According to a Vietnamese site this is soon to be unveiled Samsung Galaxy S3 (GT-9300). that has a 4.6” 1184×720 screen, 1.4 Quad-Core CPU, 1GB of Ram, 8MP camera 16GB storage and a MicroSD slot.

There is a plastic casing around the device in the video to keep the final design a bit of a secret. The 2050mhA battery will come with NFC capability.

More photos at XDA

I’ve had these lens cups for a couple of years now and I have been using small one as pen holders as I hate the metallic innards of the mug. I really can’t remember where exactly I got them from but they are pretty wide spread at the moment and available at a number of online retailers now and easy to find. The quality isn’t that great as the as the lens/cup cover doesn’t stagy on for the black small cup which is irritating even though I don’t use the cover.

You can get those 2 cup from Photojojo even though it isn’t the place I got it from. The black 24-105mm lens cup is sold for almost 6.5KD and the white 70-200mm travel mug will cost you 8.5KD.

Photojojo

Being a gamer, I was thinking of getting the PS Vita ever since it was announced. But because of the underwhelming sales I thought I should hold out for a while anticipating a price cut just like what happened with the Nintendo 3DS. But I was caught of guard when I saw that XCITE were selling the 3G version for 105KD which was a very good price. The first thing you notice on any device these days is the screen. And the PS Vita’s 5″ 960×544 bright and crisp screen is just great.

The second analog stick is a godsend. People were asking for it ever since the release of the original PSP. Having it makes gaming much more natural especially if you are a console gamer since both XBOX and The Playstation both have dual analog sticks.

The console has just been released so the game library isn’t that big at the moment. You can play the games either via a physical game card or a digital download which is my favorite. The problem is the the PS Vita doesn’t come with any built-in memory so you would have to buy a memory card if you plan to download games, demos or even watch movies.

The battery is a problem with the device. During my gaming sessions I managed to get 3 hours max from a fully charge battery, that was with full brightness, wifi on and no sim card installed.

All in all I would say that the PS Vita is a pretty capable device that would be better if there was a bigger game selection but I’m sure that will be coming along on the near future.

While looking for a good media center PC for a friend I decided that the ZOTAC ZBOX bare bone  an Intel Atom 1.8GHz dual core CPU is the way to go, as I had an extra HDD and RAM after my Mac Mini and Macbook Pro upgrades. And I don’t recommend 2GB of RAM for anything, having 4GBs makes the devices run much smoother with lesser hiccups.

Installation of the HDD and RAM were pretty straight forward and opening up the case was easy as it has thumb screws. I needed an internal DVD for the OS installation (you can make a bootable USB drive though) as the ZBOX doesn’t have a built-in DVD drive. The device is also quiet an slim so its very well designed to be visible beside/underneath a TV. Also Installed Boxee on it for TV show/movie organization and metadata gathering.

It also has a ton of connections and ports such as: DVI, HDMI,LAN, USB 2, USB 3.0, Built-in Wireless LAN N. It also has an Nvidia Ion chipset which make playing HD movies a buttery experience.

The device costs around 60KD from amazon without delivery. Also worth mentioning in the ZOTAC NANO an even smaller form factor that has an AMD CPU.

Last week I mentioned that I got the Asus Transformer Prime Android tablet but the keyboard was still stuck in my Aramex’s mailbox back in the States. Yesterday, it arrived and I hooked the keyboard to the tablet which was a easy process and gained some extra functionality.

The device looks great as I mentioned in my tablet post, it is wonderfully built and designed, the keyboard dock fits perfectly into the overall design. Asus did an excellent job.

I still think that the software is a bit lagging. Android ICS 4.0 was just released but also to take into consideration that the physical keyboard form factor isn’t standard. So we’ll se if the developers make use of it.

I still have to test it out thoroughly before passing final judgment, that might take a couple of weeks.

I managed to get one of those elusive Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime more than a week ago but was too lazy/busy to even get it out of the box and play around with it.

As soon as I read that ICS upgrade was made available for the Transformer Prime (it ships with Honeycomb 3.2) I decided its time to test it out.

