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Acer announces Predator G5910 for the UK with up to 8TB of storage, 'combat-machine' design cues
Acer's been mighty busy the past few days, trotting out laptops, desktops, a media streamer, and a multitouch monitor, to boot. But the company wasn't ready to call it a week just yet -- the outfit also announced the Predator G5910 gaming rig for the UK gaming crowd. As you might gather from its reddish accents and claw-like doors -- a "combat-machine" aesthetic, according to Acer -- this is a power tower. These bad boys pack quad-core, desktop-grade Core i5 and i7 processors, up to 16GB of memory, 10 USB 2.0 ports, a 12-in-1 memory card slot, two swappable hard drive bays, and as much as 8TB of storage spread across four SATA drives. In terms of graphics, the most specific thing Acer is saying is that it's compatible with NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon cards, and that it's NVIDIA 3D Vision-capable. You can also overclock this guy using Intel's own Extreme Tuning Utility, but only if you opt for a K-series CPU. This would mean the machine has a P67 chipset -- which is what retailers in other European countries are listing -- and not the H67 listed in the press release. As final flourishes, Acer threw in a handle on the back, and an angled deck on top to keep your inevitable morass of cables under control. UK shoppers can find it in mid-July starting at £599 VAT. PR after the break.
Acer intros revamped desktops, 23-inch multitouch display for kids with ginormous dorm rooms
Last week, Acer unveiled a handful of back-to-school laptops, and today, the outfit's showing off gear for kids who've got a teensy bit more room in the dorms. The company just trotted out a pair of desktops, along with the beastly 23-inch T231H multitouch monitor. Both towers have a staid black chassis with Acer's clear.fi media streaming software on board. Of the two, the M series (pictured) is clearly for power users, with Core i3 and quad-core AMD Athlon II x4 processor options, 6GB of RAM, 1TB of hard drive space, optional discrete graphics, and a storage tray on top housing four USB 2.0 sockets and headphone and mic ports. The X series, meanwhile, has a trimmer, more compact design, and a modest spec list featuring Intel Pentium dual-core and AMD Athlon II X4 processors, 4GB of RAM, and integrated graphics. As for that 1080p display, it has an 80,000:1 contrast ratio and tilts between a 5-degree and 60-degree angle -- not unlike that swiveling HP all-in-one that came out earlier this year. They're all up for grabs now, with the M and X series starting at $500 and $398, respectively, and the monitor fetching $330. Full PR after the break. %Gallery-126310% %Gallery-126309%
Visualized: the coolest desktop chassis at Computex, literally
Having a gadget encased in ice is always a cool stunt (pun intended), but Fractal took one step further by using blocks of ice cut out of a Swedish river, and then have them shipped all the way to Computex in Taiwan. Apparently that's how Scandinavians roll. As for the actual products, frequent desktop builders may have already heard of Fractal for its silent, minimalistic chassis, which recently made their way to the US market. While we didn't get a chance to check out how quiet the live machines were, the cases' build quality was surprisingly solid for their prices, and we were also impressed by the attention to detail on damping noise wherever possible. Hit the source link below to check out Fractal's Define, Arc, and Core series cases. %Gallery-125139%
Lian Li PC-U6 Cowry desktop case hands-on
As usual, Taiwan-based Lian Li showed up at Computex with a whole bunch of desktop chassis, and this year's highlight is none other than the eccentric PC-U6 Cowry. From our brief hands-on, we'd say that this seashell-like case looked even more gorgeous in real life than in its renderings, especially how the internals and the spiral grooves were lit up by the red LED strip. As expected, the widest part of the Cowry can indeed house a single 310mm (12.2-inch) graphics card, so multi-card enthusiasts will have to get the internal measurements right before ordering the components. Alternatively, maybe our hands-on photos below will give potential buyers a rough idea to start off with, before they drop a cool $349 on Lian Li's doorstep. %Gallery-125009%
HP trots out Pavilion p7, Pavilion Slimline s5, and HPE h8 desktops
Lest you think the desktop is an endangered species, HP, at least, begs to differ. The company just unveiled three of 'em: the Pavilion p7, Slimline s5, and the Pavilion HPE h8 -- all festooned with black finishes, rounded edges, sliding port covers, and metallic panels designed to blend in with the electronics already populating your living room. Of the three, the p7 is the most mainstream, with a non-threatening chassis that's about the size you'd expect a tower to be. The Slimline s5 has a similar look, but is about half the size, making it look more like a media hub. Lastly, there's the HPE h8, whose red accents and beastlier shape mark it as the power tower it is. For the money, you'll get discrete graphics, optional Beats Audio, and support for dual displays. The p7 and h8 go on sale May 18, starting at $299 and $599, respectively. For the petite s5, you'll have to step up to a $329 starting price. Look for it on June 15. %Gallery-123700%
Lian Li PC-U6 Cowry case: an aluminum seashell to keep your PC looking stylish
It takes quite a bit to get us excited about desktop case designs these days, but Lian Li's voluptuous new PC-U6 Cowry would seem to qualify pretty easily. It's fashioned after a seashell, giving it an appearance that's remarkably fresh and novel for such a well developed market, but it's also functionally useful -- the deepest part of the case is exactly where graphics cards would be expected to reside, permitting it to accommodate a video card as long as 310mm. There are also two 120mm side-mounted fans, a red LED kit, room for a full-sized power supply, and tool-free mounts for three 3.5-inch and two 2.5-inch storage drives plus an external 5.25-inch ODD. All that goodness is encased in an aluminum body and coming at you later this month for $349. How could you possibly resist? Video of the Cowry follows after the break.
