Nikon introduces D3200 entry-level DSLR
Nikon has introduced a new DSLR to sit within its entry level range of cameras, featuring a 24.2 million pixel sensor, which it says it will sell alongside the camera's predecessor, the D3100.
The headline grabbing specification of the D3200 is of course the 24.2 million pixel sensor, Nikon's second high resolution camera to be introduced this year and the second highest in its current line-up (behind the Nikon D800's 36 million pixels).
It is designed to sit above the D3100 in the entry level range of DSLRs, but is not intended to be a direct replacement.
The native sensitivity ranges from ISO 100 up to ISO 6400, and is expandable up to Hi1, which is an equivalent of ISO 12800.
Eleven autofocus points are provided by the Multi CAM 1000 autofocus sensor for phase detection focusing when shooting through the optical viewfinder. A contrast detection system is also available when using Live View.
Processor
The D3200 uses the same Expeed 3 processor which can be found in Nikon's more expensive bodies, the D800 and D4. This promises to offer considerably faster speeds than the Expeed 2 processor, allowing for better noise reduction and full HD video recording.1080p video recording is available at 24, 25 and 30fps, while 50 and 60fps can be achieved when recording in 720p HD. A stereo mic jack is included for adding an optional external microphone.
Big improvements have been made to the Guide Mode, which Nikon says has proven to be popular on its previous D3000 and D3100 models. This acts as an in-camera guide to achieving popular results. New additions, such as "Reds in Sunsets" have been added for the D3200.
Design
Slight changes have been made to the ergonomics of the camera, including the addition of a dedicated Live View button, a movie record button and a drive mode option.The rear LCD is now a 921k dot device, compared with the 230k dot screen of the D3100.
Available as a separate accessory, the Nikon D3200 can have Wi-Fi functionality added via the WU-1A adapter. This allows for images to be shared on social networking sites and other options via a connected smartphone. A free app for Android will be available to download from sales start date, while an iOS version should be ready in the autumn.
The Nikon D3200 price is set to be around £559.99 body only (around $895), or £649.99 (around $1,039) with the 18-55mm kit lens. It will be made available in both red and black from the middle of May. Meanwhile, the Nikon WU-1A wireless adapter price will cost around £54.99.
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Nikon introduces 24mm FX format lens
Nikon has introduced a new wide-angle FX-format (full frame) prime lens to sit in its line-up.
The 24mm f/1.8G lens boasts a new optical design, which Nikon claims helps to produce beautiful out of focus areas.
Bridging the gap between existing focal lengths (24mm and 35mm) in the line-up, the 28mm lens can also be used on DX format cameras, producing an effective focal length of 42mm.
Design
The lens is constructed of two aspherical lens elements, designed to effectively minimise chromatic aberration and correct distortion that can be a problem with wide-angle lenses.Nano Crystal Coating has been included to reduce ghosting and flare, while a Silent Wave Motor (SWM) has been designed to ensure quiet and accurate autofocusing.
Weighing in at just 330g, the 28mm lens has been made to be compact and light, and also works with entry-level Nikon DSLRs that don't have a built-in autofocus motor.
The Nikon AF-S Nikkor 28mm f/1.8G lens price will be £619.99 (around $993), sales are expected to start from 24 May 2012.
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Review: Nikon D3200
Introduction
By all accounts, Nikon has a great year in 2011, topping both the DSLR and compact camera charts. The former came via the Nikon D3100, the company's entry-level offering which features a 14.2 million pixel sensor and offered a great "in" for those looking to get serious about their photography.After launching two new models at the very top of its line-up already this year, Nikon has now refreshed its beginner offering with the D3200, although interestingly not by replacing the D3100, but by introducing a new camera to sit alongside it.
Nikon says that it will continue to market and sell the D3100, offering customers the choice between a budget model, and a more sophisticated option in the D3200.
There's lots of interesting technology crammed into the relatively small body of the D3200, including things which have trickled down from its more expensive bodies. Those include features such as the Expeed 3 processing engine, which promises to deliver quicker processing times, low noise and different frame rates for the full HD video recording.
A number of other improvements have been made to the camera, including slight ergonomic upgrades in the form of newly added buttons and an enhanced rear LCD screen.
But it is course that 24.2 million pixel sensor which is likely to be the most headline grabbing feature, coming just weeks after the unveiling of its other high resolution camera, the Nikon D800 (with 36 million pixels).
Resolution
Coming from a company that used to profess that 12 million pixels was "enough", it's likely that some will scoff at the upping in pixel count, but Nikon is keen to point out the cropping potential that such a high resolution offers. This means that for users who are unlikely to invest in a second, longer focal length range, they can crop into images post-capture and still retain a large enough pixel count for high quality images.Aiming itself so squarely at the entry level user, improvements made to the Guide Mode are something Nikon is understandably keen to shout about. On this model, new guides including "Reds in Sunsets" have been added, which, along with the original guides, is designed to guide users to the best possible image quality without necessarily having to have a huge amount of photographic knowledge.
Helpfully, the updated guide now has reference images which change as the settings are adjusted to show the typical impact.
Another feature which is likely to appeal to the intended target audience, is the option to purchase an additional Wi-Fi adapter, the WU-1A, which connects the camera to smart phones and tablets for remote shooting and uploading images to social networking sites.
A number of retouch options have been included in the camera, including the capability to straighten and crop images and add digital art filters after the shot has been taken.
Build quality and handling
The D3200 takes the lead from its predecessor, but has a few improvements to ergonomics which are very helpful to the everyday shooter.While there are limited number of direct control buttons on the D3200, commonly used functions (such as ISO), can be accessed via the "i" quick menu button on the back of the camera.
Although obviously quite a small camera, the large grip provides a good amount of purchase, while the weight of it (when combined with the standard 18-55mm kit lens) is heavy enough to give the D3200 the feel of a quality piece of kit.
The camera feels robust enough to withstand minor knocks and scrapes, although it obviously doesn't have the higher quality of build of its bigger, more expensive brothers in the line-up.
New buttons include a dedicated Live View button, a welcome and sensible addition for novice users who may be used to shooting via an LCD if they have come from a compact or compact system camera background.
Another new addition is a dedicated movie record button, which can be found conveniently located next to the shutter release. Again, this is a sensible idea for the intended audience, who are unlikely to want to spend time fiddling about with dials and menus to reach movie record mode.
LCD
Nikon has improved the screen for the D3200, bringing it up to 921,000 dots from the D3100's 230k dot offering. The screen is very clear and bright, and offers a good angle of view from a variety of different shooting positions.
It's somewhat a shame that an articulating screen couldn't be included on the D3200, but adding that would surely come at the cost of making the overall body bigger, so it's understandable why Nikon has chosen to keep articulating screens for its larger bodied cameras.
The display orientation changes depending on whether you're shooting in portrait or landscape mode, a nice touch which makes shooting in portrait mode a much easier proposition and is likely to impress those used to using smart phones and the like.
Of course, being an SLR, the D3200 has an optical viewfinder. Although not offering the same 100% field of view as its bigger brothers, it is none-the-less bright and clear and easy to work with.
With 11 autofocus points on offer, you can elect to have the camera choose an AF point for you, or switch to choosing it for yourself. Being a slightly more advanced operation, this option is hidden away slightly in the menu, which is a little frustrating.
Guide mode
The improvements made to the Guide menu have made the process of shooting high quality images easier, while also managing to impart some knowledge to the photographer using it.
For example, when using the new "Reds in Sunsets" mode, the camera will guide the user through altering white balance, meaning that eventually the user may come to use the camera independently, without the need for such help.
Nikon already claims that the Guide feature has been very well received by its users, and we can't see that changing for the new model, and it's great that these guides have been written in plain English, as well as referencing the photographic terms for educational purposes.
Performance
As we only had the opportunity to spend time with a pre-production version of the camera, we are unable to share any images taken with the D3200, and we have also been unable to examine any images shot at 100% on a computer screen.However, initial impressions of the camera's performance are good, and we think this camera is likely to appeal to novice shooters, while also containing a few features that enthusiasts will also appreciate.
Autofocus acquisition was quick in the majority of cases during our time with the camera, even in low light situations.
In areas of low contrast, or very low light, the autofocus did struggle a little, but overall we were impressed by its performance and will be keen to put this through its paces further when we get a full production sample in for review.
It's worth bearing in mind that autofocus is slower when using Live View, which may frustrate some shooters who are used to the quick speeds of compact cameras.
Shooting using the auto white balance setting, the camera seemed to do a good job of measuring the scene to produce accurate results. Noise when shooting at high sensitivities also seemed to be low. It's worth remembering however that these conclusions come from quickly examining images on the rear LCD and we will of course be keen to put it to further inspection.
By introducing a greater number of pixels to the sensor, there comes a greater risk of increased noise. Nikon says that noise levels remain roughly the same as on the 14.3 pixel D3100, but in certain rare conditions, the performance is slightly worse. Again, this is an area we will be keen to put through rigorous tests at a later date.
We were unable to review the editing and retouch options on the pre-production sample we were using, but the features included are promising. The option to straighten horizons we can see being particularly appealing to users, as well as the in-camera cropping. We would have liked to have seen the ability to add ratings from within the camera, making it easier to see which images to ditch and which to keep, but perhaps this is something Nikon could consider for future models.
Early verdict
Nikon has delivered an entry-level camera with real photographic punch. Borrowing elements from its more expensive siblings, the D3200 should appeal to a large section of would-be photographers.
