Gaming on you’re Xbox with the surround sound cranked may be fun, but will likely piss off your neighbours. Either that or the other people in your house. To solve this problem, you should consider some gaming headphones, particularly if you live in an apartment complex with thin walls.

Solving the volume out issue is one thing, but what about the volume in problem, you know, for those Xbox LAN sessions you have in the street.

Over the past month I’ve spent some time with the Sennheiser X320 gaming headset for the Xbox 360. It features a stylish and comfortable design with green accent, which matches the black / green design of the console. Weighing in at just 280grams, they become like a watch after a while, in that you forget you’re wearing them. Other headsets I’ve used become really uncomfortable after a long gaming session, but the X320 over-the-ear design worked great.

The headset also features a microphone that turns on when you flick it down, and off when you flick it up. It may not sound like a big deal, but its a hell of a lot easier than fumbling to find the mute switch between rounds.

The sound quality of the headset is really good, in fact I even picked up some engine noise intricacies in Forza 4 that I hadn’t noticed before. This is likely due to the low noise amplifier built into the X320.

Issues

While the sound quality is solid, there are a few issues with this headset. The first is the connections are overly complex. First there’s the USB cable connection, then there’s the red and white audio pass-through connectors, then there’s the microphone to controller cable. For such a stylish headset, this is a really ineloquent solution. Maybe it’s a technical limitation of the Xbox, but a simply USB cable to carry audio both ways would dramatically simplify the setup.

Like most users, I connect the Xbox 360 via HDMI these days, this means I had to go find the component cable to use these headphones.

The microphone level is adjustable via the in-line control (along with headphone volume and bass boost), but quickly introduce line noise. This is a pretty big flaw in the product, but if you can keep it low and talk louder, you can work around it.

Price

The Sennheiser X320 Xbox gaming headset sells for around A$199. Shop around and you could find it on sale as cheap as $179.

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Overall

There’s no way around it, these are expensive, but as a premium headset its not unexpected. The biggest issue is the limitation of Xbox-only. I tried plugging the X320 into the PC but they do not work as a regular headset. The only way I could swallow $200 for a headset is if I could use them for absolutely everything from the mobile phone to the TV. Sadly these are Xbox-only. There’s a bunch of gaming headsets in this space, so look at other options but if your after audio quality, keep the X320 in mind.

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the flagship phone for Android right now, being the only device shipping with 4.0 on-board.

Hardware

Screen
The device features one of the largest screen sizes we’ve seen on a smartphone, supporting a Super AMOLED 4.65” display running a massive 1280×720 resolution. This screen is clearly made for content consumption, ideal for watching movies on a plane or train. There is one problem with a screen size that large, it takes a lot of battery to power it.

While the phone sounds huge in size, when you get it in your hand, its actually surprisingly manageable. This is likely due to it’s weight, only a measly 135 grams. The whole device is thin as well, with only the slightest tapering out at the bottom its dimensions are 67.94mm wide, 135.5mm tall,  and 8.94mm thick (or thin).

Cameras
The rear camera is 5 megapixel with an LED flash, pretty standard right now. The Galaxy Nexus does also have with continuous auto focus, making it great for shooting objects that are varying distance from your shooting position. Despite being able to fire off photos with almost no shutter lag, you will still need to keep the phone still as blurry photos are still very possible.

The camera can also record 1080p video, which looks gorgeous, particularly when played back on the 4.65” HD display. Naturally with smaller optics, you want good lighting and a stable hand to get the best out of it.

The front facing camera is a 1.3 megapixel standard camera, nothing ground breaking there. It would be great to see some innovation here, its a feature that’s moved from optional, to a requirement, so lets get some more quality up front. Then the photos might actually be useable for more than a postage stamp sized profile photo.

Storage
There’s only one size available, it’s 16GB and isn’t expandable. For most people this won’t be an issue, but enthusiasts with a large number of apps or media collection, this may create a problem.

Performance
Supporting a 1.2Ghz dual-core processor and 1GB RAM, it’s unlikely you’ll come across a phone with higher specs. Paired with Android 4.0, the speed of the device is impressive, although competitors achieve similar speeds with lower specs. The power really comes when delivering intensive 3D games at 1280×720 while running background processes. 

NFC
Also known as Android Beam, near field communication is in the Galaxy Nexus, but there’s not really anyone to test it with. Sharing files, applications will become easier, but will needs a wide proliferation of devices to support this before it is feasible. Some early adopters may have MasterCard PayPass or Visa Paywave setup, but right now, it’s early. There’s always a chicken and egg argument when it comes to new technology like this, so for the negligible cost of including an NFC chip and writing software around it, it’s a welcome inclusion for the future.

Networks
With pretty standard HSPA+/3G/EDGE/GPRS support, the Galaxy Nexus unfortunately can’t take advantage of Telstra’s shiny new high-speed 4G network. There’s also no support for Telstra’s HD voice calling, missing the critical WB-AMR (Wideband Adaptive Multi-Rate) support. The Galaxy Nexus does support Telstra’s HD voice calling, one of the few devices that do.

