Galaxy S III Will Land in Japan with 2GB of RAM

Yesterday, NTT DOCOMO unveiled to the world plans to bring to the market in Japan a wide range of new handsets running under Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, and the newly unveiled Galaxy S III was one of them.  Given the hype around this smartphone’s launch, it did not come as a surprise that the wireless carrier would add it to its lineup. However, it appears that Galaxy S III will have some treats for its Japanese users, at least this is what a closer look at its specs list at the wireless carrier shows.  For starters, we should note that the mobile phone will include 2GB of RAM when released in the country, which is double the amount announced for the international version. The...

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Nokia Distributor Expects Windows Phone 8 Devices in Late 2012

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia has been long rumored to plan the release of handsets running under Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 8 operating system, but nothing has been officially confirmed on the matter for the time being.  However, it appears that the company’s distributors have been already informed on the availability of such devices, and that one of them let that slip. A European distributor for Nokia told Israeli publication Techit.co.il that the handset vendor is indeed on its way to launch Windows Phone smartphones this year.  The company is in charge with the distribution of Nokia smartphones in Israel, and it reportedly stated that Eurocom Nokia would launch these mobile phones in the country...

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Xiaomi Phone Youth Edition Coming Soon for 240 USD (190 EUR)

It looks like Xiaomi Phone had been pretty popular among Chinese Android fans, as the manufacturer decided to launch a limited edition variant with a slightly lower hardware configuration. The Xiaomi Phone Youth Edition will be limited to 150,000 units. Customers who want to be sure they will get one can join the pre-registration process until May 18. Unlike the standard Xiaomi Phone that embeds a 1.5 GHz dual-core CPU, the limited edition is equipped with a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor and packs a 4.0-inch capacitive touchscreen display that supports 854 x 480 pixels resolution. In addition, the Youth Edition boasts an 8-megapixel rear camera, 4GB of ROM, 768MB of RAM and microSD card slot for memory expansion. The phone is powered...

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AMD Trinity Trounces Ivy Bridge in Diablo III

As most experts said before, AMD seems to be winning the Fusion bet. We were able to write about some of AMD’s achievements last year and we have another win to report today. Llano and Brazos already conquered 43% of the desktop market, although AMD doesn’t have a superior x86 CPU in any price range. The ultrathin / ultralight / ultrabook bet seems to be also leaning towards the green side. When it comes to Diablo III and we mention that its predecessor was, and still is, one of the most popular games of the last decade, the question of what new CPU runs the game better naturally pops up. There are many Diablo II players out there that did not really see any reason to upgrade their systems for the work they were doing,...

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Panasonic ELUGA Series Phones and Tablets Headed to NTT Docomo

NTT Docomo unveiled earlier today its entire Spring/Summer 2012 collection of Android devices, including the Samsung Galaxy S III. Among the new ICS-based phones expected to hit shelves within the next few months, there are three Panasonic devices as well. The Japanese carrier will launch the Panasonic ELUGA Power, which we already know from the Mobile World Congress 2012, as well as the new Panasonic ELUGA V. In addition, NTT Docomo will also release the Panasonic ELUGA Live tablet. Apart from the fact that all three will be shipped with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system out of the box, there are little similarities between Panasonic’s devices. While the ELUGA Power boasts a huge 5.0-inch LCD capacitive...

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Nvidia’s GK110 to Enable 24 GB GDDR5 Configurations

The most complex processor in the semiconductor history will reportedly have 7.1 billion transistors and will be complemented by up to an amazing 24 GB of GDDR5 video memory. Nvidia’s Co-Founder and CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang recently confirmed that the GK110 would actually have just a “little” bit more than 7 billion transistors. That’s 100 million more, to be exact. Compared with the previous complexity record holder, a FPGA processor from Xillinix that has more than 6 billion transistors, Nvidia’s GK110 is considerably more complex. When compared with AMD’s Tahiti GPU with its 4.31 billion transistors, the GK110 is almost double the size. It was obvious that such a complex chip must not be kept hungry for data, so the logical...

