Acer ventures into Windows Phone territory

While Acer said earlier this year that it would be onboard with WP7, and it recently made good on that promise with the release of the Acer Allegro in France, its first WP7 based device.

The phone sports a Qualcomm MSM8255 processor, 8GB Memory, 5-megapixel camera with LED Flash. The display is 3.6 inch WVGA screen with 480×800 resolution. Its size is 11.6 x 5.9 x 13mm, and weighs 126g.

The specs aren’t that strong, and it looks like Acer is targeting the lower end smartphone market. Although an interesting feature in the phone is the Fast Charge Technology, which is said to completely charge the phone 2.5 times fast than other smartphones.

The phone’s price will be 299 Euros (around 420 dollars, 1530 dirhams)  will be released in mid November in France. It is still unclear whether the phone will be released in other countries and parts of the world.

Source: Pocket Lint via Engadget

HTC EVO 3D Review

With the 3D rage on television sets quieting down a bit, the next front of the battle seems to be smartphones. And two of the most prominent 3D capable handsets released in the last few months have been the LG Optimus 3D and the HTC EVO 3D. Today I’ll be looking at the latter, and having extensively covered the LG Optimus 3D in various feature articles, I can tell you that that EVO 3D has huge uphill battle in front of it.

So let’s start with the EVO 3D’s dashing looks, which I have to say impress more than the Optimus 3D at first sight. The entire front side is dominated by the Gorilla glass, which protects the 3D Super LCD capacitive touchscreen. Surrounding it the thin bezel is made of metal, also clad in black, with the ambient light sensor, speaker and the front facing 1.3MP camera in the same place. On the back we have a rubber grip with a huge panel for housing the two 5MP cameras, surrounded by a cool brown aluminum bezel.

One of the very cool things is that HTC seems to have nailed the shutter button for all smartphones, with a big aluminum button with two stages; for autofocus and taking the picture.  Right next to it is the 2D/3D slider for the camera, an odd choice given it would be easier within the camera software itself.

There’s certainly something to be said for the overall presentation of the phone, because the black grill that hides the front speaker and notification LED, plus the entirely smooth black glass panel on the front and the rubber back plus buttons give it a very high-end feel. Strange, then, that the mini-USB port is left uncovered. One of the biggest advantages you’ll see the Optimus 3D having over the EVO 3D, despite the superior build of the phone is apparent by just looking at their bodies: no HDMI port.

Inside the EVO 3D we have a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, Adreno 220 GPU and the Qualcomm MSM8660 chipset. There’s 1GB of RAM with an 8GB microSD card already inside. Packed inside are NFS Shift, The Sims and Spiderman 3D.

The EVO 3D is using Android 2.3.4 which is running on the HTC Sense 3.0 UI, looking very beautiful on the 540 x 960 4.3”screen with 256 dpi. This is why everything, from 2D to 3D images and videos, on the EVO 3D looks so damn impressive on the screen when compared to the Optimus 3D. Another advantage is that the EVO 3D has 550 nit brightness in 2D mode and an impressive 230 nit in 3D, compared to the Optimus 3D’s 500nit in 2D and 175 nit in 3D. The overall result is that the EVO 3D simply has a better viewing experience as everything appears bright and crisp.

Nokia’s under-whelming debut of Windows based Smartphones

Last week, we saw the introduction of the new Nokia Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 Smartphones based on Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system. To many of us, these two devices proved to be a bit underwhelming. They were, more or less, a Windows version of other Nokia Smartphones- such as the N9 and something else that is Symbian based. Now, copying designs from other products in your portfolio is something that many other manufacturers do (Hello HTC and Samsung), but I believe Nokia has done this to simply rush their Windows Phone based product out to the market.

The reason I say that is because Nokia hasn’t really been in the news for good reasons when it comes to Smartphones. They have been losing market share in this category at an alarming rate and something needed to be done to not only slow this down but also to keep the shareholders from pulling their knives out. Nokia HAD to get the Windows Phone device out the door before 2011 departed and that is why what we see is a rehashed version of their older devices made to run the Windows Phone Operating System. They’re not as exciting as one would have hoped to see and have failed to create the buzz they were expected to.

