I think that this update was made by Apple to compete with Dell’s UltraSharp 3007WFP which had a higher specification up until now. CNET did a review recently comparing the two, and although Apple’s 30″ Cinema Display beat Dell’s for better colour accuracy and sharpness, Dell did a good job. The Dell screen has better features (more ports and adjustability) and had smoother text production than Apple’s Cinema Display.
So what exactly did Apple change? They updated the brightness of the screen to 400cd/m2 from 270 and upped the contrast ratio to 700:1 from 400:1. Now the technical specs (apart from the ports, etc) of the Cinema Display match Dell’s 30″ monster exactly. Coincidence? I think not.
Archive for the 'PC' Category
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To clear any confusion, a Sony representative, speaking with Yahoo! Games, has confirmed that the PS3 will ship with a 60 GB HDD, with an option to upgrade. No PS3 bundles will be sold without a hard drive. However, it’s unclear if by upgrading, purchasers will have the option to buy the console with a larger hard drive, or if they’ll be forced take the 60 GB HDD and buy an additional, larger drive separately—we guess the latter (at least, at launch), but aren’t ruling out the possibility of two bundles with different sized hard drives (for example, 60 GB and 100 GB bundles). [Joystiq]
I have been playing around with various Bittorrent clients on my Mac mini and I just happened to cross an OS X x86 installation. So it completed the full download this morning as an ISO file. Since my mac mini doesn’t have a SuperDrive I couldn’t burn the iso directly. I tried to put it onto an external Firewire drive I had but that FAT32 formatted so it can’t accept the ISO (as the file is bigger than 2GB). So I used StuffIt to compress the ISO and break it into parts, which was then re-assembled in Windows. In Windows Nero was used to burn the ISO (took around 15 mins) onto a blank DVD-R. I used Partition Magic to clean the drive (separate drive than Windows, an old 10GB drive) that I wanted to install OS X onto. I then used the DVD to boot up, and partioned the drive for HFS+ (Journalised) so that OS X can be installed. It took roughly 40mins to install the whole OS with hacks. I was surprised at how fast it was.
After all the installation and configuring I started up OS X for the first time. It booted up without any problems, and I saw the desktop on an Intel machine for the very first time. There are minor problems/glitches. All the parts in the Sony PC that I tested it out on is recognised, apart from the D-Link PCI Wi-Fi card I have in it. This means that there is no internet! How annoying! I spent a long time trying to get it to work but nada. So I posted a topic on the OSX86.org forums and I hope someone could help me. The other ‘problem’ is a visual artefact on the screen, sometimes a part of the screen shows something that has moved or was there before. This can be fixed by moving a window or something over it, but it is annoying. Apparently it is a reported error that numerous people are having (I don’t think it’s my graphics card, an AGP ATI Radeon 9600XT as it is working fine) so I’m not sure. Anyway the whole system is pretty fast, all the universal apps and the dashboard start up nearly instantly. Read on for specs of the system and image(s).
Continue reading ‘OS X on an Intel Box – My Story’
Llamma has got some images of the two DVD drives that live inside the Xbox 360. On the left is the newer, and quieter, Samsung drive (model #TS-H943), “easily identified by its unique drive-tray and ninja-like stealth“. And on the right is the Hitachi (model #GDR-3120L), “easily identified by the notches on its drive tray, and the ear-splitting noise it produces when it really gets going“. Are the drives being replaced across the whole production line or is it just some units? I think microsoft had realised that they made a ‘mistake’ when choosing drives for the 360 and later during manufacturing they found out that it packs some noise. So they decided to replace them with the sleeker and quieter Samsung model.
My 360 contains the Hitachi, and seriously does make a blast when it is on. If I play on the Xbox Live Arcade games or things running from the hard drive, the 360 is actually whisper quiet, but as soon as I press the button to play the game, the drive whirrs up. It spins really fast and makes a lot of noise; that’s how I realised that I accidentally left my 360 in the night (I could hear it through my iPod headphones!