More info at – http://www.google.com.au/nexus/#/tech-specs

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Software

Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) has been long awaited by Android fans since it was shown off by Google back in October. There’s no carrier or manufacturer skin here, the Galaxy Nexus ships with a pure Google experience. To be honest, there’s really no need for any of them to customise it, Android 4.0 is a solid release. Let’s take a look at what’s new.

Folders
Applications can now be sorted into folders, this works much the same as iOS. Folders can also be docked to one of four positions on the favourites tray. With only 5 home screens available in the default ICS rom, folders will help you load up with a decent catalogue of apps.

Built-in apps
The device ships with a folder of Google apps, these include Maps, Gmail, Calendar, Google+, Music, Market, Talk, YouTube, Navigation and Messenger. This demonstrates the strength of the Google properties, with coverage of almost all core features. Despite these being included out of the box, there is always room for third party apps to innovate and improve on the default offering.

Multi-tasking
With capacitive hardware buttons gone, all operations are now done with software buttons. One of the buttons you quickly become familiar with is the app switching or multi-tasking button. The right-most button of the three displays a really beautiful list of previously run applications. Depending on the app, some of these may be still running, or alternatively paused until your switch back to it. By comparison to both iOS and WP7, this app switcher is the best in the industry right now.

Face unlock
One of the showcase features when ICS was detailed, Face unlock is a gimmick. The biggest problem here is the time taken for the phone to do the analysis and then unlock. The reality is that entering a pin code or swipe gesture is faster. With a task that will be done multiple times per day, fast always wins.

Updates
As a platform, Android 4.0 was supposed to solve the long-running, heavily criticised fragmentation issue, however it seems the issue still remains. The Telstra review unit is still running 4.0.1, despite 4.0.3 being available from Google. It may only contain some additional API changes and bug fixes, but I want the latest release, without delay from carriers.

Panorama stitching
There is a lot of solutions for on-device panorama creation, well thanks for playing, but Google has it under control now. To create a panorama, it’s a simple as firing up the camera app, switch to panorama mode and film left to right, just as if you were shooting video. After a bit of processing, you’ll have your nice landscape panorama. While occasional stitching errors can occur, this is a decent implementation. Like any other photos or videos shot with the phone, your panorama can be shared to your favourite social network right from the app.

Issues

HD app support
With all the extra pixels to play with, you’d expect to see a lot more content fitting on the display. The problem is that most apps are simply scaled up, meaning that you’ll still only see the same number of tweets, Facebook posts or news items. Naturally apps created by Google do support the HD resolution, so the browser, mail and others look fantastic. Over time, some application developers will update their apps to take advantage of the larger screen, but this will take time.

Battery life
Powering a 4.65” display doesn’t come cheap, add to that the power drain of running multiple apps and you start to get an idea of what the battery life is like on the Galaxy Nexus. The short answer is, you’ll struggle to get through a day. The problem exists in most smart phones these days, the more we can do with these pocket computers, the more we use them, the more battery we burn through.

The good news here is that the battery is replaceable, just peel off that flimsy plastic back and insert an extended battery (not included).

Browser
While the techAU website displays fine on most browsers (including older Android browsers) the Android 4.0 browser has a strange issue where the content text in posts was only half the width of the available space. This is by no means an extensive test of websites, but is interesting that it would render a page differently than any other browser, mobile or desktop.

Screen rotation lag
When rotating the device, particularly in the camera / photo apps the delay in response is severe. A pretty basic function, something you’ll likely do multiple times a day, can take a number of seconds to respond. With a dual-core processor, this just shouldn’t happen, there’s really no excuse for it.

Low Audio levels
It seems the speaker in the Galaxy Nexus could have done with some extra dbs. From the music player to incoming calls, the phone on maximum volume isn’t very loud.

Pricing

The Galaxy Nexus I reviewed was from Telstra, which offers the phone from $69pm month +handset repayment on a two year plan. With a phone that begs to be used for media creation and consumption, having good network performance is important. Try uploading a 1080p video on anything else and you’ll want to cry. One thing I was impressed with, was the speed at which multiple applications would download and install simultaneously.

Overall

The Galaxy Nexus is the best Android phone available today. If you’re in the market for an Android phone, this should be your first option. Take a look at the issues section, if none of these really concern you then your set, get the Galaxy Nexus. There is no perfect device, but the Galaxy Nexus is by far the best Android device I’ve used. If your needs dictate that you need something smaller, then wait, Android 4.0 should now be a requirement for your Android purchase.

The Galaxy Nexus stacks up well against competitors and I’d be happy to carry one in my pocket. As for Android, before version 4.0 it was hard for me to recommend Android, but with this release, all the important pieces to a smartphone ecosystem are in place and finally with some design consistency.

More information at http://www.google.com.au/nexus/#/index or buy it from Telstra.