Thermaltake's Level 10 GT enclosure gets reviewed, deemed more practical than its predecessor
If you've never heard the words "form over function" used to describe a computer case, you must've missed Thermaltake's Level 10 last year. Sure, it made us do a double take with its BMW-designed, super modular chassis, but its 50-pound weight and $750 price made it an impractical choice for a sizable chunk of the enthusiast crowd. Almost a year later, The Tech Report has gotten its hands on its successor, the $270 Level 10 GT, and deemed it much more fit for real-world use. This time, the company decompartmentalized the 3.5-inch hard drive bays -- all while adding an extra 5.25-inch bay and making room for an external 2.5-incher. Nonetheless, the GT isn't without imperfections -- the reviewer found a few spots where the build quality was lacking. If you've had your eye on one of these, we highly recommend perusing the extremely thorough review at the source link.
AT&T's new cell tower can fit in a suitcase, help restore networks after natural disasters
Whenever a natural disaster strikes, phone companies are typically forced to patch up their own networks with fleets of trucks that serve as temporary cell towers. It's a process that involves plenty of manpower and, most importantly, plenty of time. AT&T has a more portable solution: a cell tower small enough to fit into a suitcase. The company's new Remote Mobility Zone is comprised of an antenna and accompanying satellite dish, both of which can handle up to 14 simultaneous calls placed within a half-mile radius. Any AT&T phone can connect to the makeshift system, which will sell for anywhere between $15,000 and $45,000 (plus some monthly fees), though emergency workers will need a generator to get it up and running. They'll also have to live without 3G data, which sounds like a reasonable compromise to us.
'3D Towers' double disk storage capacity, don't require glasses
Here's some exciting news for all you data storage enthusiasts and academics out there: researchers in France have found a way to double the storage capacity of magnetic disk drives by constructing "3D towers" of information. The team from SPINTEC created these pillars out of bit-patterned media -- separated magnetic nanodots, each of which carries one bit of data. By layering the dots in specific formations, the team created a "multilevel magnetic recording device" with an areal density of two bits per dot -- twice what it started with. According to researcher Jerome Moritz, these findings could provide IT companies with a new way to circumvent physical limitations to their data storage capacities, allowing them to build up and over the vaunted one Tbit per square inch barrier. The team's full findings were recently published in the American Institute of Physics' Journal of Applied Physics. You can read the full article at the source link or, if you're afraid of paywalls, just check out the PR below.
Sprint allegedly talking to LightSquared over 4G infrastructure deal, Clearwire should be sweating
Bloomberg is citing "three people familiar with the talks" (it's not often that we get a specific number!) as saying that LightSquared is in active negotiations with Sprint to use its network infrastructure as it builds out its L-band LTE network. As you might recall, LightSquared is the would-be 4G wholesaler that is in the process of repurposing some satellite spectrum for terrestrial LTE use -- a concept the FCC has approved, but concerns over GPS interference could end up delaying or derailing the strategy altogether if they aren't solved to everyone's satisfaction. Of course, building out any sort of national terrestrial wireless network is a multi-billion dollar, multi-year type of venture, and presumably a tie-up with Sprint to use some of its hardware would help move matters along. What this means for Sprint's existing dealings with Clearwire is unclear; the two operate a WiMAX network together, after all, but the carrier has made it clear in the past that LTE could definitely be an option in the future.
