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    Review: Acer Iconia Tab A500

    Gadgets Team
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    Review: Acer Iconia Tab A500

    By Michelle Callanta-Toledo

    I may not be big on tablets, but I do like things that keep me preoccupied, informed, and entertained. The Acer Iconia Tab A500 does just that. Measuring at 260 x 177 x 13.3 mm and weighing at 730g, this machine—with its 10.1-inch, 1280 x 800 TFT LCD screen—sports an incredibly sleek brushed aluminum design that has very little frills.

    The power button, headphone jack and a mini HDMI port are on the left, while the charging micro USB and USB port are on right. The power button glows white when the tablet is on and orange when charging with the display off. At the top you’ll find the volume rocker and orientation lock and a small flap that protects a microSD slot while a docking connector is on the bottom. The 5-megapixel camera and impressive speakers are located at the back and a smaller 2-megapixel front-facing camera on the front.

    Now if you’re not all too familiar with tablets, you may find the A500 a bit on the heavy side. And for someone with really small hands, I didn’t feel all that secure holding it with one hand while the other poked and prodded lest I want to throw Php 21,900 down the drain. And for its seemingly sturdy build, there were obvious creaks which just made you want to be even more careful man-handling it.

    The Acer A500 is powered by Android Honeycomb and has a dual-core Nvdia Tegra 1Ghz processor which makes the tablet relatively fast especially when you want to surf the net or just go from one app to the next as my overzealous fingers did. Even my 4-year old had an easy time with it and enjoyed playing Angry Birds since the screen was larger than my mobile phone’s and the colors were much more vivid. Software included LumiRead, an e-book reader; SocialJogger, which is a Twitter and Facebook status update browse; NemoPlayer, a photo, video and music navigator; Clear.Fi multimedia browser; and Photo Browser 3D, which allows you to flip through digital scrapbooks of your camera images. Game Zone links to the included versions of the games Need for Speed: Shift and Let’s Golf. Whatever it is you’re doing, be mindful. The screen can get a little dirty with all the fingerprints and smudges so it’s good to have one of those display cleaner cloths handy.

    What I personally liked about the A500 is its battery life. I’m not a heavy user generally but the tablet lasted a whole weekend without needing to make a run for the charger (which I deliberately left in the office). I guess it can go about 7 hours for the average user.

    Specification:
    Display: 10.1-inch, 1280 x 800 TFT LCD
    OS: Android Honeycomb, 3.1
    Processor: 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 Dual Core processor, Tegra 2 chipset
    Dimensions: 260mm x 177mm x
    13.3 mm
    Weight: 730g

    What’s Hot:
     • Sleek design
    • Impressive sound and screen
    • Battery life

    What’s Not:
     • A bit on the heavy side
    • Slight creaks and smudges easily

    Bottomline:
    It may take a strong arm to wield this tablet but for its price, you get considerably more for your money.

    Buy Meter: 8.2

    [This review originally appeared in the September 2011 issue of Gadgets Magazine]

    Dual-core processors in 20% of smartphone in 2011, Samsung still king with 60% share

    Gadgets Team
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    Dual-core processors in 20% of smartphone in 2011, Samsung still king with 60% share

    Strategy Analytics has claimed that 20% of smartphones sold last year had dual-core processors in them, with Samsung leading the pack. The research firm says that Samsung led the dual-core smartphone applications processor market in 2011, with 60 percent volume share, followed by Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and NVIDIA. Interestingly enough, the research firm attributes the strong market position of Samsung to sales of its dual-core processor to Apple (several Apple products use Samsung’s processors) as well as the brisk sales of its own dual-core Android smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S II and the Galaxy Note.

    As for emerging leaders in the quad-core processor market (which right now is currently NVIDIA), Sravan Kundojjala, Senior Analyst, had this to say: “Strategy Analytics would advise NVIDIA to focus on high volume tier-one design-wins in 2012 in order to maintain its first-mover advantage with quad-core processors. NVIDIA, whose Tegra 2 smartphone shipments declined 8 percent at the end of 2011–compared to shipments in the first half of the year– lost momentum, despite being early to market with dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processors.”

