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Sony Ericsson Vivaz 2 is the upcoming mobile phone from the company that comes packed with long list of impressive features. This phone features TFT capacitive touchscreen that supports 16M colors along with 480 X 854 pixel resolution. The display comes with scratch resistant surface and also enables multi touch input method. Additional display features include Accelerometer sensor, Proximity sensor, digital compass and light sensors.

Sony Ericsson Vivaz 2 is powered by Qualcomm MSM7630 1GHz of processor and it runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS.

The list of multimedia options that comes packed with Sony Ericsson Vivaz 2 include 8 MP camera with AF, LED flash and digital zoom, 720 Video recording at 30 fps , Multi format music player with TrackID recognition, FM radio with RDS and access to social networking sites.

The connectivity in the phone is provided through GPRS, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, WiFi, microUSB 2.0, EDGE, 3G and HTML Browser.  Additional features of the phone include 1500 mAh battery, MIDP 2.1 Java support, games, push email facility, expandable memory up to 32GB and others.

Fly has recently come out with its latest mobile phone called “Fly MC155″ which is a dual SIM GSM compatible phone with decent list of specifications. This phone comes in bar form factor and operates on GSM 900/1800 MHz of frequency.

There is TFT display in the phone that is capable of supporting acceptable pixel resolution for offering clear content viewing. For all those people who love to capture their special moments in form of images, the 2MP camera of the phone will prove to be very handy. The camera is capable of capturing images supporting resolution count of 1600 X 1200 pixels.

To take care of your musical needs even on the go Fly MC155 comes packed with FM radio and MP3 music player.  The microSDHC card support in the phone facilitates external memory expansion for providing enough storage space for all your needed data.

Connectivity in the phone is offered through Bluetooth and USB whereas it’s WAP Browser along with GPRS facilitates internet connectivity.

It is through a commercial of Super Bowl that Sony Ericsson has finally made it planned to be official. The presentation of the XPERIA Play is planned to be held at 13th February. However from the announcement by Sony through the commercial has made certain things clear about the device. Previously there has been several leaked videos, pictures, benchmarks and previews about the device which already have aroused enough interest and anticipation among the minds of consumers.

But with the new somewhat creepy commercial, Sony Ericsson has finally made things official about the device. Due to the creepiness of the advertisement, this commercial may not be released in all the countries but one cannot deny the fact that the commercial is unique. However the launch of the device will happen officially one day prior to the MWC that will be held in Barcelona this month that is on 13th of February.

Some interchangeable lens standards have been around for ages. Others, however, are rather more modern contrivances, and Sony’s E-mount definitely falls in that latter category. We’ve seen it hit HD camcorders as well as the NEX-3 and NEX-5 compacts, but so far the greatest selections of lenses we’ve yet seen has come courtesy of a simple adapter. Sony wants that to change, releasing the “basic” specifications for its E-mount interchangeable lens system and doing so for free, a move that lens makers like Carl Zeiss and Sigma have all lauded — though none went so far as to say they’d actually start making this particular flavor of glass. Oh, and the specs for the NEX-5 Lego viewfinder? Still totally free.

How do you tell a Tachyon XC from a Tachyon XC HD helmet camera? Easy: you look for the “HD” printed on the side. We’re pretty sure that’s the only exterior distinguishing factor between the two, at least it’s all our untrained eyes could pick out. And that’s not a bad thing by any means.

Sure, the XC has a chassis that’s slightly chunkier and bulkier than the Contour line of cameras, but it has one major advantage: it’s totally waterproof right out of the box. The rear door shuts tight with a reassuringly loud noise that damages hearing and lets you feel confident the SD memory card and dual AA battery pack inside will be kept dry. It’s far more beefy than the flimsy plastic latch on top of a GoPro. The Tachyon is rated to 100 feet, but we’d guess it’ll manage a lot further before its little hull goes Das Boot.

Thu, Aug 12 03:28 AM

The last few launches from Sony Ericsson have been very focused on looks and with the Vivaz, Vivaz Pro, Satio, Aino and Yari, this is quite evident. When we last reviewed the Xperia X10 Mini, what we really missed was a keypad for the power packed tiny device. But Sony Ericsson seems to have taken a note of that and has brought to us the Mini Pro, the highlight of which is the slideout QWERTY keypad. Rest of the features and specifications being exactly the same makes the device only better.

