Stylish Motorola MOTOLUXE Gets Launched in the UAE

Shortly after Motorola introduced the purple-themed RAZR in the UAE, the US-based handset maker announced the immediate availability of the affordable MOTOLUXE Android smartphone.

According to Motorola, the device is now available through leading retailers across the country. However, the company failed to reveal the phone’s suggested retail price.

Powered by Google’s Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system, Motorola MOTOLUXE comes with a 4-inch capacitive touchscreen display, which is a bit unusual for an affordable device.

In order to standout from other devices in its range, the MOTOLUXE features a lanyard slot that lights up whenever the user misses a call, receives a text or an email.

Moreover, Motorola MOTOLUXE offers users the advantages of an impressive 8-megapixel rear camera with autofocus and LED flash. There’s also a secondary VGA front-facing camera for self-portraits and video calls.

The smartphone incorporates Motorola’s MotoSwitch user interface, which allows the phone to learn the most frequently called contacts and apps used in order to put them on the home screen for easier and quicker access. 

Hardware-wise, the MOTOLUXE is equipped with a low-performance 800 MHz single-core processor and packs an Adreno 200 GPU, 1GB of ROM, 512 MB of RAM and microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB).

Another strong point of the smartphone is the high-capacity 1400 mAh Li-Ion battery, which is rated by the manufacturer for up to 450 hours of standby time or up to 6 hours of talk time (4 hours and 30 minute in 3G mode).

“With every aspect of the UAE’s breathtaking evolution informed by cutting-edge style and design, it is no surprise that its citizens are extremely demanding when it comes to their smartphones. Boasting a winning combination of sleek looks and Android brains, MOTOLUXE has all the ingredients needed to succeed in country where style goes hand in hand with substance,” said Raed Hafez, general manager, Middle East & Africa, Motorola Mobility.

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MSI Announces the Fastest Ivy Bridge Laptop in the World [Pictures]

MSI has recently presented the much awaited and long anticipated GT60 and GT70 gaming laptops, on its official website.

Both MSI brothers come with an Intel Ivy Bridge processor that is powering an Intel HM77 platform.

Intel’s new CPU is around 10% to 15% faster than its Sandy Bridge older brothers and boosts an increased power efficiency of around 20% when compared with Sandy Bridge based processors.

On the 3D side, both notebooks, the GT70 and the GT60, come with Nvidia’s Kepler based GeForce 670M mobile GPU featuring a whooping 3GB of GDDR5 discrete graphics memory.

The maximum system memory supported is 16 GB of DDR3 1600 MHz for both laptops as the platform has 4 DIMM slots available.

Networking is professionally handled by Big Foot’s Killer NIC Gaming E2200 Networking processor. This is the first time that MSI has incorporated Big foot Gaming LAN Killer E2200 Intelligent Networking into its notebooks.

The adapter comes with Advanced Game Detect technology that recognizes online game data packets and processes them first, accelerating them in the process.

This could prove a good solution against stuttering characters, freeze-ups, and lagging. Game data will be defined as having first priority and will be accelerated over other network tasks.

MSI promises a 2x reduction in ping time when playing League of Legends and a 50% reduction in Counter Strike.

The sound is specially handled by MSI’s Audio Boost design that enhances sound output by 30%. The  audio jacks are gold plated and provide stable sound transmission with reduced obstruction and work in conjunction with the optimized AMP (Audio Power Amplifier) design that promises low noise and low distortion.

The speakers are of professional quality with a built-in sub-woofer and are THX's TruStudio Pro certified.

MSI’s GT70 comes with four audio connectors : MIC, Line Out, Line In and SPDIF.

Probably the most special and powerful aspect of the GT70 is its SSD based RAID 0 hybrid storage system.

The system consists of two mSATA SSD drives that are part of a RAID 0 matrix and a separate 7200 RPM mobile hard disk drive with up to 1TB of storage capacity.

The RAID 0 system reaches speeds well over 800 MB/s while the HDD offers enough capacity for your games and files.

