An open letter to Steve Jobs
Posted by Jon Peddie on September 2nd 2010 | Discuss (0)
Categories:
Hardware Review
Tags:
Dear Mr. Jobs, I love my iPad, really, thank you very much. I am a proud member of the current generation of Apple zombies spawned by the iPhoneOS. I have been doing my best to fall in line and help bring in the new age of computing but I could use a little help here.
Olympus DM-420 Digital Recorder Review
Posted by Jon Peddie on September 2nd 2010 | Discuss (0)
Categories:
Hardware Review
Tags:
I was asked why I wanted to test a digital recorder device when I could record using my mobile phone? My first response was, “well, I am a gadget hound, and I like toys.” I was then challenged by the prospect of carrying around multiple devices when I could do everything I needed with one—the ubiquitous iPhone or some other smartphone. However, just as the iPhone has a passable camera—it’s not a great camera, and therefore, I carry a higher megapixel, higher quality pocket camera that has a flash unit, as well as an ambient light detector—I thought a dedicated digital recording device like the Olympus DM-420 would have higher quality and more reliable recording then the iPhone or any other smart phone—the case of being good enough at a lot of things but not great at any one of them.
Cyblink Power2go 7 Review
Posted by Jon Peddie on September 2nd 2010 | Discuss (0)
Categories:
Software Review
Tags:
How often has this happened to you? You’ve got a bunch of photos on your computer and you want to see them—but you can’t—they’re in ISO format—sucks to be you. Well bunky, your days of frustration and wait are over—let me hear you say hallelujah. With Power2Go’s new ISO image browser, you don’t have to burn a disc to see what is in the image, or to get the contents. Just drag and drop from the image to your hard drive. Much faster … and much easier.
New benchmarks - Radeon HD 5870 Review
Posted by Robert Dow on August 17th 2010 | Discuss (0)
Categories:
Tags:
gaming
benchmark
Two new games are out, or will be shortly, and they run DirectX, even though they look like re-ports from a console platform. Nonetheless they do have interesting effects and lighting in them, and give a GPU an interesting workout. “Mafia II” Developed by 2K Czech (previously known as Illusion Softworks), “Mafia II” is published by 2K Games and was first announced in August 2007 at the Leipzig Games Convention. Developed originally for PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, a PC version will be out soon. A 3rd person shooter, driver, maze game with a pretty linear track, the graphics are good,…
Reviewing the HP Z400 workstation and Fermi-generation Nvidia Quadro 5000
Posted by Alex Herrera on August 4th 2010 | Discuss (0)
Categories:
Hardware Review
Tags:
Our first look at 6-core Westmere (Gulftown) and professional-grade Fermi Two major advancements in workstation platform technology have appeared over recent months, and JPR has had the good fortune to review both, and at the same time no less. Intel’s 32 nm Westmere processor generation made its first splash in early Q1, appearing as both mobile Arrandale and desktop Clarkdale, two dual-core CPUs with in-package 45 nm graphics controllers. The two were the first processors to market to encapsulate both CPU and GPU in a single package (though not a single die). A more recent member of the Westmere family is…
Review: Nvidia’s F104 - GTX 460 mini-fur-me
Posted by Jon Peddie on July 19th 2010 | Discuss (0)
Categories:
Hardware Review
Tags:
A $200 board that packs a lot of wallop One of the fastest airplanes ever made was the Lockheed F104 clocking in at 1.7 mach with a 48k ft/min climb rate it was called a missile with a pilot in it. We’ve been testing another F104 - the new F104-based Nvidia AIBs, the 1GB GTX 460 and the 768MB GTX 460 both units configured with GDDR5 memory. These are consumer derivative versions of the famous Fermi chip, minus the super computer parts like EC memory management, smaller caches, and a larger number of texture units per FP unit. The new GPU…
Nvidia’s three-screen 3D Vision system
Posted by By Robert Dow and Jon Peddie on July 8th 2010 | Discuss (0)
Categories:
Hardware Review
Tags:
nvidia
graphics
gaming
To do more you gotta see more—it’s the law As you all know (and if you don’t we’re going to send you to your room and make you write it a hundred times), Peddie’s 2nd law is—The more you can see the more you can do. And as you may know we’re pretty big fans of stereo games (S3D.) And, some of you may have seen at CES, or GDC, or PAX, or Computex, Nvidia’s three-screen S3D system. You could see it, but you couldn’t touch it—it wasn’t really a shipping product yet. Last week Nvidia officially released their GeForce Beta…
AMD on AMD with AMD - The platform company shows its stuff
Posted by By Robert Dow and Alex Garovi on July 8th 2010 | Discuss (0)
Categories:
Hardware Review
Tags:
amd
graphics
gaming
review
After too many years of being criticized for not tooting their own horn enough, the technical marketing folks at AMD sent us a Vision Black machine to put through the paces. I think we may have to toot their horn—this is one impressive machine. As configured, the system was pre-loaded with Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate, all the drivers already installed, and pre-loaded with AMD’s Fusion Media Explorer and the Fusion Utility software. Here is the system configuration: Antec Six Hundred Chassis. Corsair 750W PSU. Asus Crosshair IV motherboard based on AMD’s 890FX chipset with four PCIe slots. 4GB of OCZ DDR3.…
“Singularity”—first impressions - game review
Posted by Jon Peddie on July 8th 2010 | Discuss (0)
Categories:
Software Review
Tags:
review
games
fps
We got a copy of Activisions’s “Singularity” (developed by Raven) and started playing with it. It’s a FPS set on a island where the Russians built a research facility in the 1950s to test a newly discovered element E99. Things didn’t turn out quite the way the scientist had hoped and the Russians (Soviet Union at the time) shut down the research center and abandoned the island. Rediscovered by a satellite scan in 2010 a U.S. special ops force is sent in to investigate, find the E99 and well, I’m not sure what they are supposed to do with it yet.…
The Specialist Headphone from Nox Audi
Posted by Kathleen Maher on June 23rd 2010 | Permalink
Categories:
Hardware Review
Tags:
gaming
games
audio
audiophile
sound
headphones
While strolling the aisles of E3, we ran across some compact headsets from Nox Audio. The new design includes an integrated 4 mm omnidirectional microphone slickly tucked by the left ear pad. It rolls out when needed and rolls back up discreetly to avoid the geek factor that gamers might as well give up worrying about because they’re a lost cause. The other side has a similar knob that turns up the volume. The earphones don’t have noise cancellation but they do employ noise reduction strategies in the construction of the headphones—meaning that they’re designed to block sound. The earphones work…
