Hardware Archive

Chairman Insists that Dell’s Troubles Are Short-Term Setbacks

Hardware 8 Comments
You would have thought, in view of the week's events, that Michael Dell would show up at a greet-the-folks gathering here Friday looking like some whiter shade of pale. Not a bit: Appearing in a packed hotel ballroom during a brief stopover, the founder and chairman of the computer maker Dell seemed to glow a sort of sun-drenched pink as he defended his company and his actions. "There are a number of things a company might do in this situation - run and hide, wait for the regulators or claim it's not a problem," Dell told an audience convened by the local chamber of commerce. "We've exercised an abundance of caution. Beyond all the hysteria, we're doing the right thing for our customers, and they'll appreciate it in the long run."
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Quad-Core Race Heats up

Hardware 18 Comments
Ars' Hannibal takes a look at the announcements concerning quad-core processors from Intel and AMD. "The past few days have seen a burst of quad-core-related news items from both AMD and Intel. In this post, I'll take a look at announcements from both companies and try to put them in the larger context of the Intel-AMD rivalry." He concludes by saying: "This is a tough one to call, but don't expect a blow-out on either end. Also, the performance of the K8L core is the big wildcard, since it could go either way."
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Dell To Announce Massive Laptop Battery Recall

  Submitted by DigitalDame Hardware 4 Comments
Dell plans to announce a voluntary recall of 4.1 million lithium-ion batteries used within its laptops because the batteries could overheat, prompting a risk of fire. The batteries, manufactured by Sony, were found in 25 Dell laptops and eight Dell 'mobile workstation'-class notebook PCs. Dellbatteryprogram.com provides instructions on how to determine whether a notebook battery was affected by the recall, and if so, how to ship it back.
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Mercury Plans Cell-Based Accelerator Card

Hardware 12 Comments
Mercury Computer Systems announced a USD 7999 accelerator card Tuesday that uses the Cell Broadband Engine processor that plugs into a computer's PCI slot. The Cell Accelerator Board, which will be generally available in the first quarter of 2007, can speed tasks such as signal processing or image rendering, Mercury said in an announcement at the Siggraph computer graphics show.
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Dell Knew Of Dozen Burned Laptops Before Recall, Records Show

Hardware 8 Comments
Dell grappled with apparently severe overheating problems in scores of notebooks for at least two years before it announced a recall of 22000 notebooks last year, according to a source close to the company. The source allowed CRN to review documentation of investigations into the notebook problems, and the source said that documentation was supplied to Dell executives. The evidence, which included photographs of damaged notebooks, came to light in the wake of reports of one Dell notebook exploding in front of cameras during a conference in Japan.
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Review: Alienware Aurora 7500

  Submitted by anonymous Hardware 17 Comments
XYZComputing reviews the Alienware Aurora 7500. They find that "Alienware delivered what they promised they would, an all-out gaming computer which would be perfect for computer building novices and experts alike. The system's build quality, component choices, and performance were all up to our expectations. While Alienware was able to build a great computer, it was an expensive acquisition. At over USD 3200 dollars, one would expect a very capable gaming computer with a lot of extras. The Aurora ended up not only being very quiet for a system at its performance level, but also one which was easy to work with and fun to use.
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Review: Dell Inpsiron e1405

Hardware 24 Comments
Ars reviews the Dell Inspiron e1405-- a Core Duo laptop priced at USD 800. It concludes: "Taken for what it is, the Dell e1405 performed well in our testing. It's suited to general-purpose use of all kinds, but its integrated video will leave gamers cold and its all-plastic construction might keep true aesthetes at a distance. Still, for general use, it's not clear what others features could possibly be expected at this price point, and the machine is especially recommended to those who need power on a budget."
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Review: Das Keyboard II

  Submitted by anonymous Hardware 45 Comments
"Recently I had a chance to spend some time with the second version