MSI’s mobile storage solution is absolutely unique and provides performance never before seen in a gaming laptop.

The MSI GT60 15” little brother also comes with two HDD 2.5” bays for two 1 TB mobile HDDs or one SSD and one HDD. The maximum supported capacity is 2 TB while the standard configuration comes with one 500GB drive.

Both laptops come with FullHD screens than can have AntiGlare or Glossy treatments. The GT70 has a 17” screen while the GT60 comes with a 15” one both having an integrated HD webcam.

The design includes metallic plating for the outer lid and the wrist pad and both models have a, SteelSeries signed, full-color backlit programmable keyboard.

It accurately responds to 10 simultaneous key actions and has over 1,000 color combinations of differential lightning, a technology that MSI has already introduced in its GE Series gamig laptops we’ve presented here.

MSI’s top mobile gaming systems come with MSI's exclusive Turbo Drive Engine (TDE) technology that provides an instant boost in graphics performance and MSI Cooler Boost technology that can increase the airflow of the cooling system at the touch of a button.

Connectivity is very rich with options as both laptops come with three USB 3.0 ports but the 17” one has two extra USB 2.0 ports. They both sport a card reader, a HDMI 1.4 connector and eSATA/USB combo port along with a VGA connector.

Unfortunately there is no Express Card slot on either of the notebooks but we can let MSI slide about this one as USB 3.0 and eSATA offer enough bandwidth for even the most demanding applications.

Both  notebooks have a 9 cell battery that will likely last a little bit more on the 15” one and a 180W AC adapter.

The 17” GT70 weights in at 3.9 Kg while the smaller GT60 is 400 grams lighter. That’s almost 8.6 pounds for the 17” model and 7.7 pounds for the 15” one.

Pricing is set between 1499 USD for the basic 15” GT60 configuration and can go up to  1999 USD for a 17” version with two 64 GB SSDs in RAID 0 and a 1 TB HDD complete with a Blu Ray drive.

That’s 1140 EUR to 1512 EUR for the European buyers. If you think there is a faster Ivy Brige announced, feel free to let us know.

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Voicelok USB Drive Locks Your PC Until You Tell It Otherwise

Voice recognition is a technology that has just begun to proliferate, which means that the majority of computers have no such capabilities.

Naturally, most people aren't going to change their PCs just to get voice recognition security of some sort and, fortunately, they don't need to.

That is because Voicelok has introduced the first USB flash drive that automatically locks down your system, records a spoken password and then prevents access to anyone who doesn't have your voice.

What's important is that this is the sort of gadget that users without technical knowhow can use, as everything is done automatically.

Once the drive is plugged into an USB port, the onboard software uses red and green LEDs to signal when the password can be offered. The embedded voice recognition software then records the nuances and frequencies of the speaker's words.

Of course, if some illness affects your voice, the drive won't permit entry. In case of such situations, a specific sequence of flashing color LEDs will have to be recognized and responded to.

All in all, as long as you are certain that no one is around to record your voice when you input the password (or subsequently use it), you're all set (assuming whatever enemies you have aren't spies with top-notch voice duplication software that is).

The storage capacity of the Voicelok USB drive is 8 GB. An on-board microphone is present, along with a microprocessor and security-indicator LEDs, all in a stainless steel cover.

“You wouldn't think there would be much to say about a USB flash drive, but in this case, what you say, and how you say it, is your key to data security,” the company's announcement says.

“Advanced technical skills are definitely not required, because this is a plug-and-play device, requiring no software installation. All critical software is embedded in the flash drive itself, and it is fully functional the moment it is removed from the box.”

Voicelok thinks that customers from the healthcare, financial and data-sensitive industries are the likeliest to benefit from its invention. Hammer Schlemmer sells it.

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Motorola RAZR HD Leaks in China as MT887

The first live photos showing the Motorola RAZR HD have just showed up in China. As we reported last week, the US-based company plans to release a new Motorola RAZR smartphone with an improved HD display.