Thermaltake Level 10 GT case polishes up a classic, available now for $280
The Thermaltake Level 10, arguably the sweetest-looking enclosure to ever hit the mass market, has managed to find a chassis worthy of being called its successor in the shape of the behemoth you see standing before you, the Level 10 GT. It softens the aggressively modular aesthetic of the original, but in exchange delivers a more performance-focused design, replete with three 200mm fans, air filters everywhere you look, a neat little window so you can peek inside your full-sized tower of doom, and enough space to fit the very largest of modern graphics cards. Thermaltake is asking for $280 on its online store and you can order one up today. Video awaits after the break, though we wouldn't skip out on the Flickr gallery below, either.
Alcatel-Lucent's lightRadio shoves a base station in a box, minimalists cheer
They've been fashioned after palm trees, Christ on the cross, and what look to be Dyson Ball vacuum attachments. But now, Alcatel-Lucent is giving cellphone towers a makeover that might actually stick. The company's new broadband base station solution, known as lightRadio, eliminates the need for cumbersome huts at the base of cellphone towers and packs antennas into a series of 2.5-inch boxes, while simultaneously improving capacity and reducing cost. These so-called radio cubes combine 2G, 3G, and LTE antennas with an SoC for processing, making them small enough to prop up on a lamp post. They're firmware upgradable, and utilize beamforming to more efficiently connect to wireless devices; according to the company, groups of 'em can not only increase broadband capacity by 30 percent, but also cut operation costs and CO2 emissions in half. Clearly, lightRadio makes a compelling case for narrowing the digital divide, but it won't be available broadly until 2012, which means the creative cover ups will just keep on coming. Sorry, JC. [Thanks, Nathan]
Digital Storm's slim Enix desktop takes Sandy Bridge to 4.7GHz
Overclocked, custom-built PCs are nothing new, and neither is 4.7GHz from the factory. But Digital Storm has managed to take one of Intel's newest Sandy Bridge chips to that height, and it's doing so in a case that's far sleeker than most of the towers out there. The all-new Enix relies on a Micro-ATX system board, vertical heat dissipation and a mobo that's rotating 90 degrees -- a move that's being made in order to "take advantage of heat's natural tendency to rise." Consumers can order one starting today, with the $1,132 base unit boasting a Core i3-2100, 4GB of DDR3-1600 memory, NVIDIA's 1GB GeForce GT 220, a 1TB hard drive and a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium. The high-end model tops out at just north of two large, with each model offering a hot-swap bay and a pair of USB 3.0 ports. Eye candy is below, and the source link shouldn't be ventured to unless you're fairly immune to impulse buys. %Gallery-114981%
Ask Engadget: best non-garish ATX mid-tower for the budget gamer?
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Zach, who needs a new home for his PC internals. If you're looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com. "For various reasons, I am going to be moving my computer around a lot more frequently soon, and I am looking for a new computer case that's relatively easy to take around. Basically, I mean the type of case with handle(s) on the top. It needs to be an ATX mid-tower, and I'd like it as cheap as I can get without it being horrible (I do have an overclocked CPU and a dedicated cooling unit, so it needs to be well-vented). I'm not a fan of garish cases with lots of LEDs -- I especially really dislike green / blue LEDs (I'm getting really sick of my current case, which is decked-out in blue). I might be cool with red or orange, though. However, any aesthetics come second to utility and price." Zach, we like your style. You're probably well on your way to becoming a man, and a sophisticated one at that. Here's hoping you'll receive loads of similarly sophisticated answers from sophisticated men and women below.
Dell implants Sandy Bridge CPUs within biz-minded Vostro 460 mini tower
Tried booting your corporate PC lately? Dollars to donuts it takes longer than three minutes to complete. The point? You need Sandy Bridge, and you need it now. Dell's hoping your IT department will agree, with the introduction of the Vostro 460 mini tower bringing along Intel's second generation Core processors (Core i5 and Core i7 options are available), Turbo Boost 2.0 and an understated design. Customers can also load it up with as much as 3TB of storage, a Blu-ray drive, 1GB NVIDIA or AMD discrete graphics card and a USB 3.0 expansion card. You'll also get a tool-less chassis, eight USB 2.0 ports, inbuilt security services from Trend Micro and a starting price of $599. Surely that fits into the Q1 budget somewhere, right?