Obviously, it's difficult to fully evaluate a camera without being able to access image quality, but early indications are pretty positive. The introduction of a 24 million pixel sensor is something that many people are likely to get excited about, and we'll be keen to see what it can deliver in the real world.
It's clear that Nikon is aiming for total domination of the camera market, something which it is already seemingly delivering on. By not directly replacing the D3100, but instead offering a more premium option, Nikon has widened its range and appeal and perhaps is shrewdly tapping into even more customers.
The only slight reservation we have at this point is how Nikon will educate consumers of the benefits of the 24 million pixel sensor. We also can't help but wonder if the Nikon 1 V1 and J1 compact system cameras will begin to cannibalise the sales of entry level Nikon DSLRs, but time will tell if this becomes the case.
Overall, we are impressed by the D3200 and are very much looking forward to properly putting it through its paces when the time comes.
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HTC One X confirmed with AT&T for May
AT&T has confirmed that the HTC One X will arrive stateside in the not too distant future.
May 6 is the date to remember, with the device available for $199 through AT&T.
The HTC One X will be the first smartphone from AT&T to launch the latest Ice Cream Sandwich Android OS.
In another first for AT&T, the device will be the first for the carrier to feature HTC Sense 4 and built in Beats Audio for an enhanced camera lens, software, and audio experience.
What's under the hood
Notably, this will be the dual-core LTE version of the HTC One X, rather than the beefier quad-core model, and it still sports the sizable 4.7-inch 720p HD display.We were impressed in our HTC One X in-depth review, with the flagship device earning 4.5 stars.
The UK gets it first
The HTC One X went on sale April 18 in the UK ahead of next month's US launch. Early adopters may want to jump on board to pre-order the HTC One X, which they can do starting April 22.
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Samsung Galaxy Beam 2 with AT&T 3G support ok'd by FCC
The latest Samsung Galaxy Beam smartphone has made its way through the FCC.
The new iteration of the Galaxy Beam was announced at MWC 2012, and sports a thinner frame than its 2010 counterpart with a built-in 15-lumens pico projector capable of displaying up to a 50-inch image if you have the wall space for it.
Buying Guide
Best Android phone
The FCC tests show that the device can offer full 3G support for AT&T's 1900MHz and 850MHz bands.Best Android phoneIt will run on Android 2.3 complimented by a dual-core 1GHz CPU, 768MB of RAM, and a 4-inch 480x800 touch screen.
Samsung's impressive improvements
Our hands-on with the Galaxy Beam left us impressed with the advancements over Samsung's first attempt, but still wishing the projector packed a little more brightness.Of course, none of this is confirmation from AT&T that they will actually carry the phone, but the FCC testing brings the return of the projector phone one step closer.
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Netflix to release new Arrested Development episodes as complete season
The long-awaited fourth season of US sitcom Arrested Development will be released all at once on Netflix, the streaming giant has confirmed.
Netflix signed an exclusive deal back in November to screen ten brand new episodes featuring the dysfunctional Bluth family, much to the delight of the cult show's legion to fans.
After a six year drought, those fans will have access instant access to all ten new episodes, rather than just one episode per week, when George Michael G.O.B and co. return in 2013.
Just like Lilyhammer
The announcement further illustrates Netflix's differing strategy as it seeks to make its Watch Instantly platform a rival to cable TV networks like HBO.Its first high profile original show Lilyhammer, starring former Sopranos actor Steven Van Zandt also arrived as a complete season back in February.
As we reported earlier today, Lilyhammer will stream on Netflix in the UK following its run on the BBC later this year.
Let's hope the company does the decent thing and furnishes us Brits with a healthy dollop of Bluths in a timely fashion when it returns next year.
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Acer Iconia tab A510 released, offers a sweet treat
The Acer Iconia A510 tablet hit the market today and features the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS and quad-score Tegra 3 processor. What's more, it's hoping to give its rival, the Asus, a run for its money.
Asus, whose Transformer Prime tablet became the first to arrive in the US, also features a quad-core Tegra 3 processor.
While the Asus Transformer Prime may have been first to market with a Tegra 3 processor, Acer's followup largely matches the competition - as long as you don't need the optional keyboard dock, which is currently an Asus-only offering.
The Acer Iconia Tab A510 is the company's followup to last year's Iconia Tab a500, but the manufacturer is kicking things up a few notches by bringing Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to the 10.1-inch tablet, along with 32GB of storage and a beefier 9800mAh battery - all for $50 less than a 16GB new iPad.
Tasty Updates for Older Models
Acer's focus may now be on the newest model, but the company plans to tip their hats in appreciation of those who purchased last year's Iconia Tab A500 and Iconia Tab A100, which will both receive a free update to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich rolling out in the U.S. starting on April 27.Iconia Tab A100 users in Latin America will actually get their updates a couple days early on April 25, while Canadian A100 owners will have to wait an extra few days until the May 3 rollout.
The Acer website has all the details for those who don't plan to upgrade to the latest hardware.
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Nokia's Lumia 900 shortage unrelated to data connectivity issues
The Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone is back in stock on AT&T's website, and supplies are trickling to retail locations as well after the Lumia 900 suffered from shortages over the past several days.
The Windows 8 Phone, which has topped Amazon's sales charts, was released on AT&T less than two weeks ago, and the phone's been in short supply due to high sales—not, Nokia representative Karan Lachtanski told TechRadar, due to the data connectivity issues early adopters are experiencing.
Dropped data connections caused by an issue with the Nokia Lumia 900's memory management popped up last week, and Nokia was quick to respond. A software update that alleviates the issue was promptly made available.
But those issues are unrelated to stock shortages, said Lachtanski. "We started seeing reports of AT&T retail stores being sold out prior to the software issue being raised," she told TechRadar.
She said that affected consumers are "for the most part" using Zune to update the phone's software, and not returning devices to AT&T stores.
"The majority of people are updating via the software," she said, "so I would say the fact that the stores are still in sell out situations is not related for the most part to the software issue."
Nokia's fixing the problem's root
Contrary to rumors, the Lumia 900 was not recalled in order to update them to the newer software version, Lachtanski said. However, the latest batch of phones does come with the new update.It's up to AT&T to get those models out to their retail locations. The company was unavailable for comment at this time.
Lachtanski was unable to comment on whether the stock shortage or data connection issues have affected early sales of the Lumia 900, but given the positive response so far to the phone, they likely have little to worry about moving forward.
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Rumour: iPhone 5 set for liquid metal casing and June launch
Rumours from South Korea claim the next generation Apple iPhone 5 will showcase a redesigned liquid metal casing.
The report, which also says the device will launch in June at WWDC, expects Apple to employ liquid metal alloys in place of the glass featured on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.
This technology would, apparently, make the device thinner, lighter and stronger than those previous models.
Not that far-fetched
The report does have solid grounding, due to a licensing agreement Apple signed with Liquidmetal Technologies in August 2010.The accord grants Apple the IP rights to the company's "amorphous metal" technology for use in any of its future devices.
While it seems the use of such technology isn't that far-fetched, whether it'll be ready in time for a June launch is debatable, considering the iPhone 4S is still early in its lifespan.
Advanced prototype
Of course, when we think liquid metal, it instantly conjures memories of the deadly T-1000, the antagonist from the second Terminator movie, Judgement Day.Although we hope the iPhone 5 doesn't suddenly morph into a sharp stabbing weapons, it would be quite handy if this happened on those dreadful occasions when iPhones take terminal tumbles.
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New iPad mini is inevitable
News of a new iPad is always sought after, but when Apple's keeping a tight lid on things, speculation has to suffice. And the latest speculation has to do with an unconfirmed device dubbed the "iPad Mini."
According to Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu, the release of the new iPad is a "question of when, not if."
Previous iPad Mini rumors pegged the with a release date in Q3 of this year, though Wu said the "exact timing" for a new iPad's release date "is difficult to predict."
Forward thinking...
iPad 4: what we want to see
He claims that Apple's been testing devices with screens ranging from 4 to 12 inches, and other rumors pointed toward a medium-sized 7.85-inch iPad being the most likely to see a release date. The iPad 1, iPad 2 and iPad 3 sport 9.7-inch screens.iPad 4: what we want to seeLike the iPad and iPad 2, the iPad Mini would have a 1,024 x 768 display. With every iPad at the same resolution, app developers wouldn't have to update their products for the new iPad.
A 7.85-inch screen would put the new iPad just under previous predictions of a smaller iPad's ideal size. It would be slightly larger than the 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 (releasing this weekend) and Amazon Kindle Fire, as well as the 7-inch in-house Google tablet rumored to be revealed later this year.
The new iPad's price needs to be right
Wu said the iPad Mini would be "the competition's worst nightmare," especially if it's priced competitively. If the new iPad follows the same course that the new iPhone did, it likely will be.The first few generations of iPhones were on the pricier side, but the newer ones have come down significantly when purchased with contracts, cementing the device's success.
The original iPad's starting price was $499.99, and the iPad 2 sold for $399.99. Although the iPad 3 returned to the $499.99 price point, that may only be in preparation for the release of the Mini somewhere around the Kindle Fire' $199.99 or the rumored Google Tablet's $250 levels.
Apple has room for improvement
The iPad dominated the tablet space, and Apple's competitors will have an even tougher time if the iPad Mini expands the iPad line to the more compact 7- to 8-inch range.Apple will have to carefully consider how to market the iPad Mini, though, as consumers may confuse it with the existing iPad models or with the iPod Mini. They'll likely choose a different name when it's time to announce the device.
