Techradar

Channel Tunnel to get mobile coverage by 2012 Olympics?
New Intel Solid State Drive 310 is smallest yet
New Intel Solid State Drive 310 is smallest yet
Top 100 BitTorrent searches in 2010
In Depth: The school that gives every student an iPad
Rumour: £200 Nintendo 3DS out on 18th March
Rumour: £200 Nintendo 3DS out on 18th March
Paul Allen re-files lawsuit against Google, Facebook and Apple
Hacking team demos permanent PS3 jailbreak
Hacking team demos permanent PS3 jailbreak
Review: Denon AVR-2311

Channel Tunnel to get mobile coverage by 2012 Olympics?

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 09:33 AM PST

Plans are afoot to bring mobile phone connectivity for passengers travelling on the Channel Tunnel in time for the 2012 London Olympics.

The four British networks, Vodafone O2, Everything Everywhere (Orange and T-Mobile) and Three are ready to join forces with their counterparts in France to share the costs of the £20m project.

According to a report in today's Daily Telegraph, the plan is to lay out the full 31.4-mile route from Dover to Calais to enable passengers to use their phones throughout the journey.

Ofcom gives go-ahead

The Telegraph report says that Ofcom is ready give the plan the go-ahead, with French telecoms infrastructure company signed-up to install the tech.

London is also testing Wi-Fi on the Tube, with Mayor Boris Johnson keen to make the whole city a wireless hotspot in time for the games in less than two years.

New Intel Solid State Drive 310 is smallest yet

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 04:45 AM PST

Intel has just released its latest solid state drive, boasting a considerably smaller form factor than past SSDs.

Intel's Solid State Drive 310 Series offers similar performance to the popular X25M SSD but is around an eighth of the size.

Embedded apps and dual-boot notebooks

Intel sees customers using this new SSD 310 Series for things like embedded apps (small, autonomous computers), as well as flagging a whole range of potential industrial and military uses.

As far as consumer tech goes, Lenovo has already selected this new SSD, with Tom Butler, director of ThinkPad product marketing noting:

"The Intel SSD 310 series will allow us to provide the advantages of a full-performance Intel SSD paired with the storage of a hard disk drive in a small, dual-drive system."

A dual-drive system will allow you to put all your system and apps on the SDD for fast boot and launch times, while also keeping your main files and data on the cheaper and 'old fashioned' 2.5-inch hard drives.

The SSD 310 series also matches the X18/25-M series' MTBF of 1.2 million hours and operating shock of 1,500G/0.5ms

The SSD 310 series is now shipping to manufacturing customers at a cost of $99 for 40GB and $179 for 80GB (though that's based on a minimum order of 1000).

New Intel Solid State Drive 310 is smallest yet

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 04:45 AM PST

Intel has just released its latest solid state drive, boasting a considerably smaller form factor than past SSDs.

Intel's Solid State Drive 310 Series offers similar performance to the popular X25M SSD but is around an eighth of the size.

Embedded apps and dual-boot notebooks

Intel sees customers using this new SSD 310 Series for things like embedded apps (small, autonomous computers), as well as flagging a whole range of potential industrial and military uses.

As far as consumer tech goes, Lenovo has already selected this new SSD, with Tom Butler, director of ThinkPad product marketing noting:

"The Intel SSD 310 series will allow us to provide the advantages of a full-performance Intel SSD paired with the storage of a hard disk drive in a small, dual-drive system."

The SSD 310 series also matches the X18/25-M series' MTBF of 1.2 million hours and operating shock of 1,500G/0.5ms

The SSD 310 series is now shipping to manufacturing customers at a cost of $99 for 40GB and $179 for 80GB (though that's based on a minimum order of 1000).

Top 100 BitTorrent searches in 2010

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 04:32 AM PST

Torrentfreak has published the top 100 search words and phrases in the "BitTorrent Zeitgeist 2010" chart, offering an interesting sideways insight into the year coming to an end.

Whether you use BitTorrent or not, and whatever your personal opinions on the widespread copyright theft promoted by indexing sites such as KickassTorrents (from which the BitTorrent Zeitgeist 2010 chart was taken) there is no doubt that an understanding of what people are sharing on the internet – legally and illegally – offers a quick overview of the types of content most pirated online.