    Source: Strategy Analytics

    Sony NEX-7 hands-on

    Gadgets Team
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    Sony NEX-7 hands-on

    Sony sent their NEX-7 interchangeable lens camera to our office today, and like good little tech geeks we are, we quickly set about photographing the heck out of it. The NEX-7 is, if we’re not mistaken, their top-of-the-line interchangeable lens camera, and as such is armed to the brim with hi-end features that we’re going to quickly look at today.

    The NEX-7 isn’t an imposing device, in fact it’s overall dimensions is almost the same as the NEX-5N. The NEX-7 does have a few more features that most camera enthusiasts will drool over, chief of which is the 24-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor that’s the same size as most DSLRs today. That’s paired with a an electronic viewfinder (something missing on the NEX-5N) that uses a 2.4M color OLED screen, and a 3-inch TFT display. The display sadly isn’t a touchscreen one, though that’s more than made up for by the amount of controls available on the camera.

    Speaking of controls, the NEX-7 has two dials on the top of the camera near the shutter, as well as another button on the immediate right of the shutter for more advanced functions. The NEX-7 uses a conventional hotshoe as well as an integrated flash unit, two features missing on the NEX-5N. The LCD screen is tilt-able and can be adjusted, and helps users to shoot in weird, unconventional angles.

    The NEX7 is able to shoot in different modes, as well as use ISO 100 all the way to ISO 16000, though we’re pretty sure image noise would be a huge issue at those high ISO settings. The NEX-7 has 25 focus points for AF. The camera is fully capable of shooting HD video, and it’s capable of taking Sony’s E mount lenses, giving it excellent versatility in a convenient, small package.

    [album: https://gadgetsmagazine.com.ph/wp-content/plugins/dm-albums/dm-albums.php?currdir=/wp-content/uploads/dm-albums/[email protected]/Sony NEX-7/]

     

    Man makes real-life tracking and talking Portal turret, wins at everything

    Gadgets Team
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    Man makes real-life tracking and talking Portal turret, wins at everything

    There’s tech geeks, and then there’s this guy. Meet YouTube user kss5095 and his scratch-built, tracking AND firing Portal turret. Built for his Advanced Mechatronics class at Pennsylvania State University, this particular doppelganger of the murderous (yet cute) robots in the game Portal can track you using an attached IP camera and shoots Nerf bullets at you until you fall dead (or until it runs out of ammunition).  The device was made using Arduino and is controlled via MATLAB. While it’s currently naked as of the moment, it’s creator promises it’ll be making an outer shell and will be improving the design to make human-oriented elimination via Nerf guns as swift and as efficient as possible. Check out the full video below.

    Source: Reddit

    Mozilla cries foul over Windows 8 RT browser limitation, calls it ‘Return to the Digital Dark Ages’

    Gadgets Team
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    Mozilla cries foul over Windows 8 RT browser limitation, calls it ‘Return to the Digital Dark Ages’

    Mozilla is protesting against Microsoft decision to limit the web browser used on the ARM optimized version of the Windows 8 (which is dubbed as Windows 8 RT) to just IE, essentially locking out both Google and Mozilla. On a post on the official Mozilla blog, Harvey Anderson, Mozilla General Counsel called the move “an unwelcome return to the digital dark ages where users and developers didn’t have browser choices.”

    There will be two running environments on Windows 8 RT – the heavily styled Metro UI interface that we’ve seen before, and a traditional desktop Windows Classic environment that’s everyone has grown to love (and sometimes hate). Anderson says that the crux of the problem is that  “Windows on ARM prohibits any browser except for Internet Explorer from running in the privileged “Windows Classic” environment. In practice, this means that only Internet Explorer will be able to perform many of the advanced computing functions vital to modern browsers in terms of speed, stability, and security to which users have grown accustomed. Given that IE can run in Windows on ARM, there is no technical reason to conclude other browsers can’t do the same.”

    Mozilla asserts that this particular practice is the same abuse of power that helped push aside Netscape during the early days of the internet. “Because Windows on ARM relies upon so many traditional Windows assets, including brand, code, footprint, and experience, the decision to exclude other browsers may also have antitrust implications”, Anderson adds.