Nothing beats laying back in bed or relaxing on the couch, putting a movie on, and getting warm under the blankets… until you realise you put the wrong movie on or need to adjust the audio. Thus begins the awkward clamour out into the cold lounge or bedroom, fiddling with some knobs, hitting some menus, and once again relaxing.

Well Logitech aims to alleviate the aforementioned problem with the introduction and release of the K400 Wireless Touch Keyboard, a fully wireless keyboard that manages to condense a high quality keyboard and touchpad into one tiny form fitting unit.

Aimed at lounge room and HTPC users, the K400 is a compact and stylish unit, capable of not only controlling all your general media needs, but also navigating your PC at ease thanks to the multi-touch supported 3.5" touchpad and traditional laptop-esque left and right mouse keys. In accoutrement to the wonderful touchpad is a set of well positioned multimedia keys giving you quick and easy access to volume and internet home controls.

Connection and setup is a literal breeze thanks to the included Bluetooth USB receiver which literally plugs in, installs its own Windows drivers, and is then ready to be used. The wireless connection reaches up to ten meters away, more than enough for pretty much every lounge area and bedroom you could have a computer in. Included within the packaging is a set of batteries for the keyboard and the pair of them last up to twelve months, and that’s with extensive use.

The wireless signal is heavily protected thanks to the Swiss-based manufacturers inclusion of critically acclaimed 128-bit AES encryption method.

I found it quite difficult to type on the device at first, primarily due to the fact I am accustomed  to using a full sized gaming keyboard for day to day application. However once I got the hang of typing on the K400, I came to find that the keys were quite responsive and operated flawlessly. While some may not like the small amount of force you need to use to suppress the keys, I like it and the reassurance it offers, as using a keyboard like this on your lap can at times cause problems as it slides around on your lap.

My only gripe and suggestion would be that a thin rubberised surface should be applied to the bottom of the K400, which would then alleviate any minor sliding issues, and allow the keys to have their pressure sensitivity raised slightly.

Thanks to the lightweight unit, well condensed keyboard boasting a full set of pliable keys, and an impressive multi-touch supported touchpad, the Logitech K400 is an easy and high quality recommendation for anyone looking to get a long distance grip on their HTPC from the comfort of their bed, couch, or floor.

The one thing I felt throughout all my experiences of playing Battlefield 3 was that it wasn’t quite sure what game it wanted to be. Rugged multiplayer, huge team battles, and one of the most impressive visual and audio engines in recent time were let down by a generic and half baked single-player campaign dotted with clichés and rehashed storytelling

The story within Battlefield 3 takes a more serious and gritty feel. The narrative of Sergeant James Blackburn is filled with storytelling devices we saw in Call of Duty: Black Ops, almost to the point where it ruins the immersion. WMDs? Yeah. Questionable Russian ally? Yeah. Dimly lit interrogation room? Umm, yes. While there’s definitely a palpable sense of tension throughout the whole single-player element, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.

Admittedly the campaign does have some memorable scenes, namely the whole “Comrades” mission, it should not be seen as anything more than an interactive tutorial into the real Battlefield experience; which is arguably one of the best multiplayer experiences of all time.

From the tracer rounds arcing into the sky in Tehran City to the bullet riddled and echo filled subways of Operation Metro, Battlefield 3’s multiplayer does not run out of jaw dropping moments or fail to show you new tricks. Depending on the game type you play, each map has a select amount of area it will encompass, and this frontline changes throughout the course of your mission. A traditionally huge Conquest map like Caspian Border might only be a quarter of the size during Rush, and vice versa.

The sense of scale in these large and wide open sandbox maps promotes not only exploration, but also variety. Approach the hillside on Caspian Border from the creek, stealthily skulking in the shadows, or this time will you rush up the road in a jeep while your buddy lays suppression fire? You might play each map 100 times but I assure you that each play through will never be the same.

The biggest part of this constant refreshing feel is Battlefield 3’s in-depth progression system. Yes, we’ve seen ranking up to new guns and attachments countless times now, but Battlefield 3 really nails the rate at which you gain access to new weapons.

Soldiers, tanks, helicopters, jets, and even boats have their own unique unlock tier that you’ll always be trying to unlock “one more” piece on. It’s enjoyable, simple, and above all else easy thanks to the ever present team orientated nature of the Battlefield games. Reviving a fallen comrade nets you points, resupplying that Support gunner laying down suppressive fire will net you points, defending flags will net you points. Battlefield caters to how you want to play, and rewards you for doing what you enjoy most.

All of this is made even more amazing by Battlefield 3’s much marketed and anticipated Frostbite 2.0 engine. The lighting effects afforded by this are simply beautiful, and you will never see something else like this somewhere else. While it looks amazing on Ultra PC settings, DICE has also done an impressive job of scaling performance down for console hardware.

