4G LTE Nokia Lumia 900, 710 and 610 Coming Soon to Philippines via SMART

Nokia has just announced the upcoming availability of Lumia 800 and Lumia 610 in China through major carrier China Telecom.

While the Lumia 900 with LTE is expected to arrive in the United States on April 8 via AT&T, the Finnish company decided to make an international version available to the rest of the world sans 4G support.

However, it appears that at least one other country will get the 4G LTE version of Lumia 900. The folks over at MyNokiaBlog have been tipped on the upcoming availability of the 4G LTE Nokia Lumia.

It looks like the phone will be launched on SMART’s LTE network sometime next month, though the release date has yet to be confirmed by the carrier.

There are no details on the handset’s pricing options yet, but the 4G LTE Lumia 900 is now listed as “Coming Soon” on the carrier’s Postpaid section.

There’s more to it as SMART plans to launch the Nokia Lumia 710 and Lumia 610 smartphones as well. No word on their release date or price tags, but the latter should be out within the next few weeks.

Based on Nokia’s statement regarding the availability of the Lumia 610 in China in Q2 2012, we can speculate that the Finnish company doesn’t have a certain release date set for its cheapest Windows Phone device yet.

All in all, Nokia fans living in Philippines will be able to get the Nokia Lumia 610 soon after the smartphone goes live in China. Still, keep in mind that the Nokia will launch a CDMA version of the Lumia 610 in China.

It is also worth mentioning SMART mentions Nokia Lumia 710 will be exclusively available through its official channels, which means that the other two handsets might be offered by other carriers in the country as well.

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Nokia Lumia 800C Lands in China with Exclusive Apps and Services

China Telecom and Nokia have just announced the upcoming availability of Lumia 800C in the country. The smartphone is expected to hit shelves sometime in April for 3599 RMB (570 USD or 430 EUR) outright.

The smartphone comes bundled with lots of exclusive applications and services, which are meant to improve the Chinese users’ experience.

The Lumia 800C will be pre-loaded with Nokia Maps, which will offer quick access to three-dimensional maps in China, as well as over 190 countries worldwide.

In addition, the application enables users to discover the most important places nearby with local content support from Fantong, Jiepang, Ctrip, Qunar and Soufun. 

Clicking these places will provide users with the most recent photos, info and recommendations. They will be able to make reservations via quick dial.

With Nokia Drive that comes pre-installed on the Lumia 800C, users will be able to turn the phone into a personal navigation device with free, voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation.

Aside China, the application offers free navigations services for more than 100 countries, a dedicated in-car user-interface, as well as free offline navigation and speed notifications. 

Another interesting app that comes pre-loaded on the Lumia 800C is called Nokia Music. It provides access to the latest music, and unlimited free music for 12 months especially for users in China. 

Furthermore, Nokia and China Telecom have teamed up to bring the carrier’s customers a slew of dedicated services, including music, games, videos, and integrated reading apps. 

Other exclusives for users who purchase the Nokia Lumia 800C from China Telecom, include access to magazines from Trends and special offers for free downloads of lots of popular games such as Fruit Ninja and PVZ. 

There’s more to it, as Nokia and Microsoft announced the Be Top program. This is project is especially aimed at developers who create applications on Windows Phone for people in China.

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Samsung GALAXY Note with LTE Support Coming to Japan on April 6 via NTT Docomo

Samsung and Japanese operator NTT Docomo have just announced they have teamed up to offer the carrier’s customers the Galaxy Note SC-05D Android smartphone.

At first glance, this is an LTE version of the standard Samsung Galaxy Note, which is now available in most regions of the world. 

However, this would be the third Galaxy Note variant based on the original model as the Korean handset maker already launched two different versions in North America and Europe.

Although there are no details regarding the smartphone’s pricing options, the carrier confirms Galaxy Note SC-05D will be available at all NTT Docomo dealers starting April 6.

Aside from the huge 5.3-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display that supports HD (800 x 1280 pixels) resolution, NTT Docomo’s Galaxy Note offers users LTE (Xi) support, allowing for download speeds up to 75Mbps.

Dubbed Docomo NEXT series GALAXY Note SC-05D, the device is powered by a 1.5 GHz dual-core APQ8060 processor and packs 16GB of internal memory, 1GB of RAM and microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB, 2GB memory card included).

The phone is equipped with the same 2500 mAh Li-Ion battery, which is rated by the carrier for up to 310 hours of standby time (350 hours in 3G mode) or up to 9 hours of talk time (7 hours in 3G mode).