Furthermore, some may argue that there already is an iPad Mini - it's called the iPod Touch, though its 3.5-inch screen may indeed leave room for a bigger iPad down the line.
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Spotify iPad app 'in the works,' says Daniel Ek
Following the publication of a leaked screenshot, Spotify has confirmed the long-awaited iPad app is definitely on the way.
Speaking at the not-so-special 'special announcement' of a marketing link-up that will see Coca-Cola-branded playlists introduced, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek confirmed the pending iPad arrival.
With Ek prepared for questions about the newly-minted Coke deal, the audience instead quizzed the Swede about Apple's tablet, but other than to say its "in the works" there were no further details.
A full iPad overhaul
Monday's leak showcased a layered app that looked more like Twitter for iPad than Spotify for iPhone.The attractive tabbed design appears to show easy navigation between albums, playlists and songs, while also integrating the service's relatively-new social focus through Facebook.
A Spotify for iPad app has proved somewhat of a holy grail for Apple tablet owners.
While the two-year wait has been somewhat puzzling considering the company's race to embrace other platforms, it looks like we won't have to wait much longer.
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Windows Phone 8 Apollo: will it be backwards compatible?
There seems to be confusion over whether the upcoming Windows Phone 8 operating system will be compatible with existing Windows Phone 7 hardware or not.
A Verge source close to Microsoft has suggested that phones running the Mango (Windows Phone 7.5) flavour of the Windows Phone software will not receive an upgrade to the next iteration, known as Apollo (version 8).
However Microsoft Evangelist Nuno Silva has been spotted in a video on a Portuguese forum stating that Windows Phone 7 handsets will get the upgrade to Windows Phone Apollo, which is due to launch later this year.
Microsoft unclear in its comment
The reports fail to provide solid facts, nor do they fill us with confidence, and it's certainly not clear which statement is correct.Microsoft: "We have nothing to share about future releases"
TechRadar approached Microsoft regarding the confusion and a spokesperson for the software giant told us: "We have stated publicly that all apps in our marketplace today will run on the next version of Windows Phone. Beyond that, we have nothing to share about future releases."The statement does nothing to help, with Microsoft avoiding commenting directly on the matter and instead highlighting that current WP7 app compatibility with Apollo.
So all we can tell you at this point is that Windows Phone 8 may or may not come to older Windows Phone 7 handsets. How helpful. We'll keep you posted on any further developments.
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32 Windows 8 tablets to launch in 2012, some for under $300
Microsoft is desperate to stunt Apple's slice of the tablet market with its Windows 8 slates, reportedly planning to unleash 32 of the things on the world this year.
The grand plan, in association with Intel, is to push the iPad's current 70 per cent global share of the tablet market down to less than 50 per cent by mid 2013, according to Digitimes' sources.
Flooding the market with tablets seems to be the thrust of the strategy, with Digitimes' sources reckoning that there 32 Windows 8 tablets will launch by the end of 2012.
Cheap as chips
Entry level slates could hit the shelves with price tags of under $300 (less than £187 although we can probably whack a bit more on there for tax).
This would put them in some serious competition with the Amazon Kindle Fire, and the widely rumoured Google Nexus tablet.
Apple may yet have some tricks up its sleeve to combat these cheap and cheerful tablets though, with rumours of a smaller-screened, lower-priced iPad Mini refusing to die.
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News In Brief: One More Thing: Ceefax death caused by digital switchover
Someone somewhere in London is currently hitting their TV as hard as possible and looking into the dark void of the screen, scratching their head and wondering why Jon Snow on Channel 4 News has been replaced with just snow.
That someone (we are calling them Ian) obviously didn't get the memo that the digital switchover has finally reached the capital, marking the near end of analogue television in the UK and also killing off Ceefax in the process – something Ian has yet to fathom, but when he does we're sure there will be tears…
Ceefax falls through the cracks – The digital switchover in London has officially ended the life of Ceefax in the capital. To mark the occasion thousands of people decided to use Twitter to tell their followers how much they loved a service they haven't used for years and the good ol' BBC penned a charming love letter to the service styled in Ceefax's own special way. Personally, we loved Bamboozle on the service. Wait, Bamboozle was on Teletext? Then we won't miss the service at all – unlike everyone contributing to #ceefaxmemories. [BBC]
World Wide Woof – An internet TV channel has been set up exclusively for dogs, with the service offering shows that will keep any stay at home dog appeased. The channel is a spin-off of Dog TV, a US cable channel that's been up and running since February and features shows such as SpongeBob SquarePants and harp music. Apparently this is what dogs like watching. We can think of some more canine-related shows: Rude Dog and The Dweebs, Woof, Crufts, One Man And His Dog, Desperate Housewives… [Reuters]
Wham, bam, Instagram – Facebook's $2 billion acquisition of Instagram took a mere three days and was all sorted out by Mark Zuckerberg himself, without any consent of his shareholders. We wonder if the contract came complete with a retro-hue. [Cnet]
The clothes (peep)show – A clothing company has decided that the world isn't weird enough and has invented clothing that becomes more see-through the more aroused you become. "Intimacy is a fashion project exploring the relation between intimacy and technology," says the site. Personally we can't see how wearing specialised smart e-foil will give you anything but myriad static shocks but to each their own. [Studio RooseGaarde]
Ice, ice baby – An iPhone 5 reared its head in China this week but before the web world could go mental and speculate on its size, look and overall existence, the thing turned out to just be a new flavour of ice cream. Hmm, and there's us thinking that Google was the one with ice cream on the brain. [iPhoneblogvasion]
Pirate promo promise – Pirate Bay spin-off Promo Bay is a success with thousands of budding musicians and novelists willing to put their content on the site in torrent form. And it's not just unsigned acts getting in on the act, writer Paulo Coelho has gotten into the act too. [BoingBoing]
Microsoft goes soft – Microsoft has revealed that its Xbox Live service will be free this weekend, meaning anyone who has been to Scrooge-like to pay for the Xbox's online facilities can find out what they are missing, while PS3 users laugh at them for having to pay at all. [SlashGear]
Facebook wants you to listen – Facebook has added another button on to its site. This one does not allow you to poke people or even like them. This one allows you to listen to bands you like straight from their fan pages. For some reason Facebook is advertising this fact with a picture of Justin Bieber – surely this is counter-intuitive, given he would be the last person anyone sane would want to listen to. [PR]
Steve Jobs lost years found – Apparently Steve Jobs was a forgetful fellow and lost a few years of his life back in the '80s. But don't fear, they have been found courtesy of journalist Brent Schlender, who interviewed Jobs when he was ousted from Apple all the way up to his successful transition back to Apple. [Fast Company]
Halo, is it me your looking for? – Master Chef is back and John Torode and the other one are ready and waiting to shout at people making food… sorry, we read the release wrong. MasterChief is back in a game that's set four years after Halo 3. Aptly titled Halo 4, the game sees its protagonist "confront his destiny and face an ancient evil". Rumours that the game focuses on Thatcher and the poll tax riots have proved to be false but you can find out the true plot for yourself when Halo 4 hits shops November 6. [TechSpot].
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Brin: Views on Facebook and Apple were 'misunderstood'
Google co-founder Sergey Brin has taken to Google+ to explain that his thoughts on the closed nature of Facebook and Apple's ecosystems have been widely misunderstood.
His original views were reported as part of an interview with the Guardian newspaper, which Brin now describes as "a pretty good read but it is a short summary of a long discussion".
He clarified his position on Apple and Facebook, admitting himself to be quite the Apple fan ("I am writing this post on an iMac and using an Apple keyboard I have cherished for the past seven years").
Brin: "Today, the primary threat by far to internet freedom is government filtering of political dissent."
Brin explained, "To clarify, I certainly do not think this [walled garden] issue is on a par with government based censorship. "Both [Facebook and Apple] have made key contributions to the free flow of information around the world."
Freedom fighter
His concern, he went on to explain, stems from the fact that Google, eBay, Yahoo and other first-wave web giants were able to make strides because of the open nature of the internet: "Today, starting such a service would entail navigating a number of new tollbooths and gatekeepers."Brin's reaction makes it clear that his main concern is with governmental control of the internet, which he describes as "the primary threat":
"Today, the primary threat by far to internet freedom is government filtering of political dissent," he wrote.
"This has been far more effective than I ever imagined possible across a number of nations. In addition, other countries such as the US have come close to adopting very similar techniques in order to combat piracy and other vices. I believe these efforts have been misguided and dangerous."
His impassioned conclusion reads: "Regardless of how you feel about digital ecosystems or about Google, please do not take the free and open internet for granted from government intervention.
"To the extent that free flow of information threatens the powerful, those in power will seek to suppress it."
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Review: Panasonic HC-V700
Introduction
The relentless march of technology inside smartphone cameras means that dedicated camcorders have started to seem less and less necessary as time goes on.As with so many similar gadget types crushed under the boots of the iPhone, Samsung Galaxy S II and the like, the trick to carving out a useful spot in the market is to offer something the competition can't.
With an RRP of around £500 (though you can get it for less than £450 online), the Panasonic HC-V700 really needs to find a way to stand out to justify its cost.
It strikes you right from the off, though, by offering something a tiny phone never can – an absolutely massive zoom range. The HC-V700 is capable of a 46x zoom in total, with 21x of that being optical zoom, and the rest handled by Panasonic's Intelligent Zoom system.
The Intelligent Zoom is powered by Panasonic's Crystal Engine PRO imaging technology, and is designed to let you go beyond the range of the optical zoom without seeing the usual degradation associated with digital zooms.
