The News for May 27th 2010

Kristofer Brozio | May 27, 2010 | Xbox | 2 Comments

Happy Thursday!! It’s time once again for the news!!

Storage Related:

Icy Dock MB990SP-B DUAL 2.5” TO 3.5” HDD Adapter Review @ Tweaknews
Article Url: http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/icy_dock_MB990SP-B_review/
Article Snippet:
"For those taking the plunge on a new SSD, it’s worth it to take a look at this product from Icy Dock. It’s one of the simplest methods out there to fit a 2.5” drive into a 3.5” drive bay. There are no pass-thru connectors to worry about, and installation takes literally just a few seconds."

HighPoint RocketRAID 640 SATA 6Gb/s 4-Port PCI-E 2.0 Controller
QUOTE: "Enthusiasts on a budget now have another option for SATA 6G RAID and it comes to us from HighPoint Technology. Most of us old timers remember HighPoint from the early ABIT days when their UltraATA 66 controller was all of the rage and set us down the path of onboard RAID coming standard on high end motherboards. Back then a high-end motherboard only set you back around 200 USD and thankfully for us the HighPoint RocketRAID 640 costs even less than that.

OCIA.net has posted their review of the Vantec NexStar 3 SuperSpeed 2.5-inch USB 3.0 Enclosure.

"Shawn just recently finished up the review of the Vantec NexStar 3 SuperSpeed 3.5-inch USB 3.0 Enclosure, and today I have the exact same product but in a 2.5-inch frame. This enclosure is sized for smaller notebook drives and designed for fast storage on the go. With up to 4800Mb/s theoretical transfer rate, USB 3.0 should be perfect for a solid state drive even, and whereas the 3.5-inch enclosure doesn’t quite fit an SSD correctly, this 2.5-inch version will. Not to mention how much easier it will be to carry around. Immediately we can tell from the pictures that the 2.5-inch version looks nearly identical to its bigger brother, with the same mirror finish and chrome trim, gloss black color and blue LED lighting. The aluminum frame is of course smaller to accommodate the notebook drives, but other than that it’s hard to tell the two apart."

Direct Link: http://www.ocia.net/reviews/vantec2usb3/page1.shtml

SUNBEAMTECH Airbox USB 3.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure Review @ Legit Reveiws
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1308/1/

"The SUNBEAMTECH Airbox USB3.0 3.5" External Enclosure performs head and shoulders over the previous generation of USB2 enclosures! I suppose that is to be expected since USB3.0 offers ten times the bandwidth of USB2. USB2 was limited to 480Mb/s and USB3.0 offers a massive 5Gb/s, so the performance gains we saw here today are nothing short of expected. I will admit though, knowing the speed that USB3.0 offers I was still pleasantly surprised. I was surprised as to how well the SUNBEAMTECH Airbox USB3.0 3.5" External Enclosure performed when compared to the same drive being attached via the SATA port on the test system…"

OCZ Vertex 2 100GB SSD.
The OCZ Vertex 2 utilizes the new SandForce SF-1200 controller. We’ve been waiting on a drive with the SandForce controller for a while and when OCZ approached us about taking a look at it we were eager to get it into the lab to take a look. There are other SandForce controller drives out there but this one uses a proprietary Firmware that allows it up to 50k IOPS making it in a class by itself. OCZ has been testing the SandForce SF-1200 and SF-1500 controllers for months internally and during CES they made the formal announcement that OCZ would be bringing out the Vertex 2 series of SSDs using these two new controllers. The SF-1500 is used in the OCZ Vertex Limited edition and the SF-1200 is used in the Vertex 2 lineup. The SF-1200 has performance close to the SF-1500 at a fraction of the cost so we can’t wait to get it on the bench and drive it until it screams.
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1865

Super Talent’s USB 3.0 RAIDDrive stripes dual internal SSDs to offer 32GB of SuperSpeed connectivity in a lightweight and easily pocketable package. We run one through its paces to see what’s what.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/18974

5-Way SSD Round-Up: Sandforce vs. JMicron:
http://hothardware.com/Articles/5Way-SSD-RoundUp-Sandforce-vs-JMicron/

Despite the rapid pace of advancement in the solid state storage market, innovation doesn’t seem to be slowing. With that in mind, we’ve pulled together a quintet of the newest drives to hit the market, based on recently released controller designs from SandForce and long-time player JMicron, the SF1200 and JM612, respectively. We’ve got drives from OCZ, OWC, Corsair, and Patriot Memory on tap…

Samsung Station STORY USB 3.0 Hard Drive 2TB.

