The original 7" Galaxy Tab was already long in the tooth when it was refreshed in the form of the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. That iteration brought Samsung's mighty Exynos SoC to bear on an otherwise meager tablet. Great isn't apparently good enough, though. Samsung's seen fit to produce a true successor, the awkwardly named Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0). 

So what's different this time? The Tab Plus already padded out the length and width of the original, while slimming down the depth; the Tab 2 is just a little thicker this time around. The 7" screen remains a PLS panel with a 1024x600 resolution, nothing too astonishing. The SoC is based on a dual-core design clocked at 1 GHz even. We haven't previously seen an Exynos SoC clocked at 1 GHz, though it's not inconceivable. Qualcomm has some dual-core parts clocked the same, as does NVIDIA. 

The only other notable feature of the Tab 2 (7.0) is that it will be the first Samsung-branded device running Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0). Hewing to their old habits, Samsung has seen fit to bring TouchWiz to the ICS experience, and from the looks of things we shouldn't expect anything to groundbreaking. The usual assortment of Hubs will be on order (Music, Media, Social and Game), along with a new app curation tool S Suggest (kind of like an App Hub). They're also including a Motocast competitor called AllShare Play. Like Motorola's entrant, the AllShare Play app allows users to view media stored on their PCs or other Samsung devices from wherever they have an internet connection. 

The presence of Android 4.0 might point us to another likely suspect for SoC: TI. Samsung's involvement in the Galaxy Nexus is no secret, and they have had the most time with the ICS code as any manufacturer. It's plausible that in order to expedite shipping their first ICS tablet, Samsung chose the Nexus' platform, TI's OMAP 44x0. If that's the case, GPU performance could take a hit versus the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, particularly when that device gets updated to ICS. 

Pricing and availability Stateside have yet to be announced; though UK availability is pegged for March. In just two short years, Samsung has gone from having no tablets to a stable at least six deep (more if you count the 10.1v and 10.1N). The Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) may fall short in the hardware department, especially compared to something like the Transformer Prime, but the 7" form factor has long been a fan favorite, and at the right price this could be a great way to experience Ice Cream Sandwich on a tablet. We'll update when we have pricing and availability. 

VideoLAN has announced VLC 2.0 and the first release candidate is available to the public today. The biggest changes are in the OS X version but there are a few interesting changes in the Windows version as well, such as a 64-bit version and support for multiple video files inside RAR archives. The OS X version has a totally new user interface (see pictures below) along with Blu-ray playback support. 

Lets talk briefly about Blu-ray playback in OS X. Apple does not officially support Blu-ray as they provide no option for Blu-ray drives and the software support is poor to say the least. Blu-ray discs are encrypted so not just any player can play them. Since Apple doesn't support Blu-ray, there hasn't been a player that would enable one-click Blu-ray playback. However, it's still been possible to rip and encode the video with the OS X version of MakeMKV, in which case the video will become a regular MKV file that is supported by various players. There is also a direct playback method but it's rather complicated and doesn't work with all discs. VideoLAN is promising that VLC 2.0 will sport experimental Blu-ray playback support, but unfortunately we don't know yet how functional it is. Another big improvement in the OS X version is support for Lua-based extensions. There are at least a dozen different extensions but the most notable are probably subtitle finder and movie information.

Update: The Blu-Ray support is limited decrypted media, which means commercial Blu-Rays with DRM won't work. Also, the OS X version doesn't support Blu-Ray at all yet, although VideoLAN is planning on porting it to the OS X version as well. 

The Windows version isn't getting any major new features; it's mainly under the hood changes but it already supports the features that are new in the OS X version. VideoLAN is apparently also working hard on porting VLC 2.0 for iOS, which is a bit of surprise given that the original VLC app was pulled from the App Store about a year ago.

The first release candidate can be downloaded here and the complete change log is available here. 

