Hi folks

We got our hands on two of the most powerful graphic cards on the market – Asus EN 9800 GTX Geforce and ATI Radeon 4870 Sapphire and we decided put those two rivals on head to head benchmark and see what happens. I gotta admit I have great respect for both manufacturers since their products traditionally perform best in their class which made this testing even more interesting.

So the system we tested on is:
MB: Asus P5Q pro
System memory: 2GB Vdata 800mhz DDR2
Power supply: Asus 450W
HD: wd2500ks 250GB caviar SE16
CPU: Intel core2duo 7300 2.4 3MB cache
OS: Windows XP pro SP3 32-bit
Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit

Benchmark applications used are:
PassMark PerformanceTest v6.1.1010
SiSoftware Sandra Pro Business XII SP2c 2008.5.14.24
3DMARK05 v1.3.0

3DMARK06 v1.1.0

3DMARK Vantage

driver versions are:

Nvidia – GeForce Release 180 WHQL
Version:     180.48
Release Date:     November 19, 2008
Operating System:     Windows XP, Windows XP Media Center Edition
Language:     U.S. English
File Size:     68.3 MB

ATI – Radeon Catalyst Software Suite
ATI Catalyst™ 8.12 Display Driver for Windows XP Professional/Home Edition
34.7MB     8.12     12/10/2008     Display Driver
Catalyst Control Center
WDM Drivers

Yeah. That’s right. Songbird is finally out of beta and is now on version 1.0! After using it for near enough a year now, possibly the best music player in the whole world is out of beta and I can post a full run down of the features.

Now as the college DJ I have an enormous music library as you would expect. Well no other player I have used has ever handled my music quite so beautifully. Ever! So for those of you who are still using some outdated, inflexable and featureless player like MS Media Player, here is what you are missing out on.

Songbird is an opensource, highly customizable music player that is constantly under development. This means that as soon as there is a cool new feature that could be used, a performance upgrade possible or some other kind of update that could possibly happen, you get it, automatically, as soon as it is safe and stable. No more waiting for MS to get off their arse and release a new version of MS Media Player in a year or two.

Not only does Songbird get updates when there are possible new features but it is free and more importantly, it allows you to browse the web at the same time! Even better is that, should you visit a website that has music on it for download, Songbird will find it and allow you to download it straight into your library and or play it from the site! More features and some review after the jump!

New to Mozilla Firefox? New to the chance to kit out your web browser? Well did you know that you are more likely to  spend more time on the internet that you are on the road! When you are spending this amount of time on the web why not make it easier for yourself to do whatever it is you do online. The Mozilla community offers an amazingly diverse collection of add-ons that allow you to do everything from check the weather, monitor online auctions, listen to music, and find amazing new websites.

This week the add-ons total has reached 1billion add-ons. Now correct me if I am wrong but that is a lot of add-ons.

To make things easier for new (and old) users to customize their browser Mozilla has created a super simple application to Fashion your Firefox.

One of the great things about the Fashion Your Firefox application is that it allows users to bundle a bunch of different add-ons together all at once.  In essence, it’s like having a shopping cart that you can use to select any add-on from the Fashion Your Fox application, “check-out” with just one click, and after a quick Firefox restart, have a whole new browser that’s made just for you!

So if you are intending to use this application then come back and give us a shout telling us what type of Firefox add-on you are. I know that I’m a bit of a “Digital Pack Rat” myself.

As promised here is the unpacking video for the higher priced Asus M51Va notebook intended to hit the middle to upper class area. It has perfect specifications for gamers and does a great job in the entertainment area. Here’s whats inside:

• Asus M51Va notebook
• Power Adapter
• Power Cable
• Cable Holder
• Asus M51Va 6-cell battery
• Microfiber LCD Cleaning Cloth
• User Guide
• User Manual
• Quick Installation Guide
• Telephone Cable
• SVideo Output Cable
• Vista Drives Disk
• Bonus Software Disk

Sorry for the great delay of this review, I was very busy lately working on a new website project for downloading drivers, DriverLot.com. It’s been some time since I’ve published the Asus X51L unpacking video so now you can read the full review finally.

Design

Asus X51L Notebook Review

The notebook chassis is a typical for the lower and middle class Asus notebooks, sharp edges, not too thin, not too thick, mostly silver with black around the 15.4″ wide monitor. Simple yet good looking, a much better design than most of the notebooks in this class.