Apple has changed the Intel ad for the UK and replaced it with words that make it a lot less effective. They have changed the voice over to remove the ‘dull little boxes dutifully doing dull little tasks’ line and replaced it with, ‘dutifully doing all the things PC’s were built to do.’ You can watch the ad for yourself here, and I’m sure that you’ll find that it is rubbish. Literally I think they might as well not air the ad because it sounds a bit stupid really. I wonder why though? It’s not as if the UK people would take offense more than the Americans. Who knows, but now it’s time for you to see the ad that will embaress Apple (ok, maybe that is a bit harsh).
UPDATE: I saw the ad on TV (Discovery Channel, I was watching MythBusters!) and I do have to say it wasn’t nearly as powerful as the original ad. I am still questioning why they changed it for the UK.
Today was the day that just about everyone that ordered a mini on the 28th received it via FedEx. Tons of pictures of the Intel Mac Mini’s internals flooded the internet this morning. Shots of the double-layered DDR2 200pin SO-DIMMs slots, the IR port next to the optical drive responsible for the Front Row remote control feature, the new Serial-ATA hard drive interface and more surfaced. However, one thing that caught my attention was the use of a socket for the CPU rather than a soldered-on, unreplaceable processor. The big connotation with this is that you can buy a cheaper Mac Mini such as the 1.5GHz Core Solo (assuming the motherboard and software is identical between Core Solo and Core Duo versions) and upgrade it to something like, say a 2.0GHz Core Duo. I still have to sift through some whitepapers and find exact heat specifications for the 1.83, 2.0 and 2.16GHz Core Duos to see if the Mac Mini’s heat sink and fan combination would be up to the task.
According to ZDNet’s Ed Bott, the retail version of Windows Vista will include four of the OS’s six-plus flavors on a single DVD. The versions included on the DVD will be Vista Business, Home Basic, Home Premium, and Ultimate, and which version gets installed depends on how much the purchaser spends and what product key they use to install Vista. This is a good move on Microsoft’s part because it prevents retailers from having to stock four versions of the same product and promises an easy upgrade scenario called Windows Anytime Upgrade. If a user has Vista Home Basic installed and wants to upgrade to Premium, for example, they can just buy a product key for an upgrade fee and install the beefier version of Vista from the disc they already have. Perhaps not so good for Microsoft is the fact that it’s going to take hackers a couple weeks, tops, to figure out how to get those upgrades for free. [Download Squad]
Somehow, Engadget has already got their hands on the new Intel based Mac Mini and are showing it off with a Sony Bravia HD TV. Apparently the new mini has better compatibility with High Def resolutions, for which you previously needed 3rd party software. Cool. I’ll leave you the pics after the link.
On a separate note, I forgot to mention that the G4 mac mini’s are being discontinued, and that the Intel mini’s have a lousy embedded graphics card, not a ATI like in the PPC mini’s. The memory for the graphics is shared with the system memory. I think this is a step-back and that Apple included it to reduce the cost, but I would feel better if Apple offered a dedicated GPU version for some more $$.
Part of the fun new products that Apple announced, the released a new Intel Mac Mini. So what are the differences apart from it featuring either a Core Solo (lower end model) or a Core Duo (higher end model) processor. Well there are an extra 2 USB ports, the modem is completely gone. The ethernet jack is now a gigabit connection, the headphone jack supports optical out and there is a line in (with optical in) jack. As far as I can see, Apple have changed the things people were complaining about to make the Mac Mini a better machine. It also comes with an Apple media remote and Front Row so you can have that Mac Mini home entertainment unit. It is 4x faster, according to Apple’s calculations. The box (packaging) has also been cleaned up with a touch of lightness.
Here are the models:
1.5GHz Intel Core Single
1.5GHz Intel Core Solo processor
2MB L2 Cache
667MHz Frontside Bus
512MB memory (667MHz DDR2 SDRAM)
60GB Serial ATA hard drive
Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
Price: Starts at $599.00 (£449)
1.67 GHz Intel Core Dual
1.66GHz Intel Core Duo processor
2MB L2 Cache
667MHz Frontside Bus
512MB memory (667MHz DDR2 SDRAM)
80GB Serial ATA hard drive
Double-layer SuperDrive (DVD R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Price: Starts at $799.00 (£599)
read more (Apple Website)
Some interesting options. Never tried it, nor do I know whether it works. Some other tips on the digg story.