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KOREAN HARDWARE GIANT Samsung has launched the white edition of its Galaxy Note smartphone in the UK.

Samsung launched the Android 2.3 Gingerbread handset last November but now the vanilla ice cream coloured version is available. The firm has struck an exclusive deal with John Lewis, which is selling the smartphone from today at its Oxford Street, London shop for the princely sum of £599.

Simon Stanford, managing director of Samsung in the UK said, “At Samsung we always want to offer our customers choice and are delighted to bring the Galaxy Note in white to the UK. The Galaxy Note is an innovative addition to the Samsung Galaxy family and a new category of device that consumers can’t get anywhere else.”

The first 100 customers to pick up the big smartphone or small tablet Galaxy Note in white will get a bonus of £250 worth of music, films and e-books.

Apart from the colour, the phone is the same as before with a 5.3in Super AMOLED HD display, a 1.4GHz dual-core processor, an 8MP rear-facing camera and Google’s 2.3 Gingerbread operating system.

If you don’t fancy getting it from John Lewis, other retailers will be selling the handset from next month. Online retailer Clove has it available for pre-order with a price tag of £594 and an availability date of 6 February. µ

MEMORY AND STORAGE VENDOR Kingston has released its V+200 solid state disk (SSD) drives for end-users and businesses.

Kingston’s SSDNow V+ range of SSDs were touted by the firm as business oriented SSDs without providing any real reason. Now the firm’s latest line of V+200 SSDs, coming two months after its V200 units, is being pitched at both end-users and businesses.

Thanks to the Sandforce SF-2281 controller, Kingston is able to cite performance figures for the SSDNow V+200 drives that is in the same ballpark as other SATA 3 SSDs. The units can hit sequential read bandwidth of 535MB/sec and sequential write bandwidth of 460MB/sec on the 60GB version, with all other units hitting 480MB/sec. When used on a SATA 2 interface, the drives drop down to read and write bandwidths of 280MB/sec and 260MB/sec, respectively. Sustained random 4K I/Os per second (IOPS) vary between the models, with read and write rates starting at 47,000 and 12,000, respectively, for the 60GB unit, to 43,000 read IOPS and 30,000 write IOPS.

Kingston flogs the V+200 in stand-alone units and as an ‘upgrade bundle’ adding about £7 to the price, with all units coming with a three year warranty. The V+200 comes in 60GB, 90GB, 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities with prices ranging from £77 to £543 for the 480GB upgrade bundle kit.

Kingston is hoping that businesses looking to upgrade their existing systems with SSDs will drive volume, with Krystian Jaroszynski, product marketing manager for Flash at Kingston Technology Europe saying, “The balance between performance and price makes this SSD deliver the best ROI as an upgrade for a fleet of corporate notebooks or desktops or the home PC.” µ

GAMING PC MAKER Alienware has launched its X51 compact desktop PC for gamers who are short of space.

The Alienware X51 is designed to give consumers a powerful machine capable of high-end gaming without compromising on size. Alienware said the X51 is its smallest ever gaming desktop.

Alienware VP Arthur Lewis said, “The Alienware X51 allows us to bring the exciting nature of high-definition, immersive gaming within reach of more gamers than ever before,”

“With the X51, we’ve expanded our gaming desktop offering to cater to all gamers in addition to our core enthusiast and competitive gamers. Now everyone can enjoy the latest games on a sleek, powerful, compact and customisable system. The X51 desktop delivers an incredible feature set for its size and price.”

The case is certainly compact, especially when sat next to the Alienware Aurora that the company launched last month. Design-wise the X51 doesn’t look too dissimilar to the Xbox 360, not a bad thing in our eyes.

Prices start at £699, which will get you an Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM, a 1GB Nvidia Geforce GT545 graphics card and a 1TB hard drive. According to the firm this setup delivers an average frame rate of 34fps in Battlefield 3 with high settings and HD 1080p resolution.

If you fancy splashing out a bit more cash then you can opt for an Intel Core i5 or Core i7 chip, up to 8GB of RAM and an Nvidia Geforce GTX555 graphics card.

Other specifications include Windows 7 Home Premium, a DVD burner, WiFi, USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, an HDMI 1.4 port and internal high definition 7.1 audio. µ

For a while now we've been using Basemark ES 2.0 in our smartphone reviews and SoC discussions to gauge OpenGL ES performance. For end users however, getting the same benchmarks has been difficult if not impossible, making comparisons and verification somewhat of a challenge for enthusiasts. The alternatives to the big industry-standard benchmarks in the Android market sometimes are poorly documented and ill-maintained as well. As time goes on we'll see more of these industry-standard benchmarks start showing up in all the app marketplaces for each platform. 