Inside it’s pretty straightforward, a nice keyboard with good response, no keypad which is good because the large touch-pad is placed right in the middle. It’s simplicity is dominating inside also, but the usefulness can be noticed while using it. There are also the hotkey buttons for power up, wireless switch and a power4gear mode switch which are nicely placed on line above the keyboard and have a blue led light in them.

It weights about 6.5lbs (or 2.94kg) with the battery, which is still not bad for a notebook of this class. The length of the legs are not that high, but enough to provide good airflow to cool the Core2Duo processor. What I like about this notebook is that is quite firmly made. The monitor is connected with the chasis with three hindges and there is no way that it can brake with excessive use.

Features

Asus X51L Features

The Asus X51L is equipped with four USB 2.0 ports to connect your camera and download your pictures, connect a mouse, swap file to your flash memory stick or maybe use a notebook stand to cool your it better. It also contains a multi 4 in 1 card reader for SD, MMC, MS and MS Pro to exchange files with a camera or phone. Two jacks for a microphone or headphones are included, a VGA output to transfer the signal to a bigger monitor or a TV maybe if you need to. A PCMCIA slot is included, as well as a 56k modem, don’t know if it is still worth it, but yet you got it if you need to send faxes, and a disappointing 10/100Mbps LAN port instead of 1 Gigabit. The lack of a web-cam is another disappointment for an entertainment oriented notebook.

Under the hood we have a Core2Duo T5450 (1.66GHz) which is quite powerful processor for most applications and games, yet energy saving. An Intel GMA965 graphic card is integrated, which is somewhat low for the T5450 processor and 2GB ram and explains our low 3DMark results, but yet a graphic card which can handle everyday business and home users tasks like wordprocessing software, surfing the web, whatching movies etc. A Super-Multi DVD Burner is also built in, as well as wireless adapter.

Asus X51L Notebook Review Top

The 15.4″ monitor is a glare-type and it can reflect some backlight, but it sure doesn’t reflect as much as other notebooks I have seen. The good side on this is that you will see a much clearer and sharp picture.

Performance

Asus X51L 3DMark06 and 3DMark05

We’ve run the 3DMark06 on the Core2Duo T5450 clocked at 1.66GHz and the score was 376 which is quite low for a processor like the T5450, but since the graphic card is has a great part on the 3DMark results and therefore the low score. The 3DMark05 scored 647 which means that it can run most of the older games smoothly like Silent Hill, Simcity, Warcraft 3 etc. and hardly some of the newer games, maybe if set on minimum details, but it should handle most of the productivity applications with ease.

The battery test also resulted in something lower than the 3 hour advertised, but 2 hours and 34 minutes is still great for a notebook of this class with a 6-cell battery. We’ve put on some background music, with wireless turned on and played some basic games on it like zuma and bejeweld.

The Asus X51L qualifies as stable, well-processed notebook at an affordable price. Vista runs fast, but I do not recommend it since a disk with xp drivers is already included. The notebook is ideal for average home users. For game enthusiasts there are obviously better like the Asus M51Va, but for a higher price. All in all a good buy for the money.

Specifications

Model: Asus X51L-AP164

CPU: T5450 Core2Duo CPU

Graphic Card: Intel GMA965 on board VGA

Memory: 2GB RAM

Hard Disk: 250GB Sata

Optical Drive: Super Multi DVD-RW

Communication: WLAN b/g standard, LAN 10/100Mbps, 56k Modem

Battery: 6 Cell Battery

Display: 15.4′ LCD Glare-type

Ports: 4 x USB 2.0, 4-in-1 Card Reader, Mic/Headphones jacks, VGA Output, PCMCIA

As promised here is the first unpacking video of the Asus X51L notebook. Great notebook for the price. Cheap yet pretty powerful with a Core2Duo processor. A short review will follow up tomorrow, don’t forget to check it out. Included inside there are:

• Asus X51L-AP164 notebook :)
• 6-cell battery
• AC Adaptor
• Power Cable
• Quick Installation Manual
• User Manual
• Telephone Cable
• Bonus Software CD
• XP Drivers CD
• Vista Drivers CD

There is very nearly some very good news for the music industry in the UK. The Digital Music Surrvey 2008 recently released a press release that suggests that a large number of us people here in the UK will soon be unable to download and share our music with others over the internet :o. This press release was given a headline to turn heads and that it is doing.

“Light in the tunnel for the music industry: revenue opportunities are increasing, illegal downloading is down.”