The BitTorrent Zeitgeist

TorrentFreak's list of the 100 most searched for phrases and keywords on KickassTorrents puts the Leonardo DiCaprio movie Inception at the top of the list, closely followed by the (all too predictable) 'XXX' and 'porn' searches for adult content.

Down at number 100 we have the nonsensical frat-fest comedy Hot Tub Time Machine.

Movie-related searches were the most popular among users, with four other movie titles making it into the top 10 - Iron Man 2, Avatar, Despicable Me, and Clash of the Titans.

"2010" was in third place and "dvdrip" was in seventh place.

The first TV related search was "Dexter" in 15th place and "Windows 7" is the first software related search keyword in 20th place.

See the full list over on Torrenfreak

In Depth: The school that gives every student an iPad

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 04:00 AM PST

Fraser Speirs is talking about changes caused by his school's radical shift in technology deployment.

Every pupil at Cedars School of Excellence, in Greenock, Scotland, is now armed with an iPad, creating an environment a world away from the typical 'computer room', and providing the potential for seamless integration of technology and traditional teaching.

The iPad project arose from day-to-day demands within the school. As Head of Computing, a dozen iMacs were fixed in Fraser's classroom, and a dozen MacBooks were available for booking; but with teachers increasingly wanting to provide pupils with web access, pressure and demand grew.

"In January 2010, we started looking for answers," recalls Fraser. The school couldn't afford enough laptops to make a meaningful difference, but the iPod touch was considered, since internet access was a big factor. "We realised the iPod touch was cheap enough to give one to everybody," says Fraser, "but teachers had issues with what it couldn't do."

At the time, the iPod touch couldn't output to a projector nor connect to a mechanical keyboard, but the school nonetheless continued forming its plans. And then the iPad arrived.

Fraser says Apple's tablet dealt with every problem the school had with the iPod touch: it boasted a decent software keyboard and projector connection, and Apple made office apps available for sale. On importing his own iPad from the US, Fraser was sold:

"On the first day, it ran and ran. I couldn't make the battery die, and I realised this alone would transform the technology experience in the classroom."

With many of the school's teachers being iPhone owners, few needed convincing. A leasing arrangement with the local Apple Store soon saw dozens of iPads winging their way to Greenock. (Fraser notes that leasing was done through the Glasgow Apple Store's business team, and isn't a special school lease.)

Even teachers who weren't confident with technology and didn't see a place for their laptops in school started bringing their iPads with them every day, and everyone found different ways for Apple's tablet to enhance their classes. Ultimately, this is driven by the blank-slate aspect of the iPad.

"This is a device we bought, but it's not just a textbook or an instrument, or a set of art tools – it's all of those things and more," says Fraser, adding that one teacher's putting together a band, purely comprising children playing iPad apps.

iPad 1

"The thing is, to do this we're not adding anything to the classroom – it's just more software on the devices." When the discussion turns to specific use-scenarios for the iPad, it's clear Apple's 'there's an app for that' approach could revolutionise the classroom. For infants, the school uses the likes of wood-puzzle-style apps to develop motor skills, abc PocketPhonics for tracing letters, and Math Bingo (which Fraser calls a "sensational hit") for basic maths.

Elsewhere, older pupils are immersed in iBooks, which replaces the class's paper books with eBooks, and Keynote for presentations. And with any child aged 10 or older allowed to take their iPad home, homework is sent and received via email; this enables teachers to set more flexible tasks in sensible chunks, eliminates most excuses and has reduced the amount of incomplete homework.

Interestingly, many apps are also being used in new and innovative ways. For example, Fraser says Numbers is employed in situations where people may not have reached for a spreadsheet before, such as to create formulae for testing expected output in programming classes, or for capturing live information about experiments as they progress.

The nature of the App Store helps, providing countless specialised apps that can be used to teach a particular aspect of a course. In his computing class, Fraser has utilised the game Binary Madness HD, which has you convert random decimal numbers to binary as quickly as possible: "It's not something I use every day, but small apps like this reinforce specific parts of learning."

He rightly adds this is something that you rarely find on other platforms: "No-one would write a Mac app like Binary Madness HD, but on iOS it seems to be the kind of thing developers find interesting – creating simple apps for only 59p."

iPad for all

The benefit of the school's 'iPad for all' philosophy is particularly evident in art. Brushes is popular, as are quirkier apps such as TypeDrawing (where you fingerpaint with letters); most importantly, though, instead of replacing traditional media, the iPad has given pupils newfound confidence in all areas of art.

