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Engadget News |
- B&N makes the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight's $20 price drop official
- New process for nanotube semiconductors could be graphene's ticket to primetime (video)
- Inhabitat's Week in Green: ECOLAR house, transparent solar panel and Star Wars terrariums
- Sony shuts down PSP Comic Store after October 30th, leaves most of us in the lurch for now
- Google retires more services, consolidates others in continued efficiency bid
- LightSquared pitches new plans to FCC in attempt to end GPS interference hex
- Razer Blade review (late 2012)
- Maingear announces Nomad 17 gaming laptop, comes with custom paint job
- Ask Engadget: should companies include a cable with a new product?
- Target, Walmart list price drop for B&N's Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight to $119
- Mobile Miscellany: week of September 24th, 2012
- Logitech Harmony Touch remote pops up unannounced at Best Buy (Update: Pictures)
- Alt-week 9.29.12: 3D pictures of the moon, 4D clocks and laser-controlled worms
- Hard drive shipments recover from floods in Thailand, expected to reach record high
- Cubify lets you skin, 3D print your own personal Android
| B&N makes the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight's $20 price drop official Posted: 30 Sep 2012 10:11 AM PDT The Nook's $20 price drop is more than the whim of a few major retailers -- it's Barnes & Noble's new MSRP. Following Walmart and Target's recent discounts, the company's own website is now listing the glowing e-reader at its new $119 price. The reduction is almost assuredly in preparation for Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite, as B&N's announcement makes a point of bragging about the Simple Touch with Glowlight's included AC adapter and aversion to built-in ads. See the punchy press release for yourself after the break. NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight™ Now Available for the Incredible New Low Price of Just $119 – Unbeatable Value with No Distracting Ads Award-Winning First E Ink® Reader Designed for Reading in the Dark and in Bright Sunlight, At Lowest Price Ever NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller and leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today announced its highly-acclaimed NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight is now available for the great low price of just $119. As always, the award-winning product – a favorite among leading product reviewers and customers alike – is available ad-free, with an AC power adapter included in-box, making it a better value than other products on the market. NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight is the most versatile reader ever created, and is the first Reader designed to address E Ink readers' number-one request: the ability to read in the dark in bed and avoid disrupting a significant other. Featuring Barnes & Noble's innovative lighting technology, GlowLight shines uniformly across the display, turns on instantly and adjusts with just a touch, so customers can control the amount of light illuminating their device, whether in a dimly lit or pitch dark room. At under 7 ounces, NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight is also Barnes & Noble's lightest NOOK ever, even lighter than Kindle's new competitor to Barnes & Noble's innovative device. The device's ergonomic back and soft-touch design makes it super comfortable to hold in just one hand – perfect for staying up all night in bed with a can't-put-it-down novel, or for carrying everywhere. "At just $119, our high-quality, top-rated NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight is an unbeatable value for customers who are seeking an unparalleled, ad-free reading experience that goes from bed to beach, day or night," said Jamie Iannone, President of Digital Products at Barnes & Noble. "NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight is the first Reader to hit the market with built-in illumination for reading in the dark and includes a power adapter for quick and easy charging. NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight is fully stocked at Barnes & Noble stores and leading retailers and available today for customers to enjoy our best-in-class digital reading experience and robust content catalog at an unbelievable price." Like having two Readers in one, NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight doubles as the ideal reading device for outdoors, featuring a revolutionary built-in screen protector offering paper-like reading with no glare, even in bright sunlight. The company's exclusive Best-Text™ technology with adjustable fonts optimizes each letter, so words are crisp and clear. It's easy to navigate, shop and read with just the touch of a finger on the device's precise, ultra-responsive 6-inch infrared touch screen. Customers can touch to look up words, highlight passages and customize their reading experience by adjusting the font size and style, and experience lightning-fast page turns by swiping or using the device's contoured physical buttons. NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight provides access to one of the world's largest digital bookstores featuring more than 3 million books, magazines and newspapers and enables customers to borrow digital books from public libraries as well. The device can hold up to 1,000 NOOK Books and more content using expandable memory. Offering a quick and convenient way to charge the battery, NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight comes with a power adapter at no additional cost (something a competitor charges customers an additional $10 for), and features a long lasting battery life with over one month of reading on a single charge with the light on or over two months with GlowLight off*. NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight is available to purchase immediately at www.nook.com or at NOOK Digital Shops™ and displays in one of Barnes & Noble's nearly 700 bookstores and other leading retailers. Barnes & Noble offers Always Free NOOK Support in all of its neighborhood bookstores, with more than 40,000 NOOKsellers across the country ready to assist customers with setting up their NOOK devices or choosing their next great read. *Battery tests based on a half hour of daily reading time with Wi-Fi® off, with GlowLight on at default brightness setting | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New process for nanotube semiconductors could be graphene's ticket to primetime (video) Posted: 30 Sep 2012 09:15 AM PDT In many ways, graphene is one of technology's sickest jokes. The tantalizing promise of cheap to produce, efficient to run materials, that could turn the next page in gadget history has always remained frustratingly out of reach. Now, a new process for creating semiconductors grown on graphene could see the super material commercialized in the next five years. Developed at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the patented process "bombs" graphene with gallium, which forms droplets, and naturally arranges itself to match graphene's famous hexagonal pattern. Then, arsenic is added to the mix, which enters the droplets and crystallizes at the bottom, creating a stalk. After a few minutes of this process the droplets are raised by the desired height. The new process also does away with the need for a (relatively) thick substrate to grow the nanowire on, making it cheaper, more flexible and transparent. The inventors state that this could be used in flexible and efficient solar cells and light emitting diodes. We say forward the revolution.
