Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Acer's Tablet & Laptop-In-One

Have you ever wanted to have a tablet? Or maybe a laptop? Why not try Acer's upcoming device that gives you both a tablet and a laptop for the price of one that will be available in the US and Canada starting November 9.

Acer's Iconia W510 can be bought with only the tablet or with a laptop dock depending on your preference.  It runs on Windows 8, a 10.1 inch screen, an Intel Atom 1.5GHz Z2760 processor, 2GB RAM and you can choose between 32GB or 64GB worth of SSD Storage.

The 10.1 inch screen is just 0.35 inches thin and weighs for about 1.32 pounds. It sports a rear 8 megapixel camera and a 2 megapixel camera infront for full HD video calling. The 1366x768 screen (IPS) is protected with Gorilla Glass 2 and can be inserted backwards facing away from the keyboard and be made as a presentation stand.

The tablet has a 9 hour battery life according to Acer and has a total of 18 hours if connected to the laptop dock because of its own second battery.

This tablet/laptop will range from $499.99 (tablet only with 32GB) to $749.99 (tablet + laptop dock with 64GB) and both will be running Windows 8 only. Another version will be released for $799.99 which includes the laptop dock, 64GB SSD storage, 2 years warranty and running Windows 8 Pro.


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Sunday, October 7, 2012

The New Razer Blade: Is it Better?

The New Razer Blade was a great improvement than its predecessor, with more powerful specs other than its lightweight and slim design. It's also a bit cheaper than the first Razer Blade and has a completely redesigned thermal system.

Even though Razer reduced the price of the New Razer Blade, it's still a bit heavy in the pockets for most people who are considering to buy a gaming laptop. From the first's $2,799 (now $2,299) price to the second's price of $2,499. Some of you will ask: Will this be worth the $2,500 that you will spend? No, the New Razer blade still isn't the best gaming laptop out there despite the power it packs.

The New Razer Blade somewhat falls between the high-end gaming laptops. Fortunately, the New Razer Blade has its advantages when it comes to style, weight and thickness compared to the other's bulky, louder and plasticky build. The Razer Blade 2's black aluminum however is very susceptible to scratches and smudges from fingerprints.

So for the specs, here they are:

  • Intel's brand new i7-3632QM 2.2GHz Quad-core processor that can go up to 3.2GHz with TurboBoost
  • NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 660M with NVIDIA Optimus Technology (DirectX 11.1 compatible) with 2GB Dedicated GDDR5 Video Memory
  • 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 Memory
  • 17.3-in. LED Backlit Display that can support up to 1920×1080 resolution
  • Built-in HD webcam
  • Integrated 60Wh battery (45 minutes of gaming or 2 hours and 25 minutes of internet surfing, music, and videos.)
  • 500GB 7200rpm HDD
  • 64GB SATA III SSD (for caching)
  • Wireless Network 802.11 A/G/N + BT4.0
  • 42.7 x 27.68 x 2.23cm; 3kg
The touchpad (Switchblade UI) with extra keys or hotkeys has been unusually placed at the right side where the numpad must have been. It would be great if Razer made a 15" one and placed the touchpad in its usual place in the middle for typical people or gamers.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Mudslinging time.

MANILA, Philippines - Because of the numerous complaints and petitions about certain sections of the new Cybercrime Prevention Law, Senate Majority Leader Vicente "Tito" Sotto III is now planning to file a bill to junk the said libel law.
“Gusto nila magpa-file naman ako ng bill, alisin na natin ang libel para pwede ko na rin silang murahin (If they want, I will file a bill to remove libel so I can also engage them in mudslinging),” Sotto said in a radio interview last Wednesday (Oct 3, 2012).
“Pwede, alisin natin para parehas na ang laban. Maganda yan, pag-aaralan ko yan hanggang Lunes (We can remove that to have a fair play. That’s a good idea. I will study that until Monday),” he said.
“Alisin na natin ang gag sa masama broadcast, sa radyo, sa TV. Kung malaya sa Internet, pwede silang mambastos, mambaboy…gawin na din natin sa media. Kailangan pare-parehas,” Sotto added.
He was asked if he was serious about the proposal, the senator said, “Oo, tinatabla lang natin sila sa inyo (Yes, we’re just levelling the playing field.)”
“Hindi na decriminalizing, removing. Magda-draft ako in the next few days (We will no longer decriminalize libel, we will remove it altogether. I will make a draft in the next few days),” he said.
Sotto was the one who included libel in the provisions of the Cybercrime Prevention Law of 2012 and was also the one who defended his decision to include it as one of the punishable offenses in the law.