"The iPad is not a substitute for existing media, and it requires artistic skill to master, but in some ways it more effectively helps pupils develop confidence in their abilities and enthusiasm to try," asserts art teacher Jenny Oakley. She says a combination of immediacy, security (due to 'undo') and usability means pupils "do not have to overcome the hindrance of learning to manipulate another tool – rather, they use one they've developed dexterity in since birth".

With this newfound confidence, pupils are more willing to try, which Oakley says is "half the battle". The iPad also provides assistance regarding experimentation – pupils can use filters and effects to visualise how something would look in a different medium and then use real-world tools to mimic what they see on the screen.

The move to digital

While it's clear Cedars School of Excellence has integrated iPads into the learning environment, critics remain concerned; they claim the school's pupils are being denied access to technology that would supposedly prepare them for the real world and that 'everything' is being replaced by electronic content. Such inaccurate statements annoy Fraser:

"In reality, we're sometimes using the iPad exclusively and sometimes not. Truth be told, I'd like to move to the iPad more, but we're constrained by resources – some textbooks aren't available electronically, for example. Anyone against such iPad use should bear in mind that society itself is in the process of replacing everything with electronic content – it's happened with CDs, and Amazon and Apple are doing the same with books."

iPad 2

Fraser adds that a child starting school today won't leave until 2023, by which point, who knows what technology will be commonplace? His thoughts are the same regarding anyone who says children should solely work on Windows PCs – instead, he argues that they should use whatever tools enable them to best learn: "The iPad beats a PC because it removes that whole layer of 'we're doing computers now', and you end up with 'we're doing maths' or 'we're doing music'."

The iPad also eliminates some of the menial aspects of schooling: "In traditional teaching, you spend time learning how to write a sum properly, how to lay out a jotter, how to lay out text on a page. You must do that before you can express thoughts and ideas. But with an iPad, open Pages and you can immediately start writing an essay or play."

This is why even if a Mac OS X tablet arrived, Fraser wouldn't switch, and he thinks the same regarding the recent slew of iPad wannabes. "There's something about the iPad's size that's just right – make it a 7-inch widescreen and the keyboard would be tiny, but the iPad's screen enables you to have a good-sized keyboard and see your content. Also, the form factor enables you to have a long-lasting battery," he says.

And while iPad competitors brag about hardware, Fraser says that's irrelevant: "As good as the iPad's hardware is, it's the software that makes the device interesting in education – and I'm not just referring to big brands, but to small apps as well."

User focus

The reality of using a platform that focuses on what you can do with it rather than what's under the hood has resulted in focused pupils. Fraser says teachers throughout the school are finding that pupils now just get on with tasks, "because they have some way of working that's not just 'write it down on a piece of paper' – schooling has become more flexible and therefore more engaging and interesting."

iPad 3

Fraser nonetheless admits that the speed of adoption and the 'invisible' nature of the technology has surprised him: "We didn't think the iPad would become embedded quite so quickly. Already, it's a problem if a child forgets their iPad – in fact, on the day of the interview, one pupil did just that and convinced his mother to drive his device to the school.

"It's funny, because we'd had this idea about disciplining a child by taking away their iPad, but doing that would break someone's school day, because we now operate under the assumption that digital technology is as available as paper!"

Fraser adds that it's also crucial to consider the technology 'everyday' and not 'special'. "For example, it's important to not use the iPad as a reward. Technology is the way we do business – it's how we teach. It's not a reward for doing traditional education well."

Although using an iPad is simple, setting up the school's system was anything but for Fraser, and limitations in Apple's ecosystem soon became apparent.

The school currently has an Xserve providing user-login services to iMacs and notebooks, and Fraser's "beloved" iMac suite was dismantled, to enable each classroom to house an iMac. Each morning, pupils log in to accounts to sync their iPads with their class's iMac.

Secondary pupils each have their own library, enabling a certain amount of customisation (such as podcast subscriptions); in primary, every iPad is synchronised to the same account.