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| Inhabitat's Week in Green: ECOLAR house, transparent solar panel and Star Wars terrariums Posted: 30 Sep 2012 07:30 AM PDT Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. For the past two weeks Inhabitat has been reporting live from the Solar Decathlon Europe in Madrid, where 18 student teams from around the world have been competing for the title of the world's most efficient solar-powered prefab house. As usual, suspense was running high in the final days of the competition, and we're excited to announce that Team Rhône-Alpes' Canopea House has been named this year's winner! The beautiful modular house took top honors in the architecture and sustainability categories, and it features a 10.7 kW photovoltaic array on the roof that produces more than enough energy to power the home. Some of the other standouts at the Solar Decathlon Europe include Germany's ECOLAR House, which features a flexible, modular design that can expand or shrink to accommodate the needs of its owners. It came as no surprise that the German team was tops in the engineering category, and the team incorporated hemp insulation in the floors, walls and ceiling to prevent thermal loss. Team Andalucia's Patio 2.12 House, which consists of four separate prefabricated modules built around an interior courtyard, scored high marks for energy efficiency and innovation. And although Italy's MED in Italy House might not look like much on the outside, step inside and you'll enter a different world altogether. The highly efficient home features a central courtyard and a rooftop photovoltaic array that generates about 9.33 kWh of energy per year -- roughly double what it needs. Team Rome also added wall layers that can be filled with heavy materials to provide high thermal mass once the home is installed. The Solar Decathlon isn't the only green architecture story we've been tracking this week, though. In China, Broad Sustainable Building is planning to break ground on the world's tallest building in November. But that's not all: The 220-story building will be prefabricated, and it's expected to take less than six months to build. In downtown Cape Town, Tsai Design has floated a proposal for an amazing High Line-style park on an unfinished elevated highway. And in the ocean off the coast of Grenada, artist Jason deCaires Taylor has added to his underwater sculpture garden, sinking a handful of suburban-looking concrete houses that will provide a home for coral, starfish and seaweed. We've also been gearing up for the Paris Motor Show, which kicked off this week. Among the early headliners were Mercedes-Benz, which unveiled its sizzling new all-electric SLS AMG Coupe, and Porsche, which unveiled the new Panamera Sport Turismo plug-in hybrid concept. In other exciting green automotive news, the "Nemesis," a modified Lotus Exige, broke the UK speed record for electric vehicles when it reached a top speed of 151 mph. And Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill legalizing self-driving cars in California. A company called Scoot launched an electric scooter-sharing service in San Francisco, and Amtrak began testing 165-mph trains on its Northeast Corridor. New green energy innovations continue to make it easier to satisfy our electricity needs without fossil fuels. This week, Sharp unveiled a transparent solar panel that can be mounted on high-rise windows without obstructing the view. Japanese electronics giant Hitachi invented a glass "disk" that's safe from fire, chemicals and water, and a Chicago-based entrepreneur unveiled plans for Everpurse, a handbag insert that will enable you to charge your phone on the go. Google made some news of its own this week by releasing new panoramic "sea views" of six of the most spectacular coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean. And in one of our favorite discoveries of the week, we stumbled upon artist Tony Larson's amazing Star Wars terrariums, in which he recreates iconic landscapes that are populated by Yoda, R2D2 and Ewoks. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sony shuts down PSP Comic Store after October 30th, leaves most of us in the lurch for now Posted: 30 Sep 2012 05:49 AM PDT PSP Comic Store, we hardly knew ye. No really, we hardly knew ye -- which is probably why Sony is warning PSP owners that its comic book portal is shutting down after October 30th. Come Hallowe'en, we'll lose the option to download the necessary app or buy additional titles. Any currently owned comics will be available to download again until mid-January, but readers will be on their own to preserve existing libraries after that. Outside of Japan, that creates significant problems for literary PlayStation fans: while PS Vita owners in Sony's home country will get a Manga store and reader in October, there's no equivalent crutch for other countries (or any PSP owners) at this stage. The console maker is non-committal and says there's nothing it can discuss "at the moment," which to us is a hint that we shouldn't plan our reading hours around a PSP or PS Vita in the near future. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Google retires more services, consolidates others in continued efficiency bid Posted: 30 Sep 2012 04:10 AM PDT When you run as many services as Google does, every once in a while you're going to have to do some pruning. Evidently Mountain View's got the secateurs out, having just announced the next batch of its projects that will be [Image Credit: Shutterstock] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| LightSquared pitches new plans to FCC in attempt to end GPS interference hex Posted: 30 Sep 2012 02:04 AM PDT If you thought filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy was the final chapter in LightSquared's wireless network saga, you'd be wrong. Hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone is back at the FCC's doorstep with yet another proposal, which he hopes might snatch the maligned network from the jaws of GPS interference-related troubles. Two filings placed with the commission apparently outline plans to use its broadband network in a way that it believes won't interfere with GPS signals, along with the 5MHz of spectrum that are known not to cause any issues. Along with the proposed changes, LightSquared is reportedly set to ask for more time to have exclusive rights to propose a reorganization plan. If granted, this could finally mean some progress for the beleaguered project, but with investors worried that money being spent on this could be better-placed back in their pockets, Falcone will have everything crossed, while the FCC deliberates the situation. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Razer Blade review (late 2012) Posted: 30 Sep 2012 12:01 AM PDT Razer has made a habit of catching us off guard -- breaking the mold as an accessory manufacturer by building laptops, prototype game handhelds and controller-toting tablets. Their Blade laptop cut through our expectations as well, featuring a beautiful aluminum shell and one of the thinnest profiles of any gaming rig on the market. It had some serious flaws, though: it was underpowered, had minor build issues and simply fell short in the audio department. Its maker, apparently, wasn't deterred: mere months after the original Blade's own debut, Razer is now introducing a successor. Most of the changes are internal: this model swaps out the original's Sandy Bridge CPU and last-generation NVIDIA graphics for a newly announced 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-3632QM processor and a Kepler-based GeForce GTX 660M GPU. It caught our interest -- Razer had previously insisted its first laptop wasn't built just for power, but for a premium experience. Now, the firm seems to be focusing on both (now that's a premium experience we can get behind). So, is this upgrade enough to make up for the OG version's shortcomings? Read on to find out. Look and feel The more things change, the more they stay the same -- an old French proverb, the lyrics to a Bon Jovi song, the Razer Blade gaming laptop. If you've seen the original, you've seen the latest, too. We'll get to the granular hardware upgrades shortly, but our previous impressions are worth repeating: the Blade is a gorgeous machine. Its thin, 0.8-inch profile and elegant aluminum casing lend it a premium feel that other 17-inch gaming rigs can't hope to match. It's also worth mentioning in passing that it bears a loose resemblance to the MacBook Pro. Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan even joked with us about it, casually jesting that the Blade could fill the gap the discontinued 17-inch MBP left in the market. That homage notwithstanding, Razer does give the Blade some unique flourishes, including the company's triple-snake logo, a subtly ridged chassis and green USB 3.0 slots. The trio of USB plugs that adorn the rig's left side (now all USB 3.0, as opposed to the original Blade's mix-and-match affair) are flanked by HDMI, Ethernet and a power socket to their left, with a solitary audio jack on the right. The rest of the machine's edges are left blank, however, save for a pair of vents and a Kensington lock slot. Luddites hanging on to their optical media won't find solace here: the Blade once again forgoes a disc drive -- a concession, perhaps, to keep the chassis as thin as it is. Matching the machine's own slim profile is an equally trim power supply, which is easily half the size of most gaming laptop AC adapters. A large, glowing power button separates the laptop's keyboard from the speaker bar riding along the hinge. This looks very clean, but isn't the best use of available space -- the power toggle could have been moved to either of the frame's edges to afford the keyboard a slightly higher position on the body's face, giving users just that much more room to rest their palms -- not that it isn't comfortable already, but folks with larger hands (this editor included) would appreciate the extra space. Speaking of nitpicks, there was one specific complaint we registered with the original Blade that's worth revisiting: the hinge. The old unit's base had a nasty habit of lifting off the table whenever we lifted the lid. Before sending out a machine for review, Razer's CEO personally assured us the problem had been solved. We'll admit, the very first time we lifted the Razer's screen, its body tagged along -- but every opening since then has gone by the book, with the base staying put on the desk where it belongs. Suffice to say, we're satisfied. Keyboard, trackpad and Switchblade UI It's hard to recommend any trackpad for gaming, but Razer's touch-sensitive "Switchblade Display" is actually quite tolerable. That's largely thanks to its location. Since it sits in the 10-key's typical spot, the pad lends itself to comfortable gaming more so than what you'll find on most laptops. With so many superior mousing alternatives, there's no reason any respectable gamer should need to take aim with the touchpad, but those willing to try (or those who accidentally left their peripherals at home) will at least find it relatively well-suited to the task. It performs admirably as a regular trackpad as well, and executes multitouch gestures more reliably than most inlaid pointers. Still, the starboard touchpad takes some getting used to -- more than once