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Updated: IFA 2011: all the latest announcements

By TechRadar, published 31-08-2011

IFA 2011: all the latest newsIFA, the world's largest consumer electronics and home appliance show, will open its doors for the 51st time on 1 September 2011. For five hectic days, this annual extravaganza of all things electronic will redefine the consumer electronics landscape for the next 12 months. IFA is not just another gadget show. It's a technology event on an enormous scale. Last year, the Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin attracted over 230,000 visitors. And yes, it is open to the public.Indeed, the IFA site is so huge it has its own transport system to help get folks around. With more attendees and exhibition space than CES, it can legitimately claim to be the world's biggest tech expo.Amazingly, the show first opened its doors way back in 1924. Since then it's seen numerous...

Apple announces update for Mac Mini

By TechRadar, published 20-07-2011

Apple has announced updates to its Mac Minis, with the latest offering boasting next-gen Intel Core processors, discrete graphics card, Thunderbolt ports and the brand-spanking new Lion flavour of OS X. The Mac Mini, which is available from today, will be priced from £529 and offers the now familiar aluminium small form factor of just 7.7 inches by 1.4 inches. "Mac mini delivers the speed and expandability that makes it perfect for the desktop, living room or office," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. Versatile"With faster processors, more powerful graphics and Thunderbolt in an incredibly compact, aluminum design, the new Mac mini is more versatile than ever," he added.Users can chose from dual-core Intel Core i5 or Intel Core i7 processo...

Apple announces beefed-up MacBook Air range

By TechRadar, published 20-07-2011

Apple has announced its new MacBook Air models, with 11- and 13-inch editions coming with souped-up processing power and the return of the backlit keyboard.The new 11- and 13-inch models are powered by Intel Core i5 processors and come complete with Thunderbolt connectivity, as predicted by leaks that hit earlier today. The Sandy Bridge processors mean the new range is "up to twice as fast as the previous generation", according to Apple: the 11-inch Airs come with the 1.6GHz Core i5, while the 13-inch editions offer 1.7GHz, with a custom configuration of the 1.8GHz i7 processor available. Ah, memoriesA memory boost has also come to the new Air models; the lowest-spec model comes with the same 2GB RAM as its predecessor, but the three higher-end editions come with 4GB of 1333MHz DDR3 RAM. A...

Dream Machine 2011: How We Created the Best PC Ever

By MaximumPC, published 07-11-2011

Join us as we celebrate another year of Pure PC PowerIn an age of overly synthesized catchphrases ginned up by some suit to commercialize new soda pop or body spray, the term “pure PC power” was never intended to be marketing hype.Instead, it was conceived to describe our obsession with performance computers and it has withstood the test of time. Who would have known that 16 Dream Machines later, the pursuit of all-out computing power could still be viable?But that’s just what this year’s Dream Machine again proves: Despite pundits predicting the PC’s death many times over—speed still matters. For this year’s Dream Machine, we decided to build a rig that balances top-notch performance with the style and elegance of an exotic sports car. The overall package is well-behaved and...

Review: Samsung NC110

By TechRadar, published 20-06-2011

What do you do when you want to catch the eye of people torn between the growing domination of tablets such as the Apple iPad 2 or Motorola Xoom and a much more user-friendly, but far less trendy, netbook? You bring out a netbook that's so cheap you can't possibly pass it by – and that's exactly what Samsung has done with its NC110.It's a real foot in the door of the market at £236 – cheaper than the likes of the Asus Eee PC 1018P, the Packard Bell Dot SE or even the Acer Aspire One 522. In fact, it's the cheapest netbook around.But does that price mean it's a bag of bolts? Actually no, not in the slightest. One of the most surprising things about the Samsung NC110 is that it's been superbly put together and the materials are of a high grade. You honestly wouldn't be able to tell the ...

Review Roundup: This week's hottest reviews on TechRadar

By TechRadar, published 21-05-2011

This week's reviews include HTC's tablet as well as the new 2011 iMac lineup.The HTC Flyer was announced at Mobile World Congress when it impressed, but how does it stand up to the iPad 2 and plethora of Android 3.0 devices?The new 21.5 and 27-inch iMacs offer awesome power, but do they give you more power than you need? We've also looked at an epic 50-inch plasma TV from Panasonic and much more. Read on to find out more. HTC Flyer reviewNow that Android is a major tablet OS, with Android 3.0 appearing on the likes of the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1V, HTC is still staying separate from the crowd. The most notable change from the norm is the 7-inch screen and the touchscreen stylus, known officially as the Magic Pen. It connects wirelessly to the Flyer, and enables you to anno...