It can't work magic, but if you go slightly over the 21x optical, it should produce something close to a purely optical image.
On top of that, the HC-V700 features Panasonic's iA wizardry, making the camera as foolproof to use as possible. You'll rarely have to worry about white balance or controlling the iris, unless you really want to – it's possible to switch back to manual control, but it's all controlled using the touchscreen, which is a pain for manual focussing.
Movies are recorded in 1080i at 50Hz, or 1080p at 50 frames per second, in AVCHD. There's no 720p option, or 30fps 1080p mode. There is a 540p mode at 25fps, but we recommend sticking with the big guns.
That said, while the 1080i50 mode is recognised by most editing software, 1080p50 is right on the fringes of what's currently supported by consumer software – Apple's iMovie doesn't support it, for example. The HC-V700 comes with some PC software to make playing the videos back easy for Windows users, but Mac users face more of an uphill challenge (hint: search online for a tool called Rewrap2M4V, which turns it to an iMovie/QuickTime-friendly format).
The good news is that recording at 50 frames per second means that if you're playing back at 25fps be default, you can slow down by 50 per cent without losing quality, which is great for sports.
Also good for sports is the optical image stabilsation (OIS). Actually, that's good for everyone – the HC-V700 is small and light enough (just 270g) that it's difficult to keep your hand still while using it, so Panasonic has included five-axis correction for your hand movements, and because it's optical, it shouldn't affect the overall image quality.
The lens itself is a 28mm wide-angle unit, and it's paired with a single 1/2.33 High Sensitivity 15.3-megapixel sensor. The 'High Sensitivity' part means it features backside illumination, much like the Panasonic HX-WA10.
You'll be able to see what you're recording on the three-inch LCD monitor, which can rotate 360 degrees. There's no viewfinder, but there is a removable shoe for attaching an external video light or microphone (there's a mini-jack input for mics).
You can get a 3D lens for the HC-V700, but we didn't have it available for testing. It doesn't feature any memory of its own, but it supports SDHC and SDXC cards.
Performance
For its price tag, you'd hope for some pretty impressive video footage from the Panasonic HC-V700, and it certainly delivers it at times. However, when it comes to it, it's perhaps in its technical aspects that it impresses, more than the image quality.However, it displays some quite obvious weak points as well, and for casual use, we would even put it lower in the pecking order than the best smartphone video cameras out there. Yep, really.
However, it does have its specialist features: that massive zoom, image stabilisation, a wide-angle lens and recording at 50 frames per second. So we chose an activity to test all of these thoroughly.
The HC-V700 captures some shots (bad pun intended) really nicely in that video, and it's probably no surprise that they're the ones with motion.
The optical image stabilisation is, quite simply, phenomenal. All of that video was done handheld, and shots that would be full of shake in another camera could almost be mistaken for Steadicam shots here. It's honestly astounding, and goes a long way towards the price of admission itself. When you zoom all the way in, it starts to struggle, admittedly, but the fact that it's doing as good a job as it is at 46x zoom is actually testament to its quality.
Speaking of the zoom, that's also pretty damn impressive. It needs the pairing with the OIS that makes it such a good option, and the two together are killer. The zoom itself is smooth, and the image quality is good as you go past the 21x optical limit. When you get right up to the 46x Intelligent Zoom limit, detail is noticeably missing, but it's still hugely better than that level of digital zoom has any right to be.
General motion is superb as well. It's all perfectly smooth, with no blur except in extreme cases (close-ups of golf clubs, for example). It's easy to track the balls as they soar into the sky, and the 1080p detail is often enough to follow them all the way into the distance without a zoom. Having the latest AVCHD spec, capable of 28Mbps bitrates helps as well.
In the shots that are slowed down to 50%, you can see just how clear the movement really is – it looks just as good as full speed. There are rare moments where artefacts come in, and they really stand out when they do, which is a shame. Of course, they only stand out so much because the motion is so good elsewhere, so it's forgivable in the long run.
However, the picture quality itself is a little up and down. The grass is often nicely detailed, especially in close-ups, but other aspects often appear quite soft – especially in the middle distance. The patterns on clothing tends to be a bit soft and flat, especially on jeans. In close-ups of leather shoes, detail is sometimes brilliant, but often just appears soft.
When you look at shots of the sky, pay attention to it and not the ball and you'll notice that it's full of digital noise – it's actually quite distracting. It's not the only noise either; many solid colour objects exhibit it.
Similarly, whites were almost always blown out in these shots. The edge of the white golf ball facing the sun consistently loses all detail, while the striped white shirt often loses its stripes.
Below, we've got comparison stills taken from identical videos shot by the Panasonic HC-V700 against an iPhone 4S. The Panasonic is the top image in each case.
Click here to see the full resolution image
Click here to see the full resolution image
Click here to see the full resolution image
Click here to see the full resolution image
Click here to see the full resolution image
Click here to see the full resolution image
Click here to see the full resolution image
Click here to see the full resolution imageThe first thing you'll likely notice is the effect the wide-angle lens has, taking in much more of each scene.
OK, that's probably not what you noticed first. You probably noticed that the iPhone shot looks better in each case. You're not mad – that is simply the case.
The colour in particular is far superior in the iPhone's video, as is the levels of contrast. It has depth in scenes where the Panasonic looks rather flat, and vibrancy where the HC-V700 looks bland. Detail is much more apparent in each of the iPhone's images as well.
That's all a bit damning for the HC-V700, but it did best the iPhone comfortably in one aspect of these videos: all motion was quite obviously far smoother in the Panasonic shots. The difference is as big as the difference in detail above – one doesn't even come close to the other.
Similarly, the image stabilisation was far superior in the Panasonic, with the shots simply appearing smoother than the iPhone equivalent.
And we shouldn't forget that these sets of shots pitch the Panasonic and the iPhone against each other in zoomed-out circumstances – if you want to see anything in the distance with any clarity, the phone won't get you far.
When it comes to low-light shooting, the Panasonic has a small video light on the front that comes on automatically when needed.
It casts rather a blue/purple light, as you can see here, which will almost always be at odds with your main lights if you're filming at home, which are usually yellow. It gives the whole thing a bit of an odd look.
As you'd expect, it's fairly noisy and soft, but the fur on the animals is visible close up, which is good.
With the light turned off, it's even softer, but less eerie. You lose a bit more detail, still – that backlit sensor does well, but can't work wonders.
When it comes to audio, you might have noticed that the HC-V700 picked up a lot of wind on the golf course. It was a consistent issue, and we have to say that it didn't feel all that windy on the day (though you can see the flags going at times).
It picked out other noises fairly clearly, though normal speech became a bit quiet at about 9-10 feet outdoors.
When it comes to stills, the HC-V700 can take 5.8-megapixel images, but they're not up to that much. They capture colour fairly well, but are really noisy, and don't offer a huge amount of detail.
Verdict
The Panasonic HC-V700 has some really stand out features to remind you that smartphones and small Sony Bloggie-style cameras can't do everything a bigger unit can.With its wide-angle lens, massive zoom and image stabilisation, it's easy to see the technological advantages of the HC-V700.
Unfortunately, it proved to be only competent at actual image quality, and at £450, that inevitably knocks it down from being an essential purchase.
We liked
The zoom and image stabilisation are both massively impressive, but even more so in combination with each other. Under normal circumstances, it'll mean it's difficult to miss getting a great shot from distance.
The iA system also works really well, and you'll rarely have to put in any effort to get the white balance or focus correct.
And most of all, motion is handled just brilliantly. Video is totally smooth, and the high bitrates mean there's little artefacting, even in fast pans. And it's always nice to be able to have some slow motion without impacting image quality.
We disliked
The sad fact is that the image quality isn't quite up to where we'd expect it to be for the price. Colours aren't as vibrant as we'd like, detail can be hit and miss, and there's often digital noise in solid colours.
That it suffered from overexposing whites didn't help, and we should note that the built-in microphone isn't up to much either (though the removable shoe means you can fix this).
The price probably wouldn't be a sticking point if the image quality was killer, but it isn't, so it's not an easy sell at almost £500 RRP.
Verdict
The Panasonic HC-V700 isn't a bad camera by any means, but we were a little disappointed by its image quality in the long run – we just wanted a bit more from it.
But that doesn't detract from what it offers that cheaper units don't. Excellent quality in capturing motion, brilliant image stabilisation and a positively decadent zoom level mean this unit absolutely deserves consideration, but only if the price sits well with you.
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Huawei Ascend P1 arriving in the UK this summer
The Huawei Ascend P1 will be arriving in the UK and rest of Europe this summer, as the Chinese firm looks to tackle the mobile market head on.
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Huawei has said it's aiming to become a top three mobile manufacturer in the future – a big claim for a company which is still a minnow in the sea of mobile devices, but it's looking to take on the big-boys with the Ascend P1.20 best mobile phones in the world todayRichard Yu, Chairman of Huawei Device said: "We are sending strong signals of our intention to transform into a consumer-facing brand and extend our market leadership globally by strengthening our range of flagship products."
Brains and beauty
The Ascend P1 comes packing a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 4.3-inch super AMOLED display (960x540), Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and an 8MP rear-facing camera.The decent spec sheet is further enhanced by the body of the Ascend P1, which measures a wafer-thin 7.69mm, losing out on the 'thinnest smartphone in the world' title to its bigger (or is that smaller?) brother the Huawei Ascend P1 S – which is an impossible 6.68mm.
