Oppo Find 5 Now Available in China

Today, Chinese mobile phone maker Oppo made its Find 5 smartphone available for purchase in its homeland market, after announcing its availability several weeks back.

The handset lands on shelves in two different flavors, one featuring 16GB of internal storage, and another one packing 32GB of memory. The 16GB flavor of the smartphone was put up for sale with a price tag of 2,998 Yuan ($481 / €358) attached to it, while the 32GB version of the phone costs 3,298 Yuan ($530 / €394). For those out of the loop, we should note that the Oppo Find 5 was made available for purchase with a large 5-inch touchscreen display on the front, capable of delivering a full HD 1080p resolution, along with a 441ppi pixel density. The device also comes with a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 quad-core processor inside, complemented by 2GB of RAM, which should result in great performance capabilities. The specifications list of Oppo Find 5 also includes a 13-megapixel photo snapper on the back, capable of recording videos in full HD resolution.

Furthermore, the handset was launched with support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, a built-in GPS receiver, and the usual set of sensors inside. The smartphone was also packed with a special Car mode, which enables users to enjoy the phone’s capabilities even when behind the wheel, so that they could drive safely while still having access to messages, phone functions and other capabilities of the device. Oppo has loaded Google’s Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system on this mobile phone, but also added its own set of customizations on top of the platform.

Those of you living in China and interested in the purchase of the new smartphone should head over to Oppo website to learn more on it and place an order. What remains to be seen is how quickly the smartphone will arrive on shelves in other countries around the world.

Oppo Find 5
Image credits to Oppo

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Nokia Lumia 920 Service Manual Emerges Online

Nokia Lumia 920 is a highly appealing device on the outside, but its internal circuitry too can prove as fascinating for enthusiasts.

All those interested in learning more on what the device packs on the inside can now have a look at the service manual that has leaked online, in the form of an 81-page PDF file. As WPCentral notes, it will offer schematics, instructions on how to disassemble the Windows Phone 8 device, part numbers, and the like. It also offers info on the value of each part inside the device, and whether they’re worth repairing or replaced.

The service manual will certainly come in handy to all those who are fond of making repairs to devices on their own, though it is highly recommended that the device is brought to a service center if issues appear.

Nokia Lumia 920 disassembled
Image credits to WPCentral

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XFX FX 7750 Monster Graphics Card

While Christians have Christmas holidays to spend their cash on, the Chinese have their traditional Lunar New Year, which happens in February.

Spending sprees are common during that week, which is why XFX has launched a new graphics card in the Greater China region. Called FX 7750 Monster, it has a GPU clock speed of 800 MHz, a memory speed of 4.5 GHz (1 GB of GDDr5 is used), a memory interface of 128 bits and a cooler with a single fan and a deep black shroud. Speaking of the fan, it has a diameter of 90 mm and chills a well-concealed heatsink.

Other specs include dual-link DVI, HDMI and D-Sub video outputs and a 4-phase VRM. No PCI Express power connector inputs are used, as the XFX FX 7750 Monster can live off what is provided by the PCI Express slot. The price is of 799 RMB / $128 / 95-128 Euro.

XFX FX 7750 Monster
Image credits to Expreview

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This is How to Removing Ubuntu and Reinstall Android on Nexus 7

The following tutorial will teach Nexus 7 users, who installed the Ubuntu Linux operating system on their tablet, how to re-install Android and remove Ubuntu from Nexus 7.

This guide was designed as a continuation of our previous tutorial, about how to install Ubuntu on a Nexus 7 tablet, offering users a way to return to the stock Android OS for this powerful tablet from Google and ASUS. We remind everyone that Ubuntu for Nexus 7 was officially announced by Mark Shuttleworth in October 2012, and it will see an official release in April 2013, accompanying the highly anticipated Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail) operating system. To begin, you will need to have a healthy and running Nexus 7 tablet (8GB, 16GB or 32GB) with Ubuntu OS installed on it, the Android SDK, a standard micro USB cable (the one that came with the Nexus 7 tablet).

WARNING: This step will ERASE ALL THE DATA ON YOUR TABLET. Make sure you've correctly backed up your device before proceeding. You have been warned!

Step 1 – Downloading Android for Nexus 7

Depending on the Nexus 7 model you have, you'll need to download the respective Android image for your device. There are only two models, one with Wi-Fi and another one with GSM/HSPA+. However, for the Wi-Fi model, Google provides both Android 4.1.2 and Android 4.2.1 images, so it's your choice to select the one you want to install. Just open this page: https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images#nakasi in a web browser and download the desired Android archive for your Nexus 7 model. Please the archive on your home directory.

Step 2 – Installing Android on Nexus 7

After downloading the above archive, paste the following commands in terminal to uncompress it (one by one, hitting Enter after each one):

cd ~/

tar zxvf nakasi-jro03d-factory-e102ba72.tgz

Then, connect your Nexus 7 via the USB cable, disconnecting any other mobile device, and run the following commands in terminal (one by one, hitting Enter after each one):

cd nakasi-jro03d/

sudo ./flash-all.sh

Enter your password when asked. You may get the following warnings, which you can ignore. The restoration process will continue anyway...

archive does not contain 'boot.sig'

archive does not contain 'recovery.sig'

archive does not contain 'system.sig'

Step 3 – Locking the Nexus 7 bootloader

Once the Android image has been restored on your Nexus 7 device, you can lock it again. Go to the extracted Android SDK directory with the "cd" command and enter the sdk/platform-tools folder. Reboot the device into fastboot mode with the following command...

sudo adb reboot bootloader

...and lock the Nexus 7 bootloader with the following command...

sudo fastboot oem lock

That's it!

