.
While this Lion USB drive doesn't make sense for most consumers with just a few Macs and a sufficiently fast Internet connection, it is a nice option for system administrators, users with DSL or dial-up connections, and people lacking the Mac App Store who need to upgrade directly from Tiger or Leopard to Lion. Given the company's push to digital downloads and its notorious stubbornness, Apple probably thinks we should be grateful to have the option at all.


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The first exclusive for the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play has arrived. Indie gaming sensation Minecraft, from Mojang, hit the Android Market today in the form of Minecraft: Pocket Edition, on sale for $6.99. That’s half the price of a normal copy of Minecraft.
Just like the original, Minecraft: Pocket Edition is launching in Alpha. Alpha 0.1 features randomly generated worlds to explore, 36 different types of blocks to build with and local multiplayer, but it lacks the crafting and survival elements that have helped make Minecraft so popular over the last year and a half.
Mojang promises "to continue developing the Pocket Edition for a long time with frequent updates." They want hear from users what features should be added next, which means they're waiting to see how large the install base is before spending too much time fleshing out the feature set.
When Brian Dipert reviewed the Xperia Play for us, he praised the device's gaming capabilities but knocked it for the "dearth of compelling Xperia Play-optimized content." Though it's on sale through the Android Market, Minecraft: Pocket Edition is optimized for Sony's gaming smartphone.
"We have tried to put in the features that make sense for playing on a mobile device while still keeping the core of the Minecraft experience," said Mojang. "You will be able to select blocks on the touchscreen or just scroll through them with the circle and square buttons on the Xperia Play device."
Minecraft, the first-person sandbox game from creator Markus "notch" Persson, recently hit the three million copies sold mark. Minecraft: Pocket Edition is the game's first release outsode of the PC/Mac/Linux triumvirate. Official iOS/Android versions are currently in development, as is a Kinect-enabled version for the Xbox 360.
Source: Mojang


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Image is courtesy of techtechies.com

Samsung has today issued a press release which officially unveils the white version of their popular Galaxy S II. This announcement has been widely expected for awhile already, thus it is not a big surprise. The major specs will be the same as the black version's.
Evidently, the white version will launch in Korea today but global availability is unknown at the moment. Phonesreview.co.uk is claiming September 1st availability in the UK, so global launch should take place within a month or so.
Source: Samsung (Google translation)


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In keeping with its new accelerated release schedule, Mozilla released the stable version of Firefox 6.0 to Windows, Mac, and Linux users today, just over seven weeks after the June 21 release of Firefox 5.0. A new version of Firefox for Android was also released.
In addition to the normal stability and security patches, Firefox 6.0 adds a few new features to the browser. First, like Chrome, URLs in the Firefox address bar Awesome Bar now render a site's domain in black and the rest of the URL in a slightly lighter grey.

Highlighted domains

Users of the Panorama tab grouping feature should enjoy some speed increases, since tab groups are only loaded when they're actually selected.

On the developer side of things, the Web Console now features auto-complete and a user-customizable location, and a new Scratchpad utility allows for testing of JavaScript code.

The Scratchpad, accessible from the Web Developer menu

These are the major additions, but for a complete list of features you can see the Firefox 6.0 release notes.

Performance and resource usage are roughly the same as in Firefox 5.0 - if you're looking for notable gains in that area, you'll have to wait for Firefox 7.0, which is making memory usage reduction one of its main goals. Firefox 6.0 is currently available from Mozilla.org, and the stable version of Firefox 7.0 is due to be released on September 27.

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Sony's PS3 console is getting a price cut: in the US, the 160 GB model will now cost $249 instead of $299 and the 320GB model will now cost $299 instead of $349. The cut is also coming to other territories, with both the 160GB and 320GB models getting cut to 249/349 Euros and 24,980/29,980 yen.
This price drop puts some price pressure Sony's competitors, especially on the 4GB and 250GB Xbox 360s that Microsoft sells for $199 and $299 (at $149 with a pack-in copy of Mario Kart Wii, the Wii has less to worry about in this respect). It also comes on the heels of Nintendo's recent $80 price cut for its 3DS, meant to spur sluggish sales ahead of the busy fall and winter seasons.
The American and European price cuts are effective today, while the Japanese price cut takes effect on August 18.
Source: Kotaku


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Independent security organization NSS Labs released a report today claiming that Internet Explorer 9, the latest version of Microsoft's web browser, detected 99.2% of all socially engineered malware in its tests, compared to 13.2% for Chrome 12, 7.6% for Firefox 4, 7.6% for Safari 5, and 6.1% for Opera 11 (the most recent versions of the competing web browsers available at the time of testing). NSS Labs defines socially engineered malware as "a web page link ... designed to fool the user into taking action."

The full report, which includes in-depth methodology for the test and can be found here in PDF format, credits IE9's SmartScreen filter for its high score - SmartScreen can warn users against visiting both known-bad URLs and downloading executables with suspicious attributes
Of course, socially engineered malware is just one of many types of malware, and IE's detection alone isn't enough to stop users from downloading and running the malicious software anyway. There is no foolproof way to keep any computing device completely safe from malware, but in Windows particularly you'd still be well-advised to use antivirus protection and, whenever possible, run as a standard user instead of a computer administrator.
[Thanks to AT commenter Braumin for the tip!]
Source: NSS Labs


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We've known for some time now that AT&T's 4G LTE network is slated to start turning on this summer, and now we have some dates for when the first LTE-enabled datacards are going to start popping into stores. Today AT&T announced more details about its first three data-oriented LTE products, the USBConnect Momentum 4G, the Mobile Hotspot Elevate 4G, and USB Connect Adrenaline. The first two will initially launch with just HSPA+ enabled on August 21, and have LTE enabled when the network launches later this summer. Meanwhile, the already-available USB Connect Adrenaline will get a firmware update that enables LTE on August 26 from AT&T (the page isn't live yet).