    Source: Mozilla

    NVIDIA outs GeForce GTX 670, claims to soundly beat AMD’s Radeon 7950

    Gadgets Team
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    NVIDIA outs GeForce GTX 670, claims to soundly beat AMD’s Radeon 7950

    With the release of their hi-end GTX 680 tucked neatly under their belt, NVIDIA is now slowly releasing their other, cheapermore affordable offerings based on the 28nm Kepler architecture. The GeForce GTX 670 is the latest release, which the technology company says will retail at the $399 (about Php 16,800) price point. So what do you get for that price? Well, NVIDIA says that the GTX 670 soundly beats the next competitive product (in this case, it’s AMD’s Radeon 7950) in gaming performance by as much as 45%, while consuming 18% less power. As always, partners from different brands like Asus, ECS, EVGA, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Innovision 3D, MSI, Palit, Sparkle, and Zotac are making their own GTX 670 offerings, and should be hitting the market soon-ish.

    [album: https://gadgetsmagazine.com.ph/wp-content/plugins/dm-albums/dm-albums.php?currdir=/wp-content/uploads/dm-albums/[email protected]/NVIDIA GTX 670/]

    Review: Epson B-510DN

    Gadgets Team
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    Review: Epson B-510DN

    By Benjamin Arnold

    Nowadays, every brand of printer is boasting about the amount of money you will save by using their printers paired with their economically developed inks. Who can argue with that, since every cent counts in this tight-budgeted economy we live in today? Perhaps that is why the Epson B-510DN business color ink jet printer was developed.

    Within its boxy exoskeleton, this printer holds four high-capacity color cartridges that contain DURABrite Ultra pigment ink. These Individual, high-yield ink cartridges can—according to the manufactures—print out around 8,000 pages in black and white or 7,000 full-colored pages  before replacing cartridges. We put this to the test by printing out a variety of documents and photos ranging from simple black and white text documents to full color page layouts. After recycling nearly a full ream of paper to print out stories, filling up multiple photo frames with pictures of our loved ones and printing out the entire September issue twice, we didn’t even put a dent into the ink level.

    But with all this ink, there is one thing that doesn’t fit right with me as a graphic artist—the actual color of the ink. The colors come out a little dull and slightly darker. But then again, this printer was designed to be an office printer. When it comes to standard prints such as text documents or forms that have simple graphics like logos or colored text, this printer is more than sufficient to do its job and costs only about Php 0.26 for a black and white print and around

    Php 1.36 for a full-colored print.

    We tested the printer to see how quickly it could print out a variety of documents from simple text documents to full color photos. When it came to simple black and white text documents it could spit out around 9 pages per minute (PPM) with the high-speed option turned off and around 35 ppm with the high-speed option turned on. For pages that had a slight mixture of text with colored images, with the high-speed turned off, it printed around 3ppm while on high-speed, around 15 ppm. For full page colored graphics and photos, the printer was able to print out around 2 ppm with the high-speed turned off, and around 0.55 ppm with the high-speed on. In addition to ppm, the click-to-print takes an average 11.2 seconds.

    Though printing with the high-speed option on can save you a lot of time, there is a draw back—the detail or accuracy of the printouts degrade with the higher speed applied. Degrading comes in the form of misaligned prints, horizontal and/or vertical banding, loss of color density as well as loss of sharpness in photos and text edges. Using it on high-speed all the time can also shorten the lifespan of the printer.

     

    One of the unique features of the printer that could be useful in any office would have to be the back-to-back printing option. The printer can automatically print on both sides of a piece of paper, simplifying the thought process of how to put the paper into the printer properly so that it will print on both sides in the right direction.

    The  Epson B-510DN is fitted with two paper trays: a front tray that can hold up to around 500 pieces of paper; and a rear try that can hold up to around 150 pieces of paper. The problem though is that with the dual tray, I had a difficult time printing on certain types of paper, because I had to manually adjust which tray should be used for what—though there is an automatic setting, but that only determines the tray based on the size of the paper, not the type of paper.

    In the end this printer is an excellent addition to any office that has a high output volume of documents on a daily basis, because—based on our tests—this printer will last your company a very long time while cutting down the cost of ink and paper.

