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webOS 3.0.5 clues point to integrated Twitter, better performance for your TouchPad
If you're the lucky owner of a rare 2011 TouchPad, the onus is on you to keep it clean, polished and updated. Sure, you've already got a decent Twitter client in the form Spaz HD, and you're getting extra snappy performance from webOS 3.0.4, but web chatter indicates that something even better could be on the horizon. Developers have started tweeting via 'webOS Synergy', possibly hinting that integrated Twitter could be on the way in 3.0.5. What's more, another TouchPad owner running that newfangled version has submitted an impressive score to Lithium BenchMark, suggesting it might deliver a performance bump too. The duck may be dead, but the dream lives on.
Cedar Trail-powered Asus VX6S netbook gets some early benchmarks
Benchmarking unreleased hardware is a dodgy business, largely because you're not working with final drivers. Nevertheless, Netbook Live's latest efforts could possibly be seen as establishing a bare minimum of what Cedar Trail is capable of. They put a 12-inch Asus Lamborghini VX6S netbook containing the next-gen Intel D2700 Atom CPU and the AMD Radeon 6470M GPU up against its Pine Trail/ION2-powered VX6 predecessor. For good measure, they also threw in an Eee PC 1215B running on AMD's Zacate E-350 APU (not the superior E-450). The PC Mark benchmarks gave the VX6S a gain of around ten percent against the Eee PC, with the VX6 coming a distant third-- not quite revolutionary, but that's what you get for being impatient. Click the source link for more. [Thanks, Jimmy]
Geekbench scores benchmark iPhone 4S A5 at 800MHz
Here is some good news and bad news for prospective iPhone 4S owners. The bad news is that the iPhone 4S has a dual-core 1GHz CPU, but its clocked to 800 Mhz. The good news is that, even with slower clock speeds, the 4S still beats the pants off the iPhone 4 and other Android smartphones. This information comes from AnandTech which compared the iPhone 4S and other handsets using online benchmarks. The results place the iPhone 4S at the top of the mobile phone market with benchmark scores well above the iPhone 4 and other smartphone competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S2. The only comparable device is the 8.9-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab which benchmarks very closely to the iPhone 4S. Within the iOS family, the iPhone 4S CPU and GPU benchmarks are about 75% faster than the iPhone 4 and slightly slower than the iPad 2. These results are not surprising as the iPad 2 has the same A5 processor as the iPhone 4S, but it is clocked to the full 1GHz, not 800 MHz. [AppleInsider]
Benchmarks clock iPhone 4S' A5 CPU at 800MHz, show major GPU upgrade over iPhone 4
Pre-orders for the iPhone 4S only began shipping this week, but a handful of early owners have already taken Apple's first A5-based smartphone for a test run, and they've got the benchmarks to prove it. The results, obtained by AnandTech, are hardly what we'd call shocking. In terms of Javascript performance (pictured above), the 4S measures up rather nicely against the Tegra 2-based Honeycomb competition, while out-dueling the iPhone 4 in overall CPU muscle. Geekbench results, meanwhile, clock the 4S at around 800MHz, with a score of 623. That's about 25 percent lower than the A5-based iPad 2, but notably higher than the iPhone 4 (see graphic, after the break). When it comes to GPU performance, GLBenchmark 2.1 tests in 1280 x 720, off-screen render mode place Apple's new handset well above the Galaxy S II, with scores of 122.7 and 67.1, respectively. It still trails the iPad 2, not surprisingly, but the 4S' scores show a major advantage over the iPhone 4, which registered a score of 15.3. For more statistics and graphics, check out the source link below.
Video reportedly shows Siri in action, settings, and benchmarks
Just as the sun always rises in the morning, every time a new iPhone is about to come out, somebody gets one just before the official launch and ruins the fun for the rest of us. In this case, a video from AppVV.com appears to show an iPhone 4S running some benchmarks and also demonstrates how to change Siri settings. In the video, the phantom user opens Settings and demonstrates the Siri settings interface, turning the feature on and off, changing language settings, and more. What's even more fascinating is that the user runs the BrowserMark benchmark, and shows a score of 89567. Running BrowserMark on an iPhone 4 with iOS 5 showed a result of 52433, so Safari on the iPhone 4S is about 70% faster than on the iPhone 4. Some TUAW readers are reporting that they're receiving early ship notices for delivery on the 14th. How about you? Tell us in the comments.