It goes without saying that connectivity is a hugely important part of smartphones. After all, without some sort of network connection, you've basically just got an expensive PDA or PMP. Today, TI is making formal the WiLink 8 family, the newest member of its popular WiLink series of WLAN combo chips, which is built on a 45nm process. WiLink 8 adds support for GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System - GPS + GLONASS) and NFC in addition to WiFi, Bluetooth, and FM receive/transmit like we've seen in WiLink 7 in a number of devices. 

The WiLink 8 family includes 15 different discrete solution options, and TI has provided a feature comparison for those parts. The configuration options basically afford OEMs the ability to choose whether they want GNSS (which they might not if the baseband or SoC provides it), NFC (possibly for low-end devices), and a simplified WLAN-only option.

WiLink 8 WiFi support builds on WiLink 7 by also adding both 2.4 and 5 GHz radio support, and most interestingly the option to connect using either dual-band 2x2:2 MIMO with a 20 MHz WiFi channel, or single spatial stream (1x1:1) on a 40 MHz wide channel. This is an interesting and unique feature that we haven't seen before from the other combo chip players, and I'm eager to see if OEMs opt to go for the 2x2:2 solution. Tablets are probably the most logical place for 2x2:2 considering that a larger device means better chances of getting two decently uncorrelated streams. The WiLink 8 series also includes an integrated NFC controller with support for all of the NFC forum use cases and modes, and TI tells us they've already partnered with a number of Secure Element (SE) providers (TI names Infineon and NXP in its release) as well for support. 

Integrated GNSS support is also very interesting, as for a while now Qualcomm has been the only player I've seen offering smartphone-tailored GNSS receiver with support for GPS and Russia's GLONASS constellation in newer SoCs and basebands. TI tells me they also have a different approach to managing use and prioritization of GPS/GLONASS than Qualcomm, whose solution right now only uses GLONASS when GPS SNR is low. We'll see products with WiLink 8 inside in the second half of 2012. 

Source: Texas Instruments

A while back, HTC announced the first suite of devices that it would be rolling out Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich updates to. The devce lineup included the entire HTC Sensation line (XE, XL, and 4G), followed by the Rezound, Amaze 4G, and new EVOs (Design 4G and 3D). Today, HTC has announced (also on its Facebook page) some further timing on just when devices will get those updates, and a few more devices making the cut.

First to the fray will be the HTC Sensation series (XE, XL, 4G, and sans moniker), which will get their ICS update before the end of March. Other devices getting an ICS update will see their update by a slightly more ambiguous and underwhelming "later this year." It's nice to see HTC committing to a date here, even though it's only for the Sensation line of devices. Hopefully as updates for the rest of the lineup draw closer those respective phones will see update timelines as well.

HTC also added a few more devices to its official list, which brings the tally to the following:

• HTC Sensation (XE, XL, 4G, and sans moniker)
• HTC Rezound
• HTC Vivid
• HTC Amaze 4G
• HTC EVO 3D
• HTC EVO Design 4G
• HTC Incredible S
• HTC Desire S
• HTC Desire HD

Source: HTC (Facebook)

While Rambus has settled in one form or another with most of the major players in the computing industry, one of the remaining holdouts has been NVIDIA. NVIDIA has already lost to Rambus in court over some infringement cases, while cases over other products and patents have been ongoing. As a chipset, SoC, and GPU provider, NVIDIA has a particularly wide exposure to memory-related suits as virtually all of their products contain a memory controller of some kind, giving them ample reason to continue fighting Rambus.

But that fight has finally come to an end. Yesterday Rambus and NVIDIA signed a 5 year licensing agreement, under which NVIDIA gets rights to Rambus's patented technologies, and at the same time both companies drop all outstanding suits aimed at each other. As with other Rambus licensing agreements the specific terms of the deal are private, so how much NVIDIA is paying per the agreement and whether there is a per-product royalty rate attached is unknown.