    Specifications
    Ink Type: DURABrite Ultra pigment ink
    Interface: Desktop: Hi-Speed USB 2.0
    Network interface: 100Base-Tx / 10Base-Tx Ethernet
    Network Printing Protocol: TCP / IP, LPR, PORT9100
    Dimensions (WxDxH): 18.9 inches x 21.6 inches x 12.3 inches
    Weight: 24lbs

    What’s Hot:
     • High yield ink cartridges
    • Fast printing speeds
    • Can handle a wide variety of paper types
    • Ink doesn’t smear easily
    • Can hold up to 650 sheets of paper
    • Can automatically print back-to-back
    • Save on usage costs

    What’s Not:
     • Color isn’t that bright
    • Noisy when in high-speed mode
    • Confusing paper trays

    Bottomline:
    The Epson B-510DN is an efficient high-yield business inkjet printer that can save you time and money plus the environment.

    Buy Meter: 8.8

    [This review originally appeared in the September 2011 issue of Gadgets Magazine]

    HTC uses space technology to toughen up the One S smartphone

    Gadgets Team
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    HTC uses space technology to toughen up the One S smartphone

    HTC is improving the strength of its One S smartphone’s housing by treating it with a process called microarc oxidation, which makes it three times stronger than stainless steel. It’s the same electrochemical surface treatment process used on a lot of NASA’s satellites. The process is similar to conventional anodizing (a process used to increase the thickness of the natural oxide layer on the surface of metal) except that the aluminum is subjected to 10,000 volts, giving it a matte black ceramic finish and an incredibly dense crystalline structure.

    The smartphone was announced at the Mobile World Congress last February, and it was allegedly spotted this week at the International CTIA Wireless 2012 sporting a unibody housing that had undergone the microarc oxidation process.

    Intermec releases new handheld scanners and printers for industrial and health applications

    Gadgets Team
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    Intermec releases new handheld scanners and printers for industrial and health applications

    Intermec isn’t a brand name that’s widely recognized by the layman, in fact, save for a few people in the logistics industry, most people won’t even know that the company exists. Yet the products that this particular company make are responsible for a lot of the amenities you enjoy now, from the devices you enjoy to the package that the mailman just dropped off your door. Intermec is a company that makes products and solutions for logistics and supply chain inventory and tracking and just recently they invited members of the press to see the new products that they’re offering for the Philippine market.

    The company showed off new products, which include the SG20 family of handheld scanners for bar codes, PC23d desktop printer for labeling applications, PC43d and PC43t  for light duty labeling, the PM43 and PM43c industrial mid-range label printers and PR2 and PR3 mobile receipt printers for mobile applications. The new products are aimed at speeding up and simplying tasks while offering the best-in class performance for the devices.

    “Built with customer challenges in mind, Intermec’s PC Series of desktop printers aredesigned specifically to empower the user,” said Chuck Dourlet, Intermec Vice President of Printers & Media. “With a highly intuitive and flexible design, Intermec’s newest line of printers offers a fast return on investment by empowering users with simple set up, various ease of use and maintenance features, and a modular design enabling future upgrades for investment protection.”

    Windows 8 will not support film DVDs

    Gadgets Team
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    Windows 8 will not support film DVDs

    Microsoft has announced that when their next generation OS, Windows 8, rolls around, customers won’t be able to play DVDs until they download extra third-party software. This applies to film DVDs, and does not affect software DVDs. Microsoft is justifying not including software to play films by saying that the use of DVDs on PCs and desktops have been in a sharp decline, and the company says that they would have to spend a significant amount in royalties to offer such a capability moving forward.

    Microsoft will still offer a variety of codecs available for online media, which include H.264, VC-1, MP4, AAC, WMA, MP3, PCM and Dolby Digital Plus. This particular move might be a result of the movement of the industry away from optical media – personally, I haven’t really used my DVD player in a awhile, relying mostly on digital downloads and file transfers from USB drives and external HDDs. Newer notebooks such as ultrabooks rarely have optical disk drives as well, so this particular feature omission by Microsoft in Windows 8 might be justified.

    Source: Windows

    Pentagon approves the use of BlackBerry 7 for its personnel

    Gadgets Team
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    Pentagon approves the use of BlackBerry 7 for its personnel

    A while back, we heard about how officials from the U.S Department of Defense all carry around BlackBerry phones and how the U.S government also approved of Dell-made Android devices running Android 2.2.