That’s not to say that Nokia is lacking with ideas or innovation. Far from it actually, and the N9 sadly proves that (read my review to find out why I say sadly.) I think Nokia needs more time to come up with their game-changing device and that will happen when the next version of Windows Phone, codenamed Apollo, shows up some time next year. That, I believe will the tipping point for Nokia as well as Microsoft in the mobile industry and you’ll something that will make you go Wow!

iPhone 4S (Almost) Jailbroken

It was only a matter of time before the iPhone 4S gets the same treatment as all the other iOS phones released before it. It has been reported by iClarified that the iPhone Development team has demonstrated a preliminary jailbreak on both iPhone 4S and iPad 2 devices running iOS 5.

The jailbreak however is not yet ready for mass release, but it is still an indicator that a full jailbreak is coming soon. iClarified has reported the news via a tweet from Muscle Nerd, which stated that  ”Huge missing pieces prevent public release. LOTS of work left”. 

Here is a video from Muscle Nerd demonstrating a successful Cydia on an iPad 2 running on iOS 5

Source: iClarified via Gizmodo

Intel SNA Acceleration Architecture Continues To Mature

Link: http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=16617

Summary: “A few days back when testing the Linux 3.1 kernel with Intel’s Sandy Bridge hardware and then the Intel RC6 power-savings support, I also ran some updated benchmarks of SNA, the new Intel acceleration architecture available from their graphics driver.”

BIOS Option Of The Week – Split Lock Operations

Quote : Since 1999, we have been developing the BIOS Optimization
Guide, affectionately known as the BOG. From a meager beginning of a
single page, it now covers over 440 BIOS options. As old BOG readers
will know, we started offering two editions of the BOG since Revision
8.0 – a simplified edition and the complete edition.

Normally, the complete edition is only available to subscribers who
help sponsor the development of the guide through a small fee.
However, that changes today! From now on, we will post a BIOS option
from the complete edition of the BIOS Optimization Guide every
weekend.

This week, we will be taking a look at the Split Lock Operations BIOS
setting.

Link : http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=606

Coolermaster Silencio 550 Midi Tower

Hardwareoverclock.com has just posted another case review. Last week we have taken a look at the Coolermaster Silencio 550 Midi Tower. Near silent operation and prepared to take on powerful hardware, the Cooler Master Silencio is able to keep high-end setups running cool and quiet.

Link: http://hardwareoverclock.com/Coolermaster_Silencio_550_Miditower.htm

Ikonik Ra2000 Liquid Full-Tower Chassis Review

Link: http://techgage.com/article/ikonik_ra2000_liquid_full-tower_chassis_review/

Quote: Self-contained liquid CPU coolers have become a dime-a-dozen (figuratively, of course), but it’s still not often when we see a chassis released with liquid cooling built-in. We’re taking a look at one such option here, from Ikonik. So let’s see what the Ra2000 Liquid is made off, and see if it deserves its $400 price tag.

Zowie Celeritas Mechanical Keyboard

“We’ve got the latest mechanical keyboard from gaming gear manufacturer Zowie, and it’s called the Celeritas. It’s geared to gamers, and this board features the vaunted Cherry switches. Interestingly, it has Cherry Brown switches, so you have the tactile feedback response unlike most gaming boards. Is this better? Can it work well both for gaming and typing? At a price of $100, the Celeritas is one of the more affordable mechanical gaming keyboards on the market. Let’s dive into the review and see what Zowie has to offer.”

Review URL: http://www.pureoverclock.com/article1388.html

Facebook will discontinue Beluga on December 15

Beluga was one of the hottest group messaging app earlier this year, coming out of nowhere and impressing everyone. You can see why in our App of the Week review to see why Beluga was so loved. In fact, the app was so popular that the company was soon acquired by Facebook, and the app was re-engineered and released as the Facebook Messenger app.

Now that Facebook Messenger has found a comfy spot, Facebook has decided to end Beluga’s service as it no longer serves any purpose in the best interest of the company. Starting November 11th you will not be able to send any more messages on Beluga. You can, however, retrieve your pod archives from BelugaPods. Following that, December 15th is when the service will be killed off entirely, and Beluga as we know it, will be shutdown forever. You’ll have to continue your conversions on FB Messenger, or What’sApp, etc.

I guess this was inevitable when Facebook acquired the Beluga developers. Still, it’s good to know that their legacy will live on in one of the most popular group chatting software available on Android, iOS and Blackberry.

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