The Mini Pro is a bit fatter than its predecessor though it manages to retain the charm and the style which we love in the X10 Mini. The tiny black body with a silver band around it, features the 2.5-inch capacitive touchscreen with the options, menu and the back buttons underneath it. The right side of the device has the camera button and the volume rocker and to the left is just the micro USB port. At the top are the power/lock key and the 3.5 mm audio jack. The back hosts the 5 mega pixel camera with the LED light and towards the bottom is the speaker grill. Opening the back panel is a task indeed but once it is done, the SIM-card slot and the microSD card slot are visible.

The device runs on Android v 1.6 with the timescape user interface on top which is very snappy. The home screen is quite adept with the essential messaging, music, calling and contacts tabs on the four corners. There are up to 10 home screen widgets that can be configured to open on a separate screen. You can slide the screen sideways to scroll through them. The user can change the wallpaper, widgets or the icons on the menu as per choice. That brings us to the menu which has four screens with 6 icons each. You can reach the menu with the menu button or by sliding the screen up. Additional screens get added as more application icons come in.

The screen turns landscape the moment the keypad is slid out. Typing on the keypad is smooth and it slides back with a smooth snap. Though, I did face a problem at times because the keypad edge seemed to block the screen from closing at times (most probably as it was a review unit).

Next is the camera that clicks good images with its 5 MP AF sensor. It clicks sharp and bright images in daylight, but what is weird is that other than an option to choose from modes like Macro, Twilight and Sports, you have no other settings available. Once you move into the video mode, you can choose the support light or the option for normal videos or videos for MMS. It also features Geotagging for direct uploads to the Web. For the rest, we are hopeful that with the zillion applications available on the Android app store, this will not be an issue. The sound and voice quality is also up to the mark and give very good output.

The X10 Mini Pro also features the Wisepilot app with Navteq maps for navigation and trackID for tracking songs and videos of various artists on the Internet. And one would not need to worry about more applications with the app store around. However, the device disappoints in terms of of the battery. With a 930 mAh battery, one cannot expect a lot of backup from the phone considering the full touch user interface and data connectivity. Nonetheless, it is one of the best Android phones available in its price segment.

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Dell’s given its Inspiron  lineup a new back-to-school paint job, dubbed as the new R series, with a heavy emphasis on gloss and Dell’s forward-positioned hinge designed (thrilling, we know). The lineup has mainly the same internals as the existing Inspirons, with Core i3 and Core i5 processors, but the optional Intel Wireless Display is a nice addition. Prices start at $449, with models coming in 14, 15, and 17-inch sizes, and you can configure these things to your heart’s content — including your choice of Mars Black, Promise Pink, Tomato Red, and Peacock Blue. The laptops should are available today at retail and on Dell.com, and you can find a fancy press release after the break.

The Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid

This morning Seagate launched  the Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Drive series. These drives offer hybrid storage with Seagate Adaptive Memory technology, enabling the drive to be offered in capacities up to 500GB with SSD-like performance for a fraction of the cost of a traditional SSD. How did Seagate make this happen? They took last year’s Momentus 7200.4 hard drive series and doubled the cache for the hard drive from 16MB to 32MB and then added 4GB of SLC NAND Flash that acts as the drive’s SSD. Seagate then wrote some custom software code that they are calling Adaptive Memory technology that makes the SSD portion of the Momentus XT OS-, driver- and software independent. By doing this they claim they can make a drive that feels and acts like an SSD, but it is really a combination of both. Interested yet?  Let’s take a look!

The new Seagate Momentus XT hard drive combines a 7200RPM spin speed, 4 GigaBytes of SLC NAND Flash and Seagate’s Adaptive Memory – a groundbreaking Seagate technology that moves frequently used information into flash memory for faster access. By doing this the Momentus XT boots up to 40 percent faster than a traditional 7200RPM notebook drive! Not bad for a 2.5-inch, 9mm drive that comes in capacities of up to 500GB!

The Seagate Adaptive Memory algorithm works by identifying patterns in how often certain digital data is used. It then moves the most frequently retrieved information to flash memory for faster access than from the spinning disks – effectively tailoring hard drive performance to the user and applications. By doing this the Momentus XT feels like an SSD or 10,000RPM desktop hard drive as the data you are accessing is being accessed from the 4GB SLC NAND Flash chip and not from the platter.  The data is, of course, still on the platters, so even if the SLC NAND Flash ever fails or wears out you should still be able to access the data from the hard drive itself, which is really nice.