Iomega Mac Companion: Your iMac's soulmate
A few weeks ago I wrote a review of the Iomega eGo Helium Portable Hard Drive. That review was very favorable -- the drive was relatively fast, very solidly built, and is designed to match the aluminum cases of Apple's MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lines. The company has also released the Iomega Mac Companion (US$239.99 for 2 TB, $369.99 for 3 TB), a high-capacity backup drive that matches the design of the iMac. Let me take you on a guided tour of this nice-looking and useful desktop drive / hub combo. Design Like the Helium, the Mac Companion is (duh!) designed for Mac. Yes, you can use it with a PC, which is why I threw in that little comment. But to use it with a PC you need to reformat the Mac Companion's drive -- it comes pre formatted in HFS+, ready to connect to your Mac. The Mac Companion is outfitted with one USB 2.0 port and two FireWire 800 ports. There's also a two-port USB 2.0 hub built in, so you can charge and sync both your iPhone and iPad at the same time (if you're not using iOS 5.0 Wi-Fi syncing, that is). But wait, there's more: another USB port on the side packing a full 2.1 amps of current for charging. Let me get back to the design. While the Helium borrowed from the design of the aluminum unibody MacBooks, the Mac Companion takes its design cues from the iMac. The drive is meant to sit on top of the base of an iMac, and it exactly matches the shape of the base. The aluminum is almost identical to the aluminum finish of the bottom of the iMac, while the black top of the Mac Companion mimics the black bezel around the display. When nestled beneath an iMac, there are no Iomega logos to be seen. What you do see are four white LEDs that signify that you have power to the drive and, if you've downloaded and installed the Capacity Utility they also display the relative capacity of the drive. Unfortunately, this download requires both a support account with Iomega as well as a reboot upon installation. Both of those steps are annoying. The LED also glows red when the device has been unmounted from a system. One negative point: I really can't stand it when manufacturers take the cheap route and ship generic power supplies with their devices. These bricks usually take up way too much space and detract from an otherwise well-designed hard drive. Steve Jobs never would have let a new product ship with an ugly, generic power supply. The Mac Companion comes with no software installed on it -- a very nice feature, since I usually end up taking the "bonus software suite" off of most drives anyway. You can download a complete package with goodies like Trend Smart Surfing and a free 2 GB subscription to Mozy Home from Iomega's site. The drive is extremely quiet, and as you'll see in the benchmark results below, fast. Iomega's spokesperson mentioned that they're using a 7200 RPM mechanism, and it shows. Benchmark TUAW uses a standard industry benchmark to compare the I/O capabilities of disks and arrays. The benchmark uses the AJA System Test, which simulates reading and writing video. The specific test I used was the Disk Read/Write test, also known as the DiskWhackTest, set at a video frame size of 720 x 486 8-bit and a file size of 128 MB. The test results are compared to the internal SATA drive of the test iMac. I've also included the results for another FireWire 800 drive (Western Digital 3 TB MyBook Studio) for a more direct comparison. As you can see, this is a pretty darned fast drive! It had an average write speed of 78.9 MB/sec, making it about 14.8% faster in write operations than the Western Digital MyBook Studio. As for read operations, it averaged 80.9 MB/sec, or about 9.5% faster than the MyBook Studio. The Western Digital drive has an MSRP about $40 less than the Iomega drive, but in my opinion the better looks, excellent integration with the iMac, and higher read/write speeds of the Iomega Mac Companion make it well worth the slight extra cost. Conclusion Iomega must be doing something right these days. Both the Ego Helium portable drive and the Mac Companion are well-designed, good looking, and fast drives at a fairly reasonable price. Sure, you can buy much less expensive drives, but if you appreciate design and speed you really ought to take a look at the Mac Companion as a primary backup drive.