It's interesting to note though that this comes so soon after two major Rambus losses. In November Rambus lost a major antitrust case against Hynix and Micron, meanwhile in January of this year the United States Patent and Trademark Office ruled that 3 of Rambus's major patents (the Barth patents) were invalid. The Barth patents have been Rambus's biggest weapons, and they were the patents that defeated NVIDIA in the infringement suit that NVIDIA previously lost. Given the timing of this latest settlement, it stands to reason that a weakened Rambus was willing to settle with NVIDIA on far more favorable terms - to the point where it would be cheaper than continuing the suit - but as the terms of the deal are not public we'll never know for sure.

In any case, with NVIDIA finally settling there are now only a few smaller holdouts remaining. The Wall Street Journal names the remaining parties as LSI Corp (storage controllers, including SandForce), MediaTek (SoCs), and STMicro (everything from SoCs to ICs).

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Windows aficionado Paul Thurrott has just confirmed that the Windows 8 Consumer Preview event will be held in Barcelona, Spain on February 29, 2012. Coming from Mr. Thurrott, we would be inclined to believe that this is not a rumor.

There have been a lot of leaked screenshots of the supposed Consumer Preview build 8220 (or build 8225 if the @BuildWindows8 Twitter feed is to be believed) floating around the interweb these past few days. Some of the more aggressive changes include the disappearance of the iconic Windows Orb, or the Start Button as some of us still lovingly like to call it. Others are more subtle like changes to the Metro-styled start screen and a new translucent UI for Charm bar.

I quite like the Consumer Preview moniker being used this time around. The consumer-centric branding, just like the Building Windows 8 blog, demonstrates Microsoft's commitment to actively communicate progress on the OS and gather feedback from end users and developers. 

The Consumer Preview should ideally be a feature-complete release, with future builds focusing on performance, stability and usability enhancements, rather than any major new features.

In any case, the wait shouldn't be too long now.

Source: Supersite for Windows

It's been a busy week for Google Chrome - Google today posted Chrome 17 to the stable channel, two days after releasing the first Chrome beta for Android 4.0 tablets and phones. Chrome version 17.0.963.46 patches a number of security holes and adds some small new features and cosmetic tweaks.

Chrome 17 adds a feature called Download Scanning Protection to the browser, which compares downloaded .exes and .msi files to a Google-maintained list and lets the user know if the file has been downloaded from a known malicious site. Users can still click through the warning messages, but it's an extra level of security that may occasionally prevent infection.

The other major innovation is more aggressive Omnibox Prerendering - the browser will begin to load search results and webpages in the background before you finish typing them in an attempt to make page loading seem faster. There are also some new APIs for Extensions and "other small changes," including the fact that the new tab button no longer has a plus sign in it. For a complete list of bug and security fixes, the release notes are linked for your convenience below.

The new version of Chrome is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and most flavors of Linux.

Source: Google

Clevo was the first in line to release Sandy Bridge E based laptop a couple of days ago, which naturally means that all the usual suspects that use Clevo's chassis are coming out of the woodworks as well; say hello to the Eurocom Panther 4.0 and Maingear Titan 17. 

Eurocom Panther 4.0

Specification wise, the Panter 4.0 is similar to Clevo's P270WM. The biggest difference is that Eurocom offers more graphics choices and the possibility for a fourth hard drive instead of an optical drive. Eurocom also supports 16GB SO-DIMMs, though pricing for such modules is extremely high right now. There is also an option for 120Hz 3D display which is something that the Clevo does not currently list. Unfortunately Eurocom has not revealed pricing so it's hard to say if Panther 4.0 is a better buy than Clevo P270WM, which is priced at $3122. If the past is any indicator, Eurocom will likely have a price premium as they like to target the Mobile Workstation market, which requires additional testing/validation on their end.

Maingear Titan 17

The Titan 17 follows the same pattern as Panther 4.0 and P270WM. Compared to Panther 4.0, there are fewer graphics options but the 3D display is still available, although Titan 17 loses one USB 3.0 when compared with the Clevo and Eurocom (which is probably just an error on their spec sheet, since all three notebooks use the same chassis). Price wise, Titan 17 is a couple hundreds more expensive than a similarly configured Clevo P270WM. Of course, things like support and warranty are important when buying such an expensive system, so while Clevo is cheaper it isn't necessarily a better buy.