From the marvellous vistas to the sparks flying off your vehicle’s hull as bullets impact it, you’ll be visually impressed at every corner. Night-time environments also make an appearance and offer a barren contrast to the more vibrant and animated daytime missions as you fight under dim fluorescent light.

Although I’ve heaped praise amongst Battlefield 3, it’s not without its impurities or glitches, most of which arise with the new engine. Legs clipping through walls, characters rising off the ground and floating, soldiers running across water, and even bouncing hundreds of meters into the air upon death. While these are hilarious to look at, it’s far from the sense of realism and authenticity I’m looking for.

They cause frustration, blame, and most importantly ruin the sense of immersion developers often strive so hard to achieve.

Battlefield 3 is the ultimate first-person shooter and gift of love to Battlefield fans. When you put aside the easily forgettable watered down narrative and occasional glitches, Battlefield 3 offers a top-level multiplayer experience that will not only excite shooter fans, but also keep them happy for years to come.

Rugby Union is big in NSW, but when our Aussies play internationally, it’s something we can all get behind. Wallabies Rugby Challenge has exclusive rights to the Australia and New Zealand teams, setting up the ultimate challenge for the most passionate Union fans from either side of the Tasman.

The 2011 Rugby World Cup is taking place right now in New Zealand, so this timely release should serve fans well. The game is available now in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa (the three biggest Rugby countries) and scheduled for release for the rest of the world on October 14th.

The game features Rugby legend Jonah Lomu and will actually sell under that name Worldwide. The same game in New Zealand is marketed towards All Black Fans. While this may be a costly production exercise, targeting a game to an audience makes a lot of sense and will likely result in higher sales. Just be sure to look for the right title in your region.

Keep in mind there will likely be a zero-day patch if you decide to pick up the game, with developers Sidhe addressing early feedback. You can see a fairly extensive list of notes for the update on the official site.

Graphics
With any action game, when your fully immersed in gameplay, the graphics fade away and you enjoy the experience. On-field the graphics are pretty decent with detailed textures, good crowds and great environments. There is however an issue with the graphical representation of players during the team selection. Players faces suffer from heavy aliasing making them look almost cartoonish rather than photographic.

During matches in the rain, there’s no visual impact on player clothing and cloth simulations as a result of them being wet. With so many players needing to be rendered on the field, this would be a challenging task.

Gameplay
Your mileage with an intricate sport like this will vary based on your experience and knowledge of the game. Fortunately for those less familiar with the code, the game contains a fairly extensive tutorial mode. I strongly advise newbies to run through this before attempting a real match.

There’s a number of game modes including Tutorial Mode, Quick Match, Competition Mode, and multi-year Career Mode for those with seriously too much time on your hands. Locally you can play up to 4 people (2 co-op), but online you can join teams of 8.

At times this game suffers from an issue with camera movement. Switching the 180 degrees from offense and to defense, is one example of where it could have been done in a smoother, less disorienting way.

Check out the video below to see Lomu in a motion capture suits during the development of the game.

Price & Availability
While this review is based on the Xbox 360 version, Wallabies Rugby Challenge is also available on PS3 and PC via Steam. The best price for the game currently is A$89 from JB HiFi, but depending on the retailer you choose it could be $10-$20 more.

Game currently have a special on Rugby World Cup 2011 making the price difference another strike against the game.

Overall
Rugby Union fans will be happy with this game, despite some minor issues. The publishers Tru Blu Entertainment would be smart to continue to service community feedback with patches. This game’s biggest issue isn’t bugs, it is competition. While Wallabies Rugby Challenge is a pretty decent offering you can have a lot of fun with, I suspect most cash strapped gamers will choose Rugby World Cup 2011. While I haven’t reviewed that title, my advice as always is to read and compare multiple reviews so you get the most out of your hard earned (or Centrelink).

The Rugby World Cup only comes around once every 4 years, so its great to see fans having a number of options to choose from. I wish the same could be said about all sports, take V8 Supercars as an example, there hasn’t been a game this generation of consoles.

More information @ rugbychallengegame.com

When it comes to upgrading something in your PC for the most noticeable performance gains, the SSD is probably the best place to start. Traditional platter based hard drives have served the PC masses for years now, but with cheaper production costs and huge technology investments, flash storage is readily becoming the way of the data storage future.

Today techAU puts three consumer Solid State Drives onto the testing bench to find out which offer the biggest gains, and which offers you the best bang for your buck.

Testing Rig:

Motherboard: ASUS M4A89GTD PRO USB3
CPU: AMD Phenom x4 955 Black Edition @ 3.8Ghz
RAM: 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz G-Skill Ripjaws X (9-9-9-24)
GPU: GTX 580 (1.5GB)

Note: All drives were benchmarked as is, out of the box.

Testing Programs:

AS SSD – 1.6.4237.30508
ATTO Disk Benchmark – 2.47
HD Tune Pro – 4.61
CrystalDiskMark – 3.0.1

Competing alongside each other today we have the 60GB OCZ Vertex 2, a small sized drive with an affordable price. The 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS drive, a mid-level drive with blistering random performance. And finally we have the 256GB Crucial m4 SSD, one of the most powerful SSD’s on the market offering blazing speeds and large space.

