PCs And Mac - SlashGear

‘PCs and Mac’ Stories

OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual-Drive gets powered USB hub

Chris Davies, Aug 14th 2008 Discuss [0]

OWC have updated their Mercury Elite-AL Pro dual-drive external hard-drive with a powered USB 2.0 hub, still keeping the Mac-style design while boosting capacity up to 2TB. There are now two USB 2.0 ports on the back and a third on the front, handy for plugging in USB memory sticks, with a high-performance USB bridge to ensure maximum speed to all of the ports and the internal drives themselves. Read The Full Story

Open Tech Inc next to take on Apple with OS X-running PC

Chris Davies, Jul 29th 2008 Discuss [0]

When Apple sued OS X clone-maker Psystar earlier this month, some commenters suggested that multiple other cloners could spring up depending on the outcome of the case. Open Tech Inc. don't appear to have the patience to wait, however; the company will apparently be selling two new computers that, while not coming with OS X pre-installed, will nonetheless be able to run the Apple OS should the buyer choose so. Read The Full Story

ATI Radeon HD 3870 Mac & PC Edition

Chris Davies, Jun 13th 2008 Discuss [0]

AMD has announced an update for one of its ATI Radeon dual-head graphics cards, especially optimizing it for use with Apple's Mac Pro system. The HD 3870 Mac & PC Edition has a 56-bit 512MB GDDR4 frame buffer memory and 320 stream processors, together with two DVI outputs for plugging in some large-scale Cinema HD monitors. Read The Full Story

PCI Express 3.0 backward compatible with earlier standard

Chris Davies, Jun 12th 2008 Discuss [0]

Owners of computer components that use the PCI Express 2.0 standard will be pleased to hear that their existing hardware will still work once motherboards switch to the PCI Express 3.0 standard. At a recent press conference discussing the interface, SIG chairman Al Yanes disclosed more details about the upcoming connector, which has previously been quoted as managing 8.0 gigatransfers per second. Read The Full Story

Dell frags XPS gaming desktops in favor of flagging Alienware

Chris Davies, May 13th 2008 Discuss [1]

Dell is taking the unexpected step of culling its XPS Gaming Desktops range in order to give its Alienware acquisition room to breathe. According to the Wall Street Journal, the move is intended to reinvigorate Alienware's focus as well as streamline the company's offerings as a whole. A "combined gaming design and development unit" will tackle the seven current Alienware models and attempt to claw back sales that had been lost thanks to the XPS overlap. Read The Full Story

Reviews

Apple Time Capsule Review – Backup Made Easy for Leopard Users

Ewdison Then, Mar 10th 2008 Discuss [9]

Data backup falls resolutely at the dreary end of the tech-task scale; periodically market researchers release stats showing how few people take the time to safely copy their accumulated files, usually prompting a guilty DVD burning session which never gets repeated. Apple’s Time Capsule, then, was welcomed with excited upon its announcement; with the slick, careful design Apple are renowned for, could they manage to make even backup sexy? To be fair, it’s a pretty huge challenge. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a nicer looking network hard-drive, or one so straightforward to set up, but Time Capsule undoubtedly has its caveats.

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Reviews

Linutop v1.2: low-power Linux desktop Revisited

Chris Davies, Dec 4th 2007 Discuss [3]

Tech reviews are very much a snapshot process, making a decision after a relatively short period of time and of a single incarnation of the product. Useful, yes, but not an exact facsimile of living with something day in, day out that you’ve bought yourself. If you’re lucky – and assuming that no manufacturer ever pushes out a product so perfect there are no possible improvements – you get a company that’s constantly tweaking and augmenting; if you’re really lucky, you get an opportunity to revisit their product and ring the changes. Back in May I spent some time with Linutop‘s fanless, Xubuntu-based micro-PC, framing my review from the perspective of a Linux-naive home user, to see if the compact device would make a decent alternative to a low-end Windows PC. At the time I criticised how tricky, for a fledgling user, it was to add functionality beyond what was preinstalled; since then, Linutop have released v1.2 of their software package, and asked if we’d like to check out the changes.

Linutop Linux-based compact PC

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Zonbox subscription-based Linux PC reviewed

Chris Davies, Jun 19th 2007 Discuss [1]

Back when I reviewed Linutop's fanless Linux PC one of my final thoughts was how it might compare to Zonbu's similarly Linux-based Zonbox. Both have cut-down specs and no hard-drive, but while the Linutop relies on a thumbdrive for storage, the Zonbox uses an online subscription service with a subsidised starting price ($99) and monthly fees of $12.95 upward. Over at ArsGeek they picked up a Zonbox and gave it a good going over with their review-stick. Read The Full Story

LG’s award-winning low-power PC

Chris Davies, Jun 7th 2007 Discuss [0]

Oh yeah, baby, you know what time it is! It's another round "What's my model motivation?" today courtesy of LG and their super-compact X820 desktop PC. So what's this lovely lady thinking? Personally I'm leaning toward thinking that the X820 is in fact the size of a mid-90s IBM mainframe and the girl in pink is actually a massive giant. In which case she's likely wondering what the job prospects are for a 20-foot perpetually-grinning woman in heels and a mini-skirt. Anyway, LG are probably hoping that we'll pay more attention to the X820 - a winner of the 2007 reddot Award - that has a new low-power Intel Series 3 CPU. Read The Full Story

Reviews

SlashGear Review: Linutop’s fanless Linux PC

Chris Davies, May 31st 2007 Discuss [4]

Much to my shame, Linux is something of a mystery to me. Actually, I think they should teach at least the basics of it in school computing classes, alongside English and at least one foreign language (though don’t ask me about my French abilities either), but this is neither time nor place for my election campaigning. And so I look on with maudlin self-disgust at promises of Dell laptops with Linux pre-installed, or clever thumb-drives and Live CDs that offer a chance to fiddle with the OS without ruining your everyday copy of Windows; I inevitably fold when faced with some sort of command prompt. Perhaps, then, you’ll wonder why I was so keen to try the Linutop, a surprisingly compact and silent diskless computer that runs a specially tweaked version of xubuntu.

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Silent Linux PC makes browsing plug’n'play

Chris Davies, Mar 13th 2007 Discuss [2]

I'd seen photos of the Linutop diskless, silent computer before, but I hadn't quite realised how small it was until seeing the image below; unless that's a specially-constructed Giant Wallwart Of Death, the fanless PC is deliciously dinky. Based on a very low-power AMD Geode LX700 and external flash storage, it runs a customised version of xubuntu specifically tailored for things like internet browsing, blogging, word processing and IM. Read The Full Story

PC World plant seeds of change with green PC

Chris Davies, Feb 21st 2007 Discuss [0]

Environmentalists have long been complaining that most computers sold are far less than "green", and while there have been ecologically-considered options before now they've been nowhere near mainstream. UK retailer PC World aims to change all that, or at least so their press release would have you believe, with a sustainable computer made from recycled and energy efficient components. Read The Full Story