    Nowadays in the U.S Department of Defense, BlackBerry is still the device of choice due to its security features. In fact, they’ve approved RIM’s BlackBerry 7 devices for agency-wide use. The U.S Army and Defense Information Systems Agency has certified the following devices for use by its personnel: BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930; BlackBerry Torch 9810, 9850, and 9860; and BlackBerry Curve 9360.

    The U.S Department of Defense is one of RIM’s biggest customers—currently with about 250,000 BlackBerry phones in use. This helps pave the way for the release of the BlackBerry 10 in the future.

    Review: Samsung 55-inch ES8000 Smart TV

    Gadgets Team
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    Review: Samsung 55-inch ES8000 Smart TV

    We initially did a in-depth hands on before on Samsung’s Smart TV offering, the 55-inch ES8000 that could almost be called a review, but in truth it lacked a few important details. Stuff like picture quality, color reproduction and all-around performance wasn’t included in the original article because we didn’t have the right tools to evaluate those things (no Blu-ray player or disks were offered during our brief stay, nor did we have HD content on hand). In light of this, Samsung graciously invited us back to Maxims to finish the review, which we accepted. We trotted back to Maxims last Sunday to once again spend the night with the ES8000, now armed with Blu-ray discs and HD movies. This review is best enjoyed by reading our hands-on first, located here.

    We’re not going to waste your time talking in-depth about all the other features we’ve covered about in our previous outing with the ES8000, though we will refresh your memory a bit. The ES8000 is Samsung’s top of the line Smart TV offering, and as such has a multitude of new features crammed into it, including voice control and gesture control (ala Kinect). The ES8000 also features a very thin bezel that almost disappears when you’re in the correct viewing distance.

    We were initially a bit disappointed to hear that the ES8000 uses an edge-lit LED array (with Micro Dimming Ultimate) instead of a full array with local dimming (like what LG did with their Smart TV, the LM9600). For people who are not aware, edge-lit displays have their backlights near the edge of the bezel, instead of directly behind the panel. This particular arrangement gives TVs an overall thinner profile though some have said that picture quality suffers somewhat. The edge-lit array is paired with a picture technology they’ve dubbed as Micro Dimming Ultimate. Samsung claims the new tech “enhances picture quality with threefold adjustments – optimization of contrast, colours and details – offering viewers a rich and delicate viewing pleasure while maximising the potential of the TV.”

    For our test, we used the provided Blu-ray titles of Samsung (the Shrek Trilogy and some scenes from Monsters Vs. Aliens) as well as our own 1080p copy of Ironman II. After performing the requisite calibration requirements, we fired up the Blu-ray player and started the test.

    One of the things we noticed the most was that the ES8000 had excellent color reproduction and gradation. Our initial worries about the edge-lit array not being able to deliver adequate backlight was unfounded – the black levels on the ES8000 was extremely good. There was also no motion judder or any kind of overdrive trailing (halos moving around fast moving objects), something that older HD TVs are susceptible to. Scenes from Shrek II was bright and colorful, and really looked fantastic. The climactic battle between Ironman, Warmachine and Whiplash was particularly epic, and shows how good the black levels of the ES8000 really is.

    We managed to talk about this before but it bears repeating – the ES8000 still uses active shutter lenses for its 3D, though there’s a few differences this time around.

    First is that the glasses are pretty cheap – a Samsung exec told us that the glasses would retail for around 500 pesos per pair, which makes it one of the cheapest active shutter glasses around. The glasses are powered by a single battery though we have no idea how long these things last before the batteries need to be changed. Though we’re not a huge fan of the overall design, Php 500 for a pair is extremely cheap, and you probably won’t mind very much when one of these things get lost.

    Overall, the 55-inch ES8000 Samsung Smart TV is an excellent buy. While there may be a few issues with the voice and gesture control, those little niggles can probably be fixed by software updates down the line from the Korean manufacturer. In addition, the Evolution Kit feature allows people who have already bought the TV to upgrade its functionality easily, without needing to buy a new set.

