Samsung, the manufacturer with so many
ideas, decided to see what child can be borne by mating a smartphone and a
projector. The outcome is Samsung Galaxy Beam. While definitely unique, it is
not one of a kind as the first projector phone appeared in 2010 with the same
name. Perhaps showing it off the second time will garner more success? Let's
see if it can do well.
No
reason for diet
Kill me if you want but I will still
classify this phone in the “slim” category. The guys from Samsung put a
projector in it and yet the Beam still manages to maintain the slim form factor
and remain decently lightweight. With a yellow bezel and rubberised back, it
feels good on the hands too. Because of the projector, the camera is placed
lower, making it a little too easy to cover it with a finger.
Sunshades
may help
Fans of the AMOLED display may be
disappointed because the Beam only uses a 4.0 WVGA (800x480 pixels) TFT
display. Despite that, it produces decent quality colours. Instead of having
problems with oversaturation, picture quality seems more lifelike. I like the
fact that with the average resolution, text still remains as sharp as ever. Of
course, under sunlight, the phone is rendered into near uselessness.
Not
again
I almost scream in agony when the Beam
subjected me to using Gingerbread. That's right folks, it is not ICS out of the
box. Of course, this is Android with Samsung's TouchWiz UX on top. Good news: it
is intuitive and easy to learn. The smartphone itself is also generally smooth
but has filled up the homescreen with a lot of shortcuts and widgets. This, as
it has proven on many occasions, is the perfect recipe for noticeable
performance lag.
Project
everything!
This is the feature to get excited about:
the 15 lumens projector that is capable to beam a 50-inch picture and with
great speakers. Also, why stop at just the picture alone? Movies, internet,
presentation, games and even the homescreen too can be projected. Just do all
of it! Turning it on is just the matter of holding a button on the top right
side of the Beam. The output quality is good but I need a decent amount of
darkness to have a good time with it.
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Info
·
Price: $524
·
Dimensions (H x W x D): 124 x 64.2 x 12.5 mm
·
Weight: 145.3 g
·
Processor: Dual-core 1 GHz Cortex-A9
·
Memory: 768 MB RAM
·
Storage: 8 GB storage
·
Operating system: Android 2.3 Gingerbread
·
Display: 4.0-inch WVGA (800x480) TFT
·
Graphics: Mali-400
·
Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz, BT
3.0+HS, USB 2.0, MicroUSB, 3.5mm Ear Jack
·
Battery: 2000mAh
·
Quadrant standard: 2,680
Verdict
·
Niche market but a very appealing midrange
smartphone
·
Value: 8/10
·
Features: 9/10
·
Performance: 7/10
·
Design: 8/10
·
Usability: 8/10
·
Score: 8.0/10
|
Asus P8Z77-V Pro - Not bad for midrange
When Intel announced the Z77 chipset, many
users out there are overjoyed. They finally found a chipset for this generation
that gives them a tonne of features. And from something so small too! Besides,
the many enhancements it now offers had to be previously produced with either a
separate chipset or even a separate daughter-card installed on the motherboard.
Intel has truly delivered with the Z77 and ASUS is quick on the bandwagon to
deliver the best package using this chipset. The P8Z77-V Pro is the testament
of this promise and hard work from one of the biggest components manufacturer
in the world.
Multi-role
If it is about what the board has to offer,
we must start with the number of ports available. The P8Z77-V Pro has six
built-in USB ports - four of which are USB 3.0, a HDMI and DisplayPort as well
as VGA and DVI for monitors that need these connectors, LAN port and even a
digital S/PDIF connection for those who want a true digital sound experience.
As this is a full-sized ATX board, it comes with two x16 PCIe slots that work
either as a single mode x16 or dual mode x8. So you want to SLI/CrossFire your
system? Go ahead. You also will get four RAM slots that support up to 32GB of
memory. Indeed there is no such thing as running out of memory at all. And for
those who love extra features, Asus also included eight SATA ports that offer a
system performance that evenly splits between SATA 3Gb/s and SATA 6Gb/s.
Support
variety
Like all ASUS motherboards today, the
P8Z77-V Pro supports UEFI, ASUS' MemOK feature, Smart DIGI+ Power control, BIOS
Flashback, USB Boost, and more. For internet connectivity, there is also the on
board Gigabit LAN port that you can connect to your router for high speed
transfers.
Extreme
results
We ran our system benchmarks to test out
the board's features and compare it against the others. On PCMark7, it managed
to generate a score of 5,782, which is very good for something aimed for the
mid ranged market. We also used PerformanceTest, which scored at 3,982.
Something that we had expected based on what we had seen so far. So if you are
looking for something that you can put in your midrange computer, you can't go
wrong with the ASUS P8Z77-V Pro motherboard (as long you are not going to go
three-way or four-way SLI for your gaming needs).
|
Info
·
Dimensions (H x W): 305 x 244 mm
·
Processor: Intel Core processor
·
Memory: DDR3
·
Ports: USB 3.0/2.0, HDMI, DipslayPort,
VGA,DVI,S/PIDF, LAN
·
Expansion : 2 x x16 PCIe, 1 x x4 PCIe, 1 x x1
PCIe, 2 x PCI
·
PCMark7 score: 5782
Verdict
·
Irrational need to purchase has been
triggered.
·
Value: 9/10
·
Features: 8/10
·
Performance: 8/10
·
Design: 8/10
·
Usability: 9/10
·
Score: 8.4/10
|
OCZ Octane review - SSDing your PC affordbly
When the ICT Industry got its first taste
of SSDs, it had been a pricy affair. The whole idea is never thought as
conceivable. A 20GB SSD being able to fetch up to a thousand Dollars (USD mind
you not RM) just so that you can get lighting speeds on your PC. It's too
expensive then. But now with the price dropping drastically as storage space
increased, everyone seems to want an SSD? But what would work for the average
Joe? The answer: OCZ. They have been in the forefront of the SSD market for
some time now and have a fixed preference for using SandForce chipsets. However
this is one of their products not using a SanForce chip as it uses INDILINK
instead - a company they recently acquired. Let's see how it fairs in the race
for speed.
Wallet
friendly
The Octane may not be designed - or
marketed - to be direct competition for SandForce SF2281 based drives like the
Vertex 3 MaxIOPS. This, however, doesn't mean it is a low performance “budget”
drive either. It just happens to be a budget friendly performance orientated
drive that is supposedly offers a decent performance and capacity rating. This
means that future drives can go up to 1TB and still not suffer big performance
loss or increase in price. Good tidings for consumers all around!
Test
details
We used Futuremark's PCMark 7 to test out
how good the Octane is like in real world situations. PCMark 7 contains an
individual disk subsystem benchmark. It is not a synthetic test but it does
performance ratings based on real-life applications. This benchmark reproduces
typical disk usage scenarios and measures how fast they are completed in
popular applications. In other words, PCMark 7 shows you the speed of the disk
subsystem from the application's point of view.
Performs
when needed
The score that we got is 5012, which is
lower than most Sanforce drives out there. Even so, we did find out that the
drive itself will give, when you need it to give. From file transfer, to gaming
and even video editing, the Octane is one of the top five drives you need to
get if you want to have your system run like the Road Runner.
|
Info
·
Chipset: INDILINX Everest
·
Cache: 512MB DDR3 RAM
·
Storage: 512GB
·
Connectivity: SATA 6Gb/s
Verdict
·
Affordable, High capacity high speed SSD
·
Value: 8/10
·
Features: 8/10
·
Performance: 9/10
·
Design: 8/10
·
Usability: 8/10
·
Score: 8.2/10
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