The information leaked last week through some EXIF data from a picture taken with the alleged Motorola DROID RAZR HD that somewhat confirmed previous rumors, but did not shed any light on the phone’s availability or specs sheet.

However, the folks over at GSMArena have just spotted some live pictures of the purported Motorola RAZR HD. The smartphone in the photos will be launched in the Mainland through China Mobile and is known as Motorola MT887.

The smartphone is powered by Google’s latest Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system with some sort of integrated Motorola MOTOBLUR user interface, though this has yet to be confirmed.

Motorola MT887 does not feature any physical keys, coming with on-screen buttons instead. Apparently, the main selling point of the smartphone will be the 4.3 or 4.6-inch HD capacitive touchscreen display.

On the back, the smartphone boasts an impressive 8-megapixel camera with autofocus, LED flash and full HD (1080p) video recording. This seems to be the same camera that is mentioned in the EXIF data leaked last week.

There are no other details on the Motorola MT887 specs sheet, but rumor has it that the US version will be equipped with a dual-core TI OMAP 4430 processor clocked at 1.2 GHz, complemented by 1 GB of RAM.

The phone is said to pack only 4GB of internal memory and microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB). 

Given the fact that the RAZR HD is a bit thicker than the standard Motorola RAZR, there are speculations that the phone might come with RAZR MAXX’s 3300 mAh Li-Ion battery.

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GSM Galaxy Nexus Receiving Minor Update, Fixes Signal Problems

Samsung Galaxy Nexus received a maintenance update earlier this month, which was supposed to fix some bugs and bring a few new features.

However, all GSM Galaxy Nexus owners who flashed the Android 4.0.4 ICS update were plagued by an unusual bug that made the phone lose signal while it was put in standby mode.

Apparently Google and Samsung, in their desire to save more battery energy, made the update so it drops the processor’s frequency to lower level while the phone is sleeping. 

This translated in sudden loss of GSM signal, which automatically led to the inability to receive calls while the phone is in standby mode.

The problem was recreated by an XDA Member as follows: “The issue as described is very easy to replicate – turn off wifi and then turn off the screen. Wait 5 minutes and try to call your phone – it will not work if you have this issue. When you power the screen back on you may see that you have signal, this looks to be just a cached image, after a second of so you will notice an “x” in the signal bar.”

The unnatural behavior of the smartphone occurred only after the screen was turned off. As we already explained, the cause of this issue was the fact that the CPU’s speed was dropped way under 700 MHz, thus resulting in GSM signal interruptions. 

The problem affected both rooted and unrooted GSM Galaxy Nexus devices running custom/official ROMs based on the latest Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Fortunately, the guys over at AndroidCentral have just learned that Google has already started to push a minor update that fixes this problem. 

Aside from bringing the phone’s firmware to build number build number to IMM76I, the update corrects some small issues, including random lock screen lag.

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Nvidia’s GeForce GTX690 Dual GPU Card Coming on 28th of April

The much awaited dual GPU, Kepler based video card from Nvidia seems to be coming sooner than expected. 

A downward chronometer is being displayed on Nvidia’s GeForce.com website that says the Kepler twins will see the light of day on April 28th.

The rumored specifications of this dual GPU wonder are as following :

Stream Processors : 2 x 1536

Texture Units :  2 x 128

ROPs :    2 x 32

Core Clock : ~ 700 MHz

Boost Clock : ~ 730MHz

Memory Clock :  6.008GHz GDDR5

Memory Bus Width:  2 x 256-bit

Frame Buffer :    4GB

TDP:    ~ 380 W

Transistor Count : 6 Billion

Manufacturing Process : TSMC 28nm

Launch Price : ~ 799 USD

These specs are rumored all over the internet, but, in our opinion, they are much too conservatory when it comes to the graphics processing unit’s working frequency. A more realistic assumption would be an approximate 900 MHz GPU frequency with a 950 MHz Boost clock.

On the other hand, if the frequencies are so much lower, we shouldn't see a TDP much higher than 300W.

