As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. TweakTown may also earn commissions from other affiliate partners at no extra cost to you.
New slimmer Zune players from Microsoft
Microsoft has announced a new range of Zune players and it looks like things are improving rather quickly. First up is the new 80GB model which is slimmer and has a new touch sensitive controller, henceforth known as the Zune 80GB. The Zune 80GB will only be available in black and has a 3.2-inch display, although no resolution was mentioned. It also has a built in FM radio and Wi-Fi for music sharing with other Zune users.
The 80GB drive is good for up to about 20,000 songs, 25,000 pictures or 250h of video according to Microsoft. A new feature allows you to record and sync TV content from a Windows Vista Media Center PC with the new Zune's. You can also sync your music and files wirelessly over your Wi-Fi network with the new models.
Continue reading: New slimmer Zune players from Microsoft (full post)
GSmart i350 launches in Turkey
GSmart, a division of Gigabyte, has released its latest Windows Mobile 6 smart phone and this time it packs a built in GPS receiver. The GSmart i350 has a 2.6-inch touch screen LCD display with 480x640 resolution and it does 260,000 colours. It's great to see another Windows Mobile device with a VGA resolution screen and we can only but hope that more manufacturers follow suite. It measures 110x54x18mm (HxWxD) and it weighs in at 130g with the battery and it has a fairly stylish if somewhat bland black design.
It's filled to the brim with features and for starters it has a 520MHz Marvell PXA270 CPU, 256MB of flash and 64MB or RAM. Storage can be expanded via a mini SDHC card and it's also got Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g and a mini USB 2.0 connector.
Continue reading: GSmart i350 launches in Turkey (full post)
Cool looking home NAS from Thecus
Thecus has launched a new home product with the N3200 NAS with RAID 5 support. This is the first product in the 3x00-series from Thecus and it's Thecus first high-end model for home users. It can house up to three hard drives and you'll need three drives to take advantage of the RAID 5 capabilities. The N3200 measures 160 x 170 x 215mm (WxHxD) and it has a completely tool less design. You can fit up to 3TB of storage in it and the hard drives are easily installed and removed.
The N3200 also has a front mounted LCD display that show status information and allows for some system management operations. It also has USB ports and the N3200 can be given a wireless upgrade this way via a USB dongle. Oddly enough the press release didn't mention the speed of the Ethernet interface on the N3200.
Continue reading: Cool looking home NAS from Thecus (full post)
Yidsun's new Bluetooth accessories
Based on Hong Kong, Yidsun has launched a new range of Bluetooth accessories that should cater for those looking for some accessories for their mobile phone. First up we have the MP series which is comprised of small and light weight Bluetooth headsets, all of which has over 100h standby time and 8h talk time. They weigh around 10g and have a 10m range and are compatible with just about all Bluetooth phones on the market as they support all Bluetooth standards up to 2.0.
Next up we have the SP series which is a light weight Bluetooth stereo headset range which is compatible with all A2DP Bluetooth devices and it can be used with your MP3 player with an optional adapter. You can also use them as a Bluetooth headset with your phone of course and with up to 8h talk time or 6h music streaming they should be good enough even for a long commute. The standby time is rated at up to 60h and again these ones have a 10m range. The headphones have interchangeable rubber ear pieces which come in three sizes to fit different ear sizes.
Continue reading: Yidsun's new Bluetooth accessories (full post)
Asus Maximus Extreme preview
We paid a visit to Asus' head office in Taipei on Friday and we got some exclusive pictures of their upcoming Maximus Extreme X38 board and some information about it and some of their other X38 products. There will be two different Maximus board in the R.O.G. family, the Extreme which we're looking at here and the Formula. Asus has already done this kind of thing once before with its P35 R.O.G. boards, the Blitz Extreme and the Blitz Formula.
Click to enlarge
Nvidia 780i board images leaked
Some images of Nvidia's upcoming 780i board have made their way online and Chinese language site Expreview has the goods. According to the site, the board uses the 680i chipset as well as the BR04 chip which is also known as N200. You can take a look at the board below and we're sure you'll agree with us when we say it looks similar to the 680i boards.
Click to enlarge
Continue reading: Nvidia 780i board images leaked (full post)
2900GT from Club 3D out now
Club 3D has announced the availability of its HD2900 GT Heatpipe graphics card and the specs aren't far off from what we reported on here. The specifications don't differ significantly from what we already knew and the Club 3D card looks very much like a reference card with a sticker on it. None the less, the Radeon HD2900 GT is here.
