News for April 5th 2011

I was posting news to the other sites and I figured why not toss some up here as well.. So here’s news from sites all around the world.

Storage Related:

Seagate GoFlex Slim 320GB USB 3.0 Hard Drive Review @ Legit Reviews
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1586/1/

"The Seagate GoFlex Slim 320GB portable drive caught us a little off guard when it arrived. We weren’t sure what to expect, but in the end we found ourselves pleasantly surprised to find a portable drive that was fast, lightweight, small and looked good. Usually, you can’t find a way to blend all those features together without making sacrifices along the way, but that doesn’t appear to be the situation we have here today. In order to take full advantage of this drive you really need to have a USB 3.0 interface! With CrystalDiskMark we saw the GoFlex Slim 320GB drive peak at ~120MB/s read and ~118MB/s write, so if you’ve been using a USB 2.0 drive and are stuck at ~31MB/s write speeds you’ll see nice performance gains!"

Kingston HyperX T1 DDR3-1600 CL9 Review – Great Memory At a Great Price!

LINK: http://thessdreview.com/?p=14066

This review is going to explore the capabilities of the Kingston Hyper X T1 Performance series of RAM. This specific kit was designed to match the Gigabyte G1 Killer Series motherboard, however, its design, color and performance makes it a great grab for any enthusiast and a great addition to any motherboard.

, ‘G.Skill RipJaws X DDR3-2133 4GB Review’
The Full Article can be viewed at http://tbreak.com/tech/2011/04/g-skill-ripjaws-x-ddr3-2133-4gb-review/

Mach Xtreme Technology MX-GX 16GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Review

The Mach Xtreme MX-GX USB 3.0 Flash Drives offer incredible read speeds and come in 4 different flavours: 8GB, 16GB, 32GB or 64GB; they are also priced competitively, the 16GB model being found at CaseKing.de for about 29.90 Euros.
http://www.madshrimps.be/articles/article/1000158/

Patriot Memory 120GB Inferno Solid State Drive Review

Compared to about 18 months ago, solid state drives have come down roughly $100 USD making them more affordable. They’re still one of the best upgrades out there. If your current system has been dragging its feet, an SSD is an easy way to speed it up. However, it can get confusing trying to figure out which ones offer the best value and performance as prices depend upon things like the controller and the capacity. Today, we’re looking at the Patriot Memory Inferno 120GB SSD which uses the SandForce SF-1222 controller, which is the fastest controller for consumer SSDs. Let’s have look and see if that’s true.

Direct Link: http://www.futurelooks.com/patriot-memory-120gb-inferno-solid-state-drive-review/

Synology DS-211J Diskstation Two-Bay NAS Review @ Tweaknews
Article Url: http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/synology_ds-211j_diskstation_nas_review/
Article Snippet: "Synology’s DS211j is a great addition to an expanding home network. Not only does it provide storage and backup solutions, it also offers print and media server capabilities, website hosting, PC-free downloading, and much more at a price that is easy on the wallet."

OCZ Vertex 3 Solid State Drive Tests @ Benchmark Reviews

DESCRIPTION: The OCZ Vertex 3 SSD is based on the second-generation SandForce’s SF-2281 SATA 6Gb/s controller and maintains all of the original core technology introduced in the original SF-1200 series, but now improves SSD performance with 20% faster IOPS and 40% faster sequential read/write throughput. OCZ promises 60,000 IOPS at up to 550 MB/s transfer speeds with the Vertex 3 SSD, and Benchmark Reviews confirms that they’re keeping this promise with tests of the new storage device on a B3-stepping Sandy Bridge platform against the Crucial RealSSD C400.

ARTICLE URL: http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=717&Itemid=60

Synology DS211+ Network Attached Storage Device Review @ ThinkComputers.org

Review URL: http://www.thinkcomputers.org/synology-ds211-network-attached-storage-device-review/

Quote: “The dual-bay Synology DS-211+ is marketed as a business-class NAS suitable for medium and small businesses looking to centralize storage and backups. It provides several functions, from network multimedia via UPnP and DAAP, to Windows Active Directory serving and joining, to multi-OS network file system support, to enterprise level storage with iSCSI. Add a web server, mail server, and and print server, and the Synology DS-211+ could be a small office’s one-stop-shop for a network hub."