Today RightWare is launching Basemark ES 2.0 Taiji Free on the Android market, which contains (as the name suggests) the Taiji subtest of Basemark ES 2.0. The version being launched supports both Android and iOS for comparison purposes, though the iOS version will launch at a later date in Q1 2012. Taiji is the first of the two game benchmark scenes inside Basemark ES 2.0, the second being Hoverjet.

In conjunction, ES 2.0 Taiji Free also will feature an online result browser component called Power Board. This online result browser component aggregates and allows for comparisons of both user-submitted and in-house tested scores much the same way GLBenchmark and others do. It appears that Power Board will also aggregate data from the rest of Rightware's benchmarking portfolio, including Basemark GUI. Information and device details such as SoC, GPU, and resolution are all provided as well on Power Board for comparison purposes.

Gallery: Rightware Power Board

This is a big step in the right direction toward depreciating some of the enthusiast community's reliance on some of the poorly documented or ill-maintained benchmarks like Quadrant and others. 

Source: Rightware, Power Board, Android Market

GAMING PC MAKER Alienware has launched its Aurora gaming PC that uses the latest Intel X79 chipset.

The Aurora is aimed at enthusiast gamers and comes jam packed with the latest hardware centred on an Intel Core i7-3000 six-core processor that is factory overclocked. It’s liquid cooled and the firm claims it’s the “most advanced gaming desktop ever made”.

“The PC gaming industry continues to grow rapidly, and our customers are demanding systems that can keep up with the most graphic-intensive games on the market,” said Arthur Lewis, VP of product management at Alienware. “Alienware Aurora, our most advanced gaming desktop ever, delivers an experience that will exceed the expectations of any serious gamer.”

Alienware offers a wide range of graphics card options from a single 1GB AMD Radeon HD 6870 up to a dual 2GB AMD Radeon HD 6950 with Crossfirex. The Aurora caters for performance tinkering with an unlocked BIOS.

Rounding off the specifications is a choice of 8GB or 16GB of quad channel 1600MHz DDR3 RAM and a traditional hard drive with up to 2TB capacity. For extra performance users can upgrade to a 256GB or 512GB solid state disk (SSD) drive.

Alienware products do tend to come accompanied by a high price tag and the Aurora is no exception, as it is priced at £1,999 for the least expensive configuration. µ

GAMING PC MAKER Alienware has launched its Aurora gaming PC that uses the latest Intel X79 chipset.

The Aurora is aimed at enthusiast gamers and comes jam packed with the latest hardware centred on an Intel Core i7-3000 six-core processor that is factory overclocked. It’s liquid cooled and the firm claims it’s the “most advanced gaming desktop ever made”.

“The PC gaming industry continues to grow rapidly, and our customers are demanding systems that can keep up with the most graphic-intensive games on the market,” said Arthur Lewis, VP of product management at Alienware. “Alienware Aurora, our most advanced gaming desktop ever, delivers an experience that will exceed the expectations of any serious gamer.”

Alienware offers a wide range of graphics card options from a single 1GB AMD Radeon HD 6870 up to a dual 2GB AMD Radeon HD 6950 with Crossfirex. The Aurora caters for performance tinkering with an unlocked BIOS.

Rounding off the specifications is a choice of 8GB or 16GB of quad channel 1600MHz DDR3 RAM and a traditional hard drive with up to 2TB capacity. For extra performance users can upgrade to a 256GB or 512GB solid state disk (SSD) drive.

Alienware products do tend to come accompanied by a high price tag and the Aurora is no exception, as it is priced at £1,999 for the least expensive configuration. µ

ONLINE BOOKSELLER Amazon is rolling out an update for its Kindle Fire in the US after numerous customer complaints about the recently launched device.

Customer complaints on the Amazon web site centre on the tablet’s web browsing, touchscreen, lack of privacy and lack of an external volume control on the device.

According to the New York Times, Amazon plans to release an update to its Kindle Fire user interface in the next two weeks to address these problems. This is despite the fact that Amazon has updated the software for the Kinde Fire several times, saying it had improved performance and got rid of root access to the device.

Amazon said the latest update will also improve performance, as well as allowing customers to edit their recent activity to address privacy issues. Multi-touch navigation has also reportedly been improved.

Amazon also said there will be an improved version of the device itself in the Spring.