All three drives were wiped before having Windows 7 64 bit install on them. We then took the drives through a series of tests and benchmarks using common tools, the data and results of which have been provided below for review.

Test One: AS SSD

A common tool used to benchmark traditional Solid State Drives as well as having the ability to benchmark other drives and devices, AS SSD is a great piece of software. We ran all three drives through AS SSD’s extensive tests and compiled the raw data into easy to read graphs.

The sequential read and write test of AS SSD provides valuable information into the writing and reading mechanics of any drive. How fast the drive can write large amounts of data reflects how suitable the drive may be for tasks such as video rendering that reward faster dumps.

The Vertex 3 took first place with its impressive 474 MB/s read speeds however it then failed to trump the Crucial m4 when it came to writing, with the m4 pushing an impressive 258 MB/s. The Vertex 2 never stood a chance against the other two enthusiast drives, offering a dismal 55 MB/s write speed, a tiny 33.31% in comparison to the Vertex 3.

The 4K-64 Thrd read and write tests give us an insight into the SSD’s ability to load programs, and fast. So if you had a program that needs to load 80MB into RAM, and your 4k-64 result is 80MB/s, it would take two seconds to load said program.

I was quite surprised to find that the Vertex 3 didn’t wipe the slate, managing to only just beat the m4 in read speeds, yet being left in the dust when it came to writes. The Crucial m4 put up 154.4 MB/s and 201.77 MB/s in read and write respectively, with the Vertex 3 managing 175.79 MB/s and 161.74 MB/s.

The lower end Vertex 2 once again performed poorly, however its low storage and speed caps are sure to be throttling it.

The titular access time test does exactly that, test how quickly AS SSD can access the read and write functions of your drive. The Crucial m4 came out way ahead of both drives in the read section, posting an impressive 0.076 millisecond access time. The Vertex 3 didn’t perform nearly as well as I thought it would, yet still managed to post some impressive figures.

It’s also worth noting that the Vertex 2 beat the Vertex 3 in both read and write, albeit only by possible luck on the write.

German flag colouring aside, the AS SSD Overall Score test provides a final representative score that depicts the total performance of each drive.

Not surprisingly the Crucial m4 shot out ahead over the Vertex 3 in the write department, thanks to the impressive 258 MB/s write speeds we saw earlier.

The Vertex 3 however gained a leg up over the m4 thanks to its great reads, yet still fell three points short of winning the bout. The Vertex 2 due to its minimal performance, only managed close to 50% of what the other drives ended up getting.

Test Two: ATTO Disk Benchmark

ATTO Disk Benchmark (ATTO from here on out) is one of the most reliable disk storage benchmarking tools available. The freeware tool is widely accepted across the internet for providing accurate figures and results.

OCZ Vertex 2 60GB

The Vertex 2 provided mixed to average results, but reached its full stride towards the end of the ATTO testing.

With max reads of 281MB/s at both the 2 and 4k tests, the drive can perform in the right circumstances however these aren’t indicative of the overall experience.

Write speeds were slightly below the reads, with a max of 258MB/s, once again in the ideal circumstances that ATTO provides.

Crucial m4 256GB

The Crucial m4 put out impressive speeds during both read and write tests throughout the ATTO leg of our review.

Peaking at almost 460MB/s of write, and 279MB/s of read during the 2k test,  Crucial’s drive produced high end results from this high end drive.

Something slightly concerning was the performance of the previous drive, the Vertex 2, in comparison to the Crucial. During the 2k test the Vertex 2 managed a maximum read of 281MB/s, 2MB/s over the performance of the significantly higher priced and technology filled m4.

OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 120GB

The OCZ Vertex 3 provided the best results out of our three-way review, both in write and read speeds within ATTO’s testing procedures.

A whopping 556MB/s read result at the 2k mark was accompanied by a 460MB/s write result, making for quite an impressive show of brute force and hardware results across the board.

In addition to the already high and impressive results listed, we also saw a read of 473MB/s.

Test Three: HD Tune Pro

We used HD Tune Pro in our testing to determine a number of factors in the read only divison. Firstly, the program shows the IOPS performance of the drive on both the 512 bytes level, the 1 MB level and when used in a random fashion. We were then able to find out the average speed of the drive across all three size levels, as well as the access time.

Crucial m4 256GB

The Crucial put out impressive results, and strangely enough, listed a higher IOPS rating than the Vertex 3 and its Max IOPS model. The speeds we saw across the board were conclusive as to what we’ve seen earlier in the review, providing not only consistent evidence, but also proving that the m4 has the goods.

Vertex 3 120GB Max IOPS

As I mentioned in the results for the Crucial, the Max IOPS drive failed to list higher speed results despite its branding. The Crucial walked all over the Vertex 3 in all categories, despite the Vertex besting the previous drive earlier in the review.