     

    What’s Hot:

    Voice and Gesture Control

    Access to apps and ability to surf the internet

    Streaming content via Vicki Premiere

    Excellent picture quality and color reproduction

    Slim Bezel

    Ability to be upgraded every year via the Evolution Kit

     

    What’s Not:

    Voice and gesture control is sometimes a hit and a miss

    Pricey

     

    Bottomline:

    Samsung’s 55-inch ES8000 Smart TV is a sexy and innovative evolution of the lowly boob tube. You won’t regret buying one – that’s assuming you’ll be able to afford it, that is.

     

    Buymeter: 4.5/5

     

    Tech Specs

    • Technology: Edge lit LED
    • Screen size: 55-inches
    • Picture technologies:  Ultra Clear Panel, 800Hz Clear Motion Rate, Ultimate Micro Dimming, Digital Noise Filter, Wide Color Enhancer (Plus)
    • Physical Dimensions: 1230.3 x 761.6 x 210mm (with stand)

     

    Smart introduces better Power Plug-It and Always On Packages

    Gadgets Team
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    Smart introduces better Power Plug-It and Always On Packages

    The new Smart Bro Power Plug-It from Smart has advertised speeds of up to 7.2 mbps, making it the fastest 3G broadband stick in the market today. As with the previous offerings, it requires no installation and users can check their balance, make voice calls, and send text messages via its user interface. The Power Plug-It can be bought for Php 1,245 and it includes 240 hours worth of free surfing and 400 text messages to Smart and Sun subscribers valid for 10 days.

    Smart has also beefed up its Always On packages. This is for internet users who wish to pay for only the data that they consume regardless of how long they’re connected. For instance, users who only check their social networking sites and don’t download anything can avail of the 300 MB package for Php 299 and stay online for the whole month. On the other hand, those who download movies and music can purchase a 2GB package for Php 995. Below is a table that shows the new Always On packages.

    Vibe is the first Philippine electronic bookstore, launches two new tablets

    Gadgets Team
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    1
    Vibe is the first Philippine electronic bookstore, launches two new tablets

    Just recently, the first Philippine electronic bookstore called Vibe was launched by Vibe Technologies Inc. along with the Vibal Foundation. Filipinos will be able to access and buy all kinds of reading material through their tablets, smartphones, and computers. This includes an abundance of digital books, newspapers, and magazines. Vibe is also the name of a reading app that can be downloaded for free and installed on those devices.

    In fact, Vibe Technologies Inc. even launched two of their own tablets, the Vibe 8” Tablet and the Vibe 10” Tablet. The 8-inch version runs on Android 4.0 and comes with a 1.2 Ghz Samsung Exynos Dual-Core Cortex A9 processor with 1 GB of RAM. The 10-inch version runs on Android 2.3 and comes with a 1 Ghz Telechip Cortex A8 processor and 512 MB of RAM. Both tablets have a micro SD port and a mini HDMI port, which is ideal for teachers using it as a tool for learning.

    These tablets are designed as an affordable educational tool that can read e-books and supplement classroom learning. Vibe is also offering the Apple iPad 2, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, and Acer Iconia A200 among its line of education tablets. In fact, the Vibal Foundation has already equipped hundreds of grade 1 students with a Vibe Tablet. If you think about it, it does make more sense for a student to have a tablet where all of his learning material can be found instead of lugging around dozens of textbooks every day. It fits more books and makes learning more efficient and interesting through the use of internet links, videos, and sound.

     

    Lumia 610 first impressions [VIDEO]

    Gadgets Team
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    Lumia 610 first impressions [VIDEO]

    Nokia has graciously sent us a Lumia 610 for review. This particular member of the Lumia family is aimed at the budget smartphone shopper, and its specs reflect that – 800 GHz processor, 8GB of internal storage, 5-megapixel camera. Curiously, the Lumia 610 and it’s bigger brother, the Lumia 710, both have the same size screen – 3.7-inches – which means that even though you’re picking up a budget device, you’re not losing out on screen real-estate compared to other Android offerings. Check out our full video first impressions below.

     

     
    [album: https://gadgetsmagazine.com.ph/wp-content/plugins/dm-albums/dm-albums.php?currdir=/wp-content/uploads/dm-albums/[email protected]/Lumia 610/]

     

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