Angelbird's Wings PCIe-based SSD preview and benchmarks
Storage enthusiasts (yeah, there is such a thing -- what of it?) would probably tell you that PCIe-based SSDs are a dime a dozen these days. But in all seriousness, the prices we're seeing are proof that a few more competitors wouldn't hurt. A few weeks back, Austria's own Angelbird started to ship a solution that we first heard about during 2010, and we were fortunate enough to pop a Wings PCIe SSD RAID card into our Mac Pro for testing. For years, we've been booting this up and running every single application off of its stock HDD -- a 640GB Hitachi HDE721064SLA360 (7200RPM) -- as we surmise many of you desktop owners might be. Anxious to see if these are the Wings your existing tower needs to soar? Head on past the break for our impressions. %Gallery-134642%
HTC Jetstream hits AT&T store, gets benchmarked
Thinking about picking up an (inconceivably expensive) HTC Jetstream? After all, it just slipped into AT&T's online store this weekend. We'll just leave this link to HotHardware in the source below, in case you want to check out some comparative benchmarks before trading $700 for a two-year contract. Not that it performed poorly mind you, it raced neck-and-neck with Lenovo's IdeaPad K1 -- we just like think charts and tables are cool. Videos too -- hit the break to see the folks at HotHardware give the 10-inch slate a quick hands-on.
WD's 9.5mm Scorpio Blue 1TB laptop hard drive gets benchmarked
These days, it's hard to shake the urge to pop a solid state drive into your next laptop, but even if you're down with dropping the requisite coin, the restrictive capacity choices may make it darn near impossible for pack rats to bite. For those fitting squarely into that category, there's Western Digital's newest laptop drive: the 9.5mm 1TB Scorpio Blue. It's one of the first in this form factor (read: the one that slips into most everything smaller than a Clevo) to hit the 1TB milestone, and at just $99, it's a veritable bargain. The benchmarking gurus over at Hot Hardware threw it through the usual gauntlet of tests, pitting it against a 500GB Scorpio Black and a 640GB Seagate Momentus. As you'd likely expect, the 1TB spinner bested the competition in SiSoftware, ATTO and CrystalDiskMark tests, though not by a tremendous margin. Still, taking performance up a notch while also boasting a full terabyte of space makes it somewhat of a no-brainer for capacity freaks, and you can hit the source for a barrage of charts proving as much.
Macworld benchmarks i5 MacBook Airs
After one week on the market, the first good benchmarks of the new MacBook Air models are beginning to show up. Macworld ran benchmarks of the i5-based 11.6" and 13" MBAs and found them to be quite fast in everyday operations. The Macworld lab is in the process of fine-tuning their SpeedMark benchmark for Lion, so the tests were performed by timing tasks like duplicating, zipping, and unzipping folders, importing and exporting files from Pages and iMovie, and so on. Not surprisingly, the tests showed that the new MacBook Airs were faster than the last generation models and the final generation of the MacBook. The MBAs beat even the current 13" i5 MacBook Pro in the file duplicate and zip tests. Strangely enough, though, the previous model 13" Core 2 Duo MacBook Air bested all comers for importing a movie archive to iMovie '09, had the best results with the Cinebench R11.5 graphics benchmark, and the highest framerate while playing Call of Duty 4. If you do a lot of AAC to MP3 encoding in iTunes 10, then the 13" i5 MacBook Air is going to be your best friend. It was faster than even the latest 13" i5 MacBook Pro, although not by much. The bottom line is that these new MBAs are fast, due in part to the SSDs used for storage, but slower than their predecessors in some graphics operations. Why? The previous MacBook Air models used Nvidia GeForce 320M integrated graphics, while the new models use the Intel HD Graphics 3000 capability embedded into the silicon of the i5 processor. The Nvidia graphics chip was faster, but the i5 with graphics is less expensive than the Core 2 Duo / Nvidia combo used before. With the specs of the MacBook Air approaching those of the MacBook Pro line and rumors of a 15" Air-like Apple laptop on the horizon, it's interesting to conjecture that Apple may eventually get to one line of MacBooks -- the MacBook Airs. Macworld plans on running more tests in the future using various configure-to-order options of the MacBook Air, and we'll be waiting to see what they find.