The Ascend P1 is just the start of Huawei's potentially exciting 2012 range of handsets, with the quad-core Ascend D Quad arriving later on this year.
We do know that the Ascend P1 will be available in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Australia by May 2012 and in Latin America from June 2012, although there's currently no word on pricing and an exact UK release date will be announced soon.
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In Depth: Best of the best: 10 top PC upgrades on test
Introduction
The high performance PC is dead. If you're a gamer, that certainly seemed like one of the take home facts from last issue's astonishing performance comparison exposé.An exotic PC with £3,000 worth of top-end components took on a gaming-focused £300 system and a quartet of keen gamers couldn't tell the difference. Sobering stuff, but actually very good news for those of us living in the real world and subject to financial realities.
Building a PC on a limited budget is the reality for most. The thing is, our gaming PC comparison was all about subjective performance. That means broader system performance was only tangentially part of the mix. Even more importantly, it means outright performance wasn't a factor.
That fact matters because while the two rigs often served up a similar experience, the benchmark results showed that the high-end system pumped more than twice the number of frames per second. Objectively, by the benchmark numbers, it was miles faster.
That's precisely the sentiment we're taking into this much broader look at high performance computing. Without question, outright performance matters when it comes to the sort of heavy duty number crunching involved in video encoding, image rendering and full on multi-tasking. With gaming, there's arguably a cut-off point at around 60 frames per second on average. Anything above that is probably performance wasted - you won't be able to see or feel a difference.
Not so for something like video encoding. The faster an encode job completes, the sooner you can watch the video or start the next encode project. Similarly, if you've a limited amount of time available, the more performance your PC has to offer, the better the quality of encode it can execute.
Theoretically, there's no limit to the additional benefit brought by more performance. However, that doesn't mean you should simply go out and spend the absolute maximum.
The question of bang for buck remains: which platforms deliver the most for the least? Likewise, what should you make of the promise of hardware acceleration offered by graphics cores? If the graphics chip inside a cheap Intel CPU is faster at the jobs that matter most to you, what's the point in forking out for a seriously expensive multi-core beast?
Then there's the minor matter of offloading compute-intensive tasks to the cloud. There's plenty to consider.
Spend and save
So, you're in the market for a performance PC. We've established that high performance computing is a very different box of SATA cables from the pure gaming performance, which only needs to be good enough for smooth frame rates. Question is, how and where do you spend you money?
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The first conundrum to conquer is the CPU vs GPU question. Plenty of new technologies for the PC have experienced troubled births. 15 best graphics cards in the worldBest PC upgrades for gamers
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The first solid state drives, for instance, were absolutely awful, but it's getting on for a decade since GPU makers began bigging up the idea of using graphics chips for general purpose processing, and we're still waiting for the number of so-called GP-GPU applications to hit critical mass. That's not just disappointing, it's also a little peculiar.
On paper, general-purpose processing on the GPU makes an awful lot of sense. For starters, CPU themselves are increasingly turning to parallel processing to improve performance. Which just so happens to be the thing GPUs are really good at. Similarly, many of the most CPU-intensive applications around today are heavy in floating point maths, which is essentially the core task at which modern GPUs are designed to excel.
Now, that's not to say there's no GP-GPU-compatible software out there. GPUs are doing some pretty stunning work currently when it comes to industrial and scientific computation. To take just one example, the world's largest human genome sequencing centre (BGI in Shenzhen, China) slashed the time taken to analyse a genome from four days to just six hours thanks to a switch from CPUs to GPUs.
Likewise, if we were to print a list of every PC application with at least some GP-GPU support, it would look pretty darn impressive. Highlights include a healthy list of video encode, transcode and enhancer applications, along with professional rendering, image editing and password cracking tools, plus a few specialised favourites like Folding@home.
However, courtesy of a combination of mixed performance and a less than crystal clear situation on the support side, both in terms of hardware and software support - questions over whether AMD or Nvidia GPUs work with a given application, for instance - GP-GPU still hasn't taken off.
Unfortunately, that's not something that's changed thanks to Intel's QuickSync technology, which arrived with the Sandy Bridge generation of Core i3, i5 and i7 CPUs and offers specialised circuitry within the integrated graphics core to accelerate video encoding. It's a promising development but currently boasts a very modest list of supporting applications. The day when you can rely on a fast GPU for all your high performance computing needs seems as far away as ever.
With that in mind, it becomes a question of platforms and, in turn, the key components you slot inside them. Currently, it's a choice of three platforms: two from good ol' Intel and one from AMD.
We weren't happy when Intel originally switched to two platforms on the desktop with the LGA 1156 and LGA 1366 sockets back in 2009, and our attitude hasn't changed a great deal with the more recent introduction of LGA 1155 and LGA 2011. It makes life a lot more complicated for serious PC users.
Pick a platform
But what are the differences, and how do they affect overall performance? In simple terms, LGA 2011 is really a thinly disguised server socket and is only available with a single chipset, known as X79. It therefore majors in superfast interconnects and memory bandwidth.
First up, you get a quad-channel memory controller. That's great news in terms of bandwidth, and with memory prices as they are, it's not even that expensive to ensure there's a DIMM in each channel. On the other hand, it's doubtful whether desktop applications really need so much raw memory throughput. Even the old triple-channel arrangement on the LGA 1366 socket was overkill. While four channels is a boon for multi-socket servers, it's borderline silly on the desktop and only serves to increase cost and complexity.
Much more relevant are the 40 PCI Express 3.0 channels served up by X79. That's enough to guarantee optimal operation of just about any combination of add-in cards you can imagine, including multi-GPU setups, super-fast PCI Express storage solutions and more.
Next up is full support for the latest 6Gbps version of the SATA interconnect, which is critical for getting the most out of the latest and fastest solid state drives. Unfortunately, you only get six ports as standard. That may sound reasonable. But in a scenario where you're mixing SSDs and magnetic drives and perhaps chucking an optical drive into the mix, six ports get saturated pretty quickly.
Still, while Intel's own X79 motherboard is limited to six ports, several third party boards bung in an additional SATA controller and entirely sidestep the issue.
Another obvious X79 shortcoming is the lack of native USB 3.0 support. Again, pretty much all retail X79 boards add USB 3.0 courtesy of a daughter chip, but it's a feature that really ought to have been part of the native feature set on what is, after all, Intel's premium, highest performing platform.
The last big piece of the puzzle is, of course, the CPU. And this is where things get really intriguing, both for the better and for the worse. First, it's absolutely undeniable that the fastest currently available PC processors can only be had in LGA 2011 trim. Those will be the two new six-core Core i7 3900 series based on the latest Sandy Bridge E processor die: the 3930K and the 3960X.
As you'll know from our coverage, while the 3960X is the undisputed heavy champ of the PC processing world, it still managed to disappoint us. That's because it's really an eight-core chip with two cores disabled. At launch time, Intel told us that's because the balancing act between operating frequency and core count shook out in favour of six cores. Put simply, the more cores you enable, the greater the power consumption and heat dissipation. That in turn puts the kybosh on clock speeds. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it?
The problem is, Intel has just released a series of Xeon-branded chips based on the very same 32nm Sandy Bridge E die with all eight cores enabled. The fastest is the Xeon 2687W. And it clocks in at 3.1GHz. So that's 33 per cent more cores running six per cent slower.
Intel will no doubt argue that the mean old eight-core Xeon is rated 20W higher than the Core i7 3960X at 150W. But again, that's an increase in power consumption of just 15 per cent in return for that extra pair of cores.
If all that makes Intel's argument seem seriously specious, here's the good news. In theory, you can drop a 2687W straight into any X79 motherboard and let rip. The only snag is the price, which we expect to be in the region of £1,500. Yes, £1,500 for a processor.
Intel's Xeon pricing structure is scary territory for a desktop user. The Xeon 2687W isn't just an eight-core beast with 20MB of cache, it's also compatible with Intel's dual socket server platform and that commands an even greater price premium.
There's one more CPU-related issue to consider when it comes to the LGA 2011 socket and the X79 chipset: you don't get Intel's QuickSync hardware encode acceleration. This is only available on chips for the LGA 1155 socket.
As we said earlier, QuickSync hasn't yet developed into a killer technology, but it's nevertheless useful for some video encode tasks and it would certainly be galling to pay £750 or more for an LGA 2011 chip, only to find that it lacks a feature that comes with measly £100 Core i3 processors.
Next up is Intel's LGA 1155 socket. In our view it's Intel's bona fide desktop platform, and it differs from LGA 2011 in a number of crucial ways beyond the minor matter of pin incompatibility.
First, instead of just one chipset, there are several. In the high performance computing context, the best choice is clearly the Z68. It does everything the P67 and H67 chipsets can manage and throws in a few extras to boot.
The OC
One of the most important features is full access to overclocking settings. Overclocking might sound like a dubious practice in the context of serious computing, but trust us on this, Intel's CPUs are very, very conservatively clocked.Assuming CPU support - which we'll come to in just a moment - you can almost always add an extra 500MHz and maintain complete stability. It's often possible to add a full 1GHz and remain stable.
The Z68 also offers Smart Response, Intel's SSD caching technology. The idea is to combine a small SSD with a larger magnetic hard drive and enjoy most of the performance of the former and all of the capacity of the latter while avoiding the punitive expense of a really large solid state drive. In practice, it delivers decent results even if we'd prefer a full-on SSD wherever possible.