Asus did a great job with the Transformer Prime continuing what they did with the Asus Transformer. But this time around they made a much sleeker device. Weighing just 586 grams lighter compared to the iPad 2′s 601 grams (not that you’ll notice it) and is a hair thinner, The transformer prime is a great piece of hardware.

What I love about it is the microSD slot that is available on the tablet which makes transferring file and expanding the memory effortless. Also there are 2 cameras, a micro-HDMI port and a 3.5mm audio connection jack And thats just the tablet.

Plugging the tablet to the keyboard dock gives you access to a full size USB 2.0 port and also a full size SD card port aside from the obvious physical keyboard and mouse. And it also extends the battery life to almost 18 hours.

I’m in a love/hate relationship with the 16:9 aspect ratio screen. Its great for watching video and surfing the net, but feels a little awkward when held in portrait. The 1280 x 800 screen resolution is great and I really like it, especially when using widgets as every pixel helps.

The upgrade process was painless as it is with all android devices. Update is available, click install, wait for installation to complete and thats it. The whole thing took about 10 minutes including the download.

When the keyboard dock arrives, I’ll test the device as my main travel companion and see what it can and cant do for the on the go user and what will I miss in my Macbook Pro. Currently the Android tablets are lacking in the software department as it doesn’t have apps specially developed for the tablet, but I hope that will change as I think that developers stayed away from the Android tablet platform because Google themselves said that Honeycomb was a quick fix for the tablet problem.

After having the problem with my SSD in my PC build a few weeks ago and having to order a new one. I kept experimenting with my “faulty” SSD and see if I missed something. After playing around with it for a few days  discovered that it ran fine as a data drive (opposed to a boot disk). So I thought I might as well try sticking it in my Macbook Pro.

I’ve opened up every computer I’ve owned but still I had to research the matter before diving into it. After a quick read it was confirmed that it was pretty straight forward and that I had all the tools necessary for the job.

After unscrewing the bottom of the Macbook Pro (I have the unibody 2010 edition) and popping it open, you can see the HDD in the bottom right secured by a latch. removing the latch and the SATA connector completely releases the HDD. And from there its just a matter of replacing the HDD and putting everything back together.

There are a number of benefits to having a SSD such as:

• Speed: boot time is 18 seconds from pressing the power button to read use and having 3 programs running (Pixelmator, Safari and MarsEdit).
• Silent: Because SSD has no moving pars it is virtually silent and also there is no vibrations.
• Slightly better battery life.

The 2 major and only disadvantages that SSD have in my opening are price and capacity. but in time we “should” get there.

This is the first day of using the MBP after the upgrade so I’ll be watching if it acts up.

In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first ‘SUPER’ computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD weighed over a ton and stored a ‘whopping’ 5 MB of data.

Via The Next Web

So I just got my new SSD that is supposed to replace the defective one I had already installed in my latest PC setup. I really hope that the problem was with the previous drive and nothing else. I should have the new drive installed later today.

I hit another problem during my PC Assembly, this time it is more critical. After installing windows and downloading all the latest drivers I kept getting the blue screen of death “BSOD”. I had no idea why at first, so I started troubleshooting. Rechecked all cable connections and then started downloading the Windows updates one by one, just to make sure its not a driver problem. This took a long while as you would imagine but the problem resurfaced again when I left my PC on overnight. I decided to restart in safe mode and let it run. It ran for a few hours then Windows just freezes and hangs which leads to another BSOD. Another format/reinstallation of windows letting windows run for a few hours and it crashes again. confirming that its a hardware problem. So I am currently waiting for my replacement drive but in the meantime running Windows on a regular HDD. The couple of days that windows ran on SSD were great and I am really hating the magnetic hard drives at the moment.

I should be done with my PC assembly by now but I have been a little busy lately. As I was putting the build together I noticed that my CPU cooler/fan was for a different socket. My current motherboard is a 1155 socket and the cooler is for 1156 among others. I don’t know how I missed this when I was ordering.

I have to put up with the stock fan for now and hold off on overclocking until I find/order a new replacement.

It has been more than 2 years since I last put together my own PC build. WIth the amount of gaming that I’m doing on the PC I thought I should upgrade to enjoy the games even more.

