XTEX Launches ICS-Based Tablet for Only $150 USD (115 EUR)

It looks like handset and tablet manufacturers are more concerned about their products’ prices than about their design quality and performance. Even though there are some exceptions, the general trend in emerging markets is to launch extremely cheap devices. In this regard, XTEX has recently announced the availability of an affordable 7-inch Android tablet. Simply called My Tablet, the slate is powered by Google’s latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. Although the tablet doesn’t seem to feature 3G support, XTEX confirmed My Tablet as being Wi-Fi-enabled. However, the main highlight of the tablet is the fact that it will sell for only $150 USD (115 EUR). Customers will be able to choose from three color...

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Samsung Trademarks More Galaxy Family Names: Metrix, Velvet and Legend

It looks like Samsung is about to expand its Galaxy family portfolio even further with the addition of three new devices. According to Pocketnow, Samsung has just filed documentation for the following trademarks: Galaxy Metrix, Galaxy Velvet and Galaxy Legend. Other than that, we have no other details regarding this possible Android phones, but there’s a chance that Samsung will use these names for the same device, but different carrier-specific variants. We’re not even sure that these devices will even make it to the market, as Samsung may decide otherwise for different reasons. Hopefully, we will soon get more info on the actual specs sheets of the trademarked devices. All in all, it’s worth keeping an eye on these new...

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Intel Sees Potential in Foundry Business, Still Reserved Though

We've seen how Intel has started manufacturing processors for other companies besides itself, and now we get to see just what its leadership thinks of the practice.  Apparently, Intel is accepting contracts from other companies because it has leftover foundry capacity to use for such things.  That means that the Intel Custom Foundry division isn't going to become a prominent factor in Intel's strategy.  Even now, whatever activities the Custom Foundry is carrying out are being kept under wraps.  Still, it is very possible that Apple SoCs, and other such things, will be produced. There is no evidence of anything having already been decided, but still.  "The business model that we have today is...

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Firefox 14 Adds a Download Panel, It's Here to Stay This Time

Firefox may finally be getting a revamped download dialog. Mozilla has been experimenting with a panel-based download manager for close to a year now, but it is now enabled by default in Firefox 14. It's only available in the Nightly builds, Firefox 14, but it looks like the feature is here to stay, so it should make it all the way to the stable channel and onto millions of computers in a few months. But we've been down this road before and nothing happened. It doesn't look like much has changed since the feature first showed up. There's a button at the end of the main toolbar, after the home and bookmarks button, if you haven't modified the default layout. When a download is active, the button will show a timer, in minutes,...

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Dual-Channel DDR3 Reaches 3256 MHz

With Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs on the way, people who have got their hands on engineering samples are busy testing their limits, and the limits of memory.  What we have here is a video where an anonymous overclocker pushed 16 GB of DDR3 memory (unknown brand) to DDR3-3256.  He started the PC with the DDR3 at 3152 MHz (1567 MHz actual) and slowly worked his way up in Windows.  Some may say that 3256 MHz isn't all that incredible, but they would be forgetting that multiple-module overclocking is quite a bit harder to do compared to single-module.  The setup was made up of an ASUS Maximus V Gene motherboard and an engineering sample of the Intel Core i7-3770K CPU.  Speaking of which, the processor itself got overclocked not long ago, attaining 6.616...

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Dell Alienware M14x, M17x and M11x Change Too, or Not

Dell's Alienware-branded gaming laptops are getting updated now that 2012, and the many new hardware components brought by it, are here or almost upon us.  We'll first get the absentees out of the way, or the one absentee anyway: Alienware M11x, the 11.6-inch gaming ultraportable.  While Dell updated the M14x, M17x and M18x, the M11x wasn't even mentioned, which might suggest that its end is nigh, because of the impossibility of adding an optical drive, among other things.  Too bad. With the size of a netbook and the performance of a gaming machine, it has been doing pretty well for itself.  At any rate, the other Alienware systems have been upgraded, and since we have already covered the M18x, we are...

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Shipped MIPS-Based Tablets Number 1.8 Million

MIPS Technologies doesn't get much direct attention from the media, but they have been successful regardless, having managed to power almost two million of all tablets shipped until today. According to Amit Rohatagi, principal architect for MIPS Technologies, the number of MIPS-based slates sold in China by the dozen. Ainovo was the first to offer a 7-inch Android 4.0-loaded slate at just $99 (76 Euro, give or take). It then followed up with two more slates, after which competitors began to try their hand as well. Overall, there are 1.8 million shipped tablets right now, which is not a small number by any measure. After all, mass production only started near the end of 2011. If nothing else, we can understand why Advanced...

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Intel Prepares to Scrap a Bunch of CPUs

Product change notifications have been coming in from Intel, which means that some CPUs are going to cease being manufactured soon. As of April 16, 2013, the Santa Clara, California-based CPU maker will stop shipping the Celeron P4600 (2.0 GHz), the Core i3-370M (2.4 GHz), Core i3-390M (2.6 GHz), Pentium P6100 (2.0 GHz), Pentium P6200 (2.13 GHz) and the Pentium P6300 (2.2 GHz). Meanwhile, customers can keep making orders, but the ability to cancel them will be gone starting October 16, 2012. Intel says that a “shift in market demand” is to blame for this course of action. Truth be told, we aren't surprised that it is trimming its product list, especially now that there are more advanced alternatives with comparable prices. It...

