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Samsung 830 SSD review: Fast and not so furious

Even when you get a good deal, a solid-state drive still costs significantly more than a regular hard drive of the same capacity, and a drive's price is, of course, one of the biggest factors that determines its value. For this reason, it's really hard to rate an SSD without knowing how much it costs. However, that's exactly what I had to do with the Samsung 830 series.

While the final product has been available to the press, Samsung is very tight-lipped about the pricing of its new SATA 6Gbps-based SSD and will not reveal it until … Read more

Samsung to release SATA 3 solid-state drive

Samsung will ship the next generation of its 2.5-inch SSD, the 830 series, in October, the company announced today. With up to 512GB of storage and support for the latest SATA 3 interface, the new drive promises to double the speed of its predecessor, the Samsung 470.

It seems this is Samsung's answer to a slew of SATA 3-based SSDs recently released by other vendors, such as the OCZ Vertex 3, the Crucial M4, or the Plextor PX-256M2S.… Read more

Lenovo IdeaPad updates across the board

For larger laptops, CES 2011 seems to be more about gradual improvements than whole-scale innovation. Lenovo's newly-announced IdeaPad lineup updates seem to confirm this theory quite well: better processors, improved graphics, and Lenovo Enhanced Experience 2.0, an engineering tweak that Lenovo promises will offer extremely fast boot times. Though it can be pretty difficult to suss the differences out among the various lines of IdeaPads, we'll give you a rundown.

The IdeaPad Y570 and Y470 lead the pack, with second-generation Intel Core processors, and GPU options including Nvidia's new GeForce GT555 switchable graphics. These laptops have … Read more

Full review: Samsung 470 solid-state drive

If you're looking for a storage device that offers the ultimate performance, a solid-state drive would be it. Case in point: the all-new 470 series SSD from Samsung.

The drive was superfast in our testing. It's also light and really good looking, which is somewhat of a waste because you won't have many chances to show it off once it's installed inside a computer. Like all SSDs, the Samsung has no moving parts and therefore uses less energy and is potentially much more durable than traditional platter-based hard drives.

The Samsung 470 SSD is an internal storage device designed to work anywhere current 2.5-inch SATA 3Gbps hard drives are used. Basically, it would make a perfect replacement for your laptop's storage.

The question is if you should get it.… Read more

Sony's new sound bars get the 3D treatment

We've been longtime fans of Sony's HT-CT100 sound bar home theater system, as it's the only system of its kind we're aware of that offers extensive HDMI connectivity for a bargain-level price. Sony's now announced two successor products, the HT-CT150 and HT-CT350, updating the HDMI connectivity to handle 3D video signals. Here are the details we could glean from the press release.

Key features of the Sony HT-CT150:

3.1-channel sound bar home theater system 340 watts of total system power 32 inches long Three HDMI inputs, all 3D-compatible HDMI pass-through in standby mode Two … Read more

Intel to introduce faster Atom chip Monday

Intel plans to release a faster version of its "Pine Trail" Atom processor for Netbooks on Monday, bringing a little extra performance to this popular segment of the laptop market.

Major PC makers are expected to announce--over the coming weeks and months--new products or product refreshes with the new processor, the N470, which will be identical to the current 1.66GHz N450 but get bumped to a speed of 1.83GHz, according to a source familiar with the announcement.

Every little speed increase helps, as Atom processors, compared to their mainstream chip cousins, have always been performance-constrained. Intel … Read more

Sony releases new 3D-ready Blu-ray player, upgrades other models

At CES 2010, Sony announced its first 3D Blu-ray player, the BDP-S770, but that won't be the only 3D-capable standalone Blu-ray player from Sony this year. Wednesday, Sony announced the BDP-S470, a midrange Blu-ray player that's slated to get a firmware update in the summer to make it 3D capable. In addition, the company announced that three previously announced products--the BDV-E770W, BDV-E570, and BDP-S570--will be getting the same 3D upgrade.

Aside from the 3D upgrade, the BDP-S470 looks to be very close to its predecessor, the BDP-N460, offering a full suite of streaming media services (Netflix, Amazon … Read more

Lenovo adds swivel and touch to its next-gen Atom Netbook

Lenovo is having a field day this CES with reinventing portable devices. As if smartbooks and hybrid tablet/notebooks weren't enough, the newly-announced IdeaPad S10-3t sounds even more enticing to purchase.

While many swivel-screen Netbooks have shown more promise than actual performance, the details here are eye-catching. New Atom processors up to the Atom N470 and a 10.1-inch screen are accompanied by up to a 320GB hard drive and a four- or eight-cell battery.

The "Natural Touch" panel is multitouch and, to our excitement, capacitive like an iPhone's, avoiding the awkward world of pressure-based resistive … Read more

M.I.T. students launch $150 space camera

You don't always need an expensive professional dSLR to capture awe-inspiring images. Sometimes, a basic Canon A470 point and shoot, a little ingenuity, and a beer cooler are all you need. That is what two M.I.T. students used to capture images of the Earth from space, well, actually the upper atmosphere; technically, it wasn't high enough to be space.

Justin Lee and Oliver Yeh, M.I.T. students, had a goal of flying a camera high enough to photograph the curvature of the earth, they named it Project Icarus. With out having a NASA size budget … Read more