In terms of app purchase and deployment, Fraser buys apps on his computer and copies them elsewhere via Home Sharing. "This doesn't do updates, so teachers have to press 'update all' on some iPads each day," says Fraser. And due to the lack of app volume purchasing in the UK, the system requires a certain amount of jumping through hoops, in order to ensure developers get their fair share.

"No iTunes account can buy an app more than once, and it would take too long to create an account for each pupil. Also, no-one under 13 can have an account, unless it's set up by a parent or guardian," explains Fraser.

His devised workaround is the use of 'gifts' apps to dummy email accounts at the school, which are not accessed, so the right number of apps is always purchased; nonetheless, it's clear Fraser is hopeful when he says "there are better times ahead" regarding this part of the project.

The downside

Elsewhere, problems exist. Due to leasing iPads from the Apple Store, faulty units are replaced with ease, and on-site spares ensure pupils end up with just 30 minutes of downtime while their content is synced to a replacement. (Fraser discloses the iPads have so far proven durable, and the only two major faults have been down to commonplace screen failures.)

Even the thorny issue of funding never became a block. The school funds the iPads out of its general budget, and with it being an independent school, Fraser says the portion from fees that goes towards iPads is "a mathematically provable trivial fraction"; furthermore, savings made elsewhere (less printing, mostly sleeping iMacs, fewer book replacements) are already starting to offset the relatively small iPad leasing fees.

iPad 4

Whether there's a wider future for the iPad in the classroom remains to be seen. Fraser thinks many aspects of his project are scalable, to state schools as well as independents, but local authorities and a lack of administration tools are likely to be stumbling blocks.

He notes that "magic money" (from election years or companies looking for favours from councils) often pays for school technology, but computers end up being mothballed when there's no funding for a refresh. Also, money disappears into systems that teachers don't ask for, such as interactive whiteboards. Therefore, it's "policy that usually dictates whether something is 'possible', rather than the benefits, drawbacks and limitations of a system".

On administration tools, Fraser says Apple needs to devise something for schools with larger classes (Fraser's school has classes with as few as a dozen pupils, rather than the UK average of 25), particularly regarding remote inspection facilities:

"With a small class, I can walk around and see what everyone's doing, but that would be hard with twice as many pupils." He'd like to see Apple-enabled iPad administration and access through Apple Remote Desktop, for pulling browser histories over the air, updating apps, locking devices and capturing screens, but without a system administrator having to pay for enterprise-grade infrastructure.

Time to relax

On the software side, at least, things are better; Fraser says he's having the quietest time he's ever experienced as the 'IT guy' at school, despite having multiplied by five the number of deployed devices he's responsible for.

Next he's keen to assist teachers who are less confident about using iPads by figuring out how and why some teachers are speeding ahead and helping everyone get to the same level. "I'm trying to move on the pupils' minds too – in class, someone will ask if they can go online to find something. I'll say of course – as long as it's relevant, use whatever you want."

Perhaps it will be a while before everyone's fully comfortable with iPads in the classroom, but then Fraser says that's hardly surprising, given that classrooms worldwide remain largely traditional, and technology is usually prescriptive:

"We've done something that's not often tried – we brought in technology and didn't tell people how to use it". Instead of thinking of the iPad as a digital textbook, it's become a research and creativity tool across all subjects; because of this, minds are being expanded and experiences broadened, not restricted. Once, the school focused on iWork, iLife and Safari, but now pupils access dozens of varied apps.

"Apple pundit John Gruber once described the iPad as an app console, and I think he's right. It's something for doing work on or playing games – but it's not a generalised platform," says Fraser as the interview concludes.

"That's good for me, because I want kids to learn – I don't want them to work through the computer stuff just to get to the learning." We think that should be enough to silence his critics.

Rumour: £200 Nintendo 3DS out on 18th March

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 03:10 AM PST

British retailers have claimed that the new Nintendo 3DS handheld gaming console will be released in the UK on 18 March next year.

Nintendo is, as would be expected, not commenting on the rumours.

However, as we prepare for the press events in Amsterdam and New York later next month, when we expect to get hands-on time with a number of the launch titles (see full list below this news), one UK retailer has already started taking pre-orders for Nintendo's new console.