The high efficiency of Nvidia’s new Kepler architecture is again demonstrated by the GTX 690 model that comes to the market very fast, just one month after the launch of the single-GPU version.

We wish Nvidia to get very good scalability with its new multi GPU card as 800 USD is quite a significant amount of money for a gamer to spend and it would be a pity to still see gaming titles that don’t scale up the performance as the buyer expects.

The high power consumption also means that a minimum 650 watts power supply unit is required to power the future system, but we highly recommend at least a 800W model.

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Script: Microsoft Media Platform

The Microsoft Media Platform is a powerful framework for developing video streaming services and HTML 5, Silverlight, Windows 8 Metro and Windows Phone multimedia players.

At its core, the platform is split in two major parts:

A Player Framework for Silverlight and Windows Phone.

(Download here)

A Player Framework for HTML5 and Windows 8 Metro.

(Download here)

The Microsoft Media Platform supports live streaming, on-demand streaming, content protection, analytics feedback, format conversion and data encoding.

Open sourced under the Microsoft Public License, when needing to deploy a state of the art online video service, the platform provides an alternative to high-cost commercial services.

Microsoft Media Platform development is handled via its CodePlex pages (this one for the Silverlight and Windows Phone framework, and this one for the HTML 5 and Windows 8 Metro framework).

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3D Transistors Meet 22nm in Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs

Even though sales aren't going to begin until April 29, Intel has officially spoken of its first central processing units based on the 22nm manufacturing process. 

Thirteen third-generation chips have been revealed, most of which are aimed at desktops, although the high-end laptop parts are there as well. 

Regardless, all are quad-core models with higher performance and energy efficiency than the previous-generation Core series. 

The Core i7-3770 is the strongest of the lot, having been pushed to 6.74 GHz on the Maximus V GENE motherboard not long ago. 

Meanwhile, the Core i7-3612QM is the star of the laptop collection. 

In fact, this particular quad-core chip has already become part of the HP dm4-3110tx Beats Edition mobile workstation. And yes, this laptop is somehow already selling (in China anyway). 

We'll talk more about the processors themselves whenever Intel finally decides to open the floodgates on the CPU series. In the meantime, we'll check out the general assets that the BBC got Intel's first statements on. 

On average, the Ivy Bridge collection of CPUs is said to provide a 20% increase in processor performance while consuming 20% less electricity. 

What stands out at least as much is the implementation of 3D Tri-Gate transistors, which employ super-thin fins that rise up from the silicon base instead of the normal, 2D gates. 

Regular, planar gates switch on and off as quickly as possible, allowing the maximum and minimum amount of current to pass in each respective state. 

With 3D transistors, the gates are wrapped around each fin, two on each side and a third at the top. 

In addition to increasing the number of transistors that can be packed in the same die space, this approach reduces the power needed to carry out an action, reduces leakage to almost zero and still allows gates to switch over 100 billion times per second. All this for just 2-3% extra chip cost. 

A final asset is, of course, the GMA HD 4000 integrated graphics unit, which was shown to be quite the upgrade over HD 3000.

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New and Improved Dell Precision Workstations Debut

Dell's series of tower workstations has gone through a transformation, one whose purpose is to boost versatility and productivity while not changing the hardware all that much. 

Dell came up with its new case after soliciting input from hundreds of engineering, finance, software development, scientific, and media and entertainment companies. 

The result was an efficient, award-winning design with the interior separated into two types of areas: those that aren't often accessed (wire harnesses, fans) and those that users most often have to work with (memory, HDDs). 

One of the main assets of the new tower cases is the externally removable power supply, with tool-less installation and a built-in handle that lights up green when functioning properly. 

Another asset is the front access to the HDDs / SSDs (the T7600, for instance, can house up to four of the former or eight of the latter). 

A third advantage is the possibility of turning the T7600 into a rack compatible with PowerEdge servers. 

“Dell Precision workstations are the number one recommendation I've made to other visual effects professionals over the years. We need cutting-edge technology and performance while working tough deadlines,” said Adam Watkins, computer graphics supervisor, Pixomondo. 