Western Digital's 3 TB MyBook Studio perfect for pre-Lion backups
Are you about to upgrade your Mac to OS X Lion? One recommendation from the TUAW staff is that you do a complete backup of your Snow Leopard installation before you start. With many Mac internal drives nearing the 1 to 2 TB range in size, how do you back up the drive and still have a hard disk that's big enough for Time Machine to use? Easy -- take a look at Western Digital's new 3 TB MyBook Studio (US$249.99 MSRP). I had a chance to put one of these drives through the paces here at the crowded TUAW lab (which also doubles as the TUAW TV Live studio) and found it to be an attractive, quiet, and relatively fast high-capacity disk drive. Design As with many of Western Digital's recent mass storage solutions, the MyBook Studio drive uses an aluminum case that matches nicely with Apple's current design meme. The drive has two FireWire 800 and one USB 2.0 connector on the back, and comes with FireWire 800, USB 2.0, and FireWire 400 to 800 cables. It's pre-formatted for use with Mac systems, so the drive is truly plug-and-play. The enclosure is 6.5" high, 5.3" deep, and 1.9" wide, featuring a pair of clear silicone feet on the bottom to make sure that drive vibration isn't transferred to a desk. There's no power switch on the drive -- once you've plugged it into power and a live I/O port on your Mac, it starts up quietly. A single tiny white LED on the front is all that tells you that the disk is up and running, which is a welcome change from the busy front panels on previous WD drives. Drive operation is rather quiet, except when the drive spins up after sitting for a bit with nothing to do. At that point, it makes a light "clunk" that is barely noticeable. That had a slight effect on write speeds, but that's quite common with the WD Caviar Green SATA drive used inside the MyBook Studio. To reduce energy use, the drive goes to an idle mode when not actively reading or writing data. During the spin-up, throughput is reduced (see graphs below). If the drive isn't in use, it powers down after a while and goes into a "sleep" mode. The LED blinks while in this mode, as an indication that it is saving power. It takes approximately 10 seconds for the drive to wake up from sleep mode, which could be an annoyance if you're in a hurry to grab a file that's stored on it. One thing I didn't like about the MyBook Studio is that the company is using a fat, generic AC adapter that ended up covering two sockets on my multiple outlet power cord. I'm used to Apple's slender adapters and cords that only take one spot on the cord, and wish accessory manufacturers would take the hint. As usual, the company fills up about 500 MB of space with home-grown utilities that you'll probably just want to delete. For Mac users who want to make a bootable clone of their machine prior to a Lion upgrade, we recommend either SuperDuper! (US$27.95) or the shareware Carbon Copy Cloner. To make those daily backups? Just use Time Machine. Benchmark Beginning with this review, TUAW is using a standard industry benchmark to compare the I/O capabilities of disks and arrays. The benchmark uses the AJA System Test, which simulates reading and writing video. We used was the Disk Read/Write test, also known as the DiskWhackTest, set at a video frame size of 720 x 486 8-bit and a file size of 128 MB. The test results are compared to the internal SATA drive of the test iMac and a DroboPro connected to the iMac via FireWire 800. Compared to the DroboPro, the MyBook Studio looks like a complete speedster. Of course, the DroboPro is an 8-drive RAID array and not a single massive drive, but this does show that for high-throughput requirements the MyBook Studio Drive might be a contender. With a USB 2.0 connection the average write speed was 30.4 MB/Sec and read speed was 35.2 MB/sec. If you have a FireWire 800 port on your Mac, use it. For speed, though at a price, you'll probably want to start looking at Thunderbolt-equipped Macs and external drives. Those drives will be available later this summer from a handful of vendors. Conclusion For Mac users looking for a relatively inexpensive external backup drive with FireWire 800 connectivity plenty of space, the Western Digital MyBook Studio 3 TB is just the ticket. If you only have USB 2.0 or just need a slow and steady backup drive, there are many other less expensive external drives. For example, Western Digital's WD Elements 3 TB USB-only drive can be purchased through Amazon for about $150; a tremendous bargain. I like Western Digital's attention to the Mac market, and this drive is a perfect example of the meld of form and function that Mac users love.