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A Closer Look at Windows 8 Enterprise

In addition to three Windows 8 editions that Microsoft will offer to people all around the world, namely Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro and Windows RT, there will be a special flavor of the upcoming OS, aimed specifically at corporate users, namely Windows 8 Enterprise.  Microsoft hasn’t provided specific details on when these Windows 8 SKUs would become available for purchase, but rumor has it that October this year might be the lucky timeframe.  The platform will be released as an important enhancement over Windows 7, being the first Windows release to offer optimizations for use on tablet PCs.  In fact, Microsoft claims that the upcoming operating system will arrive as a reimagined version of Windows, specifically...

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Intel Ivy Bridge Laptops on June 5, Lenovo Blows the Whistle

We've been talking about the impending arrival of Intel's Ivy Bridge central processing units and how there isn't, or wasn't, much of a way to find out when the laptops would start showing up.  Sure, the first 22nm-based central processing units will be released on April 23, but it will take the mobile ones a while longer to show.  There now seems to be an actual release date for notebooks, and it isn't because of some unofficial, questionable report.  Instead, though the folks at Engadget were the first to spot it, Lenovo is the one responsible for the disclosure of the Ivy Bridge laptop availability date.  What we mean by that is that this PDF includes a product roadmap where June 5 is specified.  Chief...

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MSI Readies Radeon HD 7870 HAWK Graphics Card

Micro-Star International is preparing a new video card bearing the HAWK brand, one that is based on an AMD product.  The full name of the device in question is MSI R7870 HAWK and the cooling module used by it is none other than the Twin Frozr 4.  A custom-designed PCB (printed circuit board) was employed in the invention of the card, along with a special VRM involving the MSI GPU Reactor module (for power conditioning).  Alas, we can't tell you what the GPU and memory clocks are going to be, because we don't know them either.  We do know that factory overclocking will be involved though, and that further clock tweaks will be possible at owners' discretion. ...

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Nikon D3200 DSLR Camera Formally Launched

There is a new digital camera up for sale, or there will be as soon as Nikon and its sales partners finish whatever preparations, checkups and protocols are left. The new camera that Nikon created for the consumer market is called D3200 and promises to be both quick and capable in terms of image quality. Powered by a 24.2-megapixel DX-format CMOS sensor (EXPEED 3), it can shoot high-speed photos at 4 fps (frames per second) and record 1080p video easily. The ISO range is 100 to 6,400, but one can push it all the way to ISO 12,800 for when trying to capture low-light images. Also, video is filmed with full focus and either manual or automatic exposure control. A 3-inch 921k dot LCD panel shows the preview. Not only...

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Gainward and Palit Launch 4 GB GeForce GTX 680 Cards

It looks like it wasn't enough for Palit Microsystems and Gainward that the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 graphics cards is the best single-GPU graphics card so far.  Sure, the Kepler-based video board did not win all possible tests, but it still showed an edge while being more affordable than the competition.  Even so, however, there are those who feel the video controller is not powerful enough.  As such, Palit and Gainward have released GeForce GTX 680 boards with 4 GB of GDDR5 VRAM instead of 2 GB.  The names of the add-in boards are Palit GeForce GTX 680 JetStream and Gainward GTX 680 Phantom 4GB.  Both of them have special coolers (three fans on Palit's board, two on Gainward's), but their specifications...

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XOLO X900 Smartphone Launched with Intel CPU Inside

The first smartphone in the world to pack an Intel Medfield application processor inside is now official and en-route to shelves.  It is called XOLO X900 and was made by Lava, but runs under Google’s Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system, which can be upgraded to the newer Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.  The handset is powered by a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor and packs the company’s Hyper Threading technology for great multi-tasking capabilities and improved battery life.  The smartphone was also packed with 400 MHz graphics core and 1GB of RAM, which should help the processor deliver great performance to all users.  “A 4.03” hi-resolution LCD screen, dedicated HDMI output, full HD 1080p playback...

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Galaxy S III Almost Confirmed with Quad-Core, Impressive Performance

In two weeks’ time, the next flagship Android device from Samsung could make an official appearance under the name of Galaxy S III.  The South Korean mobile phone maker has set up a press event on May 3rd, and with this occasion the successor of Galaxy S II is expected to make an official appearance.  Unfortunately, the handset vendor hasn’t provided official details on what will be announced on that day, which left room for a lot of speculation on the matter.  The latest reports on this suggest that we’ll indeed see Galaxy S III launched on May 3rd, and that it will be an Android smartphone, powered by a quad-core application processor.  This also means that it will be capable of great performance,...

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Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2 and Dead Space 3 Leaked by Retailer

Two very big sequels, in the form of Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2 and Dead Space 3, have just been leaked by a South African games retailer, although no other details have accompanied their listings. Electronic Arts is definitely working on quite a few big games, but you can be sure that many are still closely guarded secrets. Unfortunately for the company, South African retailer BT Games, via CVG, posted two very interesting listings on its website yesterday. The first was for Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2, a possible sequel to the extremely popular Most Wanted title that appeared way back in 2005. The second one was for a Dead Space 3 title, which practically confirms that the journey of space engineer and alien killer...

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