Synology Disk Station DS411J NAS Review @ XSReviews.co.uk
Link: http://xsreviews.co.uk/2011/04/synology-disk-station-ds411j-nas/
Quote: "While we’ve reviewed a few media hubs and media pc equivalents recently, this isn’t always what people want. Sometimes they want something that sits away from the lounge area but still provides content. Synology have something that does just that, but also a lot more. This NAS isn’t for the faint of heart; the DS411J is packed full of multi-tasking ability. Media server, FTP, torrents, internet radio, iTunes and more.

Thermaltake MAX 5G 3.5-inch USB 3.0 External HDD Enclosure Review
QUOTE: "USB 3.0 has a lot of promise for devices that need large amounts of bandwidth. So far we’ve only been given a glimpse of what the specification has to offer. The big marketing claim for USB 3.0 has always been ‘up to 10x USB 2.0 speeds’, but in our real world testing we’ve only been able to achieve around 200MB/s. With USB 2.0 topping out at around 35MB/s on a good day, 10x USB 2.0 has yet to be achieved. There are several reasons for this, but what it really comes down to is PCIe bandwidth and what current chipsets are able to make available after all those video cards, SATA, eSATA and USB ports take up. On top of the bandwidth limitations is the current crop of USB 3.0 controller and bridge chips. Many do not offer the 10x bandwidth we have been promised.
Late last year Crucial sent over several RealSSD C300 256GB drives to use for testing our storage products. The RealSSD C300 was the fastest drive available on the market at that time, and to this day is still considered one of the fastest SSDs money can buy. The C300 allows us to push products to their limits and find the ceiling of performance. As we stated, USB 3.0 on our X58A-UD7 has been limited to around 200MB/s….but that was before the Thermaltake MAX 5G graced us."

USB 3.0 64GB Flash Drive Round-up
http://www.techspot.com/review/377-usb30-64gb-flash-drives/
Even the fastest USB 2.0 flash drives are unable to match today’s conventional hard drives. Considering that we often cite hard drives as the slowest component in a computer, it’s about time we moved on. The storage industry has been preparing the shift to USB 3.0 connectivity for quite some time. Dubbed SuperSpeed USB, USB 3.0 offers bi-directional (full-duplex) communication and a tenfold boost in transfer speeds as well as improved capabilities, all while maintaining compatibility with USB 2.0 devices.
In the last year we have reviewed a handful of USB 3.0 devices and today several memory manufacturers offer flash drives claiming to utilize the extra performance offered by the revamped interface. Today we are looking at three 64GB flash drives: the AData Nobility Series N005, Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 and Patriot SuperSonic.

Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB
The Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB is the fastest mechanical drive that we have tested. The drive has excellent sequential read and write up to 150MB/s. While SSDs may grab the market headlines, they are still relatively expensive at $1.5 per gigabyte and with capacity limited to a few hundred gigabytes. At 0.08 cents per gigabyte, the Seagate Barracuda XT offers an excellent pricing as a secondary drive to complement the limited storage capacity of the SSD. With 3TB of space, 64MB Cache, 7200 RPM and SATA 6Gb/s interface, the Barracuda XT 3TB definitely won’t bog down a system. It is also hard to say no to the drive considering that it comes with a 5 year warranty, while most mainstream hard drives now only carry 3 year warranty.
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=2031&pageID=10389

G.Skill RipjawsX PC17000 CL7 Memory Review @ Ninjalane
URL: http://www.ninjalane.com/reviews/memory/ripjawsx_cl7
Quote: Memory can be one of the most frustrating items to choose from. Usually you know from the start what the CPU and Motherboard will be but selecting the memory can be a real learning experience. There are several specs you need to consider but for the most part the clockspeed and CAS rating are the most important.

Patriot G2 (GAMER 2) 1600MHz CL9 8GB Review @ Vortez
It was at the very end of last year that Patriot Memory announced the commencement of a new series named Gamer 2 (G2 for short). This new series of memory, again, like many of our recent memory product reviews is focussed on the new Sandy Bridge platform. Apart from their attractive price-tag they also have a number of pleasing characteristics – they are extremely low profile, so much so that the heatspreaders are in fact shorter than the modules they cover. They are also said to give impressive performance figures too.
LINK: http://www.vortez.net/review.php?id=323

Patriot G2 DDR3-12800 2x2GB Kit:
English link: http://rbmods.com/patriot-g2-ddr3-12800-2x2gb-kit/
Swedish link: http://rbmods.se/patriot-g2-ddr3-12800-2x2gb-kit/
Quote: Prices of basic DDR3 memories have fallen down quickly in the past half-year. Nowdays you can get a 2x2GB 1333MHz dualchannel kit for less than 35€ from local store. Today we will take a look at Patriot G2 DDR3 1600MHz 2x2GB kit and see what extras you you can get out of it if you’re willing to spend couple more coins over the basic model. Let’s have a look!

