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All we really knew about Fujifilm's FinePix X100 was that its looks (and pricetag) could kill, but Photography Blog has discovered that the gorgeous magnesium machine takes fantastic photographs too. You won't actually be able to see any of them at this very moment -- as it seems the website's images are down -- but the publication liberally praised the sharpness and lack of noise afforded by that F2 Fujinon lens, calling the X100 "right up there with the best APS-C sensor cameras on the market" in terms of image quality, and with "the best build quality of any camera that we've ever tested," too. Strong words, to be sure, but the camera's not without its quirks, including an obvious one -- that 23mm lens is fixed to the camera's front. Without a zoom, you'll need to get up close and personal with your subjects to get that perfect shot, and yet it also lacks a mechanical focus ring (it's a focus-by-wire affair here), which can make it difficult to quickly get your bokeh on. The publication remarks that both autofocus and manual focus are fairly slow, there's no manual option at all when recording videos, and focusing macro shots requires switching to a separate mode that switches off the the optical viewfinder. Still, if you weren't sold at first sight, you probably are now. Kiss your tax refund goodbye, folks -- it's been spoken for.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Fujifilm FinePix X100 reviewed: a stunning shooter through and through originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It wasn't that long ago that we were commending ATI on the stellar regularity of its product launches while NVIDIA was floundering, yet now the roles are reversed and we're seeing NVIDIA flesh out its second generation of Fermi products with the midrange GeForce GTX 550 Ti presented today. Its biggest attraction is a $150 price tag, but it makes a major concession in order to reach that pricing plateau -- there are only 192 CUDA cores inside it, equal to the previous-gen GTS 450, but less than the celebrated GTX 460. NVIDIA tries to ameliorate that shortage of parallel processing units by running the ones it has at an aggressive 1800MHz allied to a 900MHz graphics clock speed, and it also throws in a gigabyte of RAM running at an effective rate of 4GHz. That too is constrained somewhat, however, by a 192-bit interface, rather than the wider 256-bit affair on its bigger brother GTX 560 Ti. What all these specs boil down is some decent performance, but few recommendations from reviewers -- mostly due to the abundance of compelling alternatives at nearby price points. Hit up the links below for more.

Read - AnandTech
Read - Tech Report
Read - Guru3D
Read - PC Perspective
Read - techPowerUp!
Read - Hexus

NVIDIA sends GeForce GTX 550 Ti into the $150 graphics card wars originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Mar 2011 09:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We're still waiting for someone to one-up Google Maps Navigation, but until that fateful day shines down upon us, it looks as if we'll have to once again point our attention to El Goog. Google Maps has just been updated to version 5.2, with three main additions to focus on. For one, the new edition allows users to tweet their reviews of places and share recommendations with Hotpot friends. Next up, there's Latitude pinging, which enables you to send a quick message to a nearby Latitude friend rather than having to use a text or call; they'll receive an Android notification from you asking them to check in at a place, and when they check in using your request, you'll get a notification right back so you know which place to go to meet up with them. Finally, a new 'Search More Places' button has been added under the standard list of places to check in at, which ought to prove helpful in highly congested cities with multiple places stacked atop one another. Hit that Android Market link below to get your update going, and if you're fixing to use that new ping feature, you and your friends will need v5.2 (or higher, if you're reading this in the year 2043).

Google Maps routes itself to v5.2, gets hotpot tweets, Latitude 'pings' and better search results originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We're becoming somewhat repetitive in our writing about SSDs -- every next one is that extra little bit faster or better and the crown just keeps exchanging hands -- but we couldn't be happier for it. Solid state storage is still one of the most exciting and rapidly developing areas of modern technology, a fact evidenced perfectly by the recent introduction of OCZ's Vertex 3 Pro drive. It touts a mad 550MBps maximum read and 500MBps maximum write speeds, mostly thanks to the brand spanking new SandForce SF-2500 controller chip it has onboard. It's been put through the benchmarking wringer by a number of sites today and the resulting conclusion has been lucid and unequivocal: the Vertex 3 Pro is the new champion among standalone 2.5-inch SSDs. AnandTech goes so far as to say it's "the first drive that really needs a 6Gbps interface." The V3Pro isn't yet on sale and the hardware looked at it in these previews was not final, but the next generation of SSDs looks to be keeping the breakneck pace of development that's characterized the storage medium so far. Lovely!

OCZ Vertex 3 Pro hits the test bench, sets the new single-drive speed benchmark at 550MBps originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Feb 2011 12:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  AnandTech, Hot Hardware, Legit Reviews, PC Perspective  | Email this | Comments

We're becoming somewhat repetitive in our writing about SSDs -- every next one is that extra little bit faster or better and the crown just keeps exchanging hands -- but we couldn't be happier for it. Solid state storage is still one of the most exciting and rapidly developing areas of modern technology, a fact evidenced perfectly by the recent introduction of OCZ's Vertex 3 Pro drive. It touts a mad 550MBps maximum read and 500MBps maximum write speeds, mostly thanks to the brand spanking new SandForce SF-2500 controller chip it has onboard. It's been put through the benchmarking wringer by a number of sites today and the resulting conclusion has been lucid and unequivocal: the Vertex 3 Pro is the new champion among standalone 2.5-inch SSDs. AnandTech goes so far as to say it's "the first drive that really needs a 6Gbps interface." The V3Pro isn't yet on sale and the hardware looked at it in these previews was not final, but the next generation of SSDs looks to be keeping the breakneck pace of development that's characterized the storage medium so far. Lovely!

OCZ Vertex 3 Pro hits the test bench, sets the new single-drive speed benchmark at 550MBps originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Feb 2011 12:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  AnandTech, Hot Hardware, Legit Reviews, PC Perspective  | Email this | Comments