Google Nexus 7
Image credits to Google

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Office 365 Home Premium Arrives in 162 Regions and 21 Languages

Today, Microsoft made available a reinvented flavor of its Office Suite, in the form of the Office 365 Home Premium, which comes to customers as a cloud service aimed at enabling end users to take their work at home when needed.

While Office 365 Home Premium arrives as a different offer when compared to previous flavors of Office, it does include the entire set of applications that people were used to seeing inside the productivity suite. Furthermore, it arrives with support for various devices, including Windows tablets, PCs and Macs. Available with a yearly subscription of US$99.99 (which equals US$8.34 per month), the suite can be used on up to five devices at the same time. “Today’s launch of Office 365 Home Premium marks the next big step in Microsoft’s transformation to a devices and services business,” said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. “This is so much more than just another release of Office. This is Office reinvented as a consumer cloud service with all the full-featured Office applications people know and love, together with impressive new cloud and social benefits.”

The Redmond-based software giant also announced that the service was available in no less than 162 markets at launch, and that it also offered support for 21 languages right from the start. Office applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access have been included in the package, along with an additional 20 GB of SkyDrive cloud storage and 60 free Skype world calling minutes per month. Office 365 Home Premium is accompanied by the new Office 2013 suite, which was made available for purchase several hours ago, with price tags starting at $139.99.

Furthermore, the company also announced the availability of Office 365 University for college or university students, which features a price tag of US$79.99 for a four-year subscription (about US$1.67 per month).  According to Microsoft, Office 365 will become available for businesses as well, though it will be released globally only at the end of the next month, on February 27. Additional info on the new Office 365 Home Premium can be found on Microsoft’s revamped Office.com website. Office 2013 (along with previous flavors of the application) can be downloaded from link below as Trial.


Microsoft Office 2013 Professional Plus RTM - x32
Microsoft Office 2013 Professional Plus RTM - x64

Office 365 Home Premium arrives in 162 Markets
Image credits to Microsoft

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New Rambus RAM with 25% Less Power Use, 3200 MHz Speed

At one time, Rambus made most of its money from suing IT companies that actually produced things instead of relying on licensing fees and lawsuit settlements.

The licensing company has lost a few high-profile suits though, which makes it a very fortunate thing that, compared to other trolls, it actually does have some nice patents. The latest technology it has invented is called R+ LPDDR3 and promises two very important things: that it will reduce active memory system power by a quarter (25%) and that it will allow data rates of up to 3,200 MHz.

That's twice as fast as normal LPDDR3 technologies (mobile memory), and could be a nice stepping stone before DDR4 comes around. The R+ LPDDR3 memory patent is compatible with DFI and JEDEC and should be adopted by memory makers soon. If no one else, Toshiba will probably be interested.

Toshiba Rambus memory modules
Image credits to Toshiba

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Three New Workstation and Server Motherboards from Gigabyte

Gigabyte may be one of the greatest suppliers of motherboards for the PC market, but it ships mainboards to customers from other fields as well, in this case companies and, by extension, their server and workstation administrators.

The company has launched three new mainboards, called GA-7PESH3, GA-6PXSV4 and GA-7PESH4. The first two are made for workstations and the third for mission critical servers, where memory intensive, highly parallel or high-storage applications are run. GA-7PESH3, nicknamed the Super Workstation Board, has two CPU sockets, which means that the top core number is 16 when a pair of Intel Xeon E5-2600 processors are used. The platform also has four double clot GPU/co-processors and can handle up to 13 storage drives at any given time. CAD/CAE, simulation and modeling should run well on a system based on this motherboard, especially when the 4-way SLI/CrossFireX multi-GPU support and SAS 6 Gbps connections get involved.

As for the random access memory capacity, it can be of up to 128 GB (DDR3 RDIMM ECC memory running at 1600 MHz). The second motherboard for workstations, the GA-6PXSV4, is the only single-socket platform of the trio and is suited to tower workstations that perform operations in virtualized environments. Four LAN connections are included, along with three PCI Express x16 3.0 slots (3-way NVIDIA SLI / AMD CrossFireX) and, again, 128GB of DDR3 RDIMM ECC memory running at 1600 MHz. Finally, the GA-7PESH4, the “Rock-Solid Backbone for Critical Server Applications,” has quad Gigabit LAN as well, but extra benefits like iSCSI, management related traffic, virtualization optimizations and, most importantly, support for 256GB of DDR3 RDIMM ECC memory running at 1600 MHz (divided between the two CPU sockets). It should have no problem operating in business-grade servers and data centers. 

Gigabyte GA-6PXSV4

Gigabyte GA-7PESH3

Gigabyte GA-7PESH3
Images credits to Gigabyte

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HTC M7 Announced in Early February

More rumors on the upcoming release of HTC’s next Android flagship smartphone, the M7, have just surfaced. The device had been previously slated for an early January launch at CES 2013, but HTC decided otherwise.

According to Digitimes, HTC plans to officially unveil the M7 in early February during a launch event held in London. Sources in the supply chain claim that HTC M7 will hit shelves in the second half of March 2013 for a price that will be disclosed closer to launch.

HTC M7 will ship with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean out of the box and will pack a 1.7 GHz quad-core processor, along with 2GB of RAM. The smartphone will also boast a 4.7-inch SoLux full HD (1080p) capacitive touchscreen display (461ppi) and an impressive 13-megapixel rear camera with autofocus, LED flash and full HD (1080p) video recording.

HTC M7
Image credits to HTCSource.com

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