As we mentioned, the GPU is clocked at 600MHz and it's based on the ATI R600 GPU. It has 240 stream processors and a 256-bit memory interface. It's of course a 256MB card and the GDDR3 memory is again as we told you earlier, clocked at 800MHz or 1,600MHz effectively.
30in 1,600p display from Gateway
Gateway has announced a new display on a press event in the US today and the reason we're telling you about it is because it's massive. The 30-inch ExtremeHD monitor as gateway calls it has a native resolution of 2,560x1,600, or 1600p as Gateway likes to call it.
It's unlikely that this beast will ever be available outside of the US, but hopefully Gateway will allow the rest of us to at least dribble in front of one. It's got a multitude of inputs which consists of a D-sub, DVI, HMDI, component video, composite and S-Video.
Continue reading: 30in 1,600p display from Gateway (full post)
2900 GT specs revealed
We've had confirmed information that the Radeon HD 2900 GT will arrive some time in mid October. However, we're sure you'd rather want to know the specs of the 2900 GT and we've got it all right here for you. As you might already have heard, the 2900 GT will have 256MB of memory, while the 2900 XT and Pro comes with 512MB or 1GB depending on model.
They all share the same GPU and the 2900 GT is actually clocked at the same 600MHz core speed as the 2900 Pro. The memory is also clocked at 1.6GHz and the card is using 256-bit GDDR3 memory as suspected. This is very similar to what ATI has done in the past with lower end products based on the same GPU as higher-end cards.
Coolaler scores MSI RV670 board pictures
Our friend Coolaler has scored some pictures of an upcoming RV670 based graphics card over at his forum and it looks like MSI is the first ones to drop the ball. Although we doubt it'll be called the MSI RX2600XTX, but we could be wrong. If so, the RV670 will replace the current Radeon HD 2600 XT or at least become the XTX version, which is a highly unusual move.
The card itself is the size of a Radeon HD 2900 XT, but it has a single slot cooler and some funky copper heatsink cooler over the power regulation part at the rear of the card. It doesn't really look like a low noise cooler, but hopefully the card won't get too hot and thus the fan won't need to spin at full speed. This reference card features a 6-pin PCI-Express type power connector, however we wouldn't expect that this is needed on PCI Express 2.0 boards, since the RV670 supports PCI Express 2.0.
Continue reading: Coolaler scores MSI RV670 board pictures (full post)
Toshiba Satellite gets the SLI treatment
Toshiba has launched two new models in its Satellite X205 series, the SLi1 and SLi3. The names are a bit odd considering both models feature two graphics cards, namely dual GeForce 8600M GT's. Each GPU seems to have 512MB of graphics memory, plus 255MB of TurboCache, but it's not quite clear from the specifications on the site and it could well be 512MB in total.
The two models differ in terms of hardware spec, with the SLi1 featuring a Core 2 Duo T7250 CPU clocked at 2GHz with 4MB of L2 cache. The SLi3 on the other hand features a Core 2 Duo T7500 which is clocked at 2.2GHz, but has the same 4MB of L2 cache. Both CPU's operate on an 800MHz bus speed and both machines come with 2GB of DDR2-5300 memory.
Continue reading: Toshiba Satellite gets the SLI treatment (full post)
Dopod C750 sighted
Information about the upcoming C750 from Dopod, now a part of HTC, has made its way online and it looks like a rather clever slider. Our favorite feature has to be the 2.6-inch 480x640 display, as it's about time Windows Mobile devices get an upgrade from the pesky 240x320 displays that so many of them rely upon. It's just a shame that it's still stuck on 65,000 colours, but we guess you can't have it all at once.
It seems like the C750 has been given another new feature as well, as it has a QWERTY keyboard in the style of the Blackberry Pearl or the Sony Ericsson M600i. We don't know how it works and it's not easy to tell from the pictures either.
First review of the HD 2900 Pro
The folks over at Techpowerup have just spotted what is believed to be the first review of AMD's new HD 2900 Pro graphics card, this being HIS's offering.
The website which reviewed it (PCLab) are based in Poland, but the graphs with benchmark comparison results speak for themselves. This is going to be a bigtime bang for buck card me thinks!
Continue reading: First review of the HD 2900 Pro (full post)
Viewsonic launches seven new displays
ViewSonic has launched seven new LCD displays, three intended for gamers and three value models. The good news is that all six models will feature DVI and D-sub, as we have this pet hate with new LCD displays that lacks DVI input, since with a D-sub input you're first turning the picture to analogue in the graphics card and then the display has to turn it back into digital again before it can be displayed.