we found ourselves brushing up against the area below the keyboard, staring in bewilderment at the unmoving cursor on the rig's screen. Ah, right. It's over there. The Razer's LCD touchpad is far more than a mere mouse, of course -- it's a cornerstone of the outfit's Switchblade interface. This is hardly the first time we've seen Switchblade -- it's appeared in various Razer keyboards, the original Razer Blade and even a prototype that never saw the light of day. It's a neat idea -- 10 customizable screen-packed buttons headlining a small touch display for using custom apps, creating macros and launching applications -- but not much has changed about the interface over the last eight months. Razer's own Synapse software still allows the user to create sets of pre-programmed keys, each with a custom icon and specific task. For instance, you can perform a keyboard or mouse function, launch a program, switch profiles or even tweak settings on another connected Razer product (like a standalone gaming mouse). Again, though, it did all of that before, so this is mostly just a refresher. The Switchblade UI has learned a few new tricks, which have been pushed out to compatible devices over the past several months. In addition to sporting special modes that stuff Internet Explorer, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, a traditional numpad and a clock in the touchpad's screen, Razer has slowly been adding additional game-specific applications to the Switchblade. The Star Wars: The Old Republic Combat Logger, for instance, keeps track of in-game damage, threats and healing data on-screen. Some of the new offerings aren't so robust, sadly -- the UI's Team Fortress 2 and Battlefield 3 apps are little more than pre-configured profiles -- and not all of their toggles actually correspond to action in the game. Fingering the button that displays the TF2 Engineer's pistol, for instance, brings up a quick-menu for team voice commands. We found we were better off building our own profiles, and ignoring most of the new "apps" entirely. Razer's interface is nothing if not consistent. Its 10 configurable keys are still a joy to use as an application launcher, and being able to customize the display of each individual key is a geeky pleasure of the rarest kind -- but that consistency means the pad's shortcomings are the same, too. The setup's display-laden keys, for instance, appear to ghost and bleed if they aren't looked upon from just the right angle. Similarly, the trackpad's screen lacks visual fidelity and plays back YouTube videos at a choppy framerate. Using the Switchblade to peek at Twitter or Gmail mid-game is novel, to be sure, but our initial opinion still hasn't changed: a lot of this miniature display's functions are better had on a smartphone. The pad can be a bit finicky, too -- while it does a fantastic job of recognizing standard Windows multitouch gestures, its own three-finger swipe, used to view the next or previous page of configured buttons, fails to register unless your fingers are lined up perfectly. Three fingers, but staggered, rather than in a straight line? Try again. And again. And again. It becomes tedious. When things go according to plan, though, Switchblade is a joy to use -- it provides quick access to any key combination imaginable, stamped with a colorful custom image. We just see major room for improvement, both on the hardware and software front. Razer's second-gen laptop would have been great for introducing a remodeled Switchblade. Keyboard preference is a tricky thing, and gamers are among the pickiest -- not that mobile computers offer them much choice. Falling in line with the latest trends, the Blade keeps the same chiclet layout used on the original, though it's worth noting that the keyboard's backlight now illuminates the previously dim Fn functions on the F1-F12 keys. The Blade's alphabet islands live in the shallows, barely traveling at all with each depression. The keys don't feel very mushy, but they don't have particularly soft landing either. At first glance the space bar appears to be a tad short, but our thumbs never wavered, resting comfortably on its outer edge. Our biggest issue with the Blade's keys is also something we admire about it: the delete key. Positioned conveniently above backspace, it granted us immediate access to multi-directional text eradication -- but its close proximity caused more than a few mistakes. As a gaming keyboard? Its anti-ghosting features lend it the necessary cred. We were able to log up to 13 simultaneous key presses on the chiclet clacker, depressing at least four keys on each row of the board's QWERTY alphabet without conflict. Suffice to say, gamers counting their APM (actions per minute) shouldn't have any hardware handicaps to contend with here. Display and sound Like most laptops in its class, the Blade features a luxuriously large 17.3-inch 1,920 x 1,080 display. It's the kind of looking glass that makes you feel like your rig is only technically portable. Big, yes, but forgivable for the sake of the broad viewing angles it provides -- truly, it's the next best thing to taking your desktop with you. That said, the Blade's humongous screen isn't the most vibrant we've seen on a gaming rig. The LED-backlit display doesn't have any contrast or color issues, mind you, nor does it have particularly bad viewing angles, color banding or any other common plagues -- it just isn't spectacular. This is a well-balanced monitor -- its colors are bright where they need to be, and its blacks are fairly deep. This is a display that won't disappoint, but certainly won't dazzle. It also won't soak up too much glare, featuring a matte finish rather