Sotto insisted that the online libel was not meant to gag Internet users from posting criticisms against any person or official in government but only against cybersex, and libelous materials.
“Gusto nilang i-criticize ako, e di i-criticize ako nila ako basta huwag lang libelous. Huwag lang yung nambabastos , nambababoy kung tawagin below the belt kasi kung gusto nila ng ganun, pwede din ako dun (If they want to shame me, then do so as long they don’t make it libelous, below the belt…),” he added.
Source:  Inquirer.net - Sotto: Let’s scrap libel law and let’s start mudslinging

Monday, October 1, 2012

Support the people. Pray for the Philippines



Hey folks. As some of you are aware, a new law is about to wreak havoc to the Internet society when it becomes effective tomorrow (October 3, 2012).

The Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 (Republic Act No. 10175) will pose as a serious threat to Internet freedom, privacy rights and other essential factors including the freedom of speech, expression, and the press.

While its main purpose as many of you know was to stop hacking, identity theft, cybersex, data manipulation and other illegal internet activities, unfortunately the people behind it inserted provisions about online libel or defamation by writing or speaking has made the act into an online censorship law that takes away the freedom of speech that is an essential key in a Democratic country.

Petitions will now be heard at the Supreme Court today (October 2, 2012) and let's hope that the ridiculous Anti-Cybercrime Law will be junked immediately.


Click here to view the full details of the RA10175.
Click here to read the press release.

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Sunday, September 30, 2012

The Filipino MyPhone A878 Duo


Some of you will ask what MyPhone is. As you will notice on my Google+ Profile, I am a Filipino and MyPhone is a Filipino made mobile phone company. Even though their phones are manufactured in China, all the designs and ideas are made by the creative minds of Filipinos. Lately, they have been releasing Android operated phones to keep up with the mobile industry here in the Philippines and the MyPhone A878 Duo is their latest flagship Android phone.

The MyPhone A878 Duo runs on Android's latest mobile OS, the Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 which has MyPhone's user interface. Usually when you see a Android ICS operated phone, you can determine that it is  a high end phone capable of running this OS compared to its predecessors that can only run Android 2.3 Gingerbread and can't be upgraded.

Like the new releases of touch screen phones from Apple, Samsung, HTC, Nokia, etc. you will notice the phone sports a 4.3 inch screen that has the IPS (In-Plane Switching technology) that makes any viewing angle satisfying.

It runs on a MT6517 1GHz dual-core processor, the first in MyPhone's line of smartphones and is believed to be capable in running HD games and playing HD Videos together with a 512MB of RAM and a PowerVR SGX531 GPU. The 1,800mAh battery can also last for a day or more with standard usage. Below you can see its performance in games like this:


The MyPhone A878 also has a 2.5GB of usable storage and a microSD slot that can support up to 32GB. So you can store many photos and some videos in the internal memory alone using the 5MP autofocus camera with a LED Flash.

MyPhone is also known as the first manufacturer of dual-sim phones here in the Philippines and is supported in this model. Unfortunately the A878 has no 3G which is bad news for some people with unlimited mobile plans.

Other features are MP3/MP4/Media playback, WiFi/WiFi Hotspot capable, Motion/Proximity sensors, TV-Out, Google Play Store, 3.5mm audio jack, 2.0 microUSB socket and many other features.