Engadget Primed: Using benchmarks
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. Staring at your smartphone, you realize that there's something missing. It does everything you want it to -- very well, we might add -- but what hole is left to fill? We'll help you out with this one: you want bragging rights. There has to be a way to face your friends with confidence, right? All you need is a little nudge in the right direction, and in this edition of Engadget Primed, we'll give you that much-needed shove by explaining benchmarks. Perhaps you've seen us talk about benchmarks in our product reviews. We'll typically use them to gauge the relative performance of various devices, but discussing a Linpack score doesn't mean much without going deeper into what it actually means. What aspects of performance do these benchmarks measure, and what techniques do they use? How much can we rely on them when making purchasing decisions? Read on after the break for the full scoop.
Qualcomm launches Vellamo browser benchmark for Android devices
Qualcomm's not exactly a novice when it comes to sizing up phones -- it's already responsible for the graphics benchmark Neocore. Now, it also wants to show you just how much your mobile browser is lagging. The company just introduced Vellamo, a suite of 11 tests designed to gauge browser performance on Android phones and tablets. In case you're curious, it takes its name from the Finnish goddess of the sea who lures away sailors web surfers (Qualcomm's joke, not ours). And yes, it'll work with any device running Android 2.0 or above, even if it doesn't pack a Qualcomm-made processor. These tests span four broad categories -- rendering, JavaScript, user experience, and networking -- with only two requiring an internet connection (even then, you can cherry pick specific tests to run). We took it for a spin on our aging, Froyo-packing, Motorola Droid, whose score of 237 landed at the very bottom of the list of results, far behind tablets and newer handsets. (As of this writing, Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 took the cake.) Curious to see how your device ranks? Hit the source link to download the free APK file. %Gallery-128414%.
AMD Llano desktop APU gets reviewed: the best integrated graphics in town
AMD is due to release a batch of new Llano APUs next month that are specifically tailored to desktops rather than laptops. The most powerful among them will be the 2.9GHz A8-3850, which has already caused a stir on the review circuit for one simple reason: it pulls off a brutal "one shot one kill" on Intel's HD 3000 integrated graphics. AnandTech raised an impressed eyebrow at the fact that all its benchmarking games were playable on the $135 AMD chip, which roughly doubled frame rates in titles like Modern Warfare 2, Bioshock 2 and World of Warcraft compared to the more expensive Sandy Bridge i5 2500K. TechSpot declared the APU its "new budget king," with graphical performance "on another level" compared even to an i7. However, the superlatives quickly evaporated once reviewers shifted their focus to the CPU. TechReport spotted that pure CPU performance per dollar was actually lower than what you'd get from a lowly i3. Moreover, it reckoned you'd only have to spend an extra $70 to buy a much more powerful CPU and a separate graphics card -- an option that comes "awfully close to making the A8-3850 seem irrelevant." Ouch. Nevertheless, if an affordable processor with integrated graphics is what you're after, then it's fair to say this one sets the standard. Click the source links below for full reviews.
Mac OS X 10.6.8 benchmark reveals graphic speed improvement
Sure, the (hopefully) last version of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was released yesterday. Yes, it addressed a laundry list of improvements to both networking and Mac OS X Lion readiness. But did you know that installing Mac OS X 10.6.8 might also improve graphic performance on your Mac? Bill Fox over at MacsOnly.com ran benchmarks on both a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro. What he found was that the "newer graphics drivers in 10.6.8 not only eliminated any decline in speed from 10.6.5 through 10.6.7 but showed significantly improved OpenGL performance in Xbench and the game Halo for the ATI Radeon HD 5870 card" in the Mac Pro. His benchmarks also showed improved performance, although not as dramatic, with the Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics processor in the MacBook Pro. We'd love to hear from any iMac, MacBook, MacBook Air or Mac mini owners who are able to run the same benchmarks on their favorite computers before and after 10.6.8. Leave your results in the comments for other TUAW readers to see.