than the glossy mess most displays wear. The unit's speakers are equally average -- though in this case, "par for the course" is a marked improvement. The first-gen Blade flirted with tinniness and distortion, but we found few hints of either in this refreshed model. The newest hardware still can't shake the table with significant bass, but it won't distort at maximum volume either. Even so, cranking the Blade to 11 sounds a bit more like dialing in to a modest five -- its acoustic chops simply don't reach very far, and couldn't hope to fill a decently sized room. The speakers' central location don't help much either -- positioned dead center below the rig's display, they offer very little in terms of left / right recognition. Performance and battery life As much as we'd love to keep gushing about the Razer Blade's slim profile and aluminum styling, the heart of this second-generation laptop comes down to its internals: this is where the real difference is. And believe us, it's a difference worth noting. The newest Blade kicks its old Sandy Bridge CPU to the curb in favor of a brand new Intel Core i7-3632QM 2.2Ghz (that's 3.2GHz with Turbo Boost) processor. In fact, the Blade is one of the first machines out the door with Intel's new silicon -- and man, this thing really cooks. Not only did it net the Blade a hearty 17,120 in PCMark Vantage, but when paired with the rig's Kepler GPU it easily handled two top-tier games running at max settings. It also had no problem juggling a word processor, a few benchmarking tools and six web browser windows whose tabs were streaming music and video, or loading assorted blogs. Save for a bit (well, a lot) of extra heat pouring out the machine's vents, we were hard-pressed to notice a significant difference in system performance. Of course, if you're looking for quantifiable, sane and thoroughly less ridiculous tests, benchmark numbers speak for themselves.
The original Blade's lofty price (a staggering $2,799) made its mid-range internals a sore spot with many consumers. It plodded its way through nearly every contemporary game with lackluster framerates. Yes, dialing down the settings produced playable results, but the OG Blade had positioned itself as the "world's first true gaming laptop." Its GeForce GT 555M simply couldn't live up to that promise. NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 660M, on the other hand? Now that has potential. It still isn't the most powerful mobile chip on the market (or even in NVIDIA's own lineup), but it packs more than enough oomph to give the machine the kind of performance we were expecting all along. Whereas the Blade's predecessor struggled to run The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim without making major concessions in visual fidelity, the newest iteration had no such problems. Tamriel's frozen North came to life in ultra high quality at 43 frames per second. Battlefield 3 didn't shine quite as brightly, but still clipped 30 fps on high, and 38 fps on auto, which tuned textures to ultra while dialing most of the regular settings to medium. Its performance in Starcraft II saw improvements as well, with framerates climbing to an average of 50 fps with settings at their highest levels. Other titles required some concessions, however -- Batman: Arkham City played like a dream as long as DirectX 11 features were disabled, scoring 47 fps with PhysX tuned to high. In Grand Theft Auto IV, it clocked a respectable 32 fps average as long as texture filtering and draw distance were reeled in slightly. Team Fortress 2, on the other hand, required no adjustments -- we blazed along at 54 fps with maximum video settings enabled. Unfortunately, not everything we threw at it ran smoothly. The Witcher 2 stuttered at a meager 9 fps. Yikes. Turning off über-sampling brought it up to an almost playable 20 fps, but we had to abandon the Blade's native 1,920 x 1,080 resolution to eke out a decent framerate (1,366 x 768 turned out to be the sweet spot.) That visual concession allowed us to push 40 fps on the game's high settings by trading sharp visuals for smooth gameplay. The result was completely playable, but muddied and unsatisfying. The Blade's CPU and graphics aren't the only upgrades Razer had in store -- it also kitted the rig out with 8GB of slightly faster 1600MHz DDR3 RAM and a 64GB / 500GB hybrid solid state drive. Pitted against the ATTO disk benchmark, the dual-identity drive wrote at 180 MB/s, and read at 476 MB/s. The drive is a tad slower than a dedicated SSD, but the Blade's 25-second boot time is nothing to shake a stick at. Razer says the drive will learn to prioritize your most-used applications over time, but we didn't notice any specific increase in speed for any particular item during our time with it. When Razer's CEO first told us about the Blade refresh, he let out a slightly sad sigh when he said the one thing the company couldn't improve was battery life. Intel's and NVIDIA's latest chips apparently take too much power. Despite Min-Liang's words of caution, our review unit survived nearly three and a half hours in Engadget's standard battery test -- besting not only its predecessor by a solid 20 minutes, but the runtime of many of its competitors, too. Gaming without a charger yields less impressive results, burning through the rig's reserves in about an hour. High performance activity also generates a fair bit of heat, radiating from the area just above the keyboard and the rear of the machine's underside. It's not so hot that you couldn't tolerate it through a pair of jeans, but it's warm enough that you'd want to keep the Blade off your lap without proper attire. No short shorts, in other words. Software