£195 3DS pre-orders being taken

GameGears allows users to "register" their interest and is listing the Nintendo 3DS as having an RRP of £199.99 with the e-tailer teasing with a £5 pre-order discount, offering the 3DS to Brits at a price of £194.99

The console will be available in red, blue and black and GameGears promises free delivery.

Japanese gamers will be the first to get their hands on 3DS versions of some of the launch titles next week, at Nintendo World 2011, which takes place January 8-10 in a convention center near Tokyo.

Nintendo World 2011

A total of 32 3DS games will be on display.

One thing that we do know for sure is that the Nintendo 3DS will launch on February 26 in Japan for 25,000 yen.

This list of games in itself is almost worth a trip to Tokyo for the hardcore Nintendophile. You can see more at the official Nintendo World 2011 website.

The full list of titles is shown below (with playable demos in bold):
* indicates working titles

· Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater 3D "The Naked Sample"

· Pro Evolution 3DSoccer

· Street Fighter IV 3D Edition

· Resident Evil Revelations

· Dynasty Warriors Chronicle

· Dead or Alive Dimensions

· Ridge Racer 3D

· Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle

· Nintendogs + cats

· Kid Icarus: Uprising

· The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

· Steel Diver

· Pilotwings Resort

· AR Games

· Nintendo 3DS Camera

· Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D

· Super Monkey Ball 3D

· Kingdom Hearts 3D*

· Gundam The 3D Battle

· Tales of the Abyss

· One Piece Unlimited Cruise SP

· Cubic Ninja*

· Puzzle Bobble 3D

· Pro Baseball Family Stadium 2011

· Animal Resort*

· Xevious

· 3D Bijin Tokei*

· Starfox 64 3D

· Paper Mario*

· Animal Crossing*

· Mario Kart*

· Surechigai ("passerby") Mii Hiroba

Rumour: £200 Nintendo 3DS out on 18th March

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 03:10 AM PST

British retailers have claimed that the new Nintendo 3DS handheld gaming console will be released in the UK on 18 March next year.

Nintendo is, as would be expected, not commenting on the rumours.

£195 3DS pre-orders being taken

The console will be available in red, blue and black and GameGears promises free delivery.

Japanese gamers will be the first to get their hands on 3DS versions of some of the launch titles next week, at Nintendo World 2011, which takes place January 8-10 in a convention center near Tokyo.

Nintendo World 2011

A total of 32 3DS games will be on display.

One thing that we do know for sure is that the Nintendo 3DS will launch on February 26 in Japan for 25,000 yen.

This list of games in itself is almost worth a trip to Tokyo for the hardcore Nintendophile. You can see more at the official Nintendo World 2011 website.

The full list of titles is shown below (with playable demos in bold):
* indicates working titles

· Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater 3D "The Naked Sample"

· Pro Evolution 3DSoccer

· Street Fighter IV 3D Edition

· Resident Evil Revelations

· Dynasty Warriors Chronicle

· Dead or Alive Dimensions

· Ridge Racer 3D

· Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle

· Nintendogs + cats

· Kid Icarus: Uprising

· The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

· Steel Diver

· Pilotwings Resort

· AR Games

· Nintendo 3DS Camera

· Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D

· Super Monkey Ball 3D

· Kingdom Hearts 3D*

· Gundam The 3D Battle

· Tales of the Abyss

· One Piece Unlimited Cruise SP

· Cubic Ninja*

· Puzzle Bobble 3D

· Pro Baseball Family Stadium 2011

· Animal Resort*

· Xevious

· 3D Bijin Tokei*

· Starfox 64 3D

· Paper Mario*

· Animal Crossing*

· Mario Kart*

· Surechigai ("passerby") Mii Hiroba

Paul Allen re-files lawsuit against Google, Facebook and Apple

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 02:54 AM PST

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has re-filed a more detailed version of a lawsuit originally filed earlier in 2010, claiming that several high-profile tech firms are guilty of patent infringement – including Google, Facebook and Apple.

Allen's Interval Licensing, the patent arm of Interval Research, filed the revised patent infringement lawsuit against these big-hitting tech giants this week.

The US district court told Allen's lawyers that Interval had until December 28 to refile the lawsuit, which is exactly what they have done.

Patently hopping mad

The new lawsuit includes numerous screengrabs of websites and services that Interval claim shows infringement on its patents.