Vertex 2 60GB

Finally in our results we have the 60GB Vertex 2, my personal drive of the last few months. Offering a low entry price and decent performance over a traditional drive, the results spoke in terms of the “Get what you pay for” ethos.

The Vertex 2 did manage to list a higher IOPS rating than its Vertex 3 cousin, however failed to show any other large results.

Test Four: CrystalDiskMark

CrystalDiskMark is the final program used for our review, and provides a swathe of results similar to that seen in AS SSD. Testing the drives across a number of fronts, CrystalDiskMark (CDM from here) is another comprehensive and widely recognised testing platform.

The sequential read and write test in CDM is identical to the one exhibited in AS SSD, and the results are similar, too. Once again the Vertex 3 came out on top with the Crucial falling behind by almost 100MB/s in the read category.

The Vertex 2 posted an extra 10MB/s in the write category however it did not make any gains in the read section.

The 512k test of CDM shows each drives performance at writing data in 512k blocks, which not only offers real world insights, but also shows us valuable data you can use when purchasing an SSD.

The Vertex 3 once again took the lead with almost 110MB/s read difference over the Crucial m4, however it was almost trumped by 85MB/s when it came to writing speeds. The Vertex 2 managed dismal results in the write section, only offering 48MB/s of performance in our test.

The 4k test, as with the 512k test, shows writing and reading performance to the drives but with tiny small file sizes.

For a change, the Crucial m4 out wrote the Vertex 3, albeit only slightly, and the Vertex 3 out read the Crucial m4. The Vertex 2 for the first time in our testing also managed to keep up with the pack falling less than 1MB/s behind the m4 in the read division.

Conclusion

Vertex 2 – Offering decent performance over a traditional platter based hard drive, the Vertex 2 60GB model is available at a discount price and is almost an essential product to any system. Although it failed to keep up with the higher end and more expensive drives, it still posted impressive speeds for its price and will please any low end user.

Vertex 3 – The Vertex 3 is an incredible drive, both in price and results. Consistent performance and high end speeds were met by fierce competition courtesy of the Crucial m4 however this drive still managed to break away by up to 100MB/s at some points. If you’re looking for the most powerful bootdrive you can purchase, both in bang for your buck and speed, the Vertex 3 120GB Max IOPS drive is it.

Crucial m4 – The Crucial m4 256GB model is one of the best Solid State Drives I have had the pleasure of both using and testing, for not only its SSD technology but also its storage size. Offering consistently high results and performance, the only thing letting this drive down is its high price point and significantly lower reads and writes when compared to the Vertex 3.

When it comes to televisions, consumers have been less than enthusiastic in embracing 3D, that hasn’t stopped LG from creating a 3D SmartPhone. The 4.3” device has dual-cameras for taking 3D photos and video and a glasses-free 3D screen to display them. Powered by dual-core processer and running Android 2.2, the phone is fast and features solid build quality.

3D

Not only can you create 3D content on the phone, but you can also watch 3D videos from online sources like YouTube 3D. Of course if your creating content in 3D, your going to want to share that content to YouTube, you can. The problem here of course is that your friends need a 3D enabled screen to view your creations.

Not everyone’s eyes will react to the 3D display in the same way, so LG has provided an on-screen adjustment. Similar to that of Nintendo’s 3DS hardware slider, it adjusts the distance between the two images. Everyone I showed the device to needed a different setting.

It is impressive how well the 3D works without glasses, but viewing angles are incredibly limited. Some situations work better than others. Longer depth photos with objects at different distances works best. Taking 3D photos of a flat surface like a wall is next to useless, just use the 2D option.

3D Gaming on the LG Optimus works well to become a great option for those consumers looking to avoid carrying both a phone and a 3DS. Only problem here is the number of 3D enabled games available is fairly limited.

Cameras

One of the largest photo sharing sites on the internet, Facebook is yet to support 3D, so sharing there or even Flickr isn’t an option, at least not in 3D. Remember you can turn it off and use the phone as a standard 2D camera. At 5 megapixels, the camera sounds good on paper, however compared to the lower megapixel count of the iPhone 4, it doesn’t bear well for the LG. Light exposure is difficult to get right, particularly when your setting exposure levels manually. It’s hard to ignore the HDR feature of other devices and just how much of a difference that makes.

Operating System

The phone frustratingly still ships with Android 2.2 (Froyo) and while LG have committed to updating it to 2.3 (Gingerbread) there’s no official date. It’s ridiculous that phones are still shipping with 2.2 when Android 2.3 has been available to them for such a long time now. Even worse is the prospect of getting future updates.

Availability

The LG Optimus 3D is exclusive to Optus for $0 upfront on a $59 plan or outright for RRP $799. Why device manufacturers continue to lock devices to a specific carrier I will never understand. Sure, there may be an up-front financial incentive from the carrier to get an exclusive, but this significantly limits potential sales. Telstra is Australia’s largest and fastest mobile network provider and to exclude yourself from that market seems like a seriously short-sighted business decision.