I really don’t think so myself, and, IF this is true, it wont be for much longer. I know for a fact that this war is still a very mixed picture. There are signs that threats of action against illegal downloaders is having an effect but there is still a lot of evidence that the music-buying (or not buying but “sharing”) public is very underwhelmed by the legal digital offerings.

The figures are pretty inconclusive anyway. Illegal downloads down from 43% of the sample last year to 39%  in 2008.

Now how do I know that IF illegal music downloads are down and there may be an increase in revenue opportunities in the music retail industry, that this will not last for long. Well, let me explain after the jump…

The internet is an item that many people take for granted. Especially me! I rely on the internet so much that I even make a living off of it. This means that I also rely on my laptop, and, without my laptop I am completely lost. I feel strongly that if I and many others are able to have a laptop many, many more people who, currently are not able to have one, should be able to benifit from technology. The One Laptop per Child project is not about giving people technology however. I use my laptop a lot not only for my work but also for my education. If there is something I do not know, or need to revise yet do not have the sufficent resources I just turn on my laptop and go online and use Wikipedia or, if I have no connection, I open – dare i say it – MS Encarta. Now there are thousands of people who do not have this luctury. But, imagine if we could. The One Laptop per Child mission is to

“create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.”

Now I could ramble on about what you can do and about the amazing technology in the amazing laptops that this project has produced but, to be honest that is not what I am like. I give you my point of view and a little bit of info mixed in with it. This I have done, however I beg of you. Please support this project and learn more about it, and the way it can help by visiting laptop.org. Thank you for reading this Blog Action Day 2008.

Some of you may have noticed some technical muck ups today, and for that I appologise. These technical muck ups were due to my intergrating our new EmotIcons system on the site. we now support a wider range of what people often call smilies including some brand new, bonus/hidden smilies. Below is a full list of the supported smilies with their call signs. These call signs are split up using spaces and the smilie will only show when you use the call sign without the spaces.

}:) -> } : )
:D -> : D
:) -> : )
:o -> : o
:P -> : P
:( -> : (
:3 -> : 3
;) -> ; )

:note: There are ofcourse other ways to call these smilies for those of you who use slightly different calls e.g. :p can also be called using : p, and >:) can also be called with > : )

The full list of bonus emoticons
->, <-, :bell:, :bomb:, :cake:, :clock:, :coins:, :comment:, :x:, :cupa:, :email:, :!:, (!), O+, <3, (?), :hrGlass:, :house:, (i), :iPod:, :key:, :idea:, :lock:, O>, :bronze:, :gold:, :silver:, :music:, :news:, :note:, :mob:, :gem:, <>, :star:, :tel:, :tick:, -*

Enjoy these nice new EmotIcons. Im off for a :cupa:

Overview

This is our first review. All kinds of comments, opinions and suggestions are greatly appreciated and mostly welcomed.

Acer Aspire One vs MSI Wind U100 vs Asus Eee PC 701

We managed to get our hands on two of the currently three available netbooks with the new Intel Atom processor, MSI Wind U100 and Acer Aspire One. We decided to compare the predecessor of them all, the Asus EEE PC 701 which came out in December 2007. Being an older and more of an experimental model, it is obvious that it is slightly out of the league, but we simply wanted you to see the difference and understand what is so revolutionary about these new models coming up.

On first look it is quite noticeable that the MSI Wind U100 is the biggest of them all, but the compromise on that is it carries a 10″ display, a nice large keyboard and they even managed to put some big air vents to carry away the excess heat. Even though the Intel Atom Processor heats much less than the Intel Celeron of the Asus EEE PC 701, MSI decided to implement their own hardcore tool even to this little guy, the Turbo Drive Engine Technology which overclocks the Intel Atom N270 from 1.6GHz to 1.9GHz (UPDATE: The Turbo Feature is no more, read on to find out more) .

The Acer Aspire One has a 8.9″ display, but that extra 1.1″ doesn’t really make a difference because it has the same resolution as the MSI 1024×600 and have in mind that mobility is the key factor we are after, so with smaller size it fits better on a train or plane table for example. Again we have large keys, with better layout than the MSI, and Acer have built-in two card readers, so you can put one 16GB SD flash card for example which will make your total space 120GB+16GB=136GB if you really need more space, and use the other card reader to transfer your pictures or any data from your camera, but I still find the lack of Bluetooth a little imprudent.

Continues after the jump»»