“I have been delighted -- and sometimes saved -- by every Dell workstation I've ever used for more than 20 shows! It's one technology that I know I can consistently count on and I’m looking forward to the new design and performance of Dell’s new workstations." 

The man speaks in plural because, in addition to the Dell Precision T7600, Dell has revealed the Precision T5600, Precision T3600 and T1650 (no product page for this one yet). 

All of them have one or two Intel Xeon server CPUs (up to 16 cores), several power supply options, customizable storage configurations, NVIDIA graphics (Quadro 5000 or 6000 series) and, with the exception of the T1650, the Reliable Memory Technology (Dell patented code programmed at the BIOS level that eliminates virtually all memory errors on high-end workstations).

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Ubuntu 12.10 a.k.a. Quantal Quetzal

Mark Shuttleworth, father of the popular Ubuntu operating system, proudly announced a few miutes ago, April 23rd, the name and the goals for the next version of Ubuntu OS. 

Yes, we are talking about Ubuntu 12.10, dubbed Quantal Quetzal and scheduled for release this year on October 18th.

"And so the stage is set for a decision: I give you the Quantal Quetzal, soon to be dressed in tessellated technicolour, now open for toolchains, kernels and other pressing preparatory packages." - said Mark Shuttleworth on his blog.

For Ubuntu 12.10, the developers will focus their efforts on quality! The whole interface of Ubuntu will be revamped, starting with the font, icons and theme, and continuing with the default apps. Oh, and it looks like they're finally dumping the brown!

"No, the quintessential stories of Q will be all about style on the client, with a refresh of our theme and typography, a start on new iconography and perhaps even a new form factor taking flight. So brown is out and something colourful and light is called for."

What's a Quetzal? Well, according to Wikipedia it is a trikingly colored bird from the trogon family and can be found in forests and woodlands, especially in humid highlands.

Don't forget to visit our Linux section this Thursday, April 26th, for an in-depth article about the final release of the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) operating system.

Here's the complete Release Schedule for Ubuntu 12.10.

We already have the release schedule on our hands. The final version of Ubuntu 12.10 will see the light of day on October 18th, 2012.

For Ubuntu 12.10, the Ubuntu developers decided to modify the release schedule, again, to three Alpha versions and two Beta releases. Without further introduction, here is the official release schedule for Ubuntu 12.10:

June 7th, 2012 - Alpha 1 release

June 28th, 2012 - Alpha 2 release

August 2nd, 2012 - Alpha 3 release

September 6th, 2012 - Beta 1 release

September 27th, 2012 - Beta 2 release

October 18th, 2012 - Final release of Ubuntu 12.10

Keep in mind that this is a draft release schedule and can be changed anytime. We will modify this article in case anything changes.

Mark Shuttleworth will be the one who decides the codename of Ubuntu 12.10, and this will probably happen before the release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS next week. For possible codenames you can check out the dedicated Ubuntu Wiki page, here.

Ubuntu 12.10 will be the 17th release of the Ubuntu operating system. Until then, we have another version that should catch our attention and invade our computers, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin), which will be released in one week, on April 26th, 2012.

Until the first Alpha version of Ubuntu 12.10 will be made available for download and testing, on June 7th, we will have the first UDS (Ubuntu Developer Summit) event for 2012, which will take place between May 7th and May 11th in Oakland, California, USA.

Don't forget to visit our website next Thursday, April 26th, to celebrate the final release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin).

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iPhone 5 Thickness Estimated at 7.90mm

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes he has nailed the thickness of the new Apple iPhone, based on the materials thought-to-be used by manufacturers to assemble the device.

Thanks to Apple’s rumored adoption of in-cell touch panels, Kuo believes there will be an initial reduction in thickness of about 0.44 millimeters thanks to the removal of a separate touch sensor layer and of one layer of adhesive.