Overall

Overall this phone’s biggest feature is 3D, on a hole I felt it was a unnecessary novelty. LG is by no means, the only smartphone manufacturer integrating 3D into their device. If you can forget about the 3D part of this phone, it’s actually a solid device, however the OS issue is something that needs to be resolved.

LG are currently running a competition to giveaway an LG Optimus 3D, just make sure your quick, as it closes tomorrow.

The Toshiba R850 laptop is marketed as a thin, light desktop replacement, so how does it stack up in reality. The R850 weighs in at 2.40kg, impressive for a 15” laptop, while the chassis feels strong and high build quality. Performance wise, the 2.5 Ghz Core i5 feels snappy, but one can’t help but think an SSD would have tipped it over the edge.

While most review units go back after 2 weeks, I asked Toshiba to keep it longer, to seriously test battery life in the real world. They say you can get up to 10 hours battery life, impressive.. if only it was true. I took the R850 on the road to CeBit and Remix conferences, emulating what a business laptop may be used for. In my experience, the R850 averaged 5-6 hours between charges.

Toshiba provide a customised Windows 7 power mode called ‘Eco’ which turns off area glass effects and no doubt restricts hard drive and processor performance to save power. Don’t get me wrong, 5-6 hours is actually pretty decent for a laptop this size and powerful, much better than the 1-2 hours most of us are used to, but just understand you won’t get 10 hours with real use. 

Being part of the Toshiba R800 range means the R850 comes with Intel’s AMT 7.0 technology which enable your IT departments to manage, diagnose, isolate and repair a notebook remotely, regardless of the power state. It also comes with a dock underneath so you can work during the day, then take it home at night and keep working. With Display Port and USB3.0 connectivity, you can connect multiple external displays, so yes, this could replace some desktop systems.

Security is catered for with a fingerprint reader positioned between the left and right trackpad buttons, as well as facial recognition using the in-built webcam. Using the fingerprint reader to logon to Windows works well and in crowded environments rather not type out my passwords in front of peering eyes. The facial recognition wasn’t anywhere near successful and I ended up turning it off.

Specs / Features

Processor: Intel® Core i5 Processor 2520M (2.5 GHz boost up to 3.2 GHz)
RAM: 4GB DDR3 (1333MHz)
Display: 15.6” widescreen, LED backlit (1366×768 res)
HDD: 320GB (5400rpm)
Ports: 1 x USB 2.0, + 1 x USB 3.0, eSATA, VGA, Display Port
Slots: 1x PCI Express Card, SD card reader
Networking: Bluetooth 3.0, 802.11 a/g/n, 1GB Ethernet.
Weight: 2.40kg

Gallery

Price

RRP $1,485-$3,300 inc GST

Overall

There’s no doubt the Toshiba R850 is a solid laptop that I’d have no trouble recommending. With great built quality, impressive lightness, good performance and reasonable pricing, it’s certainly worth considering for you next work/play/combination laptop. Personally travelling in planes semi-regular means that 15” is just too big and the relatively low resolution is certainly an issue. If your Dell or HP person, take a second to think before buying next time and consider the Toshiba R850.

More information @ Toshiba

Its been a big week in the browser wars with Pwn2Own comp showing up various security holes and IE9’s release landing 2.35M downloads in 24hrs. The often forgotten about browser – Opera wants to join the party. Today they have released a beta of their latest offering, Opera 11.

Opera’s biggest issue isn’t that its bad, but rather just not different enough. Changing people from the default is incredibly difficult, but not undoable, after all Firefox and Chrome stole a massive chunk of market share from IE. So is Opera 11 different enough to finally gain some traction and be part of the browser conversation ?

Performance
While browser launch times are super fast, very similar to IE9 or Chrome 10, page load times do seem slower. There is a loading elements indicator in the address bar, so you get a sense of how much is loaded, still it’d be better not to see this at all.

User Interface

Speed Dial
A brand new tab page in Opera 11 showcases your favourite sites in thumbnails. The Speed Dial page is available when you create a new Tab. This is similar to IE’s about:tabs page that displays your most popular sites. Opera’s however actually goes a step further and collects thumbnails (periodically updating) to easily distinguish one site from another.

New Menu
Almost Office-inspired, Opera 11 throws its menu into a drop down rather than a menu bar across the top of the browser. This saves on precious vertical pixels while still providing access to all the options.

Jump List support
True support for Windows 7 Jump Lists in Opera 11, your Speed Dial (favourite sites) are available.

Widget + Extensions
A Firefox like plugin / widget architecture is also included in Opera. There’s actually a decent selection to choose from, but don’t get carried away, they’re bound to impact performance at some point.

Opera Link!
A feature also available in Google Chrome is syncing favourites and settings between browsers on difference computers. Opera Link! is Opera’s title for it, but ultimately it works the same as Chrome. IE needs to add this feature.

