9600
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LG Versa finds its way out of a Verizon box
At least on this Gregorian calender sitting here in the office, March 1st is still a few days off. True though that may be, it hasn't stopped at least one LX9600 (or Versa, if you prefer) from getting unboxed from its Verizon Wireless packaging. There's no indication of what truck this fell off of, nor if these phones may actually go on sale a few days early, but one thing's for sure -- this unboxer definitely did the honors in a high school cafeteria. Classy, no?[Via phoneArena]
Verizon rebate form further substantiates four new phones
We've had bits and pieces of this for days now, but it's finally starting to come together. Right in the midst of the year's craziest cellphone show, Verizon Wireless has outed its latest rebate form, which sheds some overly legitimate light on four presumably forthcoming handsets. Casio's Exilim C721, which we've already seen pictured, should arrive mighty soon alongside the LG Versa, Nokia 7205 Intrigue and Samsung's Smooth. Obviously, there's no definitive ship dates and prices listed, but considering that the offers are valid from February 15th through March 28th, we'd say your wild imagination can probably handle it from here.[Via phoneArena]
Philips launches 9600 Ambilight LCD TVs in UK
Just because Philips has hit some rough water with its TV products and even handed over the US production to Funai, that doesn't mean it's given up. Getting rolled out in the UK is the Ambilight 9600-series LCD TVs. While we're not fans of the Ambilight, the other improvements to the panels sound good to us. An updated Pixel Perfect HD system promises better black levels and contrast, and 100Hz (double the UK 50Hz mains frequency) Clear LCD wizardry should help minimize motion blur; at least as much as 120Hz does here in the US. If you need even deeper blacks, the new backlight can be dialed right down to 5-percent. If sunglasses are your thing, the torch mode on the backlight has been increased by 10-percent. Sounds good, but we'd like to see Philips bring its higher end models like these to the states for our peepers. The models we've seen over here don't exactly stop us in our tracks. Available in 32, 37, 42 and 47-inch sizes for £999, £1499, £1799 and £1999, respectively.
AMD launches "unlocked" Phenom 9600 Black Edition CPU
The fury has really been unleashed over at AMD, as the cats in 2nd place take aim at the pocketbooks lowdown, dirty overclockers. Feeling like getting into it? Then you'll probably want to get your hands on the extra-special Phenom 9600 "Black Edition" quad-core processor, which allows brave souls to tweak (i.e., overclock) to their hearts content by utilizing the company's OverDrive utility. It's not all rainbows and unicorns, however, as these chips apparently contain a bug which under extreme conditions can cause the CPUs to perform in a less than stellar manner. AMD says that it hasn't witnessed any of its production installations exhibit the errata, and that only its internal stress-tests have pushed the processor into the danger zone (cue Loggins). If you're really concerned, a BIOS patch will circumvent the issue, but may suck away 20-percent of your delicious speed. The choice is yours.[Via TG Daily]
Up close and personal with the Qtek 9600 (Hermes)
French site PPCReviews has managed to score a Qtek-branded copy of the hotly anticipated HTC Hermes, and thanks to some decent Google translation, we've managed to take away quite a bit from the thorough review. Many folks are expecting the Hermes to be a superstar compared to its already good older brother, the Wizard, but PPCReviews is a bit bummed out about the switch from miniSD to microSD expansion, the lackluster battery performance, rather portly 175 grams, and lack of true VGA display. Of course, we all know the good stuff the Hermes brings to the table by now, and the review ends on a happy note, confirming that the 3G and fresh 400MHz Samsung core work wonders for the device. Pardon the interruption, everyone; you can go back to incessantly refreshing Expansys' TyTN product page every few minutes in the hope of an early shipment.[Via kaitech.hk, thanks Ajit]
