Nokia N8 smartphone review

When Nokia originally announced their flagship Smartphone earlier this year, it was pretty much as high-end as it could get from a hardware perspective. Now that it’s finally here, we find out if the delays have marred the Nokia N8 or whether is still stands a chance against the offerings by Apple, HTC and the like.

Packaging & Build Quality

The Nokia N8 comes packaged in a flat box about the size of a small pizza box. Included in the packaging is a mini HDMI to HDMI converter cable as well as a mini USB to USB converter cable along with the charger and a headset with media playback controls. The headset is of a much better quality than many other bundled ones that we have looked at and comes with silicon pads and media controls.

The Nokia N8 can be charged through the small round Nokia power connector or the USB port. A quickstart guide is also included though surprisingly Nokia hasn’t bundled any applications CD. However a Windows installer is present on the phone, accessible through a USB connection.

Design & Hardware

The build quality of the Nokia N8 is superb and feels very solid in your hand. There are very few phones that feel as well constructed as the N8 and Nokia certainly deserves all the praise in this area. While we received the dark grey version, Nokia has a bunch of colors such as green and blue that you can chose which is always a good thing.

The top of the device has a power button, a 3.5mm audio output jack as well as a mini-HDMI connector which means that you can directly connect the N8 to your HDMI capable TV and watch high definition movies. On the right side, you have the volume rocker as well the sliding lock button which feels a bit redundant since you already have a power button on top. Below that lies the two step camera button which is a pleasure to use after touch screen based cameras that often result in me taking out of focus pictures. The bottom side has the charger slot as well as the microphone and a pair of pretty loud speakers.

The left side has sockets for your SIM card as well as a MicroSD card. I generally don’t take out my SIM or SD card out of my phone but accessing these slots could be a bit frustrating for those of you that keep replacing your MicroSD cards often. Below these slots lies the USB connector that is used for charging the device as well as acting as a USB host meaning you can plug in a USB drive and access its contents on the N8. An LED above the USB slots lights up when the something is plugged in.

The front of the Nokia N8 features a 3.5” capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 360×640 which is a bit on the lower side compared to the new Android devices. Below the screen sits the sole button towards the left side that takes you to the home screen when pressed or the main menu if you’re on the main home screen. Not sure why Nokia decided to keep this button the left side as it can get a bit inconvenient to reach at times. A very cool looking LED surrounds this button and breathes for notifications.

About the only thing that doesn’t look in place is the back side of the Nokia N8. Here, you see a slider type layer where the camera is located- except that layer does not slide but is fixed and houses the 12.1 MP lens along with the dual Xenon flash lights. My guess is that Nokia needed a bit of extra thickness to accommodate the extra large 1/1.9″ sensor with a Carl Zeiss lens.

Android-powered stereoscopic picture frame by Nikon

2D to 3D conversion techniques — whether cinematic or otherwise — don’t have us jumping for joy, but Nikon’s new NF-300i display sounds like a concept we could get behind. It’s a 7.2-inch digital photo frame running Android 2.1 on an autostereoscopic (glasses-less) screen, which sports a special double-density lenticular lens to display images at full WSVGA resolution (800 x 600) whether in 2D or 3D modes. It pulls down images from the cloud to 4GB of internal storage over wired ethernet and 802.11 b/g WiFi, or via USB port if you happen to have MPO files just sitting around for some reason. The notion is that Japanese users will sign up for Nikon’s new My PictureTown 3D conversion and hosting service for ¥19,550 (about $244) a year or ¥1,995 ($24) a month and get all their JPEG vacation photos spirited to the device in glorious 3D, and that’s also the only way you’ll likely ever see one of these screens — Nikon’s loaning, not selling the NF-300i as part of those membership fees.

