10 Gigabit Ethernet still too expensive

Monday, March 4, 2013

Acer Aspire Ethos laptops

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Acer has just announced two new Aspire Ethos laptops that introduce a whole new level of versatility in today’s laptops. On the surface they look like regular multimedia laptops with adapter such as Acer Aspire 8930 Ac Adapter, Acer Extensa 7230 Ac Adapter, Acer Extensa 7630 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 7530 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 7730 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire One 532h Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire One 532G Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire One 533 Ac Adapter, Acer UM09H56 Ac Adapter, Acer UM09H75 Ac Adapter, Acer AS07A32 Ac Adapter, Acer AS07A72 Ac Adapter, but they carry a hidden surprise: detachable touchpads. If you’re frequently on the move and you use your laptops for presentations, you might understand the hassle of having to pack your remote control with you all the time, making sure it’s charged etc.

Nowadays, the role of the remote control has been relegated to the benches as smartphones have been doing a good job of replacing them but in the event you don’t have a smartphone (or one that is compatible with your laptop), these detachable touchpads do come in handy. The touchpads have orientation sensors that allow them to be used either horizontally or vertically.

Other than the fancy touchpads, we have pretty decent specs for a laptop:

Sandy Bridge Intel processors (Core i3 – Core i7), 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M or a 2GB GeForce GT 555M graphics, 5.1 channel surround sound (on the 18.6″ Ethos 8915G) while it only has stereo speakers and Acer’s Tuba Cinebass booster on the 15.6″ Ethos 5951G. The laptops feature an Instant on Arcade key for fast booting, and have a battery life of 5.5 hours.

No prices have been announced, but they should be available sometime this year.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Acer laptop to dual-boot Android

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Acer has revealed it will ship its dual-boot netbook with adapter such as Acer Aspire 4551 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 5250 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 5551 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 7750 Ac Adapter, Acer Travelmate 8572 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 4253 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 5740 Ac Adapter, Acer AS07B71 Ac Adapter, Acer AS07B52 Ac Adapter, Acer AS10D51 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 5230 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 5530 Ac Adapter, which features both Microsoft's Windows and Google's Android operating systems.

The computer, details of which were not available, was first shown in June at this year's Computex exhibition in Taipei. At the time Acer said it planned to launch the computer in the third quarter but the quarter ended two weeks ago with no sign of the machine.

"Worldwide I expect to see the product launch in Q4," Bob Sen, managing director of Acer Japan, had said.

When the computers were first demonstrated in June they were running Android and Windows but an Acer executive said the company would install Android and another Linux operating system in the computers when they shipped commercially. However, that appears to have changed with the launch date, and at least some versions of the computers will include Windows.

"Acer is not going to launch with a single OS, Android. It will be dual-boot, Android with Windows, " Sen said.

In July, rumours hit the web that Acer had actually dumped the Android-based machine. However, it appears these may not have been true.

The Android operating system is based on Linux and was developed by Google for use in smartphones. Several Android-powered phones are already on the market and developers have been working on a version of the OS for personal computers.

Acer C7 Chromebook

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Acer C7 Chromebook is a brand new and affordable laptop computer with adapter like Acer Aspire One 521 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire One 752 Ac Adapter, Acer Ferrari One Ac Adapter, Acer UM09F36 Ac Adapter, Acer UM09F70 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 1420P Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 1820PT Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 1825 Ac Adapter, Acer AS10D31 Ac Adapter, Acer AS10D51 Ac Adapter, Acer AS10D75 Ac Adapter, Acer AS10D81 Ac Adapter co-developed by Acer and Google. It is in stock now and available for purchase at MobiCity, Australia's premier online mobile phone store.
The device models a lightweight design featuring an 11.6-inch HD screen having a screen resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. Designed to display crisp and clear images, the screen is placed on top of a compact body that's ideal for people on the go as it provides great portability and convenience.
Acer C7 Chromebook is powered by Google's new Chrome OS. The operating system is based on the idea of using the browser as a platform for all user tasks and comes with deep integration for Google apps including, but not limited to Google search, Gmail, GTalk, YouTube, Google Docs, free 100GB Google Drive and an in-built auto-updating virus protection.
The laptop runs on a Dual-core 1.1GHz Celeron processor from Intel and features 2GB DDR3 SDRAM that allows super-smooth multitasking. Intel HD Graphics GPU is also built-into the chip architecture for great graphics acceleration especially during movie playback. The device comes with a 320GB Hard Disk Drive. There is also provision of an HD webcam on front for video calling. Other specs include - Wi-Fi, Ethernet, three USB 2.0 ports, HDMI port, VGA port and up to 4 hours of operation time on battery.
Acer C7 Chromebook comes with a 12-month warranty. It can be purchased now from MobiCity.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Acer Aspire V5 touch notebook