Thecus N4200 PRO Review – The 4-Bay, Battery Backup NAS with Many Features
QUOTE: "Last year we reviewed the Thecus N4200 just days after its release. The N4200 is still to this day the only consumer NAS that offers dual status display screens, but more importantly, the only consumer NAS to include a battery backup system. When Thecus first marketed their N4200 a lot of emphasis was placed on the new dual display feature, but we felt that the battery backup feature was the real standout feature.
In an enterprise environment power is regulated to a degree unseen in our homes. Businesses regularly spend a portion of their budget on keeping clean, consistent power flowing to their servers. In our home power fluctuates and in many places across the country you can expect at least one power outage a year. Here in the Midwest where I’m at you can expect several brief outages in winter as ice builds on power lines and trees, and again in the spring when severe storms disrupt the flow. One of the easiest ways to take out a hard drive is to remove power abruptly without a proper shut down sequence."

Funky Kit Review: Intel SSD 510 series (250Gb) 6Gbps

Looking deeper into the specifications, the Intel SSD 510 is controlled by a Marvell 88SS9174-BKK2 controller instead of their own. This is quite a surprise, because previous models from Intel such as the X25-M used their own SSD controllers.

Read the rest of the review here … http://www.funkykit.com/component/content/article/55-storage/7850-review-intel-ssd-510-series-250gb.html

Patriot Memory Supersonic USB 3.0 Flash Drive Review

Today we are looking at Patriot Memory’s Supersonic USB 3.0 flash drive. It is the standard form factor that you’re used to, but with a quad channel memory controller inside. Patriot boasts that this will reach up to 100 MB/s peak read speeds, and an amazing 70 MB/s write. If you are still using a dual channel USB 2.0 drive, you are probably writing data to it at about 10 MB/s peak. So check out the full review to find out more!
http://www.hardcoreware.net/patriot-memory-supersonic-review/

Audio / Video:

MEElec M21 Earphones
http://www.topreviewshop.com/meelec_m21_earphones
"After recently reviewing the entry level MEElec M16 and feeling like I was left wanting for more, I was excited to take a step up in MEElec’s 2011 lineup with the set of earphones up for review today – the M21. It’s the mid-priced model in the "M" series – let’s see (and hear) how well it delivers."

Nikon Coolpix P7000 Review
"Serious shutterbugs tired of lugging around giant DSLRs have lots of options in 2011. There are Olympus PEN interchangeable lens cameras that cost anywhere from $450 to $700. Then there is the Canon PowerShot S95 or G12 style of digicam with built-in wide-angle zooms that cost less than $500. All have tweaks galore, and better-than-average picture quality. Now we’ll see if the P7000 digicam is worth the money, or is the picking greener elsewhere?"
Link to the review: http://www.digitaltrends.com/digital-camera-reviews/nikon-coolpix-p7000-review/

Samsung UN55C9000 55" 3D LED HDTV.

Article URL: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/42199-samsung-un55c9000-55-3d-led-hdtv-review.html

Quote: In an industry which was pummeled by the recession, there really hasn’t been all that much released over the last two years in the ultra high end HDTV market. However, Samsung has introduced one of the most forward thinking TVs currently available: the UN55C9000. At a mere 33mm thick, it boasts a design to die for but can the picture quality live up to the expectations brought about by an initial price of nearly $8000?

Samsung UN55C9000 55 inch 3D LED TV Review at Overclockers Online
Link: http://www.overclockersonline.net/reviews/samsung-un55c9000-55-inch-3d-led-tv/
Quote: Flip through any magazine and you’ll see that sex sells and an ultra thin 55″ 3D LED TV is just downright sexy in any room! Mouths drop in awe when friends come over and see what I have in the living room. Picture quality is just as important to how a TV looks and the UN55C9000 has one of the best displays Samsung has ever made. The colors stand out and the LED backlight highlights dark scenes extremely well. Not to be outdone by any 3D TV on the market, the UN55C9000 comes fully equipped with 3D playback as well as wireless LAN for media streaming and Internet browsing.