Taking a look at our Seagate Momentus XT 500GB Solid State Hybrid drive you really can’t tell any difference from the outside. It looks just like any other Seagate Momentus notebook drive.

Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid Drive Benefits:

• Boots 40 percent faster than traditional 7200-RPM drives
• Cuts costs by 75 percent compared to SSDs by combining solid state and hard drive technologies
• Delivers the perfect balance of speed and capacity
• Uses Adaptive Memory technology to optimize performance in real time by storing frequently used files and data on the solid state drive component
• Ensures compatibility with any operating system or application with a standard 9.5mm notebook drive form factor and the characteristics of a traditional 7200RPM drive
• Offers all the benefits of SSD performance with the high capacity, storage, battery life, power consumption and heat generation of a traditional hard drive

Hard Drive Features:

• Form Factor: 2.5″ x 1/8H (9.5mm)
• Capacity: 250, 320, 500 GB
• Interface Type: Serial ATA-300
• Buffer Size: 32 MB
• Features: Native Command Queuing (NCQ), Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR), QuietStep (Ramp Load)
• Drive Transfer Rate: 300 MBps (external)
• Random Read Seek Time: 11 ms (average)
• Random Write Seek Time: 13 ms (average)
• Average Latency: 4.17 ms
• Spindle Speed: 7200 RPM
• Shock Tolerance: 350 g @ 2ms (operating) / 1000 g @ 1ms (non-operating)
• Acoustics (bels at idle/seek): 2.3 / 2.5
• Power Usage: 0.8W (Idle), 1.554W (Seek)
• Manufacturer Warranty: 5 year limited warranty

The back of this 2.5″ notebook hard drive gives a better look at the SATA power connector and the SATA NCQ interface. There is a jumper just to the left of the SATA data connection that enables the drive’s 3GB/s speeds. With the jumper in place the speed is limited at 1.5GB/s, and with it removed the full potential of the drive is unlocked. This OEM drive was shipped to us with no jumper installed as they wanted us to get the best performance possible from the drive for this review.

Since there is no labeling about this jumper on the drive and information about the jumper is hard to find it can be frustrating if you are having issues setting one of these drives up in your notebook and find that you encounter issues. Having the jumper installed will force the drive to operate in the 1.5Gb/s mode, which is needed on select notebooks like the Thinkpad T61p. This is due to the fact some older 1.5Gbits/sec SATA cards do not support auto negotiation with newer 3.0Gbits/sec drives. Systems using older SATA host adapters may stop responding during boot or may respond with a “drive not detected” error. If this happens on your notebook while trying to upgrade to one of these drives just place a two-pin jumper (not included with the drive) onto the two left pins of the jumper block and the errors should go away.

Yeah yeah, “more cores and faster speeds,” you’ve heard it all before right? That’d be our reaction too if we weren’t talking about the successor to the Nehalem-Ex, Intel’s most gruesomely overpowered chip to date. Launched under the Xeon 7500 branding in March, it represents Intel’s single biggest generational leap to date, and with its eight cores, sixteen threads, and 24MB of shared on-board cache, you could probably see why. Time waits for no CPU though, and Intel’s planned 32nm  Westmere-Ex successor will move things forward with an unspecified increase in both core count (speculated to be jumping up to 12) and operating frequencies, while keeping within the same power envelope. Given the current 2.26GHz default speed and 2.66GHz Turbo Boost option of the 7500, that means we’re probably looking at a 2.4GHz to 2.5GHz 12-core, hyper-threaded processor, scheduled to land at some point next year. Time to make some apps that can use all that parallel processing power, nay?

This silvery-set top box above may look rather drab, but never fear: its next production run will sport a nice, colorful Windows 7 sticker. That’s because Western Digital recently signed an agreement to make its WD TV Live HD network media players compatible with Microsoft’s “Play To” feature, allowing you to push media right to your TV from a Windows Media Player 12-equipped PC. While the feature actually snuck its way into firmware revision 1.02.21 in late March, WD only just began trumpeting its inclusion today… possibly to let memories of its disastrous prior update fade. Whatever the reason, the box is not the “first network media player compatible with Windows 7″ — Denon has four recievers that predate it. Press release and an example of what ‘Play To’ looks like, right after the break.