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Sleek design with a touch interface are currently the most important trends for notebooks. Not only the smaller laptops but also the larger ones are starting to get this treatment. The Acer Aspire V5 is an example of this. It's a 15-inch laptop with adapter like Acer Ferrari 1100 Ac Adapter, Acer GARDA53 Ac Adapter, Acer CGR-B/350AW Ac Adapter, Acer CGR-B/6G8AW Ac Adapter, Acer Ferrari 1000 Ac Adapter, Acer Ferrari 1005 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 3000 Ac Adapter, Acer UM09E31 Ac Adapter, Acer UM09E51 Ac Adapter, Acer UM09E78 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 1410T Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 1810T Ac Adapter, and Hardware.Info tested the more high-end version.

The Acer Aspire V5 series comes in many different versions, with the most deluxe model costing about twice that of the entry-level configuration. Our test model comes with a back-lit keyboard, touchscreen and runs on an Intel Core i5 processor. The entry-level model is stuck with a slower Intel Pentium CPU.

The Intel Core i5 3317U is a dual-core processor that's frequently used in Ultrabooks and provides decent performance. Acer put two 4 GB RAM modules in the notebook for a total of 8 GB of RAM. Graphics are provided by an Nvidia GeForce GT620M with 1GB of video memory, but it's not a very powerful GPU. While it's faster than the integrated graphics of the Intel HD Graphics 4000, it's not really enough for gaming.

We used PowerMark to measure how long the tablet runs on a single battery charge. The Productivity test simulates using MS Office applications, and is lighter than the Entertainment test. The battery life is poor. In the more demanding test the Acer lasts barely an hour, in the easier one it lasts 2.5 hours. It's because Acer used a very small battery, perhaps to keep the weight down.

About the only interesting quality of the Acer Aspire V5 is its touch screen. The version we tested is too expensive for what you get.

We had expected a higher resolution and an IPS screen at this price point, and the plastic body, slow hard disk and less-than-powerful GPU don't really manage to get us excited about this product. The GeForce GT620M graphics card is not quite fast enough for gaming, while the integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 is good enough for general use. The battery is another weak feature, under heavy load you're lucky if the laptop lasts an hour on a single charge. That's poor considering the notebook has an energy-efficient Core i5. If you do like the Aspire V5, you're better off saving money by not getting the Nvidia card. The 14-inch model with Core i5, 6 GB RAM and a 500 GB hard disk is also an interesting option if you can live with the tiny battery.

Acer Updates TravelMate Timeline Notebooks

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Acer is launching a new generation of its TravelMate Timeline notebooks targeted at the business space. But can Acer stand out amid the swath of new offerings from other PC manufacturers? Read on for the tech specs and form your own opinion …

The new TravelMate Timeline with adapter such as Acer Ferrari 5000 Ac Adapter, Acer Ferrari 5005 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 8200 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 8210 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 5600 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 5620 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 7000 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 9400 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 2460 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 5600 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 7510 Ac Adapter, Acer BTP-BCA1 Ac Adapter comes in two models: a 14- or 15-inch screen with two sub-sets of each size, for a total of four new machines, the Timeline 8573, 8473, 6595 and 6495. With those four, Acer is competing on another four — features, that is: performance, durability, battery life and security.

Performance is highlighted with Intel’s new Core processors, coupled with USB 3.0 and the option for Nvidia or Intel HD graphics. Intel’s vPro technology and anti-theft technology are also standard, and the TravelMate can be outfitted with up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM as an option. For performance-based storage, a 120GB SSD can be outfitted instead of the 750GB HDD.