‘SteelSeries Siberia V2 Review’
The Full Article can be viewed at http://tbreak.com/tech/2011/04/steelseries-siberia-v2-review/

Corsair SP2500 2.1 Speaker System Video Review.
Quote: Corsair sell speakers now too? Is this a step too far or can they perfect PC audio?
Link: http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/audio/corsair_sp2500_2_1_speaker_system_video_review/1

Kingston HyperX Genesis 4GB 2133MHz DDR3 Memory Kit
Link: http://bigbruin.com/content/genesis4gb_1
Quote: The aesthetics may be slightly different from what we expect from Kingston, but the under the hood of the HyperX Genesis 4GB 2133MHz DDR3 kit the performance is the same. Testing on a Sandy Bridge system showed that this kit has the ability to offer high speed performance with minimal effort thanks to the plug and play nature of XMP profiles.

G.Skill Sniper SR2 8GB Kit Review.
Quote: Today we take a look at a kit from G.Skill that’s big on capacity and small on price. How does it fair?
Link: http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/memory/g_skill_sniper_sr2_8gb_kit_review/1

Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB Hard Drive.

Article URL: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/42117-seagate-barracuda-xt-3tb-hard-drive-review.html

Quote: As SSDs continue to encroach upon the storage market, hard drive manufacturers have been working overtime to increase the capacity and performance of their products. Seagate has taken things to the next level with the Barracuda XT 3TB; a drive which offers impressive benchmark numbers alongside a massive amount of storage space.

Mobile Related:

Lenovo IdeaPad U260: A Stylish Ultralight Notebook:
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Lenovo-Ideapad-U260-When-less-is-more/

If you are in the market for an ultralight notebook with a gorgeous LED backlit LCD and don’t want to spend more than $1,000, the Lenovo IdeaPad U260 should be on your short list. The U260’s claim to fame is its 12.5-inch form-factor, making it larger than your average netbook–but at a mere 18mm thick and 3 lbs, it’s almost as light as one. Lenovo claims the U260 is the first 12.5-inch ultralight machine on the market, and pricing starts at $899…

Antec Notebook Cooler 200 Review @ eTeknix.com

Link: http://www.eteknix.com/cooling/antec-notebook-cooler-200-835/

Quote: Everyone has a portable computer of some kind, whether it is a notebook or netbook. They range in many different sizes but the overall idea is generally the same. Some are more aimed towards the business user, whilst some are focussed on home use and others are geared towards the extreme gamer offering unparalleled performance in a small form factor design.

Griffin Elan Form Graphite iPhone 4 Case Review @ ThinkComputers.org

Review URL: http://www.thinkcomputers.org/griffin-elan-form-graphite-iphone-4-case-review/

Quote: “Griffin has been making iPhone cases since the original iPhone was announced so they know what they are doing. Their Elan Form case has seen many different varieties from the plain polycarbonate to leather. Today we will be taking a look at another variety, Griffin is calling it the Graphite. It features a very cool carbon fiber pattern on the back and all of the protection you expect from a Griffin iPhone case. Let’s check it out!"

Assorted Stuffs:

Intel Unveils 10-Core Xeons, Mission-Critical Servers:
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Intel-Unveils-10Core-Xeons-MissionCritical-Servers/

Intel announced its new E-series of Xeon processors today, claiming that the new processors will deliver nearly unparalleled advances in CPU performance and power efficiency. It’s been just over a year since Santa Clara released its Nehalem-based octal-core Beckton processors. Whereas Beckton was focused entirely on performance and architectural efficiency, these new Xeons are more balanced. The new chips boost the core count to ten (up to 20 threads with HT enabled) and will be offered at a wide range of TDPs…

Funky Kit Article – How to extract your contacts from iPhone or iTunes backup

Check this … you’ve recently passed your iPhone to a family member, or you may have sold it on to someone else. In any case, you don’t have the iPhone anymore, but you now desperately need to acces your old contacts. If you’ve made a backup of your iPhone on iTunes a while ago … here’s how you can access your old contacts from the backup?

In this a short article, we will show you how to extract your contacts (and other data) from iPhone or iTunes backup. Of course, this will work for ALL iPhones or any other iOS devices too.