The lawsuit accuses Apple, Facebook, eBay, Netflix, AOL, Yahoo!, Office Depot, OfficeMax, YouTube and Staples of infringing on four patents held by Interval Licensing that relate to e-commerce and online search functions.

FOSS Patents' analysis of the patent complaint by notes that Google's Android operating system – and its notification system for texts, Google Voice messages, emails and other alerts "to a user of a mobile device in an unobtrusive manner that occupies the peripheral attention of the user" – is directly under fire from Allen's lawsuit.

"If any of those infringement assertions against Android [are] true, this can spell trouble for makers of Android-based devices, and for Android application developers," notes FOSS Patent's Florian Mueller.

"Patent holders can choose to sue Google, device makers, application developers, users, or any combination of the foregoing options."

Expect to hear a lot more on developments in Paul Allen's patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook, Apple, Google, and others as this particular tech patent drama plays itself out in court in the coming weeks.

Hacking team demos permanent PS3 jailbreak

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 02:26 AM PST

A hacking team has been demonstrating a technique that will crack the PlayStation 3's loader at the recent Chaos Communication Congress event in Berlin.

The latest PS3 hack claims to give users complete control over their console, something that is bound to cause some ire amongst Sony Computer Entertainment's security specialists.

The team of hackers also demonstrated how they had got around Sony's PS3 security systems, to allow the hacking community to sign their own code.

Hack, crack and sack

What all of this means is that Sony's current v3.55 firmware is now highly vulnerable. Plus, more importantly, it is going to be very difficult for Sony's security folk to make a permanent fix to these exploits.

The hackers promised the Chaos Communication Congress crowd that they will release the tools to take advantage of their PS3 crack next month.

Somebody, somewhere at Sony no doubt just received a rather harsh email from their superiors ordering them to get to work on fixing this…

Via http://twitter.com/fail0verflow

Hacking team demos permanent PS3 jailbreak

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 02:26 AM PST

A hacking team has been demonstrating a technique that will crack the PlayStation 3's loader at the recent Chaos Communication Congress event in Berlin.

The latest PS3 hack claims to give users complete control over their console, something that is bound to cause some ire amongst Sony Computer Entertainment's security specialists.

The team of hackers also demonstrated how they had got around Sony's PS3 security systems, to allow the hacking community to sign their own code.

Hack, crack and sack

The hackers promised the Chaos Communication Congress crowd that they will release the tools to take advantage of their PS3 crack next month.

Somebody, somewhere at Sony no doubt just received a rather harsh email from their superiors ordering them to get to work on fixing this…

Via http://twitter.com/fail0verflow

Review: Denon AVR-2311

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 01:30 AM PST

Coming to the ring in its all-black livery is Denon's latest middleweight contender, the AVR-2311. The latest in a long line of Denon champions, this model is more an evolution of the heavy-hitting 2310 than a revolution in its own right.

That said, the predecessor had a lot going for it, including a fast-paced and exciting sound, plus a feature list that had much of the competition whimpering in their respective corners.

At the heart of the AVR-2311 you get the same core processing chipset and power-house amplification offering a very respectable 135W into 6Ω, on paper at least. It is fully kitted out with the latest HD audio decoding, and promises 1080p images from almost any source.

The changes, tweaks and upgrades of last year's model are subtle, but bring the design more up to date. The HDMI in and outs are now v1.4a specification, although the choice of six inputs and a single output on the 2311 would have been better configured five/two in my opinion. They offer Audio Return Channel from your TV should you want to amplify Jeremy Kyle in the morning and are 3DTV compatible for switching.

The new video scaling engine is based around Anchor Bay's fourth-generation chipset with its proprietary Precision Deinterlacing and its five-field motion-adaptive processing. It's not ABT's top-spec chipset, but it certainly packs in most of the good stuff.

The back panel is comprehensively equipped making the 2311 a natural step up from the rather frugal 1911 for those with plenty of sources. The multichannel output suite is equipped with twin sub outputs and, with Dolby Pro-Logic IIz on board, there is a spare set of speaker terminals for front height channels.

It is a 7-channel amplifier, however, so you have to choose between rear-back or height speakers – a subject that invariably starts a bun fight in the HCC office.