Business-conscious improvements include power over USB even when the laptop is powered down, allowing devices to charge. The Timeline features eight hours of battery life with “long cycle batteries,” designed to handle more charges and discharges than traditional batters, thus maintaining the eight-hour life span much longer than traditional batteries might.

For durability, Acer has outfit the Timelines with a magnesium-aluminum case to protect against drops and “DustDefender” technology that apparently can “push” dust out of the laptop to prevent the laptop from heating up over time. A spill-resistant keyboard comes standard but with a twist — Acer has built drainage gaps to ensure no liquid gets to the sensitive areas of the computer. Acer also built in anti-shock protection for the hard disk, should it not be solid-state.

If you’re the kind of person who uses their laptop as their main computer at home, Acer is also introducing ProDock, which allows for DVI, HDMI and USB ports to automatically connect to a desktop setup at home.

How much does this all cost? The 14-inch Timeline 8573 and 8473 are priced at $799, while the 15-inch Timeline 6595 and 6495 are priced $999.

Bottom line? On paper, the Acer TravelMate Timeline series packs a lot of punch inside a 14-inch and 15-inch notebook, and offers a solid value for price. At 1-inch thick and weighing in at about 5 pounds, these laptops are portable, but not MacBook Air-light. But Acer seems to have found a way to strike a balance between business-portable needs and home-robust needs.

If Acer isn’t your brand, don’t forget the Lenovo X1 also has endeavored to provide very similar functionality for power-hungry road warriors.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Acer Aspire TimelineU M3

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Some of our editors recently had the opportunity to take part in NVIDIA's Editor's Day in California's "sunny" San Francisco to be briefed on new products. While we can't go into any great detail on NVIDIA's new Kepler architecture (as that information is still under embargo), what we can provide you with is a review of Acer's new Aspire TimelineU M3 notebook with adapter such as Acer PA1650 Ac Adapter, Acer ADP-65DB Ac Adapter, Acer ACC10H Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 5600 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 1680 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 1690 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 1410 Ac Adapter, Acer Extensa 3000 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 4060 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 6000 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 520 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 4000 Ac Adapter, complete with a shiny new GeForce GT 640M based on the Kepler architecture.

Of course, that's not all that's interesting about the TimelineU M3. Taking advantage of Intel's expanded ultrabook definition, Acer has produced a 15.6" notebook with a dedicated GPU that's only 20mm thick. At the risk of spoiling the conclusion of the review, we'll say this is one of the most compelling notebooks we've seen yet, even if we're hesitant to call it a true ultrabook.

Thus far, when we've thought of ultrabooks we've usually thought of 18mm-thick notebooks hanging out around the three pound weight class, but the TimelineU M3 is just under five pounds, throwing it more into the same kind of class as Dell's XPS 14z and 15z. Of course, arguing semantics over what does and does not constitute an ultrabook isn't really why you're here. What you're really interested in is Kepler.

As I mentioned before, we're still under embargo regarding the architectural details of Kepler; in fact the only reason we can share the TimelineU with you ahead of time is because Acer actually broke the embargo and began selling the notebook early, causing the rest of the press (and NVIDIA) to scramble to put together these reviews. That also means the only details we can share are the ones that can be gleaned from the notebook itself, but that's fine, because there's a lot of interesting information to work with as it is.

The Intel Core i7-2637M has been a stalwart of the ultrabook class for some time now, and our performance testing shows it's perfectly adequate for most tasks. The 1.7GHz nominal clock speed is obviously on the low side, but the chip is able to turbo up to 2.5GHz on both cores or 2.8GHz on a single core. It's interesting that Acer opted for a 17W ultra-low-voltage CPU for the TimelineU since the chassis looks like it can handle a full-voltage processor, but I suspect they opted to use the bulk of their thermal budget on the dedicated GPU.

That dedicated GPU is the NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M. What's worth noting about the 640M from the spec sheet above: it's sporting four times the number of CUDA cores as its predecessor, the GeForce GT 540M. The chip itself runs at a core clock of "up to 625MHz," while the DDR3 is running at an effective 1.8GHz. Given the limited memory bandwidth, we can probably be expected to be bound by the VRAM long before we're shader bound. Of course, NVIDIA is likely able to fit all that shader power into the 640M due to the chip being based on their upcoming Kepler architecture and thus manufactured on TSMC's 28nm process instead of 40nm. It's entirely possible and even likely given what we know of Kepler behind the scenes that these numbers are incorrect; even GPU-Z doesn't accurately detect the 640M.