Wait! I know what you’re thinking from the photo, that this is yet another 3.5" hard drive fitted in some boxy enclosure. Well, to that extent you’d be right, but what of the bundled real-time backup system, low drive acoustics and trouble-free SuperSpeed USB 3.0 connection? Do I have you attention now? Good. Walk with me in my in-depth review as I explore everything the Samsung STORY Station 3.0 external hard drive has to offer, after the jump.

http://www.everythingusb.com/samsung-story-station-3.0-external-hard-drive-19065.html

Icy Dock SATA/USB EZ-DOCK MB881US-1S-1

Link:http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Icy_Dock/EZ-DOCK

Brief:
The ICY DOCK EZ-DOCK combines the functionality of a traditional hard drive dock with the flexibility of transporting it anywhere with ease. We take it for a test drive to see if it manages to add speed into the mix or leave us eying one of those boring black docks instead.

OCZ Enyo USB 3.0 Portable Solid State Drive.

"While at CES earlier this year we stopped by OCZ Technology’s suite for a look at what they had planned for the coming year. The focus of their display was the emerging solid state drive market with several new and updated lines on display. While there we were also shown a prototype of their upcoming USB 3.0 portable solid state drive which was nameless at the time. Preliminary read / write speeds looked promising and the drive itself was encased in a sleek brushed aluminum enclosure. That prototype would eventually be called Enyo and we have one of the first production samples for review here today."

Direct Link: http://www.ocia.net/reviews/oczenyo128/page1.shtml

Seagate Momentus-XT Solid State Hybrid Drive @ Benchmark Reviews

DESCRIPTION: The Hard Disk Drive (HDD) has enjoyed a long service life in the computer industry, and only recently has the Solid State Drive (SSD) threatened to replace it. While the HDD offers higher capacity at a better price, SSDs offer tremendous speeds and operational performance. Finally, Seagate has achieved the optimal blend of each, and presents the Solid State-Hybrid Hard Drive. Seagate’s Momentus-XT hybrid uses a 7200-RPM hard drive fused with 4GB SLC NAND flash to deliver SSD speeds and HDD storage capacity. Seagate’s Adaptive Memory technology uses an algorithm to monitor user data access transactions, which caches qualified data onto the SSD. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the Seagate Momentus-XT Solid State Hybrid Drive against several of the fastest notebook storage devices available.

ARTICLE URL: http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=525

Audio / Video:

Quick Review: Dell UltraSharp U2711 27" LCD Monitor
QUOTE: "Dell has become a dominant force in the monitor market for the simple reason being that they offer sensational displays at competitive prices. Looking at the paperwork, the U2711 has everything you want from a monitor, with the highlight being massive desktop real estate thanks to the 2560 x 1440 resolution on the IPS Panel. Other niceties include 80:000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio, 350 cd/m2, 6ms response time and 1.07 billion colour support.

Samsung recently introduced a new “premium” LED display into the market, a beauty of a thing called the SyncMaster PX2370. The LED-backlight display features Premium Touch of Color (ToC) design and is just 18mm thick. The display sports 1920×1080p resolution at 16:9 aspect ratio (a move from the 16:10 norm), plethora proprietary “magic” features, 5,000,000:1 Mega contrast ratio, 1000:1 static contrast ratio, and 2ms response time.
Full Article: http://tech.tbreak.com/2010/05/samsung-syncmaster-lcd-px2370-review/

HIS Multi View II Adapter Review at CCE Reviews
Link: http://www.ccereviews.com/reviews/his-multi-view-ii-adapter/

Quote: There really aren’t any downsides to the Multi View II unless you consider that you won’t be running any games through it but that isn’t the focus of the Multi View II. There are a multitude of gadgets in existence and most of them serve no meaningful purpose, but the Multi View II is not one of them. Thanks to this device laptop users now easily have the same luxury of multiple monitor setups that desktop users have had for quite some time.