I initially wanted to upgrade my existing PC but the CPU upgrade path was out of the question. So I had to buy a new motherboard to accommodate the new processor. I should tryout an SSD as my boot/OS disk for better performance. And of course a new graphic card. I also wanted a new case with USB 3.0 support and more room inside and better cooling solutions. Wanted also to replace my Razer Mamba mouse, its a great mouse but after playing for a few hours non-stop and the battery runs out, you get screwed. So I decided to get the Cyborg R.A.T. 9 wireless mouse that come  with 2 batteries. After looking at all of that I was only short of RAM and a power supply and I would have a fully functioning PC. I got 16GB of RAM bundle for almost $100. but decided to stay with my power supply and get a new less powerful one for my old build.

Part List:

• Intel CPU core i7 2700K 3.5Ghz (Link)
• Asus Republic of Gamers Maximus IV Extreme-Z motherboard (Link)
• EVGA GTX 570 superclocked GPU (Link)
• 4x4GB (16GB) GSkill 1600 RAM (Link)
• Samsung 830 series SSD 128GB (Link)
• Cyborg R.A.T 9 wireless mouse (Link)
• Thermaltake Chasar MK-I case (bought from Kuwait for KD85) (Link)

Now I just have to have time to put it all together.

Yesterday the Aramex guy delivered a package that contained Amazon’s new Kindle Fire tablet. The design is very familiar if you ever seen a Blackberry Playbook. I think the 7″ screen size is just about right for a tablet, either for reading or watching video.

When I first turned on the device and without putting in any information except for my wifi password. The device automatically synced to my account. It looks like that Amazon ships the devices with credentials pre-loaded.

The device lacks any google app like Gmail and the standard Android Market. But Amazon’s android store has a good selection of apps.

Also worth mentioning that the Kindle Fire’s web browser (Amazon Silk Browser) routes traffic via amazon servers. That bypasses the local blocking methods used to block websites. So getting onto Collage Humor’s webpage was easy, but I had a difficulty playing back videos.

The Kindle Fire costs around KD60, too bad its you have to have a US based credit card to actually start using the app store or a proxy to use the vide service. It looks like a very good tablet to playback youtube videos and some casual gaming for my kids.

I’ve been waiting for the rest of my PC components to arrive so that I can really enjoy the gaming frenzy that is currently going on. But my packages have been piling up in customs since before eid and they are still there 4 working days later. I am really frustrated.

I got to play around with the recently released 5.3″ behemoth Samsung Galaxy Note for a short period and managed to grab a couple of pics for comparisons. The device has a Super HD Amoled screen, 1.4 dual core CPU, 1GB ram, 16/32GB internal memory, 8MP rear camera and a Stylus.

As you can see from the pic above, the phone is a hair slimmer than the iPhone 4/4S and has a curved back which makes it comfortable when held in the hands.

But the phone is a little big in my opinion, as its blurring the line between tablet and phones.

Thanks Abdullah

I’ve had my original PC without modifications ever since I built it a couple of years ago. But with all the PC gaming I’m currently doing, I thought an upgrade was needed to cope with the newer, high-end games. The most important part of the PC hardware when it comes to gaming might be the GPU, my old card was a GTX 285. Back in its day, it was top of the line, but it is still considered a capable card.

The time of the upgrade was very awkward as the current generation of GPU have been in the market for more than year now, and the next generation (Nvidia’s 600 series) is rumored to be just around the corner. So I decided not to spend a lot of money on the high-end card and get a more than adequate GTX 570 that can get me through this influx of games with flying colors.

I got a significant jump in frame rates in Battlefield 3 as I got on my GTX 285 40fps on the medium setting, and 20-25fps on the ultra setting. But with the GTX 570 I got an average of 72fps on medium setting and 45fps on ultra setting.

I also set up my GTX 285 to be a dedicated PhysX card.

A am now waiting for the rest of the PC parts to arrive and start installing them.

The Samsung Galaxy Note was announced almost 2 months ago, but I didn’t comprehend how big it is until I saw this video. Its massive. I like it.

Fast forward a few months, Y=the same company just had an event showcasing their new tech/camera and they say it should be available in March/April 2012. $400 for the 8GB version and $500 for the 16GB version.