Kepler's early arrival isn't actually the only interesting thing about the TimelineU M3, though. While the connectivity is par for the course for an ultrabook, Acer is able to cram an optical drive into the system. More than that, the M3 uses an mSATA SSD but also has an open 2.5" drive bay, effectively making it among the first notebooks we've tested to include the potential for the ideal SSD + HDD storage combination in a reasonable form factor. The mSATA port, single user-replaceable RAM slot, and 2.5" HDD bay are also all easily user accessible by removing a single panel on the bottom of the notebook. For many users, these storage options alone may make the M3 a compelling purchase option, and that's before taking into account the reasonably spacious 256GB mSATA SSD already included. It's also worth pointing out that the M3 is employing Intel's incrementally-improved HM77 chipset, which brings USB 3.0 connectivity with it instead of requiring a separate chip.

Cheapest Windows 8 Touch-Laptop Offered By Acer

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Finally, notebooks with the feature of Touch, running on Windows 8 OS are getting less priced. The latest Aspire V5 offered by Acer starts with a price of around $600 is basically the least priced Windows 8 laptop that can be availed in the market beating the cheapest touch-laptop of Asus costing around $700 up till now.

The entry-level V5 laptops with adapter like Acer ADT-W61 Ac Adapter, Acer PA1700 Ac Adapter, Acer SADP-65KB Ac Adapter, Acer ACC13 Ac Adapter, Acer LC.ADT01.003 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 1200 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 2000 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 3600 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 3680 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 5720 Ac Adapter, Acer Aspire 9400 Ac Adapter, Acer Ferrari 3000 Ac Adapter will be powered by Dual Core processors and subsequently there will also be newer models running on third generation i5 and i3 processors. The Acer Aspire V5 can be availed in two sizes, 14 inches and 15.6 inches. Being 10% lighter and 30% slender than the conventional notebooks, the Aspire V5 series indeed is very pleasing to the eye with below 20mm slim and weight slightly beyond 2 kg, as said by a release.

The Aspire V5 touch-enabled laptop series will be having price tags ranging from Rs. 34550 and Rs. 47500 in India. The devices will be having an aspect ratio of 16:9 that is ultimate for gaming and movies on a LED power-saving backlit display screen.

The notebooks are further geared with a display of 10 point touch including a large track pad which is designed for enhancing the multi-touch waves crucial for navigation in UI of Windows 8.

The Dolby Advanced Audio technology will be incorporated in them as well. Acer also has built-in social networking application namely Social Jogger, which synchronizes with Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. An integrated slender DVD drive is also featured in the laptops.

And for addressing the rising demand, the series of V5 notebooks have been launched that runs on the new Windows operating system. He also added that the technology of touch-enabled devices will let the users in integrating with physical and virtual environment both.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Acer Aspire V5-471P Review

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The Acer Aspire V5-471P is an ideal machine for those who are looking at an entry-level Windows 8 machine with a touchscreen. Students are the first candidates that come to mind. At Rs. 39,139 we think it is a tad expensive specially considering an older processor and issues with the display and the battery life. Under Rs. 35,000 this would make for a good purchase if you can overlook its issues. We would really like it if they bundled an Ivy Bridge generation chip. If you want to run heavier applications then you should probably look at Core i5 version of this laptop.

Acer Aspire V5 houses a comparatively older Intel Core i3-2365M processor which belongs to the Sandy Bridge line up, clocked at 1.4 GHz without any Turbo Boost. It has HD 3000 integrated graphics and no discrete graphics component. It bundles this with 4 GB of RAM, around 500 GB of HDD and the monitor is touch-sensitive. So in essence, Acer have tried oto present a budget laptop with a Windows 8 OS onboard and a touchscreen monitor. What’s more, it also offers an optical drive for those of you who still have a stack of DVDs. Acer have adopted a smart way to hide the actual thickness, by having a tapering design approach. The V5 does feel heavy at 2.1kg.