We are working to get one of these behemoths in for review to see how they fare in actual use. If you need the most performance you can pack into a notebook, these SNB-E based offerings should fit the bill. Hopefully the issues with overloading the power brick on the X7200 have been addressed with this round of updates.

Sources: Eurocom and Maingear

AMD has quietly released two Athlon II X4 CPUs, the 638 and 641. These are based on Llano (i.e. Stars+/K10.5 architecture) but lack an integrated GPU. The socket is still FM1, just like in normal Llano CPUs. Here's a quick rundown of the chips.

There is nothing extraordinaty in these chips. We are looking at relatively low-end SKUs in terms of price and performance. It's good to keep in mind that a discrete GPU is needed because these SKUs lack integrated graphics, so that will potentially raise the total system price.

The usage of the Athlon II brand with Llano isn't actually a new thing as the first such SKU, Athlon II X4 631, launched back in August. This is quite similar to what Intel is doing; AMD is saving the A4, A6, A8, and FX brands (their rough equivalent of Intel's Core i3/i5/i7) for midrange and high-end chips, and reusing their older Sempron and Athlon brand names (e.g. Intel's Celeron and Pentium) with lower-end SKUs.

25nm MLC NAND has been in the market for roughly a year now and it is very common in today's consumer SSDs—there are only a few models using 3Xnm MLC NAND (OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS for example). In the enterprise space, however, 25nm SLC NAND is just starting to appear in SSDs. Hitachi GST (i.e. Hitachi's storage unit) today released their Ultrastar SSD400S.B series, which is the first publicly available SSD to use 25nm SLC NAND. 

Before we look at the specifications of Hitachi's new enterprise SSD, let's go through the reasons why we haven't seen 25nm SLC NAND before today. There is no physical difference between SLC and MLC; manufacturing SLC NAND isn't any harder than manufacturing MLC NAND. The only real difference between SLC and MLC is the fact that SLC stores one bit per cell whereas MLC stores two, although this has nothing to do with why 25nm SLC NAND is released later than 25nm MLC NAND. When you shift to a new process node (from 34nm to 25nm in this case), the first NAND to be manufactured is MLC. Why?

MLC is the highest volume product and it's usually not used by enterprises, so extreme reliability is not necessary. SLC NAND is very enterprise orientated due to its higher cost per GB, making its volume smaller. Every time you move to a new process node, your yields will be lower than on the old node. Only when you have met the demand of 25nm MLC NAND and the process has matured enough—not just better yields, but the higher reliability that is essential for enterprise market—can you start manufacturing 25nm SLC NAND along with your MLC NAND. This time, it took about a year for the 25nm process to be mature enough for SLC, and 20nm MLC NAND is already knocking at the door.

With the short NAND flash lesson out of the way, it's time to look at this new SSD. Hitachi's Ultrastar SSD400S.B comes in a 2.5" form factor but it's important to note that its height is 15mm, making it too thick for most laptops—this is aimed at servers, after all. It uses Intel's 25nm SLC NAND and a SAS 6Gb/s interface, which isn't used in the consumer space but offers some crucial features for servers (e.g. more effective error-recovery). The actual controller seems to have been developed in-house, but Hitachi has been very quiet on that so unfortunately we don't have any details. Another possibility is a third party controller (e.g. SF-2582) with Hitachi's own firmware. Either way, we are looking at a fairly high performance controller with SandForce-like performance, at least going by the spec sheet.

The Ultrastar SSD400S.B will be available in capacities of 100GB, 200GB, and 400GB. Hitachi has not revealed the pricing but given that this is an enterprise-grade SLC SSD, the price tag won't be wallet friendly. Hitachi has already started shipments to selected OEMs and widespread availability is expected later in H1'12. 