Still, it's worth considering if you're building on a tight budget and want to absolutely maximise your bang for buck. Critically, the Z68 does all of that at the same time as allowing full access to the integrated HD Graphics core and QuickSync video acceleration engine found in all Core i3, i5 and i7 chips for the LGA 1155.
You can't say the same for the P67 and H67 chipsets. The former offers overclocking support but not HD Graphics and QuickSync, while the latter does the graphics part but not the overclocking.
Thread count
Common to all three chipsets is the choice of CPUs. In a high performance computing context, we think maximising the number of threads is all-important here.
For that reason, your choice here is a simple one. You want one of the quad-core, eight-thread Core i7 chips: either the 2600, the 2600K or the 2700K. Unfortunately, Intel doesn't offer anything more than four cores for the LGA 1155 socket, despite the fact that the dual-channel memory configuration could easily handle more.
Pricing is similar on all three - in and around the £250 mark - so we think it makes sense to go with the 2700K with its 3.5GHz basic clockspeed and overclocking-friendly unlocked multiplier.
That's right, we're not recommending that champion of gaming chips, the Core i5 2500K. It's actually based on the same silicon as the 2700K, but HyperThreading isn't enabled so it only serves up four threads.
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Going any further down the Intel price list doesn't make much sense either. Instead, it's better to shift your attention to AMD and its very competitively priced quad and six-core chips. Thanks to the recent introduction of AMD's FX-branded Bulldozer processors, the number of old school Phenom II processors has dwindled significantly, but you can still pick up the Phenom II X4 960T quad core chip for an attractive £95. Beginner's guide to overclockingComplete guide to underclocking
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The six-core Phenom II X6 is still available in a few flavours too. As with the Core i7 chips, pricing is similar across the range, so you may as pick up the quickest of the remaining X6 chips, the 3GHz 1075T.
But what about Bulldozer, you ask? Surely with its eight-threaded architecture it's a no brainer for high performance computing? Certainly, the weak per-thread performance of the Bulldozer architecture and the FX chips it sired matters less here than it does in games. The top FX 8150 chip makes a good case for itself against the more expensive Intel LGA 1155 chips. Much depends on the particular mix of applications you plan on playing around with.
Board games
For motherboards and sockets, AMD's strategy of broad compatibility means there's only one socket you need to worry about: AM3+. Chipset wise, things have also simplified with Nvidia pretty much pulling out of the desktop market. You're therefore left with a choice between AMD's own 7, 8 and 9 series chipsets.
In terms if the underlying silicon, there's little or no difference between the three ranges. Given the choice, we'd go for the latest 9 Series boards, which come in three flavours: 970, 990X and 990FX. There's not a huge amount between these three, the only major differentiator being ever more PCI Express lanes as you scale up through the range.
One thing you don't get with any of them is native USB 3.0 support, so we recommend you keep your scanners peeled for boards with a USB 3.0 upgrade chip. If that's all the different platforms covered, it's time for a tour of our favourite components for each.
Components on test
1. Asus P9X79 Pro
Price: £205Chipset: X79
For many Intel's top-rung X79 platform will be right at the ragged edge of what your wallet will tolerate, so every little thing will help to make the numbers add up. That's where the Asus P9X79 Pro comes in.
It's not the cheapest choice of motherboard you can buy based on the Intel X79 chipset, but the extra £30 over the likes of the Gigabyte X79-UD3 buys you a number of attractive features.
The most conspicuous feature is the support for solid state drive caching. In an ideal world, you'd simply plug in the biggest SSD you could find and enjoy some serious solid state speed. The problem is, large SSDs come with equally hefty price tags. The ability to pair a smaller SSD with a large conventional hard disk, therefore, makes for a very sensible compromise between storage capacity and cost aiming for maximum bang-per-buck. We're still years away from solid state drives that are both large and affordable.
The P9X79 Pro also benefits from Asus's graphical UEFI BIOS, which might just be the best in the business. Apart from the snazzy looking and responsive interface, you get screenshot capability, easy updates via USB and an auto-overclocking option that ramped our Intel Core i7 3960X processor up to 4.3GHz. The latter is a function also available via the physical TPU switch, so you don't even need to jump into the BIOS.
Read the full Asus P9X79 Pro review
2. Gigabyte X79-UD3
Price: £175Chipset: X79
Plotting a performance PC? Then snag a high-end motherboard, right? That's the conventional wisdom directly challenged by the new Gigabyte X79-UD3.
Of course, any board based on Intel's X79 chipset hardly rates as a budget item. At £175, the Gigabyte X79-UD3 ain't exactly cheap, but it is within a fiver of the cheapest X79 motherboards on the market. Everything, therefore, is relative.
Consequently, the Gigabyte X79-UD3 is flagrantly frills-free, but with so many features now finding their way onto the CPU die itself - including the memory controller and PCI Express bus - you could argue that motherboards in general are less critical.
Gigabyte's task is to deliver quality and performance where it matters, without going overboard on the corner-cutting compared with more expensive X79 models such as the Asus P9X79 Pro and MSI X79A-GD65 8D.
Ultimately, the verdict on the Gigabyte X79-UD3 will come down to what it does and doesn't do. What it undoubtedly does is deliver performance pretty much indistinguishable from any other X79 board in the known universe. These days, we're accustomed to pretty consistent performance across motherboards sharing the same chipset. The X79-UD3 is no exception to this.
Read the full Gigabyte X79-UD3 review
3. MSI X79A-GD65 8D
Price: £225Chipset: X79
Can there be such a thing as too much system memory? In the context of the new MSI X79A-GD65 8D motherboard that's the first question that leaps to mind.
As an X79 board compatible with the latest Intel Core i7 processors for the LGA2011 socket, it forms part of the highest performing PC platform on Earth, but you still have to wonder whether support for 128GB of DDR3 memory split over eight DIMM slots is really rational. Sure, for server PCs running multiple virtualised operating systems and a whole hill of applications, that much memory is a boon. But for desktop PCs, even those running heavy duty content creations apps, 8GB or 16GB is usually plenty.
In its fisticuffs with the Gigabyte X79-UD3 and Asus's P9X79 Pro, the MSI X79A-GD65 8D will need a few more tricks up its sleeve. Moreover, the X79A-GD65 8D costs that little bit more than the P9X79 Pro, which in turn is priced at a marginal premium to the X79-UD3.
Is it a case of incremental upgrades all along the line, or has MSI done enough to put this X79-based board in another class altogether? Maybe that old MSI favourite, the OC Genie button, can make the difference?
Read the full MSI X79A-GD65 8D review
4. Intel Xeon 2687W
Price: £1400Socket: LGA 2,011
Say hello to the real Sandy Bridge E, for it is this Xeon processor that truly reveals what Intel's ultimate 32nm technology is capable of. Up to a point, anyway.
Yes, the Core i7 3960X is an impostor - a cut-down shyster of a chip. Back when Intel launched the six-core 3960X, we were told that the decision to switch off two cores in the shiny new eight-core Sandy Bridge E die was all part of a balancing act. Intel had weighed up the conflict between clockspeed and cores, and decided that the best overall compromise was six cores at 3.3GHz with a little Turbo action on top.
Running eight cores would have meant a significant drop in clock speed and therefore compromising per-core performance. At the time, frankly, we weren't buying it. Even if opening out all eight cores would mean a big drop in the clocks with all cores heavily loaded, surely the whole point of Intel's Turbo technology is that the chip could still clock up when only a handful of cores were doing the heavy lifting?
Well, now the fastest eight-core Xeon iteration of precisely the same Sandy Bridge E processor die has arrived and the truth is out. The Xeon 2687W is rated at 3.1GHz, just 200MHz slower than the six-core Core i7 3960X. Thus, the 3960X runs just six per cent faster while the Xeon 2687W has 33 per cent more cores.
Read the full Intel Xeon 2687W review
5. Asus P8Z68-V LX
Price: £75Chipset: Z68
A budget board with a premium chipset - is that the most effective combination for achieving maximum bang-for-buck? If that is so, then Asus P8Z68-V LX is positioned perfectly.
It sells for as little as £75 but it packs Intel's Z68 chipset. Okay, that means at best you're stuck with mainstream LGA 1155 processors and a quad-core cap, rather than the six and eight-core (the latter in the form of Xeon CPUs) beasts available for the monstrous LGA 2011 bucket of pins.
But as LGA 1155 chipsets go, the Z68 is easily the pick of the bunch. You get full access to overclocking features, the ability to run a discrete graphics card and still use Intel's QuickSync video transcode engine and some nice little extras, including Intel's SmartResponse SSD caching technology.
The prospect of a Z68 board for just £75, then, is a question begging for an answer. Asus may have managed to to squeeze in a few of our own particular treats. But what has been chopped from the P8Z68-V LX?
Read the full Asus P8Z68-V LX review
6. Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3-ISSD
Price: £155Chipset: Z68
Double your pleasure. Double your fun. With Gigabyte's double-priced Z68 board. Deftly dropping the DoubleMint gum ditty into a motherboard review may be beyond our wits, but the real problem is whether Gigabyte has a shot at justifying the fact that the tediously-monikered GA-Z68XPUD3- iSSD costs twice as much as Asus's P8Z68-V LX.
One thing's for sure, Gigabyte isn't going to get the job done based on raw performance. There's virtually nothing in it, and even when a small differential is detectable, it isn't always in Gigabyte's favour. We couldn't discern a significant difference during overclocking either. Both boards extracted the same 4.5GHz from our Core i7 2700K test chip.