Obviously, the smartphone boasts the usual S Pen stylus that goes along with “S Notes” application, which enables handwriting input and illustration paste-clipping of a photo.

On the back, the device boasts an impressive 8-megapixel rear camera with autofocus, LED flash and full HD (1080p) video recording, while in the front there’s a secondary 1.3-megapixel camera for video calls.

NTT Docomo customers will be able to get the Samsung Galaxy Note SC-05D only in ceramic white. However, the carrier might add another color scheme for the Galaxy Note SC-05D later this year.

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Nokia Lumia 800C and Lumia 610C Officially Introduced at China Telecom

As expected, Nokia and China Telecom have just launched the Lumia 800C and Lumia 610C in China. The CDMA version of both smartphones will be available for purchase via Nokia stores and Tianyi FlyYoung shops.

In addition, customers will also be able to purchase Nokia Windows Phone devices from China's leading chain electronics stores, such as Suning, Gome, Funtalk, D.Phone, and CentreYou, as well as regional channels and online shops.

According to Nokia, the Lumia 800C will be available for purchase from April for 3599 RMB (570 USD or 430 EUR) outright, while the Lumia 610C will go on sale sometime in Q2 2012 for a price that will be disclosed closer to launch.

The Lumia 800C is Nokia’s first CDMA phone powered by Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform and China’s second Windows Phone device, after HTC Eternity made its debut in the country last week.

“This grand launch for China's first CDMA Windows Phone represents our optimism and excitement for the future of Windows Phone and Nokia Lumia in China,” concluded Wang Xiaochu, chairman of China Telecom.

The Nokia Lumia 800C will be delivered with Windows Phone 7.5 Mango out of the box and packs a 1.4 GHz single-core Qualcomm processor, which is complemented by an Adreno 205 graphics processing unit.

China Telecom will offer both black and cyan color-schemes, but additional colors like magenta and white may be introduced later this year, though this has yet to be confirmed by the manufacturer.

It is also worth mentioning that China Telecom will heavily subsidize Nokia’s Lumia smartphones, so customers may want to check at the nearest carrier store location for more details on the pricing options.

“We're excited to introduce our first Lumia smartphone, the Nokia 800C, to this important market with our exclusive launch partner, China Telecom. Working closely together, we've created a compelling, locally relevant experience on the Nokia 800C especially tailored for people in China,” said Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia.

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Dual-Fan EVGA “Signature” GTC 680 Cooler Revealed

EVGA launched five different GTX 680 video cards, like the GeForce GTX 680 SuperClocked, and it seems to have come up with a special “Signature” cooler too.

The Signature cooler is still in CGI form, which means that it will take a while for it to actually be launched.

When it does, it will give the GeForce GTX 680 SuperClocked Signature 2 its name.

Note the existence of two fans of 80 mm in diameter and the complex heatsink.

Interestingly enough, the fans will actually spin at a slower rate than the ones used for most GTX 680 boards, which means that the aim is a deeper silence.

Otherwise, the “Signature” is quite similar to the “lateral-flow through aluminum channels” cooler from NVIDIA.

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Script: impress.js

Impress.js does the unimaginable, it can create beautiful, complex and fully animated presentations that work inside the browser.

And on top of this, it doesn't need a complicated JavaScript animations engine to power all those nice transition effects, relying solely on CSS 3 for that.

Perfect for simple business presentations that need to be taken on the road, technical slideshows, or just a fancy-pants product showcase. Create one, upload it online and just access it via a web browser from anywhere.

Unfortunately, this great tool can only be used with the latest browser versions that support CSS3 3D transitions and there's no mobile support at all. But who makes presentations on mobiles anyway.

Impress.js is currently one of the most watched projects on GitHub.

Download impress.js here.

A jQuery port is also available here.

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Rumor Mill: Leaked Image of Nokia’s Windows 8 Tablet Emerges

We all know that Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia is gearing up for the release of a tablet PC that would run under Microsoft’s Windows 8 platform, though no specific details on it have emerged so far, at least not officially. 

However, what appears to be the first leaked photo with the device allegedly made an appearance online on WPDang.com.

Running under the Windows 8 platform, the tablet PC should be made by Compal, and will pack a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, and a 10-inch touchscreen display. 

The gadget might arrive on shelves as Nokia Lumia Tab, Lumia Pad or another similar name, and might look just as in the image above. 