Kuo further calculated that Apple’s next smartphone will boast a thinner battery. Thanks to the rumored switch to a liquid-metal enclosure, the thickness would again be revived by 0.96mm, resulting in a next-gen iPhone measuring 7.90mm in depth. Apple's current iPhone 4S measures 9.3mm in depth.

Kuo estimates that the adoption of in-cell technology will benefit Apple on multiple levels, including assembly time.

"Another advantage of using in-cell touch is the shorter lead time for touch panel, its most valuable component, and adjusted activities at the supply end, allowing more precisely tailored products to meet market needs, eventually reducing production costs by an estimated 10-20%," Kuo wrote.

As noted in a DigiTimes report last week, traditional panel makers like TPK and Wintek are likely to see their profits decline, should Apple confirm rumors and switch to the new in-cell technology.

As such, Kuo has switched his ratings on TP to underperform, noting that the company's shipments will "start to fall considerably" come Q3 2012, according to AppleInsider.

“As the smartphone market is dominated by large players, lost iPhone business won’t be made up by orders from other smartphone brands,” he said.

At the other end of the spectrum, Toshiba Mobile Display, Sharp and LG Display are all prepared to produce in-cell panels in bulk for Apple’s smartphones, spelling huge profits for these companies as Apple prepares to unveil its new iPhone.

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Nvidia's Kepler-Based GT600M Series: a New Milestone in Mobile Graphics [Photos]

Late last week we were invited to a meeting with Nvidia’s Igor Stanek and Dave Koblizek. Igor Stanek is senior product PR manager for EMEAI region and the main brain of all Tegra and GeForce M product PR campaigns in EMEAI. Dave Koblizek is NVIDIA PR manager for Central and Eastern Europe.

Igor Stanek is a very well-known industry expert that has a lot of experience with great companies like AMD and Nvidia. He was 7 years with the AMD green team and now he’s a different shade of green over at Nvidia.

We talked a lot about Nvidia’s up and coming GeForce M 600 series line. As most of you know, Nvidia has registered a record number of design wins with its new line of Kepler based GeForce mobile GPUs but, this year, something different happened.

Sure Nvidia had a successful mobile line last year. The GeForce 525M and 545M were very powerful chips, but the number of design wins was significantly lower than what they’ve managed this year.

GeForce GT 600M Series : 2x More Efficient ~ Around 11 Hours of Battery Life

The change is not just about performance. One of the main points Igor emphasized on was the fact the new GeForce mobile architecture is 2 times more efficient than the GeForce 500M series.

Dave and Igor had a very nice presentation that compared a two year-old mobile GTX 285 in a huge Clevo DTR notebook to a GeForce 460M and a new GeForce GT640M. Overall, Nvidia considers the 3D performance to be roughly equal between the three devices, but the battery life has increased tremendously.

We're talking an improvement from less than 2 hours of battery life for the Clevo huge notebook with the GeForce GTX 285 inside to around 11 hours of battery life in a modern UltraBook powered by Intel’s Ivy Bridge and an Nvidia GeForce GT640M.

Record Number of Design Wins

One of the reasons behind this high number of design wins of the GT600M series is not the negotiation talent of Nvidia’s managers, but the high efficiency of the architecture.

The mobile Kepler GPUs are so efficient that they offer good enough 3D performance for the mainstream notebooks, while having very low level of heat dissipation. This translates into less complex cooling systems in the new laptops that cost a lot less, resulting in a lower bill of materials (BOM) for the notebook manufacturer.

A smaller cooling system can also mean that the notebook chassis has to allocate much less space for it. Less space taken up by the cooling system means a smaller and a thinner notebook chassis.

This, combined with the fact that the low complexity and small size of the cooling system also reduce the total weight of the notebook, results in more significant advantages that the notebook manufacturers will use.

Being thinner and lighter, the Ivy Bridge notebook powered by a discrete graphic card with Nvidia’s Kepler-based mobile GPUs will fit more easily into different product lines that require a lighter weight and a slimmer profile, especially the new UltraBooks.

100 % Playability of New Games

One of the problems with the integrated graphics processing units (iGPU) is the fact that more than 66% of the current popular game titles are unplayable.