Gigabyte is, therefore, left with one remaining hope: ye olde feature set. Out of the box, things don't look great. We're pretty partial to hardware power, reset and Clear-CMOS switches - it's the least you'd expect from a £150-plus board. We can't help noticing the lack of DVI or eSATA ports on the back panel, too.
Dig a little deeper though, and you begin to identify where the extra cash is going. For starters, Gigabyte gives you proper multi-GPU support with one 16-lane socket and one eight-lane. Both Nvidia's SLI and AMD's CrossFireX are supported.
Read the full Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3-ISSD review
7. Intel Core i7 2700K
Price: £255Socket: LGA 1155
This is awfully familiar - Intel's Core i7 2700K is saddled with Intel's mainstream LGA 1155 socket. In theory, the exciting stuff all happens on LGA 2011.
What's more, in a gaming context, we've never jived with the 2700K and its dual threads per core. That's because games don't scale enormously well across multiple threads, and the Core i5 2500K has all the per-core, single-threaded oomph of its much more expensive Core i7 cousins, be they in LGA 1155 or LGA 2011 format.
It's all the gaming chip you'll ever need. But is the 2700K back in the hunt if you shift the context to high performance computing? It's certainly a much more cost effective option than the LGA 2011 alternatives.
You can pick up a very respectable LGA 1155 motherboard for just £75, whereas a basic LGA 2011 item is more like £175. Then there's the chip cost itself. Even at £255, you're looking at half the cost of the cheapest six-core i7 model, much less the preposterously pricey Xeon eight-core.
Read the full Intel Core i7 2700K review
8. Sapphire Pure Black 990FX
Price: £135Chipset: 990FX
Your eyes do not deceive you. Do not adjust your set. The Sapphire PURE Black 990FX motherboard really does have six PCI Express x16 slots.
That doesn't mean, of course, that you can run six graphics cards in parallel. Not in the conventional multi-GPU sense, since the maximum number of cards supported by AMD's CrossFireX tech is four, and SLI isn't on the menu at all.
Still, if running a veritable army of displays is your bag, the sextet of slots offers plenty of potential. More to the point, it means you have endless options in terms of how you arrange your add-in boards, though the fact that the final two are only x4 electric does limit your options somewhat.
The lack of PCI connectivity of any kind also rules out any dusty old legacy cards you might be thinking about bunging in.
Expansion aside, the PURE Black 990FX is arguably up against it from the off. That's because it's an AMD AM3+ board, and neither the new AMD FX nor ye olde AMD Phenom II chips really threaten the top of the performance table. If we're honest, they're not exactly terrorising the mid-range either.
Read the full Sapphire Pure Black 990FX review
9. AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition
Price: £110Socket: AM3
AMD's shiny new Bulldozer FX processors have been released into the wild for some time now, so you might be wondering what this crusty old Phenom II processor is doing sullying this showcase of white-hot, high performance computing platforms.
Well, it all depends on pricing and product availability. We're not sure if AMD is still cranking out the Thuban processor dies that form the basis of the Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition, though we believe that to be the case, if only for manufacturing server processors.
Read the full AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition review
10. AMD FX 8150
Price: £196Socket: AM3+
Sadly, in what appears to be an increasing, and worrying, tradition for the 'other' CPU manufacturer, the launch of the AMD FX processor was something of a debacle. AMD's much feted new eight-threaded modular architecture delivered in neither in real-world performance nor efficiency.
In fact, it was so underwhelming, it left us with the nagging suspicion that an eight-core Phenom II would actually be a better bet. That's quite a disturbing notion, given the general consensus that the Phenom II's micro-architecture was no longer competitive.
Things went from bad to bizarre when it emerged that the FX's transistor count was not actually two billion, as originally claimed, but closer to 1.2 billion.
Read the full AMD FX 8150 review
Benchmarks
Bench analysis: Making sense of an awful lot of numbers
This is all rather different to our traditional, gaming-centric set of benchmarks, and shows the productivity prowess of the real top-end platforms on the market. The eight-core Intel Xeon dropped into a desktop X79 board, like the excellent Gigabyte X79-UD3, makes for the most powerful desktop solution around.For any video encoding, database-crunching or image manipulation tasks you can't get quicker. That said the cheaper 3960X does a good job of getting close and the AMD FX 8150 actually takes the lead in our Photoshop tests. You can put together a decently priced AMD workstation, but the top-end Xeon-powered beast will cost you.
Verdict
And the winner is... Gigabyte X79-UD3
Last month our gaming performance exposé blew apart expectations, slaughtered sacred cows and generally caused a kerfuffle. We proved there was very little benefit to be gained from unloading a whole hill of cash on the finest PC components on the market.
When it comes to high performance computing and particularly digital content creation, however, things are very different. The argument goes something like this: If you're playing a game, the performance metrics are framed in terms of fast enough. When you're cranking out 60 frames per second, an extra 30 gets you absolutely nowhere.
Not so with, say, video encoding where every frame per second gets the job done quicker. That's useful if you're honing your own video, iteration after iteration, and find yourself twiddling thumbs during the encode process.
The same goes for tasks, such as professional rendering or heavy duty office apps and big database processing in Excel. The faster your PC, the more work you can get done.
In theory, the money spent on a more powerful machine is an investment in long-term productivity. Put it this way, when we told one of our back-office number-crunching brainiacs just how fast the Xeon eight-core processor tore through the huge Excel spreadsheet he gave us for testing, he nearly cried. The Xeon was 11 times faster than his Core 2 Duo box. Remarkable.
The right combo
That said, not all applications scale so nicely. Photoshop is a perfect example of a mixed workload application; not all of its filters and transformations are well threaded.Still, the first conclusion we can draw is that the high end clobber does have something to offer. Okay, some aspects of the Intel X79 platform make no sense on the desktop. We compared, for instance, a Core i7 3960X running in dual-channel and quad-channel memory modes. The latter offered no real-world benefit - it only showed a difference in memory bandwidth tests.
But overall, there's no doubt that the X79 combined with an Intel six-core i7 or eight-core Xeon processor is by far the fastest system you can buy. Whether the Xeon is worth double the i7, however, is another matter.
If you're willing to overclock the Core i7, you can close most of the performance gap on the locked-down Xeon. If you're unwilling to compromise stability and reliability, the Xeon processor is unbeatable.
The mid-ranger
Further down the scale, the Intel Core i7 2700K combined with the aggressively priced Asus P8Z68-V LX makes an impressive mid-range solution at around £325 combined. Throw in a little overclocking and you have a very quick content creation system.As for the AMD alternative, the FX is very handy with efficiently threaded software. If, for instance, you want to build an affordable video encoding box, you could do a lot worse. However, if you are after a multi-purpose PC, we'd argue you either spend a little less and go with the cheapest AMD Phenom II X6 or step up to the Core i7 2700K.
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UK unemployment figures fall
The latest sign that the economy is continuing to recover was confirmed today as official figures showed that unemployment dropped by 35,000.
High profile failures such as the loss of high-street retailer Game seem to be going against the real trend, as the latest figures from the Government show signs that the economy is continuing to recover with unemployment in the UK falling.
The figures are the first fall in unemployment numbers since Spring 2011, as the total number came down to 2.65 million over the December-to-February period, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Having been sat at a 12-year high of 8.4% the new level of 8.3% is the lowest it has been at since summer 2011.
Youth unemployment falls
Additionally the expected rise in youth unemployment failed to materialise.Youth unemployment ran at 22.2% in the three months to February 2012, down 0.1% from the three months to November 2011. But there are still 1.03 million unemployed 16 to 24 year olds. This is a fall, by 9,000 from the three months to November 2011.
Many experts express concern about the impact of the lack of investment in skills upon business growth. Liz Field, CEO of Financial Skills Partnership, comments: "If businesses stop investing in the attraction, retention and development of talent, their growth could be seriously hampered."
Adding, "It's important we learn the lessons from the last recession when companies starved their organisations of investment in talent and suffered severe consequences as a result. Many companies in our sector are taking skills seriously and are currently putting in place stable foundations which will empower them to continue to thrive and prosper in difficult market conditions."
Last month, figures recorded the slowest quarterly rise in unemployment since May 2011 with figures in the three months to January 2012 rising by just 0.1% and a rise of 28,000 over the quarter to reach 2.67 million.
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Sony to unveil secret exclusive gaming title in May
Sony has brushed off the fact it is billions in debt and is all set to announce a new triple-A game for the PS3.
Although the gaming giant is remaining tight-lipped about anything on the subject, even the fact that there is a subject to begin with, the good ol' internet is speculating that there could well be a World Of Warcraft rival incoming, which riffs on the themes of LittleBigPlanet.
Out of all the games that are exclusive to Sony – Uncharted included – LittleBigPlanet is the franchise that is the undoubted star of the company's gaming portfolio.
Although the second game didn't exactly set the charts alight when it was released, critical acclaim for the title has been second to none and it has single handedly brought platform gaming back to consoles.
Sack race
With this in mind, Sony looks at the franchise and sees pounds signs – so rumours that an MMPORG set in the world of Sackboy may not actually be that far-fetched.We are set to know May 2, as this is the date that's been pencilled in for a (little)big announcement from Sony's gaming arm.
If the game is announced in May, then it is likely we will see some of it in action at this year's E3, which is set to take place in June.
Considering we all want to catch a glimpse of a next-generation console, though, will the promise of an MMPORG be the main thing at Sony's E3 show? We are hoping not but it will be interesting to see what a LittleBigPlanet, er, planet will look like.