AT&T will begin firing up its 4G LTE network - which will run on its 700 MHz and AWS (1700/2100 MHz) spectrum holdings - later this summer in five markets. AT&T's initial LTE deployment will use 5MHz and 10MHz wide carriers in an LTE-FDD configuration depending on what spectrum holdings AT&T has in respective markets. For comparison, Verizon's 4G LTE uses 10 MHz LTE-FDD on its 700 MHz C-Block spectrum nationwide. The first five AT&T LTE markets are Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, as previously announced.
Source: AT&T


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If there’s one thing I like about computer technology, it’s progress. Late 2010, the best you could get from the 14” sector would have been something like the discontinued Dell XPS L401x. That laptop came with GeForce GT 425M, 4GB RAM, and an i5-460M CPU for a base price of $900. In March, we looked at the ASUS U41JF, which boasted an overclockable i3-380M, 4GB RAM, and the same GT 425M graphics card. Both of those laptops leveraged NVIDIA’s Optimus Technology to give you a balanced platform, but even $800 seems steep compared to AMD’s Llano laptops, which is why we’re seeing upgrades and price cuts everywhere.
Into that market, MSI is launching their new X460 chassis, part of MSI’s X-series that focuses on providing a thin and light laptop without sacrificing performance. The top cover and palm rest are brushed aluminum, and the entire package measures just 13.35” x 9.43” and is 1” thick. Shared features include the 1366x768 glossy LCD, HM65 chipset, WiDi 2.0 support, Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11n wireless, two USB 3.0 ports and one USB 2.0 port, and a 1.3MP webcam. From there, the various models diverge.
Starting at the bottom, we have the MSI X460DX-008US, which butts up squarely against higher priced Llano notebooks. $749 ($799 MSRP) now gets you an i3-2310M CPU and GeForce GT 540M graphics, the latter of which should be a significant step up from the previous generation GT 420M/425M GPUs. Other features include a 500GB 7200RPM HDD, 4GB DDR3 memory, and Windows 7 Home Premium. The keyboard is a chiclet-style design, there’s a multi-touch trackpad, you get a DVDRW, and MSI quotes up to 8 hours of battery life.
The next step up is the similar MSI X460DX-006US, which bumps the CPU to an i5-2410M and upgrades the memory to 6GB. All other features remain the same, so the extra $100 is primarily going to the faster CPU. The lack of Turbo Boost on the i3-2310M means that the i5-2410M is anywhere from 10% to 38% faster based solely on clock speeds, though rarely will you get perfect performance scaling. We’d rather get an SSD-equipped alternative out of the $100 increase rather than a modest CPU upgrade, but perhaps doing the SSD upgrade on your own is a better idea.
The final model is a very different beast. Out goes the dual-core Sandy Bridge processors and in comes a quad-core i7-2630QM. Unfortunately, the GT 540M gets the boot as well, but the inclusion of Windows 7 Professional is a clear indication that the MSI X460-004US targets business users, so the lack of a dedicated GPU shouldn’t be a problem. Intel’s HD 3000 graphics may not be the fastest IGP on the block, but outside of gaming and HTPC enthusiasts we’ve rarely felt a need for anything faster. The hard drive capacity is bumped up to 750GB (7200RPM) and you get 6GB RAM, with the remaining features the same as the X460DX models. Given the $1100 price, this one is a bit difficult to recommend, but it does hold the title of cheapest 14” to 14.5” with Core i7 on Newegg. Then again, $1100 can grab you an HP Envy 14 with i7-2630QM and HD 6630M, which we’d take over the no-dGPU MSI model. And of course, you’re basically paying $350-$400 more than a 15.6” laptop with similar features, so you’d really have to be sold on the 14” quad-core idea.
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Toshiba's flagship Qosmio line of notebooks have been, for the longest time, big, flashy, red and black beasts. These juggernauts sported 18" screens with high-end graphics and processing power, but at the same time they were...well, probably not the most attractive notebooks on the market. But Toshiba's success with the 13" Portege has led to some design changes, and the Qosmio has gone under the knife. It's still a substantial desktop replacement notebook, but it's shed a couple pounds, an inch off of the display, and some of the gloss. Is Toshiba's major redesign a success?

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Last week Samsung announced its PM830, its first SSD with support for 6Gbps SATA. Although the PM830 is shipping to OEMs today, it won't be available directly to consumers. Now meet the consumer version: the Samsung SSD 830.
Samsung is particularly proud of the SSD 830's brushed metal enclosure, unique to the consumer version and absent from the PM830.
Architecturally the SSD 830 is no different than the OEM version. It still has an updated Samsung controller with two ARM cores, a 6Gbps SATA interface and Samsung's own Toggle NAND. Also like the PM830 the SSD 830 supports full drive AES-256 encryption, putting it in the ranks of Intel's SSD 320 and the SandForce drives.
Although the PM830 is only available in 128, 256 and 512GB sizes, the SSD 830 will include a 64GB version as well. Pricing is TBD.

The 830 will be available in three different configurations: a standalone drive, a notebook upgrade kit and a desktop upgrade kit. The notebook upgrade kit comes with a USB to SATA adapter cable, while the desktop upgrade kit comes with a 3.5" adapter. Both upgrade kits come with a full copy of Norton Ghost.
The SSD 830 won't be available until October, which gives Samsung more time to fine tune its firmware. This is the reason that Samsung isn't disclosing performance specs for the 830 as they will likely change by the time the drive ships. Don't expect it to be any slower than the 500/350MB/s read/writes of the PM830. The question is how much faster will it be?


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