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LaCie Launches 2big NAS for Small Businesses

LaCie likes to launch network-attached storage devices from time to time, for consumers or businesses of various sizes, and this is one of those times.  LeCie isn't really big on intricate designs and aesthetic embellishments, nor does it ever put too much effort into making its devices small and easy to hide. Instead, it makes sure that the outside of its NAS (network-attached storage) devices looks reasonably nice and invests all the rest of its attention into the hardware and software support.  The newest NAS to come forth is called 2big and is aimed at small businesses that wish to keep their data not just centralized and network-accessible, but safe and sound as well. Having the two HDDs operate in RAID...

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LG Details the New Optimus UI 3.0 for Android 4.0 Phones

Today, South Korean mobile phone carrier LG Electronics officially unveiled details on its new interface for devices powered by Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich platform, namely the LG Optimus UI 3.0.  The new user interface is meant to provide a brand new experience to all people through delivering new features and various personalization options in the palm of their hand. For example Optimus UI 3.0 brings along Quick Memo, along with a set of unique unlock functions, while also packing various other enhancements, LG announced. The new interface promises both speed and convenience, while enabling users to perform various tasks on the device faster and easier than before.  The new powerful memo function...

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Lenovo Refreshes the ThinkPad Line with Ivy Bridge

Chinese PC and notebook manufacturer Lenovo is now stuffing Intel’s new Ivy Bridge processors in most of its laptops. The ThinkPad T series are now updated to T430, T430s and T530 models that come with an HD 720p webcam and Lenovo’s RapidCharge. The i7-powered systems with the T430 label come complete with ThunderBolt and a mini-Display Port together with a 1600x900 resolution screen. Pricing for the T430 and the T430S will stand at 879 USD and 1399 USD, respectively. That’s 686 EUR and 1091 EUR for the European mobile users. The ThinkPad X series use a 12.5” screens and the updated versions are called X230 and X230T (convertible tablet). All come with Dolby Advanced Audio, face tracking, mini-DisplayPort and two USB...

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Point of View GTX 680 EXO Debuts

Unlike Sparkle, Point of View actually made some modifications to the GeForce GTX 680 before launching the GTX 680 EXO. One of the changes is, predictably enough, the cooler: instead of the reference model, we have a more silent and effective Arctic Cooling contraption, a bit thicker than 2 slots. There's even an aluminum backplate, for extra heat dissipation. That said, spec-wise, the base clock of the GK104 Kepler GPU (1,536 CUDA cores) is 1,110 MHz and the GPU Boost can go as high as 1,176 MHz. As all other GTX 680 cards, or most of them, the POV GTX 680 EXO has 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM (6 GHz clock), a memory interface of 256 bits, two dual-link DVI pots, one HDMI output and a DisplayPort. The price shouldn't be too much...

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AMD’s Radeon HD 7970 Mobile Finally Available in AVADirect’s Gaming Notebooks

Popular custom notebook manufacturer AVADirect is now taking preorders on notebooks configured with AMD’s most powerful mobile GPU, the AMD Radeon HD 7970M. The Radeon HD 7970M mobile chip is built with the same architecture as the desktop Radeon HD 7870. Here, “Pitcairn” has a frequency of only 850 MHz versus the 1 GHz frequency of its desktop brother. It comes with 1,280 shaders and 80 texture units all using GDDR 5 memory running at 4800 MHZ effective speed. Compared with Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 675M, the AMD Radeon 7970M is clearly superior while being a bit behind the unannounced GTX 680M. It comes complete with AMD’s UVD3 video decoder, Eyefinity and the power-saving Enduro and ZeroCore technologies. Other...