The Aspire V5 has a limited number of ports and all of them are present on the left hand edge of the laptop. Starting from the top edge, you have the power port, followed by an HDMI port, a single USB 3.0 port and two USB 2.0 ports and finally the audio jack. On the left hand side of the front edge, you have an SD card slot.

It comes bundled with Windows 8 Home operating system and also some bloatware in the form of Acer specific apps. In spite of reinstalling Windows 8 on the Aspire V5, we still got most of the Acer apps. So you will have to uninstall them individually to get rid of them.

Under Rs. 35,000 this would make for a good purchase if you can overlook its issues. We would really like it if they bundled an Ivy Bridge generation chip. If you want to run heavier applications then you should probably look at Core i5 version of this laptop. In this price bracket, the competition it has is from the touch and type Dell Inspiron 15z which has a 3rd generation Core i3 processor and which comes for around Rs. 40,000. So we would advise prospective buyers to wait till we review the Dell Inspiron 15z as well as it looks quite good on paper.

Acer Aspire S7 13-inch review

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Given how we weren’t all that impressed by Acer’s previous flagship Ultrabook, the Aspire S5, we were looking forward to its new ‘thinnest 13-inch Ultrabook in the world’ champ, the Acer Aspire S7 391 with adapter like Acer TravelMate C102T Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate C110 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate C200 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate C300 Ac Adapter, Acer N18664 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate C301 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate C302 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate C310 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 730 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 525 Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 521T Ac Adapter, Acer TravelMate 8002LCi Ac Adapter, with mixed feelings. After all, the S5 offered awkward rear connectivity, an average keyboard that wasn’t backlit, and a sub-par TN screen with a bog-standard 1,366 x 768 resolution. Thankfully, the PC and laptop giant has given its premium S7 ultraportable range a complete design overhaul and, in the process, created one of the most stylish and feature-packed slim laptops around.

Let’s sum up some of the goodies this high-end Windows 8 Ultrabook gives you: a 1080p IPS 10-point touch screen protected by Gorilla Glass 2 for ‘tablet use’, a fully EL-backlit keyboard, Core i7 power, a massive ‘buttonless’ touchpad that’s a joy to use, and innovative cooling. Best of all, these bits are packed into a super-stylish aluminium and glass chassis that’s still the slimmest of its type at 12.2mm yet offers impeccable build quality, and the whole lot will set you back under £1,100. With all that going for it, is the 13-inch Aspire S7 the ultimate ‘traditional’ laptop?

If anyone thought the likes of Apple, Asus and Samsung had dibs on the classiest laptop designs, Acer is setting out to prove them wrong. Even when Acer focused on premium design in the past, it wasn’t quite special enough to wow compared to the best of the rest – but its Aspire S7-391 is desirable in pretty much every way.

Perhaps most controversially, Acer has gone the HP Envy 14 Spectre route in giving its high-end laptop a glass lid. Just to clarify, if you want the Aspire S7 with a white glass lid you’ll need to opt for the 13-inch model, as the Acer Aspire S7 11.6-inch comes clad completely in metal (a look and feel that we prefer, but that’s highly subjective).

The toughened Gorilla Glass 2 lid is backed by white and held by a uniframe anodised aluminium surround. Though it’s possible to mistake that glass for plastic at a distance, it’s still an attractive look, and is obviously far more resistant to wear and scratches than a glossy plastic finish would be.

The white colour also helps to hide fingerprints and smudges, which were such a problem on the HP Envy 14 Spectre’s black-backed glass lid. Our only practical complaints here are that glass does not provide a good grip (though an almost soft-touch matt plastic base helps to make up for that) and that it adds to the weight, though at 1.29kg, the Acer Aspire S7 is far from heavy.

Opening this premium Ultrabook up, you’re greeted by another Gorilla Glass 2 sheet covering that lovely 1080p screen and the white bezel, which matches the lid. The metal surround extends into the hinge and the flawless keyboard surround.

Both the keyboard and touchpad perfectly resemble the anodised aluminium they’re set into, and the overall effect is striking. It looks even better when the keyboard’s aqua backlighting is turned on in a dark environment.

