Wednesday, December 10, 2003

Daily mailbox: 3DCenter, TechConnect, K-Hardware, Bjorn3D, Designtechnica, TrustedReviews, I4U, etc. — Cormac @ 16:22 

Volari + DeltaChrome News @ 3DCenter.org

"We have a few new infos about XGI Volari and S3 DeltaChrome graphic chips from graphic board manufacturer Club3D. Sorry, no link to sources available — this is only s short summary from the 3DCenter.org news on the last days:
Club3D´s Volari V8 Duo is now available in Germany. Price is around 400 Euros (include VAT). Clock rates are 350/450 MHz, like the clock rates in the preview from THG. XGI had a small heat problem with the DDR2 memory, but they fixed the problem soon. But another problem is the power consumption of Volari V8 Duo: XGI say, the board require a 400 watt power supply. On the plus side, the first non-beta driver "Reactor 1.0" for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP is available from here. The new driver makes Anti-Aliasing up to 4x SuperSampling available. But, anisotropic filtering is still unavailable.
For S3´s DeltaChrome, Club3D receives a few "DeltaChrome S8" chip samples from S3/VIA and work on board samples now. S3 will bring the DeltaChrome S8 to hardware reviewers in the next weeks and into the market in the first weeks of 2004.
The DeltaChrome F1 and S4 chips/boards will follow later, but although in Q1/2004. S8 boards will cost somewhere between 150 and 200 Euros. We expect the F1 at 250 Euros and the S4 under 150 Euros."

Sendo M550 Mobile Phone @ TechConnect

"The handset is targeted at the fashion conscious consumer who is interested more in how the phone looks and feels. The CSTN display with 12-bit color has a 128 pixels x 128 pixel resolution. The M550 also features an external, inverse monochrome display with a resolution of 96 x 64 pixels. Polyphonic ringtones are also supported, and the M550 comes with 15 such embedded. The phone can store up to 500 phone book entries, and lets the users to have more direct control over their content as it is shared by polyphonic ringtones, address book, animations, and images. The M550 is GPRS Class 8 with a colour 1.2.1 WAP browser. It also offers T9 predictive text input, concatenated SMS, full EMS support, and SMS Chat features."

Read more at TechConnect.

Athlon 64 (FX) vs. Pentium 4 (EE) @ K-Hardware

"When AMD presented the Athlon 64 and the Athlon 64 FX in September, Intel roll out the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. We compared the current CPU flagships of both manufacturers against each other."

Read more at K-Hardware.

Leadtek WinFast A380 Ultra TDH MyVIVO (GeForce FX 5950 Ultra) @ Bjorn3D

"The WinFast A380 Ultra is not only worth considering because of its performance and price but also because of its great features and decent bundle. The VIVO features are a nice extra that add value to the package. I´m happy to see that Leadtek includes a VIVO cable with HDTV support. I´m also quite pleased with the cooler design that Leadtek implemented on the A380 Ultra. It is heavy, but it gets the job done well and quietly."

Read more at Bjorn3D.

Designtechnica reviews the Gateway M675CS

"The Gateway M675CS is more than a notebook, it is a portable workstation designed with legitimate power. It´s not the type of machine that is well suited for a trip on an airplane but rather far better suited for moving between office presentations or using as both your office and home machine. The Hyper Threaded CPU is intended for power not battery conservation. The battery life is sacrificed for pure processing power. Since the target audience is for power users it is a wonder that Gateway does not offer Windows XP Professional as the default rather than a somewhat costly extra. When you are not hard at work the Radeon 9600 will give you more than enough detail and resolution for any game or DVD."

Read more at Designtechnica.

Acer Aspire 2003WLMi @ TrustedReviews

"As I already mentioned above, this machine is geared towards multimedia use and this is highlighted by the front panel controls. Unlike most notebooks, this one has a lip at the front that sticks out when the lid is shut. On this lip you’ll find an LCD display, a button marked “arcade” and multimedia control buttons. Pressing the arcade button will take you into an embedded multimedia application. From here you can watch movies, play music, look at images etc."

Read more at TrustedReviews.

I4U News: Sony Develops 360° Full-Circle Lens Video Camera

"Until now, taking a 360° panorama with a normal lens has required taking multiple shots while rotating the camera slowly and then combining (“stitching”) those shots together to form the panorama. In contrast, the 360° full-circle lens allows the full 360° surroundings of the camera to be imaged at the same time with a single lens. Sony has now developed a camera module that uses this 360° full-circle lens, and is releasing as commercial products both a camera module that uses a 380K-pixel, 30 fps CCD that outputs a ring-shaped image as a composite video signal as well as a high-resolution camera module that uses a 1.28 MP, 7.5 fps CCD with a built-in panorama expansion processing function."

Read more at I4U.

Highpoint e.SATA Kit v3.0 – External SATA Storage @ TweakTown

"Last month we checked out Highpoint´s e.SATA v2.0 external storage kit. Today we have the latest e.SATA Kit in from the folks from Highpoint in Taiwan which sports true support for Serial ATA drives and increased performance over the older version. If external storage interests you, don´t miss reading about this product."

Read more at TweakTown.

Samsung SCX-4216F Flatbed Laser Multifunction Printer Review @ Tweaknews.net

"When I am in the market for an office machine, the one main factor I consider paramount is dependability. Throughout the 3 month testing time period as my main office fax/copying/scanning/printing machine, the unit never failed once. No jamming, no screwed up print jobs, no failed fax transmissions, nothing. The machine performed perfectly. "

Read more at Tweaknews.

Soltek SL-K8AV-R Review @ Ninjalane

"The Soltek SL-K8AV-R plays an integral entry-level part in the Black Thunder series by providing a very cost effective and classy motherboard to the budget-minded consumer."

Read more at Ninjalane.

Aopen 300Watt PSU — The Modded Version @ Madshrimps

"Last week I got a call from a friend. His PSU was too loud, so I planned to do something about it. I went to the local hardware shop, and they pointed me towards an Aopen 300Watt PSU. (FSP300-60PN) Sounds like an ordinary PSU? Take a look at what I got!"

Read more at Madshrimps.

Review News-Mouse Wax @ BitBenderTech

"I was ordering some parts for a new build when I came across this intriguing product, now you´ve got to be asking yourself who the heck would buy this and what is it? This is what came in the clear plastic packaging which turned out to be a sealable lunch bag: you get the bottle of ´stuff´, a small artificial sponge and a cotton swab."

Read more at BitBenderTech.