BAPCo calls 'liar, liar' on AMD, Intel still its golden prince
Benchmarks can be a bit of a back and forth schoolyard screaming match -- there's plenty of yelling, but not always much brute force to back it up -- so let's take this case of 'he said / she said' with an even coarser grain of salt. BAPCo, a non-profit whose members include major tech industry heavyweights, slapped back at AMD today for publicly dissing the SYSmark 2012 benchmark it had an 80 percent hand in creating and for claming the group forced them out of the club. The chip maker had similar beef back in 2007 over Intel's benchmark-friendlier chips, and this appears to be the final straw that broke its GPU's back. On Monday, VIA and NVIDIA also joined the ranks of the recently defected, but refrained from any superfluous PR finger-wagging. Wherever the truth may lie, for sure someone's got a case of the green-eyed monster, and it's definitely not us. We're looking at you, AMD. [Thanks, Muhammad; image courtesy BAPCo]
AMD resigns from BAPCo consortium, denounces SYSmark 2012 benchmark
It's not uncommon for a company to make a public endorsement from time to time, but AMD today drafted a press release to announce that it's not endorsing a product -- BAPCo's SYSmark 2012 benchmark -- going so far as to drop out of the non-profit org to drive its point home. AMD claims that it attempted to work with BAPCo to focus testing on real-world usage, rather than traditional benchmarks that don't necessarily represent how we use computers today. Nigel Dessau, AMD's CMO, explains the decision on AMD's blog: "Unfortunately, our good intentions were met with an outcome that we believe does a disservice to the industry and our customers. We weren't able to effect positive change within BAPCo, and the resulting benchmark continues to distort workload performance and offers even less transparency to end users. Once again, BAPCo chose to ignore the opportunity to promote openness and transparency." The biggest issue appears to be that SYSmark highlights processor speed while ignoring GPU power -- a significant flaw, considering GPUs now play a large role in overall system performance.
Nexus S hacked and tweaked to slaughter benchmarks, reality be damned
It's always a good idea to take benchmarks with a grain of salt -- their synthetic tests don't always match up with real-world performance. But, we wouldn't blame you if you wrote them off completely after spying these results from Android Community forum member Simms22. Simms took his Nexus S, blessed it with a little Cyanogen Mod 7 pixie dust, overclocked it to 1.544GHz, and made a few other tweaks for good measure. The results? An absolutely unbelievable score of 10,082 in Smartbench2011. To put that in perspective, the 1.2GHz dual-core Exynos powering the Galaxy S II hit only 3,053 -- and remember, the Nexus S is working with a one core handicap. The creator of Smartbench has acknowledged there are bugs to be worked out (did besting the Xoom by 400 percent give it away?) but we're not quite ready to dismiss the numbers game completely -- then what excuse would we have for publishing copious amounts of bar charts? Update: The creator of Smartbench2011 confirms he's working on a new version, 1.2.1, which should fix the bugs.
Motorola Xoom hits 1.7GHz, teeters on the edge of oblivion
Just when we thought the Motorola Xoom had hit its stride at a blazing 1.504 billion operations cycles per second, the trusty Tiamat kernel has strapped on an veritable afterburner capable of 1.7GHz. What happens when your shaking hands flip that switch and give that Tegra 2 all the jet fuel it can take? Well, anecdotal cases from the XDA-developers forums suggest it'll probably just reboot anticlimactically. If you're lucky enough to have the magic silicon, however, you'll be treated to a benchmark-blitzing rig, reportedly capable of 70 MFLOPS in Linpack, 1480ms runs in SunSpider, and Quadrant scores approaching a smooth 5,000. See just how far that rainbow benchmark bar can stretch in a screencap after the break. Update: There's a jolly discussion in comments about whether gigahertz can be directly translated to operations per second in the case of the Tegra 2 -- we'll err on the side of caution and say cycles per second instead.
Honeycomb on Oak Trail gets benchmarked on prototype Compal tablet, numbers ensue
We know that Intel is gunning for ARM with its Oak Trail platform, and indeed there were a few early tablets at Computex following that very path to Honeycomb. The question on everyone's minds, of course, is how well this dual-core 1.5GHz platform can compare to the Tegra 2 competition. If you believe the results from a suite of tests that tweakers.net ran on a prototype Compal unit, then the answer is "not very well." On benchmarks like CaffeineMark, Linpak, and Quadrant the platform was largely left in the dust by ARM competition with bigger biceps, but the Oak Trail machine did clean the floor with everyone else on the SunSpider browser benchmark. What does it all mean? Not a heck of a lot at this point, we're afraid. It's far too early to be drawing performance conclusions about a platform based on a prototype fresh out of the fabricator, and we have our doubts that these benchmark apps are optimized for the new platform -- so don't give up on 'ol x86 just yet.