Visually, the only fly in the ointment is the white plastic base and sides. While they’re far from unattractive, it’s the sole element of the 13-inch Aspire S7 that could possibly be called cheap. Mind you, the plastics feel lovely and build quality is superb throughout. Everything is carefully crafted and feels very solid indeed. The torque hinge is also perfectly balanced.

Unfortunately there are some minor physical issues with the design. The laptop’s smooth base can slip off your lap if you’re wearing trousers made of a smooth material. The sharp edges of the chassis don’t just look edgy but can be a tad too much so for comfort (just like some of Apple’s laptops, incidentally). Also, because the Acer Aspire S7’s base extends slightly beyond its lid on the front and sides, this Ultrabook is surprisingly difficult to open, unless you have long fingernails.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Google Rilis Apple Notebook

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Google menabuh genderang perang lagi terhadap Apple. Perusahaan mesin pencari raksasa itu merilis notebook high end berlayar sentuh yang menjadi rival Apple dengan Macbook-nya, waktu setempat.

Laptop besutan Google ini akan tersedia di pasaran Amerika Serikat dan Inggris dengan harga mulai 1.299 dollar AS.

Banderol yang terbilang tinggi akan diprediksi akan menjadi sandungan terhadap produk Google tersebut. Om Malik dari situs teknologi GigaOm menyebut penjualan Chromebook Pixel akan menuai masalah. Pasalnya, Google harus bersaing dari segi harga dan membangun basis pengembangan untuk produk high end-nya.

Picai sendiri optimistis dengan produknya. Dia berharap konsumen bisa melihat dari sisi lain dari Chrombook Pixel ketika dibandingkan dengan MacBook ataupun laptop berbasis Windows 8. Misalnya saja tawaran media penyimpanan online berkapasitas besar yang ditawarkan lewat fitur Google Hard Data.

Apple Hacked

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Apple has come out in the open and admitted that some Mac computers were hacked. The innovations master blamed the same groups of hackers that targeted Facebook earlier this week for the hack.

Apple however was quick to claim that just a few of their computers had been compromised. The data of these computers is secure, Apple was quick to clarify.

"There is no evidence that any data left Apple," Apple said. "We are working closely with law enforcement to find the source of the malware."

The hack on Apple indicates a changing trend and proves that the giant is not ‘hack-proof’. While hackers and viruses targeted Windows and Microsoft based devices previously, the rage of Apple devices has caught on even in the hacking world and hacking a Apple computer has become more of a boastful rant than a need.

The hack on Apple is not just a lone attempt and as mentioned above, Apple believed the same hackers that Targeted Facebook this week targeted Apple too. Just this month, there have been over 5 major hack attempts on multiple hi-profile companies. Millions of twitter accounts were hacked with Twitter urging users to check and change passwords. The account of US food giant Burger King too faced the brunt of hackers. While most of the hacks happened in US, users world-wide were affected.

Major banks and media sites were also hacked previously. Looks like hackers are targeting high profile companies and are striving to prove a point. While the source of the malware still remains unknown, we hope the offenders are soon discovered.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

ASUS UX31A

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After having reviewed and handled nearly a dozen Ultrabooks during the past year, the flaws with the platform have become glaringly obvious. The requirements for Ultrabooks are that they need to be very thin, they need to use an Intel ULV CPU, they must deliver decent battery life (5+ hours, though the load isn’t specified), and they have to use some form of solid state storage. There are some other elements of Ultrabooks as well, but Intel doesn’t seem to enforce those all that much—pricing details for example are nebulous; at one point they were supposed to start at under $1000, but now it looks like that means each manufacturer only needs one model that starts somewhere under $1000. For the intended market (on-the-go users) who sell adapters like Asus ADP-65DB Ac Adapter, Asus A6 Ac Adapter, Asus A7 Ac Adapter, Asus A8 Ac Adapter, Asus F9 Ac Adapter, Asus U5 Ac Adapter, Asus A6JA Ac Adapter, Asus A7J Ac Adapter, Asus A8Js Ac Adapter, Asus Z91 Ac Adapter, Asus W3V Ac Adapter, Asus Z61a Ac Adapter, most of the requirements look fine, but the solid state requirement needs a bit more elaboration.