Private Browsing
That only ‘shopping’ may need to be hidden from time to time, so Private browsing is now something we expect from a modern browser.. check Opera 11 has it.

Tear off tabs
Viewing 2 browser windows side-by-side is something online users do multiple times a day. This is now a MUST have feature in a browser.

Format support
Future web formats are supported by Opera 11 so all your favourite sites that use HTML5 and CSS3 will work great.

Overall
Opera 11 is a really solid browser, it ticks all the boxes in what we expect from a modern browser. Unfortunately it still, even at version 11 contains enough difference to make people switch browsers. Try again Opera, be bold with v12.

This Christmas I bought my parents a TV from Kogan. For those of you unfamiliar with the brand, Kogan is the Australian online-only, manufacturer direct to consumer, cost saving, new kid on the block in the electronics market. In terms of TVs, they approach existing manufacturers in China making sets for big name companies like Samsung and order some with Kogan branding.

Shipping direct to consumers cuts out 2 arms of the chain – wholesaler and retailer, which both add their margins on, making the overall cost higher. In consumers electronics, brands often play the race to the bottom on prices, Kogans’ approach allows them to create good quality products while delivering really low prices.

Gallery

Design
The set looks pretty nice, actually better than it does in press shots (above). The glossy piano black finish surrounds the 40” screen and while the bezel is thick (around 1.5”), I actually like that, having black surround the display makes the colours pop. The speaker below the screen is actually quite decent and actually very loud. Most of the time the volume has been set at 5, in a quiet environment, even the lowest setting – 1 is loud enough. The volume scale is out of 100, but don’t try it on max unless you feel like bleeding from your ears.

Quality
The video quality of the Kogan is actually quite impressive. While I don’t think its the best 1080p video I’ve seen, its certainly very good. There’s the occasional compression artefact, fast paced movement never blurred, likely thanks to that 100Hz refresh rate. Colours looked great, although I’d recommend the mild setting for the best black levels. 

Setup
Given this TV was for my parents, setup needed to be simply, and it was. Connect up the antenna, power and switch it on. As with most TVs these days, the auto-setup wizard takes you through tunning automatically, so naturally that’s a breeze. For some reason we’re still shipping analogue tuners in TVs today, so just skip past that. Once it complete, your all set, ready to watch over the air, high definitely Freeview.  

Connectivity
All your standard connections are included on this TV – 2xHDMI, VGA, USB, 2x Component, 2xAV. The annoying part is that none of these connections are available on the side. This means you’ve got two choices when connecting devices. The first is to pull your TV out from the unit while awkwardly plugging in each device – not a good solution. The second is to connect extension cables that can be accessed more easily. Ultimately the seemingly simply task of viewing pictures on a USB thumb drive becomes a real hassle.

OSD
The on-screen display for Kogan is quite simple, but clean and decent quality. One of my frustrations with some OSD is that despite being a HD set, they can look terrible. Kogan does a good job, using a up, down, left, right control scheme with a rotating circular menu. Importantly its easy to use and while your configuration options aren’t exactly a lengthy list, the standard options are there.

Buying a TV online
This is the first product I’ve bought from Kogan and after going through the experience and using the device, I’d definitely be comfortable in doing it in the future. After buying the TV online on Sunday, on Tuesday afternoon it arrived. The scary part of making a TV purchase online, or anything of significant value online is clearly the fear that your buying something you haven’t seen or touched. We’re so programmed by years of buying products in-store that its actually requires quite a mental shift to allow yourself overcome that initial emotion and fear.

In reality, when you break down what your actually looking at in-store, your very rarely seeing the experience that you’ll get in your house. First of all, in-store lighting is completely different to the lighting in your house. Second of all, TVs in-store are configured in a way that has all the brightness, colour and pretty much everything else cranked to high. In reality, this is not how your TV will run at home.

Remote
Some remotes are amazingly terrible to use, so bad that it seems nobody actually used it before it shipped. Fortunately Kogan’s remote doesn’t fall into that category. The remote has a good feel in the hand, comfortable access to the most commonly used features of volume, channels and source input. The only downside is the EPG is buried in the tiny buttons at the bottom of the remote. Given that guide is a button used everyday, it should have more prevalence. Batteries are included.

Manual
Something to be aware of is that Kogan does not ship any manual or warranty information with the device. There’s actually no documentation or paper at all, shocking hey. Welcome to the future people, the days of distributing this content in dead tree format is going away. While some products scale back on the amount included and point to online for more information, Kogan are going the whole way. Kogan Manuals are available from http://www.kogan.com.au/manuals.

Overall
As I mentioned at the start, I’m actually really happy with the Kogan 40” 100Hz TV, with the lack of side inputs being the biggest complaint. If you can deal with that, you definitely should consider Kogan when making your next TV purchase. At $649, the TV is great value for money for those who are budget conscious.

More info @ Kogan