This phone had a promo where you can buy it for only P5388 ($130) and now has a regular price of P6,999 or about $170.

myPhone also has an upcoming release of a new smartphone dubbed as the "A898" that has the specs of the A878 but now supports 3G, so YAY! for some of you. G'day!

Thursday, September 27, 2012

What's Up with the New iPhone 5?

In today's feature we will check out if the new iPhone 5 is the best iPhone yet. We will go around the specifications that Apple has added and improved over its predecessor, the iPhone 4S. So let's take a look shall we?
Based from the photo above, you will see that the iPhone 5's predecessors all have the similar round edged look  but without the silver outline of the original iPhone that's similar to the iPod Touch Generation. You will also notice that the iPhone 5 looks like a flattened version of the iPhone 4S that made the screen wider and the body thinner. What's better is that it only weighs a 112 grams compared to its Android counterpart, the Samsung Galaxy S3 which in turn weighs at 133 grams.
The iPhone 5 still inherits the other iPhones' fragile look which would make you buy a case as soon as you buy one, the back of the smartphone sports a new look with two glass strips on the top and bottom with an aluminum cover in the middle. The metal attracts dust though.

Some buttons and slots are still placed on their usual spots like the SIM card slot on the right which only supports the tiny "Nano SIM" cards which is a bit of a disappointment if you still want to use your current prepaid cards. The volume and mute keys are situated at the left side while the 3.5mm earphone jack has been moved to the base for easier pocketing. Lastly is the new "Lightning" as they call it, a smaller docking port in where you can jack in either way around.

The wider screen is now on 4 inches with 326 pixels-per-inch with great viewing angles, bright colors and excellent saturation. For the not too careful users out there, you may want to invest in a screen protector just in case.

The new and more powerful A6 chip now runs on dual cores that has speeds up to 1.3GHz and 2x faster GPUs compared to the previous A5 chip. You will feel the speed when using memory intensive apps like games which is a great improvement than the past version.

Unfortunately for the new iOS 6 which brings a lot of crashes, glitches and bugs especially the Maps App that I would not need to explain how bad it is, based from the negative feedback from users.

The usual 8-megapixel lens is also good on daylight shots but does not do too well on low-light environments like evening shots where the lens vibrates when you take a picture. Using flash is recommended to compensate for the graininess. A new feature is the panoramic view in where you can take landscape shots which is already being used in Android handsets like Samsung or HTC.

The earphones have also been improved to provide less leakiness.

Apple has announced that the rumored 4G LTE networks will soon be released in the UK which greatly improves download speeds. There's is no NFC support though.

So that's it. The new iPhone 5 is still the best version of iPhone out, YET. But still needs improvements like what the other iPhones still lack. Hopefully Apple will do something about it on their next releases of the iPhone. G'day!

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Sony's Xperia T: Good Enough?

The new Sony Xperia T (also called as Xperia GX or Xperia TX in other countries) is Sony's new Android flagship that is supposed to replace its predecessor, the Sony Xperia S. It now has a 720p display of 4.6 inches, a 13 megapixel camera, a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor and runs on Android's latest 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS. The design has the familiar curve of the Xperia Arc S which makes it easier to grip and Android on-screen buttons.  The screen is attached to a glossy plastic frame in front, while the other sides still stuck to a matte finish instead of a glossy one.  Unfortunately it weighs at 139 grams compared to Samsung's Galaxy S3 at 133 grams.



The buttons (power button, volume and camera button) are relocated to the right, under the microSD and microSIM slots. HDMI is now supported along with the microUSB port.

The rear 13 megapixels camera can record 1080p video with the Exmor R Sensor of Sony bundled together with a LED Flash and mono speaker, while the front-facing 1.3 megapixels camera for 720p capturing.

The battery can handle up to 6 hours of continuous video playback with its 4.6 inch screen that can support a 1280x720 pixel resolution.

The new Xperia T has its advantages over the Xperia S but still seems lacking which makes the Xperia T not too advisable to buy compared to the recently discounted Xperia S and now upgradeable Android OS (From the current 2.0 OS to the latest 4.0 ICS).