Read the rest of the article here … http://www.funkykit.com/how-to/7898-how-to-extract-your-contacts-from-iphone-or-itunes-backup.html

Citrix GoToMeeting

URL: http://www.businesscomputingworld.co.uk/review-citrix-gotomeeting/

Synopsis: “We liked GoToMeeting. Its quick setup, flat-fee billing and support for PC and Mac platforms making it a good solution for small to medium-sized businesses looking to run online meetings with no long-term strings attached. However, it’s far from the only product on the market and faces stiff competition from other, better known, services such as Cisco WebEx. Lack of branding opportunities, like those available with WebEx, could also be an issue for larger companies—particularly those selling through their online presence and looking to differentiate their conferencing tools against those of competitors”.

iBUYPOWER Chimera 901 Evaluation
URL: http://www.bcchardware.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9906&Itemid=40
Quote:
First you remove the left side panel; being very careful not to unplug any fan wiring or damage the custom paint. Then you pull out the packing material very carefully. After that I inspected all components to make sure they were still installed correctly. During my inspection I did find one area of concern – two of the DDR3 ram modules were not locked in on one end. This was a simple fix. I removed them and inspected them for damage, then carefully re-installed them. . .

TechwareLabs Article: Building Computers for the Weekend Geek, Part 2

Quote: In this followup to part 1, we’ll be going over the remaining components that are essential to building a system from scratch. Grab your thinking cap and your anti-static wrist strap, and let’s get started!
LINK: http://www.techwarelabs.com/building-computers-for-the-weekend-geek-part-2/

InsideHW.com has reviewed ASUS RT-N56U Dual-band Gigabit Wireless-N and ASUS DSL-N10 11N Wireless ADSL Modem routers. Here is a quote from this review:
In order to create a good SOHO wireless network environment, one always has to provide reliable equipment. In order to avoid the regret of not having chosen equipment more wisely when first setting up the network (unlike some of us), make sure you look comprehensively at the current market situation. If you don’t have a personal contact that would provide adequate advice, cruise the internet a little and take a look at what others are recommending. It’s likely in both cases that you’ll end up in the default product gamma of a large manufacturer, but at times, you may be surprised by the quality of the solutions offered by other familiar names in the IT field. This is one such occasion, and we’ve had the chance to thoroughly examine two of ASUS’ wireless solutions, namely DSL-N10 (modem/router) and a dual-band router RT-N56U…
Article link: http://www.insidehw.com/Reviews/Peripherals/ASUS-Routers-Wireless-Elegance.html

Preaching to the converted – The scourge of piracy warnings
QUOTE: "Friends, today I feel the need to speak out against a scourge that is afflicting the home entertainment industry. It’s annoying, it’s disruptive and it’s treating the very customers that are doing the right thing, as criminals. I am speaking of forced copyright warnings and threats.
Copyright warnings date back to VHS and beta video tapes, with small text on the back cover and a ten second warning preceding a movie that you’d go to jail and receive a $100,000 fine if you attempted to make a duplicate copy of a movie, if you were lucky enough to own two very expensive VHS units."

Funky Kit Article: CPUs, Cores, Threads, what does it all mean?

When researching processors these days one runs into talk of Cores, Threads, HyperThreading, Turbo Boost, Turbo This, Hyper That, HT, mhz, ghz, it’s a mess! This article aims to be a basic guide to what it all means, in as simple of terms as possible.

You can read the rest of teh article here … http://www.funkykit.com/articles/7891-cpus-cores-threads-what-does-it-all-mean.html

‘Samsung CLP-325W Laser Printer Review’
The Full Article can be viewed at http://tbreak.com/tech/2011/04/samsung-clp-325w-laser-printer-review/

MEGATechNews Robo Showcase!

It’s not uncommon for articles to be written over persons of valor. If someone does a good deed or meets a historic achievement, they will be praised, held up on the shoulders of the printed word for all the world to see. Extraordinary acts and those responsible are often showcased to set examples and instill hope in others. That isn’t what I’m doing here. This isn’t for showcasing weak humans and their paltry accomplishments. I’m here to talk about robots, our soon-to-be masters and overlords.

Direct Link: http://www.megatechnews.com/megatechnews-robo-showcase/

SkyMall’s Most Bizarre Products – Part 10
Link: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/blog/SkyMalls-Most-Bizarre-Products-Part-10/198
"You guys already know which is my favorite comedy magazine: SkyMall, which is available in airplanes and only sells junk. This issue from my collection was really weak compared to other editions I’ve covered here:"