This Just In: Corsair Nova 128GB SSD
I haven't taken a look at a new Corsair SSD in a while. The company started out by shipping relatively uninteresting Samsung based SSDs, but since then we've seen Corsair ramp up adoption of newer technologies fairly quickly. With drives from Indilinx and now SandForce onboard, it's time for an update from one of the first companies to ever visit me in NC over a decade ago.
Next week I should receive their new SandForce SF-1200 based drive, the Corsair Force, however today I got their Indilinx Barefoot based Nova drive:
This drive is based on Indilinx's Barefoot controller but uses 34nm Intel NAND (other NAND vendors are supported as well). It's Corsair's version of the G.Skill Falcon II we looked at a while back, or OCZ's Solid 2. I'm running it through our test suite now, expect to see results in Bench in the next couple of days.
More pics in the Gallery.
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This Just In: Apple iPad Keyboard Dock
As I mentioned in our review, there are elements of Apple's iPad launch that seemed rushed. The lack of any spectacular apps from Apple itself, some performance/OS issues and even missing accessories at launch.
One accessory that couldn't be found on day 1 is the iPad Keyboard Dock. This accessory has a dock port for your iPad, an external dock port for connecting to your computer/power brick and a 1/8" line out. They keyboard itself is Apple's condensed chiclet, which ranks up there with ThinkPad keyboards in my book. The dock and keyboard are both very well built.
You can use keyboard shortcuts (e.g. copy, paste, option+delete to delete the previous word, etc...) and there are even some hotkeys on the keyboard itself (.e.g lock, brightness control, home screen). You do lose things like auto punctuation in Pages (e.g. tapping space twice doesn't put a period at the end of the previous word) and you can't Cmd+Tab between apps (perhaps that's coming in OS4?).
It does improve the overall functionality of your iPad quite a bit. If you plan on using your iPad as a netbook alternative, I'd say the iPad Keyboard Dock is a necessity. Unfortunately, priced at $69 it contributes to the iPad's already high cost of ownership.
More pics in the Gallery, and more thoughts later!
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This Just In: G.Skill Giveaway Goodies
Before the new site launched I demoed a new feature I'd been toying with called This Just In. The idea is to give you guys a quick glance at what I'm working on (and eventually what the entire team is working on) as soon as something new arrives at our doorsteps.
I'll admit that there have been a few things that have arrived since my last post, however all of them are under NDA at this point. I do have good news though, more giveaways are coming.
I asked our ad reps to see if any of their clients wanted to provide any giveaways to commemorate the new site launch. G.Skill was eager to show their appreciation for you all and dropped off a big box of goodies to give away.
I haven't inventoried it all yet, nor have I decided how we're going to give it away but expect more details next week :) And congrats to our AMD/Lenovo giveaway winner Scott T. from Syracuse, NY. Scott and I have already been in communication and AMD is working hard to get him his brand new ThinkPad X100e asap!
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Intel's X25-V for $98 at Newegg, Update:Dead Deal
A few folks have sent this in so I thought it was worth posting about. Intel's X25-V that we've recently reviewed is now on sale at Newegg for $98. The deal lasts as long as supplies last but given the incredible performance we've seen from a pair of the drives in RAID-0, this might be worth looking at if you're thinking about jumping to an SSD.
I'm still waiting on OCZ's Onyx before calling the value race over at this point. The competition below $130 isn't huge yet but we're at least getting some action down there. As I've said before, once 25nm NAND starts shipping in Q4 then we should really see $/GB start to drop.
Update: Congrats to all who got them, the drives are now sold out.
Update 2: Drives back in stock, but the deal is over.
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