The competitionRazer's second-generation Blade comes in a single $2,500 configuration -- with that Core i7-3632QM CPU, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M graphics, 8GB of DDR3 RAM and a 500GB / 64GB solid state hybrid drive for faster boot and load times. Virtually no other 17-inch gaming rig on the market is going to be able to go toe to toe with the Razer on size, but price and performance? That's another matter altogether. Samsung's Series 7 Gamer, for instance, rings in at a full $600 less than the Blade, outpacing it in game performance without making visual concessions. Still too rich for your blood? Take a look at the MSI GT70 -- it costs nearly $1,000 less than the new Razer Blade and delivers similar performance, albeit with a last-generation GeForce GTX 670M GPU in tow. Each of these machines have marked advantages over the Blade as well -- the GT70 flaunts a far superior sound system, powered by Dynaudio. The Razer's passable display also can't hope to compete with the Series 7 Gamer's 400-nit SuperBright Plus panel. On the other hand, both of these contenders are inferior when it comes to style. If you're hooked on the Blade's slim profile, but aren't sure black is your color -- there's another option, but you might get laughed out of your next LAN party. Kitted out with its own Kepler-based GT 650M and an Ivy Bridge i7 processor, Apple's latest MacBook Pro puts on a passable facade as a Windows gaming machine -- lagging only slightly behind the Blade when running games at 1,920 x 1,080 on their highest settings. Starting at $2,199 for the Retina display MacBook Pro, however, doesn't net you much in savings -- but if you aren't sold on the Switchblade interface, if you're a Mac fanboy at heart or if you just have money to burn, it might just be a viable alternative. Just don't come looking for us if gamers on the other side of the aisle shoot you a few nasty looks. Wrap-up It's hard to hit the market with a self-given description as the "world's first true gaming laptop" only to get knocked down by critics. Subpar audio, a finicky hinge and crippled performance were all common complaints about the original Razer Blade. The reaction among gamers sent a shockwave through Razer, and the company vowed to do better. As for us, we're seeing a fixed hinge, better (but still lackluster) audio offerings and a significant leap in performance. And we'll say this: if we had to choose one gaming laptop to lug outside the house, it'd be this. It's slim, attractive, slightly more manageable than other gaming rigs and -- perhaps most importantly -- it won't stick out like a sore thumb in public. But even with a $300 price drop, the Blade remains firmly fixed in luxury-item territory. Before dropping $2,500, prospective buyers should understand they're purchasing style, not staying power. The new Blade may be fit to take on most contemporary PC games, but it's far from future-proof. Owning the best-looking gaming laptop on the market means making compromises: dialing down performance in games and accepting the fact that you may need to upgrade sooner than you might have if you spent less on a homelier rig. That's a tall order, and it's hard to say if it's worth it. Nobody ever said these kinds of decisions were easy. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maingear announces Nomad 17 gaming laptop, comes with custom paint job Posted: 29 Sep 2012 09:01 PM PDT Maingear certainly loves to turn out solidly specificated hardware, and today is no exception. Its latest offering? The Nomad 17. As the name suggests this is a 17-inch notebook for gamers on the go. (Nomad, get it?) The new addition will support third-gen Intel Core i7 chips (up to 3.8GHz) and a maximum 32GB of RAM, with a choice of hard drive configurations. It's not all about the under-the-hood grunt, though, with Maingear offering a choice of six colors for what it's calling "hand-painted premium automotive paint jobs." As for the other spec options? You can expect NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M or 680M graphics, a 1,920 x 1080 display, combo Blue-ray optical drive, b / g / n wireless along with USB 2 / 3, DVI-I, HDMI and Fire Wire ports. So, this definitely sounds like a ride you can make your own. Assuming you're good with the $1,599 starting sticker price that is. MAINGEAR UNVEILS THE NOMAD 17 CUSTOM GAMING LAPTOP – MUSCLE AND BEAUTY ON THE GO MAINGEAR offers its greatest gaming laptop yet featuring the latest 3rd generation Intel® Core™ i7 mobile processors that performs as good as it looks with an array of custom paint options for free to customers. Technological Wizardry "The 3rd generation Intel® Core™ i7 processors are a perfect fit for MAINGEAR's NOMAD 17," said Joakim Algstam, Gaming Segment Ecosystem Marketing Manager at Intel. "MAINGEAR strives to place top tier components in their system, and the great performance and battery life that our solutions deliver make sure that gamers' tough demands are met." "The NOMAD 17 is a thing of beauty," said Wallace Santos, CEO and founder of MAINGEAR. "With a custom automotive paint job and performance parts, this roadster of a machine is quite a work of art, technologically and aesthetically. Quite simply, it is the finest gaming laptop we have ever offered." Technical Specification: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ask Engadget: should companies include a cable with a new product? Posted: 29 Sep 2012 07:46 PM PDT We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from David, who wants to know if you'd prefer a free cable or a cheaper device when you buy pro audio gear. If you're looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.
