technicalupdates

Sep 18, 2009

Netgear ultra-speedy WNDR3700 dual-band router

If you've grown increasingly incensed by those annoying dropouts caused by your 80s-era wireless router, it looks like Netgear has your cure. Though, we must say, there's at least a decent chance you don't have the coinage to procure said medicine. At $190, the RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router (WNDR3700) is one of the pricier WLAN routers on the market, though the amenities list is pretty impressive. The ReadyShare feature enables any USB hard drive to be viewed on the network, while the DLNA support and "real-world" throughput of 350Mbps shines up an already glistening device. There's even a broadband usage meter for those unfortunately dealing with Comcast caps, and if you actually use this as a remote media server, you'll definitely want to keep an eye on that.

Samsung X420, X520 CULV laptops

Now, details are slightly thin here (as well as machine translated), but we're getting word of two new Samsung laptops on the horizon -- the 14-inch X420 and the 15.6-inch X520. The X420 will supposedly boast a 1.3GHz Intel Pentium dual-core SU2700, Intel GMA X4500M graphics, 3GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive, with not an optical drive in sight. Similarly the X520 will also feature the ultra-low power consumption SU2700 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 320GB HDD. The X520 will weigh in at 2.09 kg with its 6-cell battery, while the X420 will supposedly weigh 1.7 kg. We're hearing these bad boys are coming to European soil in mid-October, and while we don't have any solid pricing information -- both have been estimated to run somewhere in the €700 range (around $1,000).

Sony adopts Chrome as default browser for VAIO line

Google's Chrome was already the default browser on the VAIO NW we handled a month ago, and now the Financial Times delivers confirmation of a wider distribution deal between the search giant and Sony. According to the report, new VAIO laptops and desktops will come with Chrome preinstalled -- an "experimental" arrangement -- and, most importantly, will default to Google for both their homepage and search queries. Pair this with the agreement to bring over a million Google Books to Sony's e-readers, and you start to see some clear lines being drawn in the sand. Intriguingly, Google is said to be pursuing similar distribution pacts with other manufacturers, which would place Internet Explorer's stranglehold on the uninitiated user under threat. Your move, Microsoft.

Samsung's WB5000 24x camera

Hey, remember that squat WB5000 superzoomer that got spotted over the weekend? Samsung has seen fit to make it official, with specs that line up perfectly with the earlier report, including a 12.5 megapixel sensor, a 24x optical zoom lens (26mm - 624mm equivalent), and the ability to shoot 720p video recorded in H.264. It also includes a suite of intelligent modes for detecting faces, smiles, dimples, beards, and genetic abnormalities (just kidding about those last three) and can capture them all to JPEG or RAW files. Samsung hasn't officially announced availability details, but word on the street is this one will ship later this month (yes, it's September already) at a price of around $550.

WD 7200RPM 2TB desktop hard drives: Caviar Black and RE4

Surely you recall Western Digital's earlier 2TB effort, the Caviar Green -- right? While said drive was just perfect for the casual storage junkie, performance gurus know that it left something to be desired on the speed front. Thankfully, WD is looking out for that crowd too with a new pair of 7200RPM 2TB drives: the Caviar Black (shown left) and RE4 (shown right). Both four-platter drives boast 64MB of cache, a dual stage actuator, 3Gbps SATA interface and an integrated dual processor. The latter also promises 1.2 million hours MTBF, Active Power Save, a multi-axis shock sensor and a few other high-end advancements designed for enterprise users seeking long-term reliability. The pain? Try $299 for the now-available 2TB Caviar Black, while the RE4 awaits an MSRP as it's "being qualified by OEMs." Check the full release just past the break.

Black Wii remote bundle coming to North America, no matching console in sight

Oh Nintendo, you tease. You still won't give us that jet black Wii console bound for Japan, but you've got no problem giving us in North America a taste of the dark side with a black Wiimote and Motion Plus bundle, coming this holiday along with a black nunchuk sold separately. With any luck this is just the sign of things to come, and should the Wii's sales momentum drop, we're sure quite a few new colors will start shipping their way over here (light blue, anyone?). On the more portable side of things, the DSi will be adding pink and white to its repertoire on September 13th. Unless the House that Mario Built is feeling particularly nasty, prices should be the same as their pre-existing color counterparts -- you wouldn't put a premium on a palette swap, right Nintendo?

BenQ endows S35 and S43 Joybooks with CULV

It's not quite on the scale of the netbook revolution, but the CULV ultraportable uprising does seem to be gathering steam. Latest on the scene is BenQ, with its 13.3-inch S35 and 14-inch S43 Joybooks, sporting a choice between a single core SU3500, dual core SU7300, or some old and busted Celeron 723 / 743 chips. From what Acer's Timeline series has shown, the 1.4GHz SU3500 is a major step up from Atom machines, while making for ridiculous battery longevity. BenQ claim you'll be able to squeeze more than five hours of juice from the default batteries and there's an eight cell option on the S35 that is rated for 11+ hours. Hard drives clock in at 500GB, Bluetooth, WiFi and the like are all present, and the S43 also gets an ATI Mobility Radeon HD4330 GPU option to make it stand out. The announcement is for Asia only so far, but we see no reason why these laptops shouldn't make it to more familiar shores as well.

ASUS EeeBox EB1012 teases home theaters with dual-core Atom and Ion graphics

Looks like our dreams of a discrete, low cost home theater PC are about to be realized. ASUS has a new EeeBox PC EB1012 touting a dual-core Atom N330 (just as rumored), NVIDIA MCP7A ION graphics, a 250GB SATA hard disk, 2GB of DDR2-800 memory expandable to 4GB, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n WiFi, S/PDIF 5.1 audio jack, and HDMI out. As such, this little 222 x 178 x 26.9mm box should handle your hardware accelerated 1080p content just as readily as it does full-screen Flash video from Hulu and beyond -- a place where single-core Atom-based Ion nettops fail. It also features an eSATA jack, 4x USB ports, and an SDHC card reader for plugging in more media. No word on price or ship date but we'll keep an eye out.

Nokia Comes with Music US launch smartly pushed back to 2010

Not that most Americans could care, but Nokia is pushing back the US launch of its DRM-laden Comes with Music service into 2010. CWM, you'll recall, is Nokia's "free" all-you-can-eat music service that bundles the 12-18 month music subscription cost into the inflated handset price -- although like any DRM music scheme, solutions already exist to break the CWM shackles. The delay is probably a wise move considering the weak state of Nokia's US partnerships required to offset consumer costs, lukewarm response to its latest handsets, and the fact that most US consumers share a broad distaste for DRM music. We'd rather see Nokia launch late but with a compelling proposition than launch now in blind adherence to a timeline.

Hitachi ships 500GB Travelstar 7K500: 7200RPMs in a 2.5-inch form factor

Itching for a speedy and spacious new upgrade for your laptop? Ain't got the cheddar required to pop in a 512GB SSD? Then have a look at Hitachi's latest, a half-terabyte drive that spins at 7200RPMs yet draws just 0.69 watts when idle and 1.8 watts during read / write operations. The Travelstar 7K500 plays nice with the SATA interface and promises 16 percent better application performance than its predecessor, and for the paranoid in attendance, you can rest easy knowing that a BDE (Bulk Data Encryption) option enables users to have each and every byte encrypted as it's written. As of now, it's only shipping in "limited quantities" to top tier OEMs, but whenever it strolls into retail it'll land for $159.99.