Apple has released a range of firmware updates that enable the Lion Internet Recovery OS restore feature across most of its 2010-vintage Macs, enabling easy reinstallation of the operating system in the event of a software or hardware failure.

Lion Internet Recovery, a feature which builds on the NetBoot technology in OS X Server, was introduced along with the 2011 MacBook Air and Mac Mini refreshes, and then extended to the rest of Apple's shipping Macs in the following months. Today's updates, which enable support for the 2010 iMac, the late 2010 MacBook Air, and the 15" and 17" 2010 MacBook Pro, follow updates from late January that enabled support for the 13" 2010 MacBook Pro, the 2010 Mac Mini, and the 2010 MacBook. The only model left out is the Mac Pro, none of which (even the currently shipping model) support the feature. Some (but not all) of the firmware updates also fix other minor issues.

The updates can be downloaded using the links provided above, or via Software Update - all updates require a Mac running OS X 10.7.2 or later. The possibility exists that Apple could choose to enable support for even older Macs - models going all the way back to 2007 are capable of running Lion - but until we actually see updates I would say that such a thing is pretty unlikely.

It has finally happened; Google has officially released Chrome for Android. In typical Google fashion, the browser is currently in beta and requires Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to run.

Chrome for Android has been designed from the ground-up for mobile devices with focus on speed and simplicity and a lot of the features from the desktop version have made their way into the Android version.

Some of the main features include a minimalist UI optimized for smaller screens and support for intuitive gestures such as flip and swipe to manage an unlimited numbers of tabs. Google compares this to holding a pack of cards in your hands, but I doubt it would be the same for a 10” tablet.

Of course, Chrome for Android also inherits the same speed and performance from its desktop sibling with super-smooth scrolling, background loading of top search results and some other under-the-hood tweaks for a speedy browsing experience on your mobile device.

To get an idea of how Chrome for Android compares relative to other Android browsers, we've run some quick SunSpider tests on a Motorola Xoom running Android 4.0.3:

As with the desktop versions, Chrome trails Firefox in raw SunSpider speed, though of course it should be noted that Chrome is a freshly-released beta and Firefox for Android has had a few product cycles to mature. Chrome is also slightly slower than the stock Android browser, but the same footnote applies - Chrome for Android is still a work in progress.

Chrome for Android also features the Incognito mode and as Google calls it, some “fine-grained” privacy options. Some other nifty features include Link Preview, which makes selecting the right link easier on a cluttered page.

The sync feature is an attempt by Google to unify your browsing sessions at home and on your mobile devices. There an option to view the open tabs on your desktop and even get autocomplete suggestions for the most visited websites on your computer, displayed right on your phone or tablet. Bookmark syncing is obviously a given. While these features are extremely handy, I see potential for abuse in every single one of them, especially if you lose your phone.

Android for Chrome is now available on the Android Market, and as usual, Google would greatly appreciate your feedback. We will follow up with a more in-depth benchmark run soon.

Update:

Some further testing on one of our Galaxy Nexii running 4.0.4 reveals that in some cases the version of V8 bundled in Chrome for Android winds up being slightly faster than that of the stock browser application. This is quite possibly due to the different instruction sets supported between Tegra 2 on the Xoom as shown above and OMAP4460 in the Galaxy Nexus, the largest difference being inclusion of NEON.

Interestingly enough, Chrome for Android also includes an about pane that includes the JavaScript V8 version - 3.6.6.18, and WebKit version - 535.7, which is the same version of WebKit as the stable branch of desktop chrome runs. In addition, this marks the first time that I've seen Android running a newer version of WebKit than iOS, which as of 5.0.1 is still 534.46. 

When it comes to HTML5test, the newer version of WebKit in Chrome for Android also handily outscores both the stock Android browser and the latest version of MobileSafari on iOS. This is a definite step forward for true parity between the desktop and mobile browsers.