Review: Shuttle SX58H7

By TechRadar, published 05-11-2011

OverviewThere are plenty of things you can do with a barebones system such as Shuttle's SX58H7 case-PSU-motherboard bundle. Buy a powerful, reasonably priced CPU such as the Intel Core i7 930 and a budget 3D card and RAM, and you get one formidable workstation or media centre. Those eight threads across four cores on the 930's die will chew through processor-intensive applications and rendering tasks like a beaver through balsa wood.Alternatively, whack in a decent DX11 card, match it again with an affordable Core i7 and triple-channel, low-latency DDR3 RAM and boot up a very capable gaming or Photoshop rig. Watch the size of your memory modules though: there's little headroom between the RAM slots and overhanging storage bay.What almost no one would think to do with this diminutive deskto...

In Depth: Sandy Bridge and AMD Fusion: hybrid chips explained

By TechRadar, published 04-10-2011

We recently reviewed one of AMD's latest Fusion processors as part of the Asus E35M1-M Pro motherboard. Like Intel's recent Sandy Bridge chips, they combine a programmable graphics engine onto the same piece of silicon as the CPU. It's a modern minor miracle in metal. Like the first wave of Intel's CPU/GPU hybrids, these initial Fusion chips from AMD cleverly and cautiously avoid underwhelming us by targeting netbooks, where performance expectations are pretty low. For Intel, it was bolting a rudimentary graphics core onto an Atom to create Pinetrail. AMD's new Bobcat CPU architecture is more forward looking, but by going up against Pinetrail and low-end notebooks, it looks perhaps better than it is. AMD will follow the trail that has been forged here, though. Over the last 12 months, Inte...

In Depth: Sandy Bridge and AMD Fusion: hybrid chips explained

By TechRadar, published 04-10-2011

We recently reviewed one of AMD's latest Fusion processors as part of the Asus E35M1-M Pro motherboard. Like Intel's recent Sandy Bridge chips, they combine a programmable graphics engine onto the same piece of silicon as the CPU. It's a modern minor miracle in metal. Like the first wave of Intel's CPU/GPU hybrids, these initial Fusion chips from AMD cleverly and cautiously avoid underwhelming us by targeting netbooks, where performance expectations are pretty low. For Intel, it was bolting a rudimentary graphics core onto an Atom to create Pinetrail. AMD's new Bobcat CPU architecture is more forward looking, but by going up against Pinetrail and low-end notebooks, it looks perhaps better than it is. AMD will follow the trail that has been forged here, though. Over the last 12 months, Inte...

In Depth: Sandy Bridge and AMD Fusion: hybrid chips explained

By TechRadar, published 04-10-2011

We recently reviewed one of AMD's latest Fusion processors as part of the Asus E35M1-M Pro motherboard. Like Intel's recent Sandy Bridge chips, they combine a programmable graphics engine onto the same piece of silicon as the CPU. It's a modern minor miracle in metal. Like the first wave of Intel's CPU/GPU hybrids, these initial Fusion chips from AMD cleverly and cautiously avoid underwhelming us by targeting netbooks, where performance expectations are pretty low. For Intel, it was bolting a rudimentary graphics core onto an Atom to create Pinetrail. AMD's new Bobcat CPU architecture is more forward looking, but by going up against Pinetrail and low-end notebooks, it looks perhaps better than it is. AMD will follow the trail that has been forged here, though. Over the last 12 months, Inte...

Review: Packard Bell EasyNote TS

By TechRadar, published 23-03-2011

It would be fair to say that we were a tad skeptical when we got our first look at the Packard Bell EasyNote TS. It's ostensibly a pretty laptop without much obviously going for it bar its shiny lid, so we were a little bit dismissive – that's the sort of stock response we reserve for anything in the sub-£500 bracket.Perhaps – and this does take a certain degree of humility to say – we shouldn't have been so hasty. Because while it's not up to the lofty 3D standards of the Sony Vaio F Series and it doesn't have the leg-melting power of the high-end Apple MacBook Pro, the EasyNote TS is a mid-range performer at a low-end price, and absolutely the sort of laptop we'd be happy to welcome into our own homes. And we see a lot of laptops, so that's no mean feat.Packard Bell was kind enoug...

Review: Packard Bell EasyNote TS

By TechRadar, published 23-03-2011

It would be fair to say that we were a tad skeptical when we got our first look at the Packard Bell EasyNote TS. It's ostensibly a pretty laptop without much obviously going for it bar its shiny lid, so we were a little bit dismissive – that's the sort of stock response we reserve for anything in the sub-£500 bracket.Perhaps – and this does take a certain degree of humility to say – we shouldn't have been so hasty. Because while it's not up to the lofty 3D standards of the Sony Vaio F Series and it doesn't have the leg-melting power of the high-end Apple MacBook Pro, the EasyNote TS is a mid-range performer at a low-end price, and absolutely the sort of laptop we'd be happy to welcome into our own homes. And we see a lot of laptops, so that's no mean feat.Packard Bell was kind enoug...