So what is it about the LYTRO camera that is so special? it will make the half a press of the camera that was used for focusing a thing of the past as with its camera you will never need to focus another image again. The camera captures all the light from all the object from all the different depths and you can then select the focus point desired post process. It will also make 3D image much easier to generate.

Check out the demo image below, just press to select the focus point.

LYTRO

GoPano Store

Watch more panoramic videos here

Google and Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Nexus “Nexus Prime” and Ice Cream Sandwich today at their Hong Kong event. The phone and the softeware should be available in November.

It turns out the they Galaxy Nexus’s specs are the underwhelming ones that I previously mentioned. having 1.2Ghz CPU, 5MP rear camera, 1750 mAh battery. But its still considered one hell of a device.

The current phone specs are lacking the 2100Mhz band. I wonder how will this effect us here or are we going to wait for an international version.

Thanks Mohammed

Are you the kind of guy that drops his phone constantly? the video will shows what will happen if you drop your iPhone 4/S from various heights vs the Samsung Galaxy S 2. The outcome is predictable as the iPhone’s glass finish is more prone to breaking than the lighter plastic finish of the SGS2.

Got a new TV a few weeks ago, I was looking to upgrade my 46″LCD with a 46″ LED. I was exclusively looking for a LED screen with no 3D support as I refuse to support this stupid gimmick.

My first destination was X-Cite at the Avenues mall, I was surprised that they hardly had any 46″ TV’s at all in their collection. so I went to Carrefour and there I found my next TV, the Samsung UA46D5500RR. A LED with no 3D support. But they didn’t have any in stock other than the one on display which they refused to give me a discount on, which was puzzling since it was an “open box”  product.

I have no idea why I walked back to X-Cite and asked them about that specific model, to my surprise the guy tells me that they do have it but its not on display. Its not on display so that they can clear out the old stock they’ve got. But he told me that I can purchase it and they can have it delivered to me in a couple of days. I immediately agreed and it was delivered as scheduled.

The TV is great, it has both allshare functionality that allows you to stream from other Samsung devices, say the Galaxy S II, to the TV wirelessly ala Airplay, but it won’t work for me as I am not running the stock rom on my SGS2 . It also supports a number of video codecs to be played back via USB like MKV,MP4 and AVI just to name a few, in HD as well.

The upcoming Nexus Prime has been leaking like crazy in the past 24 hours, the latest is a quick video walkthrough of the device running the latest version of android “Ice Cream Sandwich”.

There has been also some reports about the specs of the device, 2 conflicting reports. First the underwhelming:

• 1.2 GHz dual core processor
• 5 MP camera with 1080P video support
• 1750mAh Battery

Other reports suggest:

• 1.5 GHz dual core processor.
• 8 MP camera with 1080P video support
• Dual core GPU
• 2050mAh Battery

Both reports say the the device will have a 4.65” screen that boost 1280×720 resolution, 1GB of RAM and up to 32GB of memory.

source

We just heard yesterday from Apple the specs of the latest iPhone 4S. Next week its Samsung and Google’s turn to announce the anticipated Nexus Prime/Galaxy, a rumored 4.65″ screen with 720P Super Amoled Plus display And from the teaser video it looks like it will have a curved screen. And by the end of the month Nokia world will be taking place and we should see the first Nokia Windows Mobile Phone device. I hope they don’t reveal something too awesome or that means I’ll be broke this month. That’s not taking into account the Amazon’s Kindle Fire that was announced last week.

Samsung are having another “Unpacked” event on the 11th of October at CTIA. At Samsung’s last “unpacked” event we saw a number of announcements like the Galaxy Tab 7.7 and the Galaxy Note. With the latest installment of Android dubbed “Ice Cream Sandwich” scheduled for release in October/November, it seams like the perfect timing to announced the highly anticipated Nexus Prime, Google’s next flagship phone.

It turns out that NVIDIA’s upcoming Kal-El processor that was believed to have 4 cores actually has 5 cores. The fifth core will handle mundane tasks such as syncing, background tasks and audio. Which in turn will boast the battery life of the device.

Kal-El equipped devices are expected to arrive before the end of the year and was one of the main reasons that I don’t own an Android tablet yet.