In spite of not being compatible with Flash (which isn't a surprise given Adobe's previous statements) far it's looking like Chrome for Android is almost everything that Android users were hoping for. In addition, uncoupling the core OS version from the browser is a huge step in the right direction for ensuring that users are using the latest and most secure browsers online instead of being saddled with the incredibly slow carrier-approval update cadence. 

Source: Google Chrome Blog

Intel has posted versions 15.22.54.2622 (32-bit) and 15.22.54.64.2622 (64-bit) of its drivers for the Intel HD-series lineup of integrated graphics processors, which includes both Sandy Bridge and older Nehalem-based chips in both desktop and laptop computers. The drivers are available for all editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Of the Big Three players in the graphics market, Intel is the most erratic about its driver releases - their last generic driver was posted way back in September, and while that driver brought a good number of performance improvements and bug fixes, Intel's latest and greatest fixes just three documented issues: a crashing issue with a program called Interstage Studio Standard J-edition, an issue where the driver would change the refresh rate while on battery power, and an issue where content would appear strangely when rewound. Not terribly exciting, given the wait, but I'm sure that the people experiencing those problems are grateful for the fixes.

As always, Intel notes that these are generic drivers which may or may not be missing features present in the drivers provided by OEMs. I've never had issues using generic Intel drivers on any of my machines, from homemade desktops to OEM laptops to Macs running Windows, but your mileage may vary.

Source: Intel

Nokia announced today that their first Windows phone, the Lumia 800 (our review), will be available in white later this month. The initial lineup included three color options: black, cyan (blue-ish), and magenta (red-ish). The white version is internally identical to the other colors, which means 1.4GHz single-core Qualcomm Snapdragon, Adreno 205 GPU, 512MB of RAM and 16GB of built-in NAND. At first it will be available in Europe, but other continents will follow.

Lumia 800 lineup

White has proven to be an exceptionally difficult color for smart phones. In the case of the Lumia 800, the chassis has not been painted like phones often are, but the actual plastic (polycarbonate if you prefer that name) has been dyed white. The advantage is that there is no paint to wear out and scratches won't reveal a different color either. This isn't the only problem unfortunately. The material must be designed so that light cannot penetrate it as that might cause problems with the internal components. It was speculated that the white iPhone 4 was delayed because of light leakage, though obviously we don't know the real reason behind the delay. Moreover, white is relatively hard to keep white over time (remember "White" MacBooks), so for example heating up could cause chemical reactions that change the color slightly.

Regardless of the difficulties with white casings, the Lumia 800 will offer that option. We'll see how it fares over time, but there are certainly a lot of people interested in a white phone, so having more choices is generally a good thing.

It feels like we first saw images of the Droid 4 just a few days after our review went live. And so seven months later, looks like Verizon customers will finally have a chance to get their hands on the latest iteration of the Android phone that started it all (on Verizon, at least). Officially announced at CES (peep our hands-on here and here), the Droid 4 continues Motorola's recent history of marginally iterating with each new model. So, while the screen size (4.0"), resolution (qHD) and chipset (TI OMAP 4430) remain the same, the clock speed (1.2GHz), RAM (1GB) and form factor have been reworked. 

The design mirrors the look of the Droid RAZR, including the sealed battery (now up to 6.8 Whr), and svelte design. Ironically, the phone is a hair thicker than the Droid 3 it replaces (13.1 mm vs. 12.9 mm), and some of that added thickness is a result of the inclusion of an LTE radio. There aren't a whole lot of QWERTY LTE phones, and the Droid 4 bests Samsung's Stratosphere 4G in thinness by nearly a millimeter. The 4.0" screen is TFT-LCD with PenTile RGBW at 960x540, likely the same one as the Droid 3. 

Like all phones not called the Galaxy Nexus, the Droid 4 will ship with Gingerbread (skinned with not-Blur), and an Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade will be incoming at a later date. Positioning the device at $199 gives buyers the option of the super-thin RAZR or the QWERTY inclusive Droid 4, with the cutting-edge Galaxy Nexus or the RAZR MAXX with its huge battery. Stay tuned, Droid 5 rumors should be trickling in any minute now. 

