Cool Tech Reviews

Melissa J. Perenson does the honors at PCWorld:

HD DVD movie players are no longer your only high-def DVD living-room option: Samsung has shipped its $1000 BD-P1000, the first living-room player that uses rival format Blu-ray, and Sony Pictures and Lions Gate have released high-def Blu-ray movies to complement it.

Which type is better? We found little difference in image quality, but you’ll get a more elegant player with the Samsung Blu-ray device. However, it costs twice as much as one of Toshiba’s HD DVD players.

We put the Samsung player through its paces and compared it with two HD DVD models from Toshiba, the $499 HD-A1 and the $799 HD-XA1.

More by following the link, but it’s a little tough to do a head-to-head comparison since so far there are no movies available in both formats. I also found disturbing Perenson’s reports of display artifacts cropping up in certain titles in either format. She recommends reading user reviews of specific high definition DVD titles before buying to avoid disappointment. Taking all the factors into consideration, perhaps the best advice is:

The high-def DVD format war is far from over, and a slew of new hardware is due in the fall and winter.

Back in January, we mentioned the Sony Reader for eBooks as one slick gadget with its E Ink display. It still is slick, but Sony seems to have real problems getting it out the door:

One of Sony’s most recent sought out devices, the PRS-500 eBook reader is going to be delayed once again. Sony Electronics brought the PRS-500 with them to CES this past January and had announced a Spring 2006 launch but then pushed it to the summer of 2006. Sony is now saying a fall launch seems more likely.

No word on the reason for all the delays, but supposedly it will be ready for Holiday shoppers.

A little more than a week ago, I mentioned that Intel was getting ready to slash prices on microprocessors starting this week. Now AMD has fired back with their own price cuts:

Advanced Micro Devices slashed prices on some PC processors by as much as 57 percent in a new listing Monday, firing the latest salvo in a battle with rival Intel Corp.
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Users can look forward to bargains in the PC space in coming months as the two companies battle it out. AMD dropped the price of its dual-core Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (socket AM2 only) to $301 on Monday, from $696 when it last published a price list in May. It also cut the price of the Athlon 64 X2 4600+ (socket AM2 and 939) by 57 percent to $240 from $558.

Although the biggest AMD price reductions were in PC processors, the company also cut prices for laptop processor prices as well.

Prices of its AMD Turion 64 mobile chips fell by as much as 26 percent, with its Model ML-44 down to $263 from $354 in May. Prices for AMD Sempron chips for desktops and laptops also fell.

As George Ou said in a quote from the previous post, no matter what you buy, it will soon be “a lot cheaper or it will be a lot faster.”

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Ubuntu seems to have the buzz as the “hottest” Linux distribution and now Jason Brooks weighs in at eWEEK:

Canonical’s Ubuntu 6.06 LTS is an excellent Linux-based operating system—so excellent, in fact, that it not only earned eWEEK Labs’ Analyst’s Choice designation but has also become our clear favorite among Linux desktop distributions.

This latest Ubuntu release, which became available in June, has won our ardor with a tight focus on desktop usability; an extremely active, helpful and organized user community; and a software installation and management framework that’s unsurpassed on any OS platform.

In addition to outperforming Linux rivals as a desktop OS, we found that Ubuntu is a solid choice for server deployments—provided, at least, that the sort of graphical management hand-holding that one would expect from Microsoft’s Windows Server or from Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server isn’t a priority.

Hit the link for the full review.

Intel is reacting fiercely to AMD’s market share gains last quarter and it’s good news for PC buyers. George Ou at ZDNet - Prices released on Conroe, AMD may need to slash 70% on FX62:

The word is out on Intel Core2 Conroe processors. The price and model numbers have been set on the new Intel processors while the price on older Pentium D processors have been slashed. Even the dual core Pentium D 945 running at 3.4 GHz has been slashed to $163 on July 23rd which is cheaper than the slowest C2D E6300 at 1.86 GHz.

More by following both links but here’s the net:

The new Conroe processors will have a devastating effect on current inventory from AMD or Intel. It’s kind of like a scorched earth tactic where Intel’s own legacy “Netburst” inventory will suffer collateral damage in the war against AMD. Anyone who’s buying computers right now should definitely hold off for 2 more weeks since there will be massive price drops on current AMD and Intel CPUs.
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The good news is that no matter what you buy 2 weeks from now, it will be a lot cheaper or it will be a lot faster.

It doesn’t hurt that PC sales have been weak in recent months either.

No sooner did I spot the LG Flatron L1970HR LCD monitor for gamers, than ASUS jumped into the 2ms response game. It’s too early for reviews and the pricing and availability have still to be revealed, but Gizmodo has some of the specs:

To start with the nitty gritty, this behemoth has a 1280×1024 native resolution, 800:1 contrast ratio, 320cd/m2 brightness and a very nice 2ms response time for optimal gaming and minimal ghosting. The fun doesn’t end there, either. This display has three USB 2.0 ports, DVI-D, D-SUB, 1.3-megapixel webcam, microphone/headphone inputs and even an integrated 2.1-channel speaker system that includes a fancy tube-like subwoofer on the back side.

There’s more by following the link and at ubergizmo, but I think it’s clear this baby will have a premium price.