If you’ve had the chance to use a modern laptop with an SSD as the primary storage, you know how much of a difference it can make. Boot times are faster, but more importantly all of the post-boot utility and application initialization that can really get in the way of using a laptop. Long-term the differences become even more noticeable, as hard drive performance can become severely degraded with fragmentation; with a good SSD fragmentation shouldn’t be a problem. Throw in an active anti-virus scanner along with other software and utilities and it becomes very painful to go back to conventional storage. All of that is what makes an SSD great for storage, but there’s a problem with Ultrabooks: SSDs aren’t strictly required.

What Ultrabooks are required to have is some form of solid state storage, but that ranges from a dedicated SSD to smaller caching SSDs to laptops that only appear to use the SSD for the hibernation file. SSD caching certainly helps performance, but the problem is that with a default Windows 7 installation sucking up roughly 30GB of space, toss in a few common applications like Office and your web browser and you can easily exhaust the size of the SSD cache. These days, there’s not even really that much of an advantage in terms of pricing if you go with a 32GB SSD cache—hard drive prices are still quite high after the Thailand flooding, so the cost of a typical 500GB HDD with 32GB mSATA SSD is going to be pretty comparable to that of a 128GB dedicated SSD. Sure you get a lot more storage with a hard drive, but for Ultrabooks I have a difficult time believing most users are going to need a ton of storage, and I’d happily give up raw capacity for the overall responsiveness of an SSD.

With that sidebar out of the way, ASUS delivers the UX31A in a variety of configurations. If you’re trying to save a buck and get under that mystical $1000 barrier, it’s difficult to include a 1080p IPS display with an i7 CPU, a dedicated SSD, and plenty of RAM; not surprisingly it’s precisely those areas where ASUS makes some compromises. The least expensive UX31A models come with a 1600x900 TN panel (likely the same panel that ASUS used in the previous generation UX31E), an i5-3517U CPU, and a 128GB SSD; thankfully, ASUS doesn’t ditch dedicated SSDs on the lower cost models, but they do standardize on 4GB DDR3-1600 for all UX31A models and that might be too little for some people. Right now you can find the base model UX31A-R5102H going for $950 online with the 1600x900 TN panel. For our review unit, ASUS shipped us their highest-spec UX31A-DB71, which has all the currently available upgrades.

The core design for the various UX31A models is identical, but the DB71 model comes with a 256GB SSD (an ADATA model with SF-2281 hardware), Core i7-3517U CPU, and a 1080p IPS display. There are a few other in-between models that offer some combination of the i7 CPU, the 256GB SSD, and the 1080p IPS display, but if you want all three you’ll end up paying quite a large premium. The MSRP for the DB71 appears to be $1499 and the cheapest we could find it at the time of writing is $1434, putting it squarely into the realm of high-end Ultrabooks. I’ve already stated that this is the best Ultrabook that I’ve laid hands on, and that’s a great starting point, but I have to be honest: even $1400 is more than I think most people are willing to pay, especially with only 4GB of non-upgradeable RAM. Unfortunately, the SSD is also basically non-upgradeable, as ASUS uses a proprietary form factor, so you’re pretty much stuck with what you order (or the possibility of upgrading to the 256GB SSD if you can find this one). That being the case, if you’re set on purchasing a current generation Ivy Bridge Ultrabook, ASUS’ UX31A-DB71 is the one I’d recommend.

Most of the remaining elements are common among Ultrabooks—the Core i5 and i7 CPUs are the primary choices, with the latter offering slightly better performance for another healthy price premium. You get two USB 3.0 ports, and ASUS goes with the slightly cheaper HM76 chipset (rather than the more power efficient—in theory—UM77). Other than the general design and aesthetic, the standout item is the 1080p IPS display. I’ll let you know right now that it’s not perfect, but it’s so much better than any other Ultrabook display that it might as well be. 1080p in a 13.3” display is already incredibly difficult to find (Sony’s VAIO Z is about the only other 13” 1080p laptop that springs to mind), but to get IPS as well puts it in a category all on its own. The DPI is actually on the too-small side for Windows 7, so you pretty much have to use Windows’ DPI scaling (125% Medium is the default)—unless you happen to have eagle eyes I suppose.