We still don’t have the Kindle Fire in the UK, although latest reports indicate it will arrive in January, just in time to miss the Christmas season. However, judging by its reception in the US, we might be getting excited over nothing. µ

MEMORY AND STORAGE VENDOR Kingston has announced its fastest Datatraveler Hyperx 3.0 USB flash drives.

The Hyperx USB drives are designed for enthusiasts, gamers and early adopters of technology, according to Kingston. The line offers high speed transfer rates and high capacities of up to 256GB.

“Enthusiasts have long known HyperX as the memory of choice for overclockers and power users who need the most performance from system memory,” said Krystian Jaroszynski, product marketing manager at Kingston. “The new DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 USB Flash drive continues this tradition. With the fastest speeds and largest capacity, this storage device is the perfect solution for users who require high performance whilst carrying their digital library.”

The range maxes out at 256GB but smaller versions are available in 128GB and 64GB sizes. Supporting USB 3.0, the drives can cope with read speeds of up to 225MB/s and write speeds of 135MB/s.

The drives use an eight channel architecture and are backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 ports. The largest drive should hold around 10 Blu-ray discs, 54 DVDs or nearly 50,000 MP3s.

Prices start at £110 for the 64GB model then jump to £199 for 128GB with the price of the 256GB model yet to be revealed. µ

STORAGE VENDOR Kingston has launched its line of SSDnow V200 storage drives for cost conscious consumers.

The range of V200 solid state disk (SSD) drives replaces the V100 line-up and offer higher performance for lower cost. Capacity starts at 64GB with 128GB and 256GB also available.

Kingston said, “The Kingston SSDNow V200 brings value and performance to consumers who are looking for an inexpensive upgrade option to boost their current computer’s performance and extend the life of their investment.”

The firm said that a V200 drive is almost twice as fast compared to the V100. It also is priced 20 per cent lower. This should persuade consumers to take the leap of upgrading to flash memory for data storage, according to Kingston.

A stand-alone drive is available or users can buy a full upgrade kit instead. The desktop and laptop kits come with various bits and pieces to help with the upgrade process including cloning software, a DVD guide, cables and mounting brackets.

Prices for the drive range from £81 for the 64GB model to £134 for 128GB and £300 for the 256GB drive. The upgrade kit adds a further £8 to the stand-alone prices. Kingston has told us that the drives should be available from today. µ

CHINESE MOBILE FIRM Huawei has launched its flagship Android 3D smartphone, the Vision, and its own branded tablet, the Mediapad.

The company’s UK MD Mark Mitchinson announced pricing and availability for the Vision and Mediapad devices at an event in London this evening, and The INQUIRER was there.

Huawei had announced both the Vision and the Mediapad separately earlier this year. At the time, they were earmarked for UK release in the “second half” of 2011, so we had expected both of them on the shelves before Christmas. However, while the Vision handset will be on sale for Christmas, we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see the Mediapad.

The Mediapad will cost £275 but it won’t be available until the first quarter of 2012.

Meanwhile, the Vision handset will be available in time for Christmas from Phones 4U, with more operator and retail partners to be confirmed early next year. It will be free on £25 per month contracts.

The Vision features a 3D user interface and a “carousel display”, and runs the Android 2.3 Gingerbread mobile OS. It has a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM 8255 processor.

Like a posh car, the Huawei Vision has an aluminum alloy “uni-body” that comes in rose gold, silver or charcoal, along with “a curve touch design”.

The device measures only 9.9mm at its thinnest point and weighs 121g. It supports HD 720p video recording and features a 5MP auto focus camera with LED flash. It also has Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, high-speed WiFi 802.11b/g/n internet connectivity, and a full range of messaging capabilities including SMS, MMS, Email, Push Mail and IM.

Meanwhile, Huawei’s Mediapad tablet will run Android 3.2 Honeycomb and has a 7in IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen.

The Mediapad is 10.5mm thick and weighs 390g, and will be “supported by Huawei Device’s Hispace cloud solution”. Meanwhile, the battery will last over six hours.

A 1.2GHz dual-core processor from Qualcomm will power the Mediapad and there is a front facing camera of 1.3MP. It has WiFi and HSPA+ 3G and an HDMI port. Pre-installed applications will include Facebook, Twitter, Let’s Golf and Documents to go, as well as support for Flash 10.3.

Meanwhile, the company also announced that it will launch a dedicated European design centre for its mobile device business in London as it looks to increase its market share across Europe.

The company said at the event in London that it is “transforming” its business strategy, going from “massive growth” to “quality growth”. Huawei’s new brand slogan is “Let’s simply share.” µ