For the time being, however, we’ll take the possibility that this is the actual device with a grain of salt. After all, it might prove to be nothing more than the product of an enthusiast’s imagination.

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AMD Working Hard on a Compiler That Uses Their GPUs for Computing

In an effort to prove the public that their 2006 bet baptized Fusion was a winning one, AMD has its software developers working hard on compilers that make use of the company’s GPUs.

The guys at Phoronix reported that, in a mail dated 26th of March 2012, Tom Stellard of AMD had asked the LLVM developers to include the R600 GPU back-end into the LLVM project, which is the code for generating compute and graphics shaders inside the LLVM compiler infrastructure for use in GPU families from Radeon HD 2000 through the HD 6000 series.

Without going into specifics, this shows that AMD is still working on their Radeon Gallium3D driver in order to enable their cards to do more GPGPU tasks faster.

The interesting thing is that they haven’t abandoned their R600 generation cards and, while also working on a Radeon HD 7000 version of the LLVM back-end for the Graphics Core Next architecture, they are also trying to put all the computing power from the HD 2000 to HD 6000 series to good use.

If this initiative has a practical and tangible result in the future, those that went AMD/ATi instead of NVIDIA will rejoice, although, considering the changes in AMD’s architecture from VLIW 5 to VLIW 4, the benefits will likely vary.

Good compilers are very hard to develop and, today, only Intel can brag with a compiler and some software that puts their iGPUs to use and get significant results. I’m talking, of course, about Intel Quick Sync.

AMD also has some GPGPU support from some video editing and conversion tools from Cyberlink and others, but those are mainly for AMD’s discrete GPUs and don’t show much improvement when it comes to using the Fusion family.

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Nokia Working on Two Entry-Level MeeGo Handsets

It looks like Nokia constantly supports the MeeGo platform, and word is that the Finnish company plans to launch more of these devices.

According to Netbooks citing an industry insider, Nokia is currently working on two budget-friendly MeeGo-based smartphones. 

Moreover, the surprising information comes directly from Nokia’s Next Billion Group, which is directly responsible for creating the S40 lineup of feature-phones, as well as the Asha series of handsets.

Those who are unfamiliar with Nokia’s new organization should know that the Finnish company divided into two groups soon after adhering to Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform.

The main division that is responsible for releasing Windows Phone devices and developing software for these smartphones, and the Next Billion Group led by Mary McDowell, which is focusing on feature-phones.

It is believed that Nokia’s decision was based on the fact that Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform will never be one that could be embraced by cheap devices for various reasons.

This made the Finnish company turn to other “less expensive” mobile platforms, and MeeGo seemed to be the logical choice, even though Nokia dropped it one year ago in favor of Window Phone operating system.

Well-known among developers, MeeGo open-source project is much more flexible and offers a smoother user experience than Windows Phone even on devices with low hardware configurations.

For the time being, there are no details on Nokia’s project to bring more MeeGo-powered handsets into the smartphone market, but if the information proves accurate we might get more info in the weeks to come.

Hopefully, Nokia will expand its MeeGo portfolio, which currently contains its first and only smartphone, the N9. 

The unexpected popularity of the Nokia N9 might be another reason the Finnish company decided to embrace MeeGo’s spirit once again. Stay tuned for more updates on the subject.

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Intel Valleyview Atom SoC Clocks Revealed

We learned about the Intel Valleyview system-on-chip devices not long ago, and then even ran upon some early details, but now we actually get to see some of the specifications. 

There is still no indication that the Santa Clara, California-based company will launch a consumer-grade version of Valleyview. 

Still, we'll continue to hope that is the case, much like our peers from VR-Zone. 

Speaking of which, it is them that just brought out some more info on the processor series. 

The standard SKU (stock-keeping unit) will work at up to 1.9 GHz and will have four cores, while the TDP is of around 10W. The graphics core will work at 667 MHz. 

In other words, the x86 part of the chip will be as fast as the Atom D2700, but the graphics will be faster, albeit half as good as the Ivy Bridge one. 

There will also be an SKU for battery-powered devices, at 1.5 GHz, and two cores. Its TDP will be 3W, less than that of the Atom N2600, although the graphics speed will be a modest 350 MHz (50 Mhz slower).

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Galaxy S III to Sport a 4.6’’ Super AMOLED Plus HD Screen

Galaxy S III, the upcoming flagship smartphone from South Korean handset vendor Samsung, is expected to arrive on shelves sometime in the second or the third quarter of the year with cutting-edge technology packed inside. 