Eagle Tech Arion ET-AR506-BK.
Desktop speakers do not often get much attention in the computer world. This is partially due to the fact that audio technology advancement is not changing as fast as other computer hardware. Also, audio quality is a very subjective matter. So there is no standard way to evaluate the sound quality.
Computer audio has come a long way. We no longer need a dedicated sound card to be able to enjoy music while working on the computer. The onboard audio chip that is bundled with all motherboards are all decent enough that for casual listeners. While there are dedicated sound cards available, such as Creative X-FI and Asus Xonar, that are meant to improve the gaming experience, for most people the onboard audio provides enough sound quality that there is no need to spend extra money on a sound card.
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1855

Mobile / Portable Etc:

EyePhone promises eye-tracking smartphones

If the main problem you’ve had with your smartphone is the fact that you have to use your fingers to control it, rejoice: the era of eye-tracking control systems is officially here, courtesy of EyePhone.

ITShootOut.com have just released a review of the latest incarnation of the Sony Vaio Z, more specifically of the European version called Sony Vaio Z11Z9E/B. Adding 1920×1080 Full HD display, quad SSDs in RAID 0, a Core i7 processor and 6GB of DDR3 RAM it represents a desktop-replacement class of performance completely new to the ultra-portable form factor.

Direct link: http://itshootout.com/r-344/sony-vaio-z-z11z9eb-laptop-review/

Cooler Master Notebook Cooling Pad Group Test @ Vortez.co.uk
"Today we will be looking at one product area where Cooler Master have produced a wide range of devices each with a slightly different take on its job – Notebook Coolers. We have been sent eight different Notebook Coolers to put through their paces, 6 from the Cooler Master brand itself, and another 2 from Choiix."
LINK:http://www.vortez.co.uk/review.php?id=170

Choiix PowerFort portable battery pack review
"Meanwhile, the PowerFort itself takes between three and four hours to recharge completely, with Choiix estimating that even after 500 charges of the unit’s lithium-polymer battery should still retain between 85 and 90% of its full capacity. The PCB to which the battery is attached within the PowerFort contains protection against short circuits, over-charging devices, temperature and current problems, whilt protecting the battery from the every-day issues of charging and discharging devices via the PowerFort. In short, it should keep your devices safe from harm as well as protecting its own well-being for the lifespan of the product."
http://www.elitebastards.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1591&catid=40&Itemid=27

‘Sony VAIO Z117 Notebook Review’
Its a beauty as well as a beast- you wont find a better performing notebook with such portability.
The Full Article can be viewed at http://tech.tbreak.com/2010/05/sony-vaio-z117-notebook-review/

Luxa2 H1-Touch Cell phone holder:
English link: http://www.rbmods.com/content/22809/h1-touchspecifications.aspx
Swedish link: http://www.rbmods.se/content/14615/luxa2-h1touch-mobil-hllare.aspx
Quote: With all these fancy cellphones on the market you want to make sure to protect them when they lay on the table, some might even want to show them off. Luxa2 has released a very exclusive looking cellphone holder that is supposed to hold everything from a Iphone to smaller Nokia phones, lets have a closer look and see how good this gadget really is.

Assorted Stuffs:

Das Professional S Keyboard @ LanOC Reviews
DESCRIPTION: No sleep and no quiet make Adam do something something.. As I sit here typing this review with our managing editor sitting here next to me I can already see that it won’t be long before Adam loses his mind, smashing high end hardware components all over the place. The reason his distress is due to the lovely Das Keyboard Professional S that I am reviewing today. We have visited their line of keyboards once before, today we are trying out the keyboard with letters on the keycaps. At least this time I can see the letters before Adam goes crazy.

ARTICLE URL: http://lanoc.org/review/hardware/input-devices/3330-das-professional-s-keyboard

Futurelooks Gets Primed and Ready for COMPUTEX Taipei 2010

The Futurelooks team is packing up its bags and heading off to the exotic land of Taiwan. Yup, we’re hopping on a plane and making our way over to COMPUTEX Taipei 2010. It’ll certainly be a little different from our trips to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, but what can we expect from the techie side of things? We oftentimes see the inklings of new products and new technology at COMPUTEX before they even appear at CES the following year! Let’s go on a brief preview of the show.

Direct Link:http://www.futurelooks.com/futurelooks-gets-primed-and-ready-for-computex-taipei-2010/

Save the Day (and Windows) Using an Ubuntu Flash Drive
http://www.techspot.com/guides/282-troubleshoot-windows-using-ubuntu-flash-drive/
The latest version of Ubuntu has been out for nearly a month now and if you’re anything like us the peaceably-named operating system is now sitting untouched after you gave it a quick go for a week or so. Ubuntu 10.04 may not have convinced you to send Microsoft packing, but don’t scrap your bootable USB drive just yet, it may come in handy the next time Windows goes haywire.

Trendnet TEW-655BR3G 150Mbps 3G Router
URL: http://www.bcchardware.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=8646&Itemid=40
Quote:Not only is this router handy when plugged into a wall it is also very handy when unplugged thanks to the 1700mAh NP-120 battery that comes included. This will give you up to 4 hours of usage with minimal activity as well as over 2 hours of full load usage. . .

SmartSwipe Credit Card Reader
http://www.topreviewshop.com/smartswipe_card_reader
"We’ve taken a look at a few security related products in the past – such as the Ironkey – but never a gadget with the sole purpose of protecting credit card information while shopping online. SmartSwipe is a product with exactly that goal."

TRENDnet High Speed PC and Mac Share Cable (TU2-PMLINK) Review

TRENDnet have developed a device which makes data transfer between 2 PCs, a PC and a Mac or 2 Macs very easy. We simply have to connect the cable to both computers, start the included file manager application and that’s about it! Let’s look a bit more in-depth at this data transfer cable, in the following review.
http://www.madshrimps.be/gotoartik.php?articID=1023

Credit Card Theft: Don’t Blame the Internet
Link: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/blog/173
"Even though banks and credit card companies report huge losses due to all sorts of fraud, the credit-card system in the U.S. still has huge flaws, and some would cost absolutely nothing to fix."

Gaming Related:

BLUR (Xbox 360)

There has been much hype surrounding the latest and supposedly greatest racing game from Bizarre Creations, entitled BLUR.

Read the review over here: http://games.kitguru.net/xbox-360/zardon/blur-xbox-360/

Konnet PowerV DUO Induction Charger for Wii

Today for review I’ve got a brand new product from Konnet that uses Induction technology to charge your Wii remotes. Induction technology in short is no cables involved, it essentially charges wirelessly and that’s something I think anyone can appreciate. The product is called the PowerV Duo, but besides the fact that it uses induction charging it also included two extra USB ports to charge your Nintendo DS or any other gadget with a USB cable. I’ll be honest I like this product a lot, so read on to learn more about what I think is one of the best accessories for your Wii..

http://www.bonafidereviews.com/review-of-konnet-powerv-duo-induction-charger-for-wii/

Review: Red Dead Redemption

If you grew up idolizing Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns, look no further. Rockstar continues its legacy of excellence with another enthralling classic. Red Dead Redemption, dare I say it, is better than their former masterpiece, GTA IV. Once again, Rockstar manages to weave together an intricate tale involving a number of memorable characters set across a breath taking virtual landscape.

http://www.xbox360digest.com/2010/05/26/review-red-dead-redemption/