Mac Pro Server quietly introduced as Xserve heads for the grave, starts at $3,000
Sneaky Apple... real sneaky. Just as the company announced that it would be axing its rack-mountable Xserve come January 31st, in flies an all-new Mac Pro to effectively take its place. The Mac Pro Server -- which is slated to ship in "two to four weeks" -- has joined the fray this morning on Apple's website, with the workstation equipped with a single 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Xeon 'Nehalem' processor, 8GB (4 x 2GB) of DDR3 ECC SDRAM, a pair of 1TB (7200RPM) hard drives, one 18x SuperDrive, ATI's Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 video memory, and a fresh copy of Mac OS X Server (the unlimited-client license version, for those wondering). Curiously enough, this marks the second time Apple has thrown a "server edition" into the mix, with the Mac mini Server popping up in June. As you'd expect, the $2,999 base price can be pushed far north by slapping in a pair of 2.93GHz six-core 'Westmere' chips (a modest $3,475 increase), 32GB of RAM (only an extra $3,400), a Mac Pro RAID card (pocket change at $700) and a quad-channel 4Gb fibre channel PCIe card (just an extra grand). But hey, financing is available! [Thanks, Adrian]
Lenovo's ThinkCentre M75e desktop range introduced, complete with business socks
They ain't much to gawk at, and they certainly won't satisfy your craving for tomorrow's best first-person shooter, but Lenovo's newest ThinkCentre machines will undoubtedly tear through an Excel spreadsheet and block your access to any website deemed remotely entertaining. The M75e will be arriving in two versions: a small form factor mini-tower starting at $504, and a standard tower starting at $524. Both units ship with a baseline configuration that includes a 2.8GHz AMD Sempron 145 AM3 processor, Windows 7 Professional, 2GB of DDR3 memory, an integrated AMD GPU (capable of driving two displays by its lonesome), a 250GB hard drive and a three-year warranty. Big spenders can upgrade to an Athlon II or Phenom II CPU, up to 16GB of memory and a Haspel tuxedo. Or so we're led to believe. Bonus video is after the break.
Screen Grabs: Thermaltake Level 10 plays coy on NCIS: Los Angeles
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com. It ain't the first time we've seen fresh hardware hit the small screen, but we can't think of a chassis much larger than this making a cameo on the tele. Thermaltake's monstrous Level 10 enclosure popped up on NCIS: Los Angeles this week, with Chris O'Donnell doing his darnedest to lift valuable information off of the internal HDDs via telepathy. Or maybe we missed the point. [Thanks, Daniel]
T-Mobile USA fires up first solar-powered cell site in Pennsylvania
A solar-powered cell site? In Pennsylvania? Say it ain't so! Rather than heading to Death Valley or southern Nevada, T-Mobile USA has selected the bustling metropolis of Chalfont, Pennsylvania for its first US-based solar cell site. According to a report over at GigaOM, the carrier isn't dishing any real details on the new development, only saying that it generates enough power to take the site "off-the-grid" and occasionally feed extra power back into said grid. It's likely that the site is primarily being built for positive PR and as a test for future rollouts, as the actual cost for installing this versus a standard grid-powered site is "around two to three times more." But hey, there's nothing like looking forward to the karma that comes with giving Ma Earth a kiss this big, right?
'Signal' jailbreak app for iPhone maps out your towers, turns death gripping into a pastime
If you're familiar with Android apps like CellFinder, you've got a good idea for what this is -- and the name "Signal" is a pretty accurate representation, too. Basically, iPhone Dev Team member planetbeing has thrown together a neat little app that shows you signal strengths of your phone's connections to nearby cell towers along with their position relative to you (if the positions can be determined), an especially welcome utility considering that you can't access Apple's old "field test mode" in iOS 4. Our favorite part, though, has to be planetbeing's desire to turn this from mere information into entertainment -- and to hopefully take the edge off your pain and deep-set resentment over the signal strength and call dropping issues in your iPhone 4 -- by adding a mode where your goal is to get the signal to drop completely, at which point you'll hear the voice of Spock announce a Vulcan death grip. Who knew an engineering defect could be so much fun? If you're jailbroken -- or you're willing to jailbreak -- you can score Signal in Cydia for a five-spot. Follow the break for video of the app in action. [Thanks, Pytey]