The smartphone has been long rumored to be en-route to the market as the next flagship Android model from Samsung, and some more info on it has made it online today. 

The mobile phone is now to be released with a 4.6-inch Super AMOLED Plus HD touchscreen display with a 319 ppi pixel density.

Previously, the device was said to be featuring a larger screen, somewhere in the 4.7-4.8 range, but it seems that it might be a bit smaller than that. 

A recent article on DigiTimes notes that sources from the supply chain claim that Samsung might adopt the said 4.6-inch panel for the upcoming flagship device, although it has already launched two larger devices, namely Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy Note. 

Compared to the previous flagship model from the company, the increase is impressive. The older device features a 4.3-inch display that can deliver a 480 x 800 pixels resolution. The new smartphone will also feature a screen with true RGB matrix. 

However, this is only one of the features that will put Galaxy S III above its predecessor. The handset was also rumored to be on its way to the market with a quad-core application processor inside, which should deliver far better performance than the Galaxy S II’s dual-core chip. 

Moreover, the smartphone is rumored to arrive on shelves with an 8 or 12-megapixel photo snapper on the back, over the 5MP camera included in the predecessor. It will also sport 4G/3G connectivity, WiFi, Bluetooth and the like. 

For the time being, no specific info on when the smartphone might be made official has emerged. However, a Samsung official confirmed a few weeks ago that the phone could be launched in April.

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ASUS Unveils the New AMD Based U82U Netbook

While netbooks may not be as popular today as they were two years ago, adding AMD’s graphics power into a new model may help ASUS transform their new U82U netbook into a best-seller. 

Intel-based netbooks have always been lacking in CPU processing power and even more so in the graphics department. 

Once AMD launched the Bobcat architecture, we’ve all hoped for a spur of AMD Brazos based netbooks, but these took a long time to appear as OEMs and brand makers don’t want to upset the almighty Intel.

Today Taiwanese company ASUS announces their new AMD netbook design on their Facebook page. It’s powered by AMD E-450 processor running at 1650 Mhz together with the Radeon HD 6320 iGPU using 2 GB of DDR3 RAM.

The memory is upgradeable to 8 GB and the netbook has 500 GB of storage on the HDD.

The novelty has three USB ports, of which two are USB 3.0 and one is USB 2.0. It also comes with an HDMI port and an eight-cell battery.

Based on what we know about Brazos, this netbook should perform much better than any Atom dual-core units that are similarly clocked.

The new toy weighs in at 1.84 Kg. That is around 4 pounds in imperial.

It has a 14-inch screen and a metallic finish and, at around 600$, it will be a cheap alternative to the Asus ZEN Book.

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CyanogenMod 9 Nightlies for LG Optimus LTE and AT&T's Galaxy S II

Two new handsets have access to CyanogenMod 9 Nightly releases at the moment, namely AT&T’s Samsung Galaxy S II and the LG Optimus LTE (AT&T Nitro HD). 

Only a few days ago, AT&T’s Samsung Galaxy S II got a taste of a leaked official Ice Cream Sandwich ROM for it, but without the features that a CM9 build has to offer. 

Of course, there will be no TouchWiz interface to take advantage of when running CyanogenMod, but that should not be an issue for some users. 

In addition to making nightlies available for Samsung’s flagship phone at AT&T, the team behind the software also announced that CyanogenMod 9 builds for the P930 (AT&T Nitro HD/Bell Canada Optimus LTE) were now live. 

Before heading to the CyanogenMod site to download the software, users should take note of the fact that this is unofficial software that would void the warranty of their devices when installed.

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I-O Data's 8 GB DDR3 Module Will Scare Your Wallet

There is a new DDR3 memory module up for sale in Japan, one that I-O Data came up with.

All in all, it's not a very groundbreaking invention, beyond the capacity of 8 GB that isn't often found.

The speed is of 1,333 MHz and the latencies (timings) are 9-9-9-24/CR-1T, all on a voltage of 1.5V.

That makes it JEDEC-certified, so you needn't worry about this being in any way unstable or disappointing.

Unfortunately, paying 18,060 JPY (US $217.2 / 163.25 Euro) for the thing wouldn't be on our priority list if we were looking for a new RAM product. Neither is giving stores 35,280 JPY (US $424.4 / 319 Euro) for the dual-channel, 16 GB kit.

The jump from the $20 (or less) that people pay for a 4 GB module is just too big in our humble opinion.