What a question! We're decidedly of two minds, since given a bit of haggling, most retailers will chuck in a branded lead, but we'd hate to get our shiny new gear home to find it's missing a key component the one time they don't. Our dithering aside, it's time to turn the question over to our faithful Engadgeteers with this chance to shape the future of the high-end audio business for the better... we'd better not disappoint the man! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Target, Walmart list price drop for B&N's Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight to $119 Posted: 29 Sep 2012 06:45 PM PDT Check those calendars. It's September 29th, which means, for those who follow the world of e-readers, that we're two days from Kindle Paperwhite day. According to Target and Walmart, it also means that Barnes & Noble's own illuminated e-reader, the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, is getting a $20 price cut, down to $119. That price puts the reader on par with the entry-level Paperwhite (no 3G, with ads). Let the battle of the front lit e-readers commence! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mobile Miscellany: week of September 24th, 2012 Posted: 29 Sep 2012 06:15 PM PDT If you didn't get enough in mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This past week, Dan Hesse shared his turnaround vision for Sprint, Jim Allchin revealed where T-Mobile stumbled and AT&T welcomed a new GoPhone. Not to stop there, we discovered two updated launchers that've piled on inspiration from Jelly Bean. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the "best of the rest" for this week of September 24th, 2012. Dan Hesse predicts Sprint's return to profitability in 2014 Every time Sprint reports its quarterly earnings, it seems that much of the story remains the same: the company is consistently hemorrhaging cash. Following seven years of losses -- nearly $50 billion in all -- Dan Hesse tells Bloomberg that it's now turning a corner. In fact, the Now Network CEO believes that Sprint will return to profitability in 2014. While the prediction should be taken with a rightful degree of skepticism, it's not a wholly outlandish claim, as the publication points out that Sprint's stock has outperformed all but one firm on the S&P 500 for the year. According to Hesse, the company has exited its recovery period and will spend this year and next focused on investments in its network overhaul. Should everything go to plan, Sprint will then begin its growth phase in 2014, where it hopes to bring in new customers and serve them with a fully modern network infrastructure. [Bloomberg] Meet the Huawei Fusion 2: AT&T's latest Android-powered GoPhone The Huawei Fusion 2 first reared its head in July of this year with its appearance at the FCC, but the entry-level smartphone gained a new level of distinction this week as a member of AT&T's GoPhone lineup. For $100, consumers will find a device that combines Android 2.3 and an 800MHz CPU within a Snapdragon S1 SoC. Keeping with the starter smartphone theme, the Fusion 2 also offers a 3.5-inch HVGA touchscreen, a 3.2-megapixel camera, 2GB of built-in storage and a 4GB microSD card. [PhoneScoop] Apex Launcher and Nova Launcher gain Jelly Bean features Apex and Nova Launcher are each excellent choices for those wanting greater customization of their smartphone's interface, and as it just so happens, both products were updated this week to include features from the Android 4.1 launcher. Common between the two, users will find that desktop items automatically rearrange themselves to fit on the screen, the ability to flick apps and widgets off of the home screen and numerous performance improvements. If you've yet to find a favorite among the two launchers, we recommend giving both a whirl -- each app has fans around these parts, and you're bound to enjoy one of 'em. [Android Police 1, 2] T-Mobile's Jim Alling: the company lost its way in wake of AT&T merger During his keynote address before the Competitive Carriers Association (formerly the Rural Cellular Association), T-Mobile's Chief Operating Officer, Jim Alling expressed his belief that the company lost its way in the wake of its proposed sale to AT&T. According to Alling, T-Mobile placed the interests of its shareholders above the needs of its customers, and as such, many subscribers fled. Some of you may recall that Alling recently served as T-Mobile's interim CEO, and his comments certainly stand as a damning assessment of the Humm era. Alling is chalking it up to a hard lesson, however, as he states that the carrier is refocusing its efforts to put customers first. Perhaps its most recent foray into unlimited data plans was introduced with that in mind. [CNET] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Logitech Harmony Touch remote pops up unannounced at Best Buy (Update: Pictures) Posted: 29 Sep 2012 04:13 PM PDT It's been a long time since we've seen any new blood refreshing Logitech's line of universal remotes, but after indications of new devices on the way in an earnings call earlier this year tipster Andrew spotted this brand new Harmony Touch on store shelves. Arriving at Best Buy unheralded by any official announcement or specs so far, the box shots and list of features show the ability to control 15 different devices and (of course) that center mounted touchscreen. There's no mention of it on the Logitech site either, however one leaked blog post we spotted referred to this device and a Harmony Plus. As our friends at Tech of the Hub note, the Touch clearly draws a lot of its heritage from the Harmony One and 1100 touchscreen remotes although to have ditched the dedicated Activity button for "one touch" control. The touchscreen itself supports both taps and swipes as well