Anyhow, onto the products, let's start with the budget models which are the 19-inch VA1926w, 20-inch VA2026w and 22-inch (21.6-inch visible) VA2226w. It's odd for an LCD display to have a smaller viewable size than what it's reported to be, something that was common in the days of CRT's. Finally we have the 19-inch VA926 which is a traditional 4:3 display and ViewSonic is targeting those with "extremely limited desktop space". The VA1926w features 1,440x900 resolution, whereas the VA2026w and the VA2226w both have a 1,680x1,050 panel and finally the VA926 is a traditional 1,280x1,024 display.
All models features 5ms response time, a 2000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and 300 nits brightness. The VA1926w is priced at US$229, with the VA2026w at $249, the VA2226w at $279 and finally the VA926 at $259. Seem to us like the VA926 is a poor choice in terms of value for money. All models are available as of now.
Continue reading: Viewsonic launches seven new displays (full post)
AMD to launch something on the 25th
Not only is the 25th the launch date for Halo 3 and the day when the Crysis demo will be out, but AMD is also planning on launching a new product on the same day. AMD apparently has a dark side and the big viper sure doesn't look too friendly.
Continue reading: AMD to launch something on the 25th (full post)
Nvidia Display Port card at IDF
Fudzilla has scored a picture of what possibly could be the G92 from Nvidia. In either which way, this is the first card to be publicly shown that features the new Display Port interface. AMD did show a graphics card at an event earlier this year and it was connected to a Samsung display, but there were no pictures of that card in question.
The alleged G92 card looks pretty basic and Fudzilla presumes that it's made on a 65nm processes due to the lack of a power connector on the card itself. It's very much a single slot card and the heatsink and some other parts have been taped over to try and hide the identity of the card.
Continue reading: Nvidia Display Port card at IDF (full post)
Keyboard which reads handwriting
A subsidiary website of cnet dubbed 'crave' has posted up some very brief details of a USB keyboard with a difference, it sports a built-in touch screen and stylus on the right-hand side for handwriting recognition.
Unfortunately very little about this unique keyboard has been revealed just yet, particularly in terms of what purpose the handwriting area is primarily designed for. However we do know that the overall dimensions of the keyboard are 16.22-inches x 6.3-inches x 0.51-inches, weighing 28.32 ounces. Pricing is also confirmed to be quite low at around $25 from DealExtreme.
Continue reading: Keyboard which reads handwriting (full post)
Protable drive with dock from Imation
Imation has launched a new internal USB 2.0 dock for its Odyssey removable hard disk storage system as well as a new 250GB drive. This might not seem like a big deal, but the Odyssey system is targeting business users that need a solid and reliable removable storage solution. The hard drives can be encrypted using 256-bit AES encryption and Imation supplies EMC's Retrospect software which is known to be one of the best backup solutions on the market.
The hard drives are SATA based and the cartridge they're in is shock-protected and has been designed to withstand a drop from up to one meters height. There's an external USB 2.0 docking station already available and the new internal 3.5-inch USB 2.0 docking station means that you don't need to clutter your desk with an external dock.
Continue reading: Protable drive with dock from Imation (full post)
Belkin Network USB Hub launched
Belkin has launched what it simply calls a Network USB Hub which allows you to share and access printers and USB storage devices over your wireless network. Rather ingenious, although being able to share printers on a network is hardly something new and there are already routers that can share USB storage devices. The trick here is that Network USB Hub can connect to any and all routers or even a switch or a hub.
The neat thing here is that the Network USB Hub can share some devices that traditional print servers or network sharing routers weren't too fond of, such as multifunction printers, digital cameras and scanners. It can also be used for backing up data from a USB storage device or even a digital camera to a NAS.
Continue reading: Belkin Network USB Hub launched (full post)
Sony ships Memory Stick with free movie
Sony has announced a new range of Memory Stick PRO Duo cards in 2 and 4GB sizes that ships with a DVD loaded with four movies from Sony Pictures Entertainment. The movies are Click, Ghost Rider, RV and Stomp the Yard. You do need a computer to take advantage of the free movies though and you can only "unlock" one with each purchase of a Memory Stick.
The movies are formatted at 720 x 480 resolution and they will play on the PSP as well as on the PS3. The 2GB card will set you back US$55 and the 4GB version is priced at $90. In related news, Sony will be releasing a 2GB and 4GB version of its Memory Stick Micro card in November. The Memory Stick Micro format is commonly used in Sony Ericsson mobile phones and some Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras. The pricing is the same as for the Memory Stick PRO Duo cards.
Continue reading: Sony ships Memory Stick with free movie (full post)
