Nokia Asha 202 Gets Launched in India for 80 USD (60 EUR)

Nokia India has just announced the upcoming availability of the entry-level Asha 202 feature-phone. Customers get to choose from four color options, such as Dark Red, Black, Silver White, Dark Grey and Golden White. This is a low-budget mobile phone, so expect this one to be out for no more than Rs 4,150 (80 USD or 60 EUR) outright. It will go on sale at leading retailers across the country within the next few days. Aside from dual-SIM capability, Nokia Asha 202 features Dual SIM Easy Swap technology with dedicated SIM manager, which allows users to customize the handset and save up to five SIM cards with their own information.  More importantly, the Asha 202 offers users access to more than 40 EA games for free. According...

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DELL Launches Alienware M17x Ivy Bridge 17” Laptop

American computer company DELL has just announced the Alienware M17x Ivy Bridge 17” laptop, on its official website. The Alienware M17x is powered by Intel’s Core i7-3610QM CPU with 6 MB of Level 3 cache and a maximum Turbo Boost frequency of 3300 MHz. There are two more CPU options consisting in Intel’s Core i7-3720QM and Core i7-3820QM processors with Turbo Boost frequency’s of up to a maximum 3700 MHz. The maximum memory configuration is 32GB of DDR3 memory in dual channel mode working at 1600MHz mounted on 4DIMMS. On the 3D graphics side, the Alienware M17x comes with two Nvidia options, the 2GB GDDR5 GeForce GTX 660M and the 2GB GDDR5 GeForce GTX 675M and one AMD option, the AMD Radeon HD 7970M with the sme amount of...

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IDT Acquires PLX Technologies

California, San Jose headquartered company Integrated Device Technology, Inc. has just announced it will be acquiring Sunnyvale based PLX Technologies. PLX Technologies is a PCI and PCIe master that powers many AMD dual GPU cards like the Radeon HD 4870 x 2 and the Radeon HD 5970. The latest dual GPU card that uses PLX technology is Nvidia’s recently launched GeForce GTX 690 that we've already presented here. This move follows an entire decade of technology acquisitions for IDT.  IDT acquired Integrated Circuit Systems (ICS) for about $1.7 billion in cash and stock back in 2005 and then acquired the PC Audio division of Texas based company SigmaTel for $80 million in July the following year. In October, 2008, IDT purchased...

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Most Useful Computer Accessory of This Year: 4 x 2.5” in 5.25” MiniSAS Enclosure

American company StarTech has recently presented the SATSAS425BK 4-Drive 2.5” SATA/SAS Hot-swap Backplane on its official website. The SATSAS425BK will allow you to install four 2.5" SATA and/or SAS hard drives into a single 5.25” front bay.  Having a strong background in server and workstation hardware, I was put many times in a situation where, to allow installation of supplemental SAS HDD or SSD drives, I had to manually manufacture holding/installation bays. I bore special holes in the metal casing of the system to be able to securely anchor the supplemental drives in the system and I had to design and manually build cable routing and securing accessories. SSDs are so popular that many clients were requesting a RAID5...

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Broadband Speeds, Topped by South Korea and Japan Drop in Q4 2011 (Gallery)

South Korea and Japan continue to top the broadband speed top as compiled by Akamai. The two countries saw an average connection speed of 17.5 Mbps and 9.1 Mbps. But the top 10 fastest broadband chart has changed quite a bit in Q4 2011 compared to a year before. What's more, the global average speed dropped in Q4 compared to the quarter before it. Year-over-year though, only Romania and Hong Kong saw a decrease in average speed from the top 10 countries. When it comes to peak speed, things look a bit better; speeds were on the rise – or at least stable – in all of the top 10 countries, headed by South Korea with 47.9 Mbps average peak speed, Hong Kong with 45.9 Mbps and Romania with 35.2 Mbps. Speed isn't everything, coverage...

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AMD Trinity Architectural Preview - Part II

As we said in Part I of our AMD Trinity Architectural Preview, Trinity’s x86 modules are being upgraded to the “Piledriver” design. Piledriver is being characterized by AMD as “2nd Generation Bulldozer core.” The Piledriver compute module is comprised of two integer cores sharing a FPU unit and a 2 MB Level 2 cache. It adopts new ISA capabilities such as AVX, AVX1.1, AES, FMA3 and F16C. This, AMD says, will lead to an IPC improvement (IPC is short for instructions per clock). The new APUs also have less leakage and a CAC reduction, along with a frequency uplift. The Texas-based CPU maker claims performance improvements of over 26% when it comes to overall system performance, and almost 30% increased productivity when working...

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Office 15 Expected to Hit Beta in June

Microsoft is reportedly gearing up for the release of a beta flavor of its Office 15 suite as soon as June, following the availability of a Technical Preview in January.  The availability of this new version of the platform comes in line with the launch of Windows 8 Release Preview, confirmed for the first week of June.  However, Microsoft has yet to make an official announcement on when Office 15 beta will become available for download.  According to winsupersite, there will be some major changes in the next Office 15 release when compared to the previously available versions, some of which emerged in leaked screenshots with the product.  For example, animations are said to be faster than before, complemented by various user interface changes meant...