as up to 50 customizable channel icons, and the box lists both online setup and on-remote customization as features. According to Andrew it's rocking a price tag of $249 -- $50 above the current price of the Harmony One but $100 shy of the RF-equipped Harmony 900 -- hopefully we'll find out soon if what Logitech has added this time around makes it worth the wait. Update: Another one of our readers, Zachary also saw it at Best Buy and bought one, check out a few out of the box pics in the gallery below, and drop any questions about its capabilities in the comments. He's digging it so far, saying that the touchscreen is responsive and it found icons for his area quickly, with options to change background, LCD brightness and screen timeout. There does not appear to be any RF support however, so it's IR control only. [Thanks, Andrew] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alt-week 9.29.12: 3D pictures of the moon, 4D clocks and laser-controlled worms Posted: 29 Sep 2012 03:00 PM PDT Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days. Dimensions, they're like buses. You wait for ages, and then three come along at once. And then another one right after that. While that might be about where the analogy ends, this week sees us off to the moon, where we then leap from the third, right into the fourth. Once there, we'll learn how we could eventually be controlled by lasers, before getting up close and personal with a 300 million-year old bug. Sound like some sort of psychedelic dream? Better than that, this is alt-week. We've all seen the moon, like, a thousand times. Sometimes it's full, sometimes it's a waxing gibbous, sometimes it's even blue. Sadly, though, for most of us at least, the best we can hope for is a big bright flat-looking glimpse of the same old face we've come to know and love. New pictures, however, might change that. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been circling our moon since 2009 collecting high-resolution, yet decidedly two-dimensional, images as it goes. However, by using images of the same locations from different orbits and angles, scientists developed an automatic image processing system to stitch 'em together and create red-cyan 3D anaglyphs. The resulting images should allow most people to see our nearest neighbor like never before, with craters, volcanic flows and 3D is great an' all, but when it comes to dimensions, we say you can never have too many. We'll dial down the dimensions a little for this next one. We all know that our ultimate and untimely demise will likely be at the hands of a laser-wielding robots. But, if you thought the pain would be over in one sharp blast, you could be wrong. A research team at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute genetically created a worm with neurons that emit light and respond to light. Using a laser to activate neurons one at a time, the researchers were able to make the worm move left, right, perform a loop, and trick it into thinking food was nearby. The scientists claim that the idea is to learn more about which neurons control what. But, we're stocking up on tin-foil all the same.
You know how they say cockroaches will survive a nuclear fallout? Well this guy obviously didn't, but still managed to live on, in its own way. These images are taken from CT scans of fossils, performed by the University of Manchester, England. A total of over 3,000 X-rays from a variety of positions were compiled, enabling researchers to create 3D models of the 300 million year-old 'roach ancestors. While these bugs might resemble one of our least favorite creepy-crawly cohabitants, the spiny critter is actually a never-before seen species. It's believed that it ultimately met its demise thanks to the rise of amphibious insectivores, who likely found these flightless creatures an easy target. We're not sure what's worse though, the idea of bequeathing the planet to the insect's descendants, or the thought of having to swallow one. Seen any other far-out articles that you'd like considered for Alt-week? Working on a project or research that's too cool to keep to yourself? Drop us a line at alt [at] engadget [dot] com. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hard drive shipments recover from floods in Thailand, expected to reach record high Posted: 29 Sep 2012 01:48 PM PDT Last year's floods in Thailand caused hard drive shortages after wreaking havoc on a number of electronics manufacturers, but new stats from IHS iSuppli indicate that the HDD market for PCs has fully recovered and is poised to hit an all time high. The firm expects 524 million units for internal use in PCs to ship this year, besting the previous record by 4.3 percent. What's giving the recovery an added boost? According to the analytics group, the extra demand comes courtesy of Windows 8 and Ultrabooks. Unfortunately for deal hounds, the company noted in a report earlier this year that prices aren't expected to dip below the pre-flood range until 2014. If IHS iSuppli projections hold true, total annual hard drive shipments could reach 575.1 million by 2016. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cubify lets you skin, 3D print your own personal Android Posted: 29 Sep 2012 12:03 PM PDT Sick of letting everyone else skin your Android for you? 3D printing service Cubify is helping you fight back with Bugdroids, a customizable version of Google's lovable green mascot. You can change its colors, add accessories like hats, horns glasses, mustaches and bling (that's "bling," not Bing, mind), and then the service will 3D print one out and ship it to you -- well, after you drop an admittedly pricey $30 to $40, figurine size depending. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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