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RIM Promises BlackBerry 10 at BlackBerry World 2012

Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion is gearing up for making specific details on its BlackBerry 10 platform available for the world. 

The company has been long touting the upcoming mobile operating system, but hasn’t made a formal announcement regarding the availability of devices running under it. 

However, it appears that the BlackBerry World 2012 conference might bring some more info on the matter, at least this is what the leading smartphone designer is hinting at. 

In a recent video uploaded on YouTube (and embedded at the bottom of this article), Rory O'Neill, VP of product marketing, provides some details on what the handset vendor is set to announce at the BlackBerry World event this year.

"We'll be sharing our perspective of the future of mobile, the internet, and what it means for our customers and partners worldwide,” O'Neill states. 

“We're going to delve into BlackBerry 10. We're going to start to share the story and the direction and the vision for BlackBerry as a company,” he continues. 

Those who would like to register for the BlackBerry World 2012 conference can do so today, via the special website that RIM launched for that. 

Some more info on the BlackBerry 10 platform was promised for BlackBerry 10 Jam in Orlando, where RIM will also deliver prototype devices to developers, namely the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha. 

The device is aimed mainly at enabling app builders to get started with the designing of applications for the BlackBerry 10 smartphone form factor, RIM announced. 

“Just to be 100% clear – it’s not the final hardware or OS for BlackBerry 10 – it’s a device to help developers get started with designing for what’s coming. BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha is only for developers – not end users – and is only available to developer attendees at BlackBerry 10 Jam,” the company said. 

In the meantime, you should have a look at the video invitation from Rory O'Neill embedded below, to learn more on this year’s BlackBerry World.

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Gainward Phantom GTX 680 Beautiful Card Pictured

Gainward has always been known to produce interesting and custom designs when it comes to video cards.

This card the guys from TweakTown managed to picture is probably one of the best looking designs to soon hit the market.

It comes with an inversed cooling system where the fans actually sit under the heatsink and blow air directly towards the PCB while the intake pulls air through the heatsink’s fins.

The whole metallic cooler is likely to be nickel plated and there are no less than five heat pipes running through the heatsink.

I’m unable to see if the pipe diameter is the same for all the heat pipes, but the five of them will surely do a very good job of cooling the card while looking good.

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Commell Presents the First Pico-ITX Dual Core Atom Mainboard

Last year VIA launched the EPIA-P900 Pico-ITX platform powered by its own VIA Eden X2 Dual Core CPU, and now Commell intros an Intel Atom Dual Core powered mainboard using the same format.

Commell's product is built upon the ICH8M Intel Southbridge and powered by Intel’s Atom N450, D410, D510 or even the D525 dual-core processors. 

The board comes with an Intel GMA3150 graphics core and can have up to 384 megabytes of shared graphics memory delivering support for modest 3D graphics and displays like VGA and LVDS.

The chipset has MPEG-2 decoding support, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it can play Blu-Ray disks with no hiccups.

The official specifications state the presence of one DDR2 SO-DIMM slot capable of hosting up to 2 GB of RAM, an onboard 18-bit single channel LVDS interface, one Serial ATA 2 compliant port with a maximum transfer rate of 3 Gb/s and an integrated Realtek HD audio chip called ALC888.

The I/O ports include two RS232 serial connectors, four USB 2.0 ones, one D-SUB 15 VGA port and one PS/2 connector for a keyboard or mouse.

The power required to fuel this platform is 12 volts of DC and there is a connector on the mainboard next to the RJ45 LAN powered by Intel’s 82583 Gigabit controller.

The board dimensions are 100 mm by 72 mm, and that is approximately 3.94 inch by 2.84 inch in imperial.

There is also a Compact Flash Type-II slot for some SSD-like storage.

This type of board sits very well in automobiles and car enthusiasts will surely be taking into consideration integrating such a platform in their new tuned-up design. 

Everything is passively cooled and, with the large availability of cheap SSDs, you can build a very capable and responsive car computing system.

The boards have already started shipping and the guys from Akiba PC already managed to get some pictures of the small wonder.

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GeForce GTX 680 SuperClocked from EVGA Now Official

There is a new video card up for sale on EVGA's website, or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that there are two models available for order. 

The company has formally introduced a certain video card that was known to be in the works even before the reference one appeared. 

The board in question bears the name of GeForce GTX 680 SuperClocked and, obviously enough, has higher frequencies than the ones NVIDIA set. 

Curiously though, the card actually stays faithful to the reference looks, even though we would not have been surprised if EVGA chose to equip it with a special cooler. 