This is mostly a problem for Intel’s HD4000 iGPUs, but we can’t really say that AMD’s Llano based solutions can offer 3D performance to Nvidia’s new Kepler-based mobile GPUs.

It’s not that the games are not supported, as Intel often states in its presentations and spec sheets, lots of games are supported. But this definitely does not mean that the game is playable.

The term “playable” is defined in Nvidia’s marketing language by being able to achieve a sustained frame rate of at least 30 FPS with modest quality settings.

Nvidia’s new mobile GPUs, the entire line, can offer complete playability, no matter the game title.

Sure AMD’s new Trinity-based APUs will probably be a fierce competition for the low-end parts, but on the high-end, Nvidia will likely be a tough-to-beat contender.

Nvidia Optimus: An Unique Technology That the Competition Is Missing

Well, it’s not like AMD doesn’t have its “Dynamic Switchable Graphics” technology but, while Nvidia’s tech has complete application through the standard mobile driver that’s available for download on Nvidia’s site, AMD mostly relies on the notebook manufacturers to provide end-user implementation of their solution.

This means that Nvidia’s solution is updated more often by the GPU designer itself and it’s simply available on their main site. Also, a great number of Nvidia’s mobile GPU are supported while, on AMD’s official website, only the HD 6300 and HD 6400 series are officially supported.

The great achievement of Nvidia’s new Kepler mobile line has helped the GPU designer to get design wins from a lot of  notebook manufacturers including: SAMSUNG, HP, MSI, Acer, ASUS, Clevo, DELL, and others.

Nvidia’s really happy they got HP back on their green team as, last year, HP was most making notebooks using AMD’s GPUs.

70% to 500% faster than Intel’s HD4000

Nvidia’s new GT 600M mobile GPU line is so fast that even the lowest family member, the GT 620M can offer around 70% better performance than Intel’s HD4000 iGPU.

Here’s where we’ve asked Igor an inconvenient question: AMD’s APUs are usually two times faster than Intel’s iGPUs, does this mean that the GT620M will probably be slower than AMD’s new Trinity?

He answered by saying he’s confident that, no matter how good AMD’s iGPU is, it’s likely that it won’t beat a discrete mobile GPU with dedicated memory.

This remains to be seen, but we think that if AMD’s Trinity will be at least two times faster than Intel’s HD4000, it means that the AMD iGPU’s will be very close to Nvidia’s GT 640M.

This way, Trinity will likely be competing with the GT 630M, as the GT 640M was estimated to be around 240% the performance of Intel’s HD4000. GT 630M will obviously be close to 200% Intel HD4000 performance and thus close to AMD’s Trinity.

Ivy Bridge : A Good CPU Partner

Dave and Igor were very confident that AMD’s new APU will not pose any real threat to Nvidia’s new mobile GPU line especially since AMD’s APUs are really lacking behind Intel’s Ivy Bridge in raw CPU horsepower.

This is a chapter where we totally agree with Nvidia’s PR experts. Intel controls around 80% for the mobile market and it’s clear that having a huge number of Ivy Bridge design wins in this 80%-sized piece of the mobile pie is much better than the 100% of the design wins AMD is getting in its 20% of the mobile market.

There is yet one thing where AMD will have a superior offering: the price. An AMD APU will always be cheaper to implement by any notebook manufacturer than an Intel CPU plus a Nvidia GT620M GPU.

We’ve managed to snap some pictures of some of NVidia’s design wins.

All these notebooks were powered by Intel’s Ivy Bridge and Nvidia Kepler-based GPUs.

The first picture is of the recently announced MSI GE series gaming laptop.

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Samsung Outs Galaxy S III Teaser, Promises to Make You Stand Out from the Sheep

It looks like Samsung is closer to revealing its next-generation Galaxy family smartphone, the alleged Galaxy S III.

However, we have no information that would indicate Samsung plans to name its upcoming Android flagship smartphone “Galaxy S III.” Moreover, the first official teaser of the device names it “The Next Galaxy.”