Four go missing

On the missing list are four important connections, however. The first is that the MM phono input has gone from the previous model, which is no big thing. More seriously, there are no multichannel inputs for those of us who still own multichannel SACD players; there's only a single USB terminal on the front panel and not hide nor hair of an Ethernet connection.

On a machine costing this much, I would have thought the latter was damn near mandatory these days, not only for internet radio, streaming, and NAS-based media, but also for firmware updates.

In a comeback that would have George Foreman nodding sympathetically, though, the front USB input can be connected to an iPod or iPhone digitally. Most docks or USB-based Apple connectors allow the phone or player to convert the digital files to analogue music (through arguably the worst DACs in the world – thanks Apple) before going to your amp.

The AVR2311 interrogates the inner working of the device and streams a PCM digital signal from the device to its onboard decoders. Load up your iPod with high-bitrate or lossless music and you've got yourself a very fine high-end music server.

Cosmetically, the AVR-2311 is about a six out of 10. Not ugly but quite plain and, like many sixes, looks a whole lot better after a bottle of Rioja.

I was no great fan of the last generation's flip-over remote control either, with its buttons on both sides, so I welcome the return of a single-sided remote. Interestingly, the device's bottom two buttons are labelled Party and Sleep. Now that is my sort of gadget.

Stuck in the middle

Powered up, the Denon's GUI also scores about six out of 10. It is much advanced from some of the old black text menu systems, but equally it falls shy of the beauty of the brand's full phat picture GUIs.

It comprises menus with some colour and a couple of line drawings, basically. However, it is easy enough to navigate without referring to the manual and it offers Audyssey auto-set up with a mic supplied. The end of the setup asks you if you want to default to Audyssey Dynamic Volume and/or Dynamic EQ before saving the setup, then away you go.

The Audyssey MultEQ room EQ system defaults to 'on' and did a reasonable job of balancing my room on the first run.

While experimenting with a full-range speaker system with no subs during this test, I dived into the manual EQ settings. I was pleasantly surprised to find you could copy over the measured Audyssey curves and then tweak each band on each channel from that point: very useful and very flexible indeed.

Likewise, I take my hat off to Denon for including a reasonably comprehensive video adjust menu, if you want to add a little more punch to your picture.

Sound quality is another area upgraded over the old 2310, and HCC got an inside track on the fact that this model was tuned and benchmarked by a pair of UK born and bred ears. In fact, said ears explained some of the finer points of the new model over lunch when the review sample arrived.

And it doesn't take long to hear the differences: the opening sequence of Star Trek (2009) blistered into the room with speed and detail aplenty. A heady mix of big bass effects and upper frequencies with real sparkle make the 2311 an amp that wows from the outset.

Spectacular delivery

As Captain George Kirk (Snr) ploughs the USS Kelvin into Nero's fearsome mining ship, while his wife gives birth in an escape shuttle, the Denon doesn't hold back in delivering both the action and the emotion of the scene. It is a full-on thrill ride charged with poignancy and, as the ships collide and the scene cuts to a view from space, the silence is crushing.

The effect was only a little dampened by a fairly obvious digital 'clicking' sound through the speakers as you raise and lower the volume. This was a feature of some of the earliest AVRs to implement DSP based digital volume controls. I am surprised Denon let this one slip through, although once you have set the volume for film watching you are not going to hear it, of course.

The dialogue through Star Trek is quite intense, particularly some of the scenes in the Vulcan academy with its ambient, lofty halls. The Denon crafts the open space with plenty of scale and a good sense of height even in 5.1 mode. Footsteps echo on hard floors with a realistic tone and small details such as rustling clothes are delivered in detail.

When Spock's father walks down the corridor and sits beside his young son in detention after a fight, you can feel every bit of the cool atmosphere. If anything, the AVR-2311 sounds just a little too clinical with this fine detailing, etching them in the room to perfection, yet falling just a little shy of the natural smoothness required to make them truly believable.

Despite that, it certainly steps up the sonic pace from its predecessor and is a frisky performer that will thrill with big blockbuster action movies. Its articulate balance is more detailed and energetic than the bigger, weightier sound of Denons of old, but I am not sure I wholly dig the shift, personally.

Add to this the, frankly, odd lack of networking features, and I find the AVR-2311 a little wanting despite it being a better overall machine than the muchloved, old AVR-2310. I'm confused.

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Friday, December 31, 2010

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