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Intel’s i7-3770K CPU Overclocked to 7 GHz with MSI’s Z77 Motherboard

MSI has just announced on its official website that the MSI Z77A-GD65 motherboard based on the Intel Z77 chipset has been successfully overclocked at 7 GHz using an Intel Core i7-3770K CPU. The motherboard is build using very high quality components and was certified to conform to the MIL-STD-810G standard via third-party laboratories. The Z77A-GD65 motherboard is equipped with a Hybrid Digital Power design that allows voltage options to be more precisely adjusted, providing a more stable power source. The Intel Core i7-3770K CPU was overclocked form its default 3500 MHz clock speed to a high 7000 MHz frequency. Military Class III components are MSI's way of saying that the motherboard is using high quality Hi-c CAP, SFC and...

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Origin PC EON11-S Is a Small but Strong Gaming Beast

Gaming laptops don't need to be large, especially when you're traveling somewhere and can't bring along a big, 17.3-inch beast, so Origin PC created the EON11-S.  The Origin EON11-S is what Dell's Alienware M11x would have been had the company not decided to give up on it.  Not that there won't be any competitors, Clevo has just this sort of machine up for sale through various brands across the world.  Anyway, the Origin PC EON11-S predictably uses a third-generation Intel Core central processing unit (CPU), otherwise known as Ivy Bridge.  Backing whichever chip happens to be chosen is none other than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M discrete graphics card, with 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM.  Naturally, this...

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AMD Trinity Architectural Preview - Part I

A lot of info about AMD’s new Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) called “Trinity” has recently surfaced on the net. AMD’s Trinity is the successor of the successful Llano APUs that completely destroyed Intel’s competing solutions when it comes to overall computing user experience. With the help of Llano, AMD managed to capture a very important 43 percent of the desktop market, despite the fact that Intel basically has the most powerful desktop CPU in most of the price ranges. AMD’s Trinity is currently made at GlobalFoundries, using the tried and true 32 nm manufacturing process. AMD will gradually move the Trinity line towards the 28 nm process later this summer, but it’s a very important success for GlobalFoundries to be able...

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HP Pavilion dvt6 and dvt7 Workstations Upgraded

After seeing new desktops all over the place, we get to examine some laptops from HP that aren't gaming-oriented, not that they won't easily handle such things if needed.  We've said it several times today, and we'll have to say it again here: Intel has begun shipping its Ivy Bridge central processing units.  HP, naturally, is adding the chips to its product lineup, and we don't just mean the six systems spotted last week.  What the prime supplier of PCs in the world also has to show is a pair of mobile workstations.  That's right, not gaming notebooks but mobile workstations, for businessmen, graphics designers, etc. Dell's Alienware M14x, M17x and M18X R2 don't have anything to worry about on this...

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Microsoft Confirms Windows 8 Release Preview for the First Week of June

Windows 8, Microsoft’s next generation operating system, is getting closer and closer to arriving in a final flavor on devices.  The next milestone in the evolution of this platform, namely Windows 8 Release Preview, is set for the first week on June, Microsoft confirmed last week.  The Redmond-based software company announced these plans at the Windows 8 Developer Days conference in Japan, but did not offer further details on what the next platform release will include.  For those out of the loop, we should note that said Windows 8 Release Preview is nothing more than the Release Candidate version of the next generation OS.  The Release Preview of Windows 8 follows the Developer Preview flavor of the...

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GIGABYTE GTX 680 SuperOverclock WindForce 5X Details and Pictures

More Gigabyte GeForce GTX 680 SuperOverclock WindForce 5X details and pictures have reportedly surfaced on the internet. This is the second vapor chamber cooling system we see on a GeForce 600 series graphics card. Actually, since the card was pictured before, it might not be the first time, but at the time of the first pictures, we did not have such details about the cooling system. The other GeForce 600 series card to use vapor chamber cooling is Nvidia’s own GeForce GTX 690 dual GPU board. The GTX 690 uses two separate heatsinks with one vapor chamber cooling each. Gigabyte’s Windforce 5x is practically cooled by five 40 mm diameter fans that will probably generate some serious noise. However, they will, most likely, offer...

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Galaxy S III to Sport a 4.8’’ Screen, New Photo Unveils

Samsung Galaxy S III, the next generation high-end Android smartphone from the South Korean mobile phone maker, is expected to arrive on shelves with a large, 4.8-inch touchscreen display, the latest reports on the matter suggest.  The info arrives via a leaked image with what appears to be the final design of Samsung’s new flagship device, but no official confirmation on this is yet available.  According to the photo that an “anonymous tipster” sent to Know Your Mobile, the smartphone will sport a 130mm body, while its screen will be 4.8 inches in size.  Previously leaked images with the phone suggested that it won’t sport hardware buttons on the front, the same as on Galaxy Nexus. In fact, the handset itself...

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