Link

I have been a mac user for almost 5 years now, and the Mac Mini that I got a couple of weeks ago was my first Mac desktop experience. And because I downloaded OS X Lion a few weeks earlier on my MBP and experienced some slow-downs. I knew I had to get extra RAM for the Mac Mini if I intended to use it as a proper desktop with somewhat intensive tasks.

A good thing that the Mac Mini RAM upgrade is fool-proof. All you need to do is unscrew the bottom, both RAM sticks, put in the new RAM (2x4GB sticks in my case) and the just screw the bottom back on. its that simple.

The RAM kit I got from Amazon was for $44/KD12 and works beautifully. [Link]

IFA 2011 kicked off today and Samsung quickly announced a number of hardware product. The 2 major ones were a tablet and something in between a tablet and a phone. First was the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7, the successor to the original 7″ Galaxy Tab. It comes with a dual core 1.4 CPU, A 1280 x 800 7.7″ super AMOLED plus HD screen, SD card slot and a reduction in thickness as this new 7.7″ will be as thin as the new Galaxy Tab 10.1. The device still has shortcomings, The device won’t have a full size USB port as I think Samsung will try to push its dongles on the consumers but I would have preferred the Tab to have a full USB port as the Android OS can make use of it in a lot of scenarios. And will have samsung’s Touchwiz UI. Even though the Touchwiz UI is great, I prefer the Android’s Vanilla experience.

The other Samsung announcement was a little weird one. A phone named the Galaxy Note that has a 5.3″ super AMOLED plus HD with a resolution of 1280 x 800 that should “blur the line between smartphones and tablets”. The Dell Streak-esque device also has a stylus tucked away underneath to remind us of the glorious Windows Mobile days. and it also comes with similar specs to the Tab 7.7. The phone is a little humongous for my taste but we will see when it gets released Q4/Q1 2012.

You should note the Nexus Prime, google’s flagship device for 2011, that had its specs leaked last weak had similar specs to the Galaxy Note, but I doubt that Google will release a phone with a 5.3″ screen, 4.5″ is more practical but we have to wait and see if Samsung can squeeze their new Super AMOLED Plus HD screens in a 4.5″ frame. I hope so.

If you are a PC gamer, you would definitely have heard of Razer before. They produce some high quality PC accessories form mouses and keyboards to gaming headsets.

But they seem to be getting into the PC manufacturing business. After all, HP will be leaving a huge gap with it leaving the consumer PC market. The laptop code named “Razer Blade” is the thinnest 17″ laptop in the market today and packs an impressive spec sheet, 2.8GHz Core i7 CPU and NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M graphics 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM and a 17.3-inch LED 1920 x 1080 display. It also takes a cue from their own “SwitchBlade” concept they revealed at CES. Implementing a LCD trackpad that also can be used as a secondary display for game info and quick shortcuts.

With a price of $2800, just over KD750, I think it is an excellent gaming laptop considering that 17″ MacBook pros start at $2500/KD700 almost.

I have been playing around with the new Mac Mini for a couple of weeks now, and I find it a very capable machine. I initially got it to replace my Windows based media center but after being

handed a second generation Apple TV I decided to use it as a desktop PC instead of my MBP. There have been a lot of talk about the Mac Mini not having a DVD drive. I personally rarely ever use the DVD drive in a PC, and if I do, I am ripping a dvd. But I use my trusty old Windows PC for that heavy-lifting.

I find that OS X Lion is a bit slow, or slower then Snow Leopard. but it comes with a number of new features and tweaks. The device itself is quiet unless you are encoding something and the fans start spinning in full speed then you will definitely hear it. It has all the necessary ports that most of the users will need and comes in a small but capable package. a 2.5 i5 Intel CPU, 4GB RAM a dedicated 256MB Radeon graphic card.

While most people are moving towards laptops and tablets. I am a desktop guy, I only use a tablet or a laptops when I need to. I love sitting on a desk using a 27″ screen and a full size keyboard and a mouse. And thats why I might recommend the Mac Mini to whoever is curious and what to dip his toes into the Mac world.

The image above is a size comparison of the Mac Mini to the Time Capsule.