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Netflix to stream own Lilyhammer series in UK
Netflix will be bringing its original series Lilyhammer to the UK after it has aired on BBC 4.
Lilyhammer is the first show that Netflix commissioned in order to reduce its reliance on licensing deals with movie studios and television production companies.
It aired in the US earlier this year, debuting on the Netflix site rather than traditional television, but in the UK the series won't be streamed online until after the series has aired in full on BBC 4.
The BBC has also snapped up the rights to the second season which Netflix is set to co-produce.
If I had a hammer
Lilyhammer stars former Soprano Steven Van Zandt as a mob boss who rats on an associate and is relocated to Lillehammer in Norway as part of a witness protection deal.There are eight episodes of the critically acclaimed and in no way inspired by The Killing series for UK viewers to look forward to – the US, Norway, Canada and Latin America have already seen it, the lucky devils.
What's next on Netflix's growing production schedule? Well, it's not Terra Nova, sorry geological drama fans, rather a new series of the thoroughly wonderful Arrested Development.
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Blurb integration in Adobe Photoshop and Elements a possibility
Blurb, the self-publishing book company, has said that there's the possibility of integrating its book creation software into other Adobe products after the success it has experienced with Lightroom and InDesign.
Speaking to TechRadar, Eileen Gittens, Blurb's CEO said "Lightroom is just the start."
Blurb's integration with Lightroom appeared in Lightroom 4, Adobe's latest version of the image editing software. It allows photographers to create a book from within the application, which is then processed and shipped by Blurb.
Gittens said that Adobe was keen to compete better with Apple's iPhoto by allowing for book creation and ordering within the software itself.
Global
Speaking of why Adobe chose Blurb, Gittens said, "There are several reasons. We're a global company, so that means wherever customers are, we can ship and our software is available in multiple languages.You might also like...
Lightroom 4 review
"But most importantly, it was the quality. In all of their testing, we had the highest print quality."Lightroom 4 review Asked what the reception to the integration had been, Gittens said, "We're seeing far better than we expected, and another upside is that we're partnering with Adobe for events, offering each other support."
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Free online accounting for small business
Start-up businesses, contractors and freelancers can now get free online accounting software, courtesy of online accounting business Crunch
The online accounting service is offering its Crunch Solo product for free to freelancers, contractors and small and micro-businesses, to help them manage their bookkeeping on the web and on tablets..
The package allows users to raise invoices, record expenses, view tax liability in real time, watch training videos and tutorials, get access to technical support, produce directors payroll and dividend vouchers, and get on-the-fly reporting of
- Balance sheets
- Profit & loss
- Trial Balance
- Aged creditors
- Aged debtors
Crunch Founder Darren Fell, explained: "It's Crunch's mission to help the self-employed and small business community by continually improving our accountancy services. Today we're taking that one step further by offering our software for free."
Crunch also launched Max, a tailored service designed specifically for growing businesses, or those who have slightly more complex company structures. Max clients get a dedicated senior accountant, account managers and supports up to four directors, four shareholders, and allows the addition of payroll for up to ten employees. It is priced at £89.50 per month.
Crunch, have more than 2,500 clients on the standard subscription package and have been established since April 2009
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Web providers set to offer exclusive content on YouView
The UK's much-delayed IPTV service YouView has revealed some more information on how its ISP partners will use the platform.
It has updated some if its terms and conditions on its website and the most interesting amendment is to do with the ISPs that are partnering with the service, and the fact that they will essentially be able to offer exclusive web content to their subscribers on YouView.
YouView has been created in partnership with Arqiva, BBC, BT, Channel 4, Channel 5, ITV and TalkTalk and is set to be a standard for how web content is piped through set-top boxes.
It has some critics, however, with Sony, Virgin Media and Sky not backing the service. BT and TalkTalk are, though, and it seems that TalkTalk customers will get the most benefit out of YouView in the beginning, as it will be able to offer exclusive content through the service.
This is according to changes in YouView's policy, which now states that any ISP that's affiliated with the service will be allowed to have their content shown more prominently on the YouView homepage.
If more ISPs sign up to YouView's affiliate programme then their content will become more prominent and so on.
Essentially, depending on what ISP you are using, your view of YouView will actually change.
No absolute certainty
This is quite a change for a service that's meant to be about melding public broadcasting and the web, but there have been some question marks over just what will take centre stage on the YouView UI and how this will be chosen.Currently YouView states that it is "not possible to provide absolute certainty about all elements of the service" and this will only be done when the service actually launches.
The launch of YouView has been delayed countless times but it was thought that it would arrive May 14.
Unfortunately this isn't going to happen, according to an analyst at Enders who spoke to the FT and said that they doubt the service will be here in time for the Olympics.
"It has been stuck in bureaucratic treacle," said Ian Maude. "They have a lot of shareholders of differing interests to please, and the net result is that everything has taken a lot longer than anyone originally predicted."
Given that Sky is looking to launch Now TV – a similar IPTV venture albeit a paid one in the second half of 2012, it will be interesting if it manages to get a jump on YouView, a service that was originally announced years ago.
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Explained: Phones with Intel inside: what they mean for you
Intel-powered phones: what they mean for you
Intel's x86 processor architecture is coming soon to a smartphone near you. Or at least that's what Intel wants to happen. But should you care?x86, of course, is shorthand for Intel's proprietary CPU instruction set. It's been around since the late 70s and it's come to completely dominate desktop PCs and laptops.
Even Apple realised resistance to x86 was futile and switched its desktop Macs and portable MacBooks from IBM's PowerPC architecture to x86 in 2006.
Interview
ARM: low power is in our DNA
But what can x86 chips in phones offer that the latest ARM processors don't already deliver? Will an x86 phone be faster? Will its battery last longer? Or is this one market that's too big for even Intel to crack?ARM: low power is in our DNAAt that stage, x86 looked set to take over all aspects of computing. But beavering away in the background was a relatively puny British outfit known as ARM. Its CPU architectures were optimised for low power and confined spaces – just perfect for smartphones, in other words.
Intel's x86 chips, by contrast, were more powerful than anything from ARM. But more powerful means more power hungry. Until relatively recently, Intel had nothing that even came close to the tiny power envelope demanded by smartphones.
Intel makes its first move
In 2008, it wheeled out the first Atom chips, a new kind of x86 designed to be massively more power efficient than any previous x86 processor. The real battle for smartphone supremacy started there.Fast forward to 2012 and Intel has finally taken the wraps off the first x86 smartphones, powered by the Medfield revision of Atom. In the UK, your first chance to put x86 into your pocket is likely to be the Orange Santa Clara. Lenovo (with the Lenovo K800) and Motorola have also announced x86-powered models.
The first indication that it's not going to be easy for Intel is that it's taken a couple of years longer than originally indicated to get Atom chips into smartphones. What's more, Intel is keeping claims regarding performance pretty modest. The gist is that it's competitive on performance and battery life compared with existing ARM processors.
Early benchmarks of Intel's reference smartphone platform suggest Medfield is indeed quicker than the likes the iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy S II despite the fact that it's currently a single-core processor.
The problem for Intel is that those handsets sport relatively old dual-core ARM CPUs. By the time x86 smartphones are actually on the market later this year, much more powerful ARM chips, like Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 Krait, the next chip in the popular Snapdragon series, will be available and will no doubt stand tall over dual-core Atom. Krait looks to be at least about as quick in dual-core format and will also appear in quad-core format.
Meanwhile several other quad-core ARM chips have popped up, including Nvidia's Tegra 3 - check out our HTC One X review. Intel has promised a dual-core follow up to Medfield, but given its tardiness in delivering the first single-core variant, we're not holding our breath.
What operating systems are supported?
Of course, that's just the hardware part of the equation. The software side is really important, too. . The good news is that the popular Android operating system has already been ported to x86. The bad news is that existing Android apps may not be compatible with an Intel phone.Intel reckons 75 per cent of existing Android apps will run just fine. The problem is the remaining 25 per cent. The more demanding the app, the more likely it won't work. Anything with intensive graphics, including most games, are probably non-starters.
It's not that big a job to recompile such apps. But in the meantime, the plan is to software translation to allow as many apps as possible to run. Intel says the aim is roughly 90 per cent compatibility. How many and how well apps run could make or break x86 as a smartphone processor.
What about graphics?
The other problem for Intel is that graphics performance is increasingly key in the ultramobile segment. When Apple recently upgraded the new iPad, it left the CPU cores alone. Instead, it doubled graphics performance.A similar trend can be seen in smartphones, with graphics performance becoming ever more critical as screen resolutions increase, graphics become more complex and games more sophisticated. But if there's anything Intel isn't good at, it's graphics. In fact, Intel buys in the graphics design for the Medfield Atom processor.
Unless Intel can come up with something special in-house (and there's no indication it's even trying), it won't be able to offer better graphics designs than other smartphone processors.
Advanced production
If that doesn't sound terribly optimistic, there is one reason to think Intel might just be able to put a supercharged smartphone in your pocket. The thing that Intel does better than anyone else is manufacture computer chips. It has the most advanced production processes and creates the smallest transistors.Right now, it isn't making Atom processors on its most advanced 22nm process. But when the next die shrink to 14nm kicks in sometime in early 2014, Intel says Atoms will be among the first to benefit. If that happens, Intel might be able to squeeze in more CPU and graphics cores, crank up the clockspeeds, extend battery life beyond the competition or allow for slimmer smartphones than ever before.
It's a big if, admittedly. But give it a couple of years and the fastest smartphones with the longest battery life and slimmest form factors might just be Intel inside.
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