While AMD’s consumer GPU division is well into its deployment of their first 28nm products, the long validation and certification period for business hardware means that AMD’s business GPU division is still in the process of wrapping up the last of their 40nm product launches. In November AMD launched the Turks based FirePro V4900, and today they’re launching the final member of the current generation FirePro product stack: the FirePro V3900.

If the FirePro V4900 was a business version of the Radeon HD 6670, then the FirePro V3900 is a business version of the Radeon HD 6570 DDR3. Clocked at 650MHz and coupled with 1GB of 900MHz DDR3, the hardware specs are identical to the DDR3 version of the Radeon HD 6570.

For this reason the FirePro V3900 compares to the V4900 in much the same way the 6570 and 6670 do. While the V3900 has a lower core clock (650MHz vs. 800MHz), it’s otherwise a fully functional Turks GPU just like the V4900. The bigger reason for their performance difference is that while the V4900 uses GDDR5, the V3900 uses DDR3, giving it less than half the memory bandwidth and a similar overall performance drop compared to the V4900.

Of course the tradeoff for this drop in performance is size and power consumption. While the V4900 was a full profile card rated for 75W the V3900 is a low-profile card rated for 50W, with most of those power savings coming from switching out GDDR5 for DDR3. This makes the V3900 unique in that it’s the only low-profile FirePro card in AMD’s lineup – though it should be noted that for compatibility purposes it will be shipping with its full-profile bracket installed while the low-profile bracket will be in the box.

AMD will be releasing the V3900 today, with a price of $119. This positions it directly against NVIDIA’s GT216 based Quadro 400, and roughly $50 below NVIDIA’s GF108 based Quadro 600. For the V3900 AMD will be heavily leaning upon the fact that Turks can drive 5 monitors. However as with the V4900 this feature is effectively MIA until DisplayPort MST hubs ship this summer, as without the hub the card can only drive up to 2 monitors via its DP 1.2 and DL-DVI ports.

More immediately, on paper the V3900 should be far more powerful than the architecturally ancient Quadro 400. But as this is the professional market AMD’s real competition is NVIDIA’s certification and support, more so than their performance at any given price.

On that note, since AMD already launched a Turks based FirePro last year the certification process should be rather straightforward. Products (rather than GPUs) are individually certified, but as AMD already worked out any Turks driver kinks for the V4900 there shouldn’t be any surprises in store for the V3900.

Finally, it’s interesting to note that with this launch AMD has effectively committed to keeping Turks around for quite some time. AMD’s 3 year FirePro lifecycle means that the V3900 will be available until at least February of 2015, some 4 years after the first Turks products launched. Given Turks’ continual recurrence through 2012 in OEM laptops, desktops, and now professional cards, it’s clear that it’s living up to its position of being AMD’s low cost, high volume anchor GPU for the 40nm generation.

A common feature in some of the world's most succesful companies is an evangelist. Sometimes that person will be a founder or CEO, other times it will be a salesman or marketing and public relations person. Whatever their role, the evangelist will be passionate about the company, their goals and their products, and if you encounter them, they won't rest until you are as passionate. For LG Electronics, the chief evangelist is a man by the name of Ken Hong. We joined him for a tour of LG's booth, where he introduced us to a new kind of Google TV, LG's Smart TV with Google TV. 

Clevo's venerable X7200 notebook has gotten more than a little long in the tooth. The desktop hardware-based behemoth has been sporting the X58 chipset and support for LGA1366 processors pretty much since launch, despite the availability of Sandy Bridge processors and 6 series chipsets. Since mainstream hardware just isn't punchy enough for Clevo, they've now released a refresh to the X7200 in the form of the P270WM.

While we don't have any good photos of the new kit yet, we do know AVADirect will be among the first if not the first to have the new notebook available. They'll be shipping the P270WM with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580M standard; not a bad choice, as our testing showed the 580M inching out AMD's Radeon HD 6990M as the fastest single mobile GPU on the market. Users craving as much power as humanly possible will be able to spec the P270WM with a pair of 580Ms in SLI along with up to a Sandy Bridge-E Intel Core i7-3960X.

Where things get really interesting is that, judging from the photos AVADirect sent us, Clevo has finally given the X7200 a much-needed sprucing up. The P270WM includes not just a backlit keyboard, but in a bid to finally satisfy our Jarred Walton, the keyboard itself has been completely redesigned and now includes a layout that's actually functional.

Everything else about the P270WM should seem pretty familiar for users who already know the X7200: 17.3" screen at 1080p, punishing 12.13 pound body weight, three 2.5" drive bays, and four SO-DIMM slots to populate Sandy Bridge-E's quad channel memory controller.

Just like every other aspect of the P270WM, though, the pricetag isn't for the faint of heart: pre-orders start at a whopping $3,122 and are expected to ship around early March. Hopefully we'll have one in hand for review in time for launch.

Lenovo will be rolling out its official Ice Cream Sandwich build for the ThinkPad Tablet in May of this year, the company announced via the tablet's product page.

The tablet, which starts at $479.00 and integrates NVIDIA's Tegra 2 SoC, 1GB of RAM, a 10.1" 1280x800 display, optional 3G, and 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities, is currently Lenovo's flagship Android tablet. The company also sells two other Android tablets: the IdeaPad Tablet K1, another 10.1" tablet running Android 3.1, and the IdeaPad A1, a 7" tablet running Android 2.3. Lenovo hasn't said when (or if) either of these tablets would receive an official Android 4.0 upgrade.

We'll continue to do our best to keep you updated as Ice Cream Sandwich (reviewed here in its smartphone iteration) trickles out to phones and tablets across the Android ecosystem.

Source: Lenovo

Back when the Verizon CDMA/LTE Galaxy Nexus released, there was much talk of a signal related issue, which we investigated. The findings back then were that there was nothing wrong with the device itself, the problem was merely a discrepancy with how 4.0.2 was painting signal bars. Since then, I've been watching for an update which would change the way the device reports signal, and it appears that these changes are included in the 4.0.4 ROM which has emerged for the mysid (CDMA/LTE) model. I spent some time playing around with our CDMA/LTE Galaxy Nexus with this ROM installed and have a few impressions.

 
Three bars on 4.0.2 (left) versus four bars on 4.0.4 (right) at -93 dBm

First, the update does indeed appear to change the signal strength to signal bars mapping. In the same reported signal strength (-93 dBm in this example), the device has gone from 3 bars on 4.0.2 to 4 bars on 4.0.4. The rest of the change points seem to be accordingly lower as well, meaning you'll see more bars for the same field strength. This change makes the Galaxy Nexus more in line with the reporting I've seen on other Verizon LTE devices.

I believe that there's a good chance that the Galaxy Nexus as of 4.0.4 is reporting signal strength based on LTE RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) which is the summation of power from adjacent cells, interference, and thermal noise, as opposed to LTE RSRP (Reference Signal Received Power) which is the power of a reference signal from a specific cell. Lately, Verizon has been making a concerted effort to standardize reporting on LTE handsets to a 5 bar scale reflecting LTE RSSI instead of LTE RSRP, starting with the recent HTC Rezound update.

  
Dock options, power menu

A few other observations address some other cellular performance characteristics - specifically hard handover speed from 4G LTE down to 3G EVDO and back up. Going both directions on the Galaxy Nexus now seems much, much faster compared to the device's original shipping state - doing the handover and getting data flowing now is basically instantaneous. This is a big improvement if you're frequently in an area with marginal 4G LTE signal. Other changes are subtle and include some UI tweaks: the camera launch from lock screen now feels faster, there's a subtle tweak to the power off menu, and inside settings is a "Dock" category and options tab (shown above) which was present in 4.0.3 but new for the CDMA/LTE Galaxy Nexus. Performance through our benchmark suite remains the same, however.