The smartphone will be released during a “Samsung Mobile Unpacked 2012” event, which is set to take place on May 3, in London.

According to this teaser, Samsung promises that “with technology that fits in this easily, you can now stand out fromeveryone else.” 

Ironically, the video compares “everyone else” with some sheep and heads people to the new “TheNextGalaxy.com” website, which has just crashed probably due to high traffic. Stay tuned for more updates on the matter.

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As Intel's 22nm Ivy Bridge Arrive, Shortages Burst Our Bubble

Intel is supposed to make its official introduction of the Ivy Bridge CPUs today, and we'll write the relevant info about them when the time comes, but for now, we are hearing something fairly worrisome. 

It looks like NVIDIA and Advanced Micro Devices (but mostly NVIDIA) aren't the only companies with insufficient chip inventories, even though their processors are totally different from Intel's (28nm GPUs vs. 22nm CPUs). 

Sure, there have been rumors about tight Ivy Bridge CPU supply, but we had hoped that at least the first batch of units would be decent. 

After all, the Santa Clara, California-based company has already delayed the introduction, so it had time to make up for whatever yield issues its factories had had to deal with. 

Alas, Digitimes's newest report has the same grim tidings to impart. 

While 13 CPUs will, indeed, be formally introduced, sales will only begin on April 29 and, even then, the quad-core processors won't all be in stock until June.

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Nokia Lumia 920 PureView with Windows Phone 8 Emerges – Concept

Although Nokia already confirmed that it would bring the PureView technology to Lumia devices, the Finnish company has yet to unveil its first Windows Phone smartphone with improved camera capabilities.

Rumors on upcoming Lumia smartphones with PureView cameras emerged several weeks ago, but nothing is really clear for the moment. 

Still, Verizon Wireless has shown its appreciation for Nokia’s struggle to make the Windows Phone platform more accessible to the mass market and confirmed plans to bring its customers future Windows Phone 8 devices.

Verizon’s offering includes iOS and Android handsets, but the carrier is interested to add a third operating system to its portfolio, Windows Phone.

This comes in line with the latest rumors that pointed to a possible Lumia PureView release at Verizon in the following month.

However, until we have more information on Verizon’s roadmap for Q3/Q4 2012, we can only speculate on upcoming devices that customers expect to see getting launched in the States.

There’s an interesting concept of a Nokia Lumia smartphone with PureView technology, which might become real with several adjustments.

Dubbed Nokia Lumia 920, the concept is made by Jonas Dahnert and packs a quad-core processor and a stunning 4.3-inch AMOLED HD (1280 x 720 pixels) resolution capacitive touchscreen display.

The design strongly resembles Lumia 800 and 900, but the Lumia 920 seems to be a bit thinner. Its 12-megapixel rear photo snapper features PureView technology and is capable of recording full HD (1080p) videos.

On the inside, Lumia 920 embeds 2GB of RAM, which might be overkill, as well as 32 or 64GB of internal memory. Obviously, this one won’t come with microSD card slot for memory expansion.

Last but not least, the phone will run Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 operating system and it will drain energy from a high-capacity 2,000 mAh Li-Ion battery.

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Galaxy Shows Custom GeForce GTX680 Video Card

Chinese company GalaxyTech has recently revealed the custom GeForce GTX680 2GB GC video card, on its official website.

The card comes factory overclocked with the GPU working at a 1110 MHz base clock, from the reference 1006 MHz and a 1176 MHz Boost clock, from the reference default boost of 1058 MHz.

The heatsink is enhanced with four 6 millimeter heat-pipes, while the two cooling fans are 90 millimeters in size and keep the pre-overclocked card cooler than the reference cooling system.

The memory frequency is unchanged from the reference default of 6008 MHz.

Connectivity consists of two different DVI ports; one is DVI-I and the other is DVI-D, along with one HDMI port and one DisplayPort 1.2 connector.

The initial price estimation is around 63,800 YEN or 781 USD. That’s around 590 EUR for the European customers.

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