ATI Radeon HD 5970: 42% more expensive in the UK

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

The ATI Radeon HD 5970, aside being from the fastest graphics card in the world, is several things: hot enough to sear the skin off your fingers, for instance, and so huge that it’ll barely fit inside the average ATX case.

At £520 inc VAT for a stock version, it’s also one of the most expensive graphics cards available in the UK – and, when the same card costs $599 in the US, that seems like a tremendous rip-off.

We’ve asked ATI to clarify exactly how it arrived at this price – after all, a straight conversion of the American price would see the HD 5970 costing around £360 – but the firm’s replies have only consisted of the usual corporate excuses, with VAT, shipping costs and exchange rates all blamed for the 42% price hike.

So, how likely are these oft-used excuses?

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HTC Touch HD2 review: first look

Monday, November 16th, 2009

The comparison between any smartphone with a large touchscreen and an Apple iPhone has become a cliché, and one we honestly try to avoid, but this time it’s 100%, completely and utterly unavoidable. What’s more, our early impressions are that the HTC Touch HD2 is in many ways better than the iPhone. And that’s despite the use of Windows Mobile 6.5, aka Windows Phone. (more…)

Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 review: first look

Friday, November 13th, 2009

There are lots of smartphones vying for our attention right now, but despite the underwhelming nature of its improvements, Windows Phone is generating some interesting handsets. The latest is Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X2 – the follow up to the distinctly average X1 we reviewed last year – and we had our first chance to play with one at the launch event last night.

As you can see from the picture, it’s a very similar handset to the X1, boasting a sliding hardware Qwerty keyboard, and an ingenious mechanism that kicks the screen up at an angle so it’s more comfortable to view while typing. It does so with a satisfying snap, too.

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Will you hit the Orange iPhone “unlimited” cap?

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Orange’s big unveiling of its iPhone tariffs has caused a bit of a kerfuffle, not least because its prices are almost identical to those of O2. A lot of people are up in arms about the promise of “unlimited browsing”, which in fact comes with a fair-use limit of 750MB.

But, ignoring the terrible decision to put an “unlimited” label on a very clearly capped tariff, is that amount of monthly data actually “fair-use”?

As discussed in this week’s podcast, there’s a very easy way for existing iPhone owners to find out if that data cap would prove troublesome. Just go to Settings -> General -> Usage, and take a look at your Cellular Network Data. I did just that, believing this cap would be encroaching at least a little on my roaming lifestyle, but I was in for a surprise. (more…)

USB 3 first benchmark – it’s here, and it’s fast

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

The first USB 3 external hard disk has arrived in the PC Pro Labs – a pre-production sample courtesy of our friends at Asus – and initial impressions are simply excellent.

The chart above may need a little explaining. The first two groups of results show how long it took, in seconds, to copy a folder of 3,000 small files, totalling 300MB in size, back and forth between a RAM disk and an external hard drive using various connections. The 650MB results are based on the same process using a single 650MB file.

The USB 2 and USB 3 figures were obtained by simply connecting the external drive first to a USB 2 port and then to a USB 3 one. The eSATA figures are from the A-Listed Iomega Professional External Hard Drive. (more…)

How to install Windows 7 on the new 27in iMac

Monday, October 26th, 2009

Windows 7 isn’t officially supported in Boot Camp just yet, but that doesn’t stop it working a treat most of the time. We have it installed on one of the new MacBooks in the Labs, but the gigantic 27in iMac proved to be much more problematic (we’ll have a full review of the monster in question later this week).

The problem occurs after the main Windows 7 installation has taken place. The system reboots, the Windows 7 logo circles into life and the desktop should appear – but all you get is blackness. The system is still running – press the Caps Lock key and you’ll see the light ping on – but you can’t see anything, indicating a problem with the iMac’s ATI graphics drivers.

Fear not, though. If you’ve just blown £1,350 on this beautiful beast and are now scratching your head as to why you can’t get it working, there is a workaround to crowbar Windows 7 onto it. (more…)

BlackBerry Bold 9700 review: first look

Monday, October 26th, 2009

The Storm 2 might be attracting all the headlines right now, but it’s not the only phone RIM is championing right now. As we reported last week, its BlackBerry Bold 9700 (pictured left) has also just been announced, and we’ve had the chance for a brief hands on.

Those familiar with the BlackBerry range will instantly notice that the Bold 9700 is a lot smaller than the original Bold (pictured right). It measures 60 x 14.1 x 109mm and weighs in at a mere 122g. So small, in fact that it looks a bit like a Curve.

Those statistics might make the Bold 9700 more pocketable than its predecessor. But, worryingly, it also means the keyboard is smaller too. Given that the Bold’s amazing keyboard was its key selling point, this has the potential to ground the new phone before it’s had the chance to take off.

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Help me choose my next PC case

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

I know there’s a while to go yet, but I’m beginning to think about Christmas – and, specifically, what I’m going to do about my ailing PC over the holiday period.

It’s in bad shape. The chassis is an decrepit Cooler Master model that has no screws holding the sides on and, since I rescued it from the PC Pro Labs, not all of the components inside are actually secured properly: the two hard disks lie uncomfortably in their drive bays, and the optical drive isn’t attached to the 5.25in bay, either; instead, it merely balances between the bay and the front of the chassis and  has to be physically pulled towards the front of the system to be used.

Obviously, this brings numerous disadvantages, with the rattling and reverberating of the hard disks and optical drive meaning that my system isn’t exactly quiet. The lack of cable-tidying means that it’s an ugly PC to look at and difficult to work inside, too, which has made life tricky when I’ve upgraded components in the past.

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First Look: Dell PowerEdge R510 rackmount server

Monday, October 19th, 2009

Announced last Friday, a Dell PowerEdge R510 mid to low-end rackmount server has landed with a light-ish thud in my corporate testbed facility. I might be joking about the corporate testbed, but I’m not joking about the lightness: having just seen the bruises fade away after shifting my stock of HP LP2000Rs (by donating them to the London Cycle Campaign), it was a major relief to be able to carry and unpack the R510 without cups of tea for the battered-shins posse, cursing, and fresh dents in the back of the estate car.

Comparing the R510 with the old machines is hard, because the simple physical similarity wrongfoots you when you actually absorb the statistics. I gave away 5 LP2000R’s – the virtual machine images of them all would fit, and run, inside the R510 without complaint, and use rather less than half of the current required by just one LP2000R.

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BlackBerry Storm 2 review: first look

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

So RIM has dumped the mechanical click screen of the original Storm completely and has replaced it with a brand new system. And having spent nearly an hour in the company of its successor – the BlackBerry Storm 2 – I can confirm that it’s a huge improvement.

The Storm 2 uses a system of four software-controlled electro-mechanical actuators (which sit behind the screen), to give a sort of localised haptic feedback. Press the screen anywhere on its surface and it gives feedback in response – but this is like no other feedback vibration I’ve experienced before. Incredibly, pressing the screen feels just like clicking a button, and it’s very responsive too.

Coupled with the BlackBerry OS’s effective auto correction, I managed to get up to a rapid typing speed instantly, and because it’s multitouch, you don’t have to wait to finish one key press before beginning another.

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