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ADATA Presents the DDR3-2133X 8 GB and 16 GB XPG Xtreme Series DC Kits

Well-known affordable memory manufacturer ADATA has just announced the availability of the refreshed XPG Xtreme Series DDR3 lineup, on its official website. Two kits are available with 8 GB and 16 GB total capacities, respectively. The new ADATA XPG Xtreme Series DDR3-2133X has a 2133 MHz working frequency and an operating voltage of 1.65V. The latency settings are 10/11/11/30 and these are claimed by the company to achieve a total bandwidth of up to 34.1 GB per second. The memory modules use a high quality 8-layer PCB and selected memory chips that are specially designed for the XPG line. The modules come with efficient heatspreaders that are in direct contact with the memory chips. We don’t exactly know what ADATA is trying...

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PROLiNK Also Exhibits a 4G Wireless-N Router

We've only just written about the PROLiNK PRO1301WE USB monitor and now we are bringing you the second product that the company will start selling next month (June, 2012).  What we have in that picture above, and the gallery below, is the WNR1012 router. With 3G/4G and network-attached storage (NAS) support, it can behave as a wireless access point.  It also incorporates a universal repeater and can be accessed remotely from secure, private networks by means of a 3G USB dongle. The maximum data transfer speed if 300 Mbps, pretty decent, even when sharing files between multiple users. Sales will begin on June 7-10 for the price of $59 / 46 Euro. Keep in mind that you should probably consider one of those...

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USB-Powered Monitor Launched by PROLiNK

Lugging a monitor along wherever you go kind of goes against the idea of owning a laptop but hey, we've seen stranger things than people who always need a secondary display.  PROLiNK has reportedly launched an USB-powered monitor called PRO1301WE. Weighing 645 grams (1.42 pounds), it has a diagonal of 13.3 inches, LED backlighting and a thickness of 8 mm (0.31 inches).  For some reason, no one seems willing to say what the resolution is, even as they draw attention to the touch-based color controls and the existence of mini-DisplayPort, HDMI and VGA inputs. Oh well, onto the next matter: usability. The display can be mounted both vertically and horizontally, using a stand, may be folded against the back of a notebook...

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Cooler Master Intros GeminiII M4 CPU Cooler

Cooler Master claims to be, well, the master of coolers, so it stands to reason that it would not allow too much time to pass before it released another one of those things. And by “another one of those things” we mean a CPU cooling module, not a case fan or a graphics card fansink. The product we are looking at here is called GeminiII M4 and tries to be a “miniature” CPU cooler. We're not exactly sure it's entirely successful, but we've seen much larger coolers in the past so we'll let it slide.  Anyway, the GeminiII M4 has direct-touch copper heatpipes, which means that the heat from the CPU doesn't need to pass through a base plate before reaching them. Four in number, said pipes come in an unusual layout, a...

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Apacer Launches DDR3-1600 MHz SO-DIMM Modules for Fast Notebooks

Taiwan-headquartered company Apacer has reportedly just introduced the new 8 GB DDR3 SO-DIMM memory module working at 1600 MHz.  This is a great chance to get rid of those low-speed memory modules inside your laptop. Apacer touts a 20% increase in performance when compared with a mainstream DDR3-1333MHz memory module, along with a 11% decrease in power consumption. While we’re sure the real performance improvements are not nearly that great, we can definitely say that if you own a laptop with an iGPU using shared system memory (like most of the laptop users) the increased bandwidth will surely help a little. If you use a notebook with discrete graphics, we don’t see a reason to upgrade based on the frequency difference...

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Nvidia Officially Talks GK110 GPU and Presents the TESLA K10 and K20

California-based graphics IC design company Nvidia has just unveiled details about the most anticipated GPU of this year, on its official website. We are, of course, talking about the huge GK110 graphics processing unit (GPU). The initial presentation took place yesterday at the GPU Technology Conference (GTC). Nvidia has presented the new TESLA K10 and TESLA K20 GPUs. TESLA K10 is practically a GTX 690 dual GPU card with the usual small tweaks for professional use and the software toolset that comes with it. The company claims a huge 4.58 teraflops of single-precision floating point performance for the K10, along with the impressive 320 GB/s bandwidth. This is only 20% faster than AMD’s Tahiti-based Radeon HD 7970 card...

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