Then again, there is the option of getting a backplate for it, for a small monetary premium. The specs are still the same though, even then. 

Speaking of which, the speed of the Kepler graphics processing unit is 1,058 MHz (stock setting is 1,006 MHz), while the GPU Boost speed is 1,113 MHz. 

It is interesting to note that 1,058 MHz is the Boost clock of the original board. 

Moving on, the EVGA GTX 680 SuperClocked has 1,536 CUDA cores and a memory interface of 256 bits for the 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM. As for the memory speed, it is of 6,208 MHz (the stock clock is 6,008 MHz). 

The rest is common knowledge among those who have been browsing Kepler products: PCI Express 3.0 support, 3D Vision Surround on a single card, SLI, dual-DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, etc. 

All in all, the factory-overclocked video adapter is not that much ahead of the “regular” card. Consequently, its price tag is $519.99 / 390 Euro. 

Finally, if one were to choose the version equipped with a backplate, the extra heat dissipation requires $10 extra (7.50 Euro), leading to $529.99 / 397.71 Euro. 

If it's more of a monster you're looking for, you might want to wait for Zotac's 2 GHz card or Galaxy's GTX 680 Hall of Fame.

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PowerColor Radeon HD 7970 Vortex II Details Exposed

The fact that AMD’s Tahiti chip is very overclockable allows video card manufacturers to offer PC enthusiasts like us powerful factory overclocked cards such as PowerColor’s Radeon HD 7970 Vortex II that comes with a manually adjustable cooler.

To make some marketing waves before the official launch of the card, PowerColor has apparently leaked some new pictures with their new AMD Radeon HD 7970 based product.

On the technical side, PowerColor has also revealed the card's working frequencies. The GPU is clocked at 1100MHz and that’s a huge increase from the factory default of 925 MHz.

This is almost a 19% overclock and will likely bring at least a 9% improvement in benchmarks.

The 3GB of onboard GDDR5 memory is also overclocked from the reference 5500 MHz stock clock to 5700 MHz, but this should be further increased by the overclockers buying this product to make sure the card really takes advantage of the high clock of the GPU.

The cooling systems consists of two fans that blow air over a nickel-plated heastsink containing three heat pipes; one oriented towards the card’s left side and the other two placed towards the mid and right side of the card.

There is no way to direct the flow of hot air towards the outside of the case so the buyer should make sure that his system has good exhaust ventilation.

The card will occupy two slots into your case as shown in the pictures, and the back of the card is covered by a black metallic plate that should help with the heat dissipation and offer better structural integrity for the product.

PowerColor’s new toy comes with the standard 2048 Stream Processors, a 384-bit wide memory BUS, PCI-Express 3.0 compliance and x16 BUS interface, CrossFire and Eyefinity support along with five display outputs: two DVI connectors, one HDMI and two mini DisplayPort.

As is the case with most high-end products, all the capacitors on the card are solid ones.

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Intel Discontinues Several Core and Xeon CPUs

As new processors appear, or get ready to launch, older ones have to make way for them, which means that their time is at an end, or soon will be. 

Before we really start waxing poetically about the fleeting nature of life (however little the concept applies to inanimate objects), we'll try to get to the point, more or less. 

Basically, Intel has decided to stop making some central processing units, among other things. 

One of the chips is the Intel Core i3-2105, a dual-core model whose full feature list can be found right over here. 

We'll just mention the clock frequency of 3.1 GHz, the cache memory of 3 MB (Intel Smart Cache) and the distinct lack of Turbo Boost technology. 

The other processor that will cease to be soon is Xeon L3406 , a dual-core at 2.26 GHz with 4 MB of Intel Smart Cache memory. 

This one does have Turbo Boost though, which means that it can climb up to 2.53 GHz. 

The product discontinuation program will start on April 2 this year (2012), which is just a few days away. It applies to both the tray options, as well as the boxed versions. 

That doesn't mean the units will magically disappear though. In fact, Intel will allow some months after that date for prospective customers to still get the chips. 

That is to say, for the Xeon units, shipments won't totally stop until October 4, 2013, though this goes only for the tray versions. Boxed chips will only keep selling while supplies last. 

As for the Core i3-2105, tray models will cease shipping on April 5, 2013, while boxed CPUs will continue until inventories are exhausted. 

For those not completely clear on the matter, boxed chips are the actual products, while tray shipments are the company's offer to Intel Authorized Distributors, as a substitute for depleted boxed ones.

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