Source : http://www.engadget.com

iPhone 4 in white cancelled

First it was delayed until late 2010, then spring 2011, and this morning’s latest rumors pointed to an outright cancellation of the white version of the iPhone 4. Adding fuel to the cancellation rumors: the white iPhone has unceremoniously disappeared from Apple’s online store. The increasingly mythical white iPhone 4 still shows up in Apple’s iPhone gallery — for now — but the “unavailable for pre-order or in-store pickup” placeholder for the white iPhone 4 that’s been on the Apple Store since the iPhone 4′s debut has vanished.

As soon as we heard the white iPhone 4 was being delayed until Spring 2011, most of us felt it was only a matter of time until the device was canceled altogether. The next-generation iPhone — we’ll just call it iPhone 5 for now — is most likely due for release in June or July of next year. That would give a white iPhone 4 only a few months on the market before, in the words ofDaring Fireball’s John Gruber, it’d be “dropped to the $99 last-year’s-model cheapskate bin.” Others have speculated that the white iPhone 4 might be a Verizon exclusive; however, that comes at a risk of alienating not just AT&T (and more importantly, its iPhone customers), but also the myriad of international carriers offering the iPhone 4.

Cancelling the white iPhone 4 seems like a foregone conclusion now. At this point in the product cycle, Apple likely wants to devote more of its R&D efforts into the next-gen iPhone rather than spending tons of man-hours, materials, and cash figuring out how to solve the problems with a white version of the iPhone 4 when the black version seems to be selling just fine. Hopefully when Steve Jobs ascends the stage at WWDC 2011 he’ll show the world an iPhone 5, say “it comes in white,” and this time really mean it.

Source: http://www.tuaw.com

Ferrari World: Opening day

You may never get the chance to strap yourself behind the wheel of a real live Formula 1 racing car festooned with all manner of Prancing Horses. We feel your pain, but perhaps the next best thing would be a trip toFerrari World, which just opened its doors to paying guests in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

If you’re thinking that no theme park could possibly give you the kinds of thrills you’d get behind the wheel of the real thing, well, you might be right. That said, no street car ever produced in Maranello is capable of accelerating to 60 miles per hour in about two seconds flat, which is exactly what the roller coaster Formula Rossa puts its passengers through on its way to a 150-mile per hour top speed. That equals 1.7 Gs of acceleration force, by the way.

The exterior of the park is modeled after the side profile of a Ferrari GT, and the roof has a total surface area of 200,000 square meters (2,200,000 sq ft) with a perimeter of 2,200 meters (7,200 ft). One-hundred-sixty feet below that roof, which is festooned with the largest Prancing Horse ever created (see above), sits 86,000 square meters (930,000 sq ft) of floor space. That makes Ferrari World the largest indoor theme park on the planet.

Naturally, there will be other attractions for those looking for slightly less thrilling kinds of fun, including a plethora of movies (some in 3D), and a ride that takes you through the inner workings of a V12 engine. You can also drive a Ferrari 250 California Spyder though an exhibit that shows you the best that Italy has to offer while you let the kiddies have their kicks learning how to drive Junior Grand Prix race cars.

Finally, what Ferrari theme park would be complete without bevy of places to buy your officially licensed gear? Not to mention a slew of fine dining locales with which to fill your gullet? The price to get in is just 225 AED, a little over $60 U.S.

For Pictures : http://www.autoblog.com/photos/ferrari-world-abu-dhabi-opening-day/#3514005

Source : http://www.autoblog.com

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 470 Super Overclock Edition Video Card Review

“Last week when we took a look at the EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Hydro Copper FTW I was impressed with the GeForce GTX 470 series. Quite possibly because it is an overclocked version it was able to have a leg up on the HIS Radeon HD 5870. Today, I am even more impressed with the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 470 Super Overclock Edition. One of the reasons is the price to performance ratio. Last week the EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Hydro Copper could be found for $459.99 at EVGA.com. Today we can find the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 470 Super Overclock Edition for only $279.99 plus $3.99 shipping at newegg.com. At the end of last week there was a bit of a price war between AMD and NVIDIA which caused a drop in several of the NVIDIA GeForce series cards…”

Hands-on first impressions of the Nook Color

“Barnes & Noble dances around the term “tablet” when describing its new Nook Color. Its bright LCD screen introduces a level of text readability and contrast unmatched on any gray monochrome E-Ink e-reader. Running Android and being imbued with multi-gesture touch, not to mention digital music and video playback, makes the Nook Color more entertaining than any previous e-reader. But a tablet? No. The Nook Color is nearly literally a read-only device – you can get stuff out of it, but you can’t put anything into it, such as e-mail, text messages or word processing. So, for you, the consumer, the question is, is $250, about half the price of an iPad, worth it for a device that does a lot less than half as much? For ereader fans who yearn to color their reading, it’s a dilemma. We had a chance to play with the Nook Color in person at the introductory event to shed some light on the situation.”

Link to the article:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/hands-on-first-impressions-of-the-nook-color/

Nissan Leaf Review

“Ask anyone about electric cars and you might get a wry smirk or an outright guffaw. “Yeah right,” they’ll say. “Electric cars are all Smurfs and rainbows until someone builds them for the everyday driver.” Well, someone has. The Nissan Leaf will hit the pavement this December, followed soon by a massive roll-out of electric charging stations – according to Nissan. (Some of these stations in California are already being retrofitted and a few have popped up elsewhere.) Nissan says 20,000 people have already pre-ordered this first-to-market, all-electric hatchback. But is it really worth all the fuss?”

Link to the article:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/lifestyle/nissan-leaf-review/

Sony Dash Review

“The Sony Dash falls into the awkward category of picture frames that do more than show pictures. The HP Dream Screen (recently shelved) and the cute Chumby both fall into the same arena; desk mates that keep you company. Sony adds some extra style and Sony love to the Dash in the hopes that it will distinguish it from others. Priced at an MSRP of $200, the Dash works well as a product of novelty rather than one of utility (which it is designed for), and fits in as either an alarm clock with extra features in the bedroom, or a family calendar or recipe book with weather updates in the kitchen.”

Link to the review:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/media-streamer-reviews/sony-dash-review/

NZXT Vulcan Mini Case Review

Once I got it all uncovered, I got a good look at this thing. It’s a matte black, which is something I’m fond of in my chassis, and it has that aggressive look that most case companies have been moving toward. Straight edges, sharp corners, and recesses that house buttons and ports that as a whole looks like it could be a cousin to that box from Hellraiser.

The port/button panel on the top front houses the eSata, USB 2.0 and audio ports. Beside that is the brushed aluminum power and reset button set. I always get a little disappointed when they don’t put a firewire port on these, right up front. I hate having to search for mine amid the wires sticking out of the back. The side that comes off sports a mostly mesh makeup, designed to hold a 200mm fan that will probably sound like an airliner touching down.

Review URL ::
http://www.ocmodshop.com/ocmodshop.aspx?a=1794

Quick Review: Apple TV

QUOTE: “The Apple TV (somewhat rebranded now as iTV, but still being sold under that moniker) first arrived in home cinemas over three years ago, a curious oddity in a market torn between competing HD standards (Blu-ray and HD DVD). It had no support for either of the optical formats, and instead relied on an internal hard drive and streaming from a home PC running iTunes. Unlike the optical disc formats, the Apple TV was limited to the barest minimum of HD resolution; 720p. It was also very stringent on what types of digital media it would support (essentially, if you can’t play it natively on an iPod, iTouch, or in iTunes, it won’t play on the Apple TV either). Even with these limitations, the device sold very well and encouraged Apple to radically revamp the design in certain ways for its next generation release.

Apple TV 2.0 drops the internal hard drive (which ran as high as 160GB in size) in favor of 8GB of internal memory for buffering purposes. In return, the device is much smaller, about the size of a paperback book (though about a third shorter). While the original Apple TV had component and analog outputs, this new model gives you a HDMI port and optical out. That’s it. Personally, I think that’s a good move on Apple’s part, but if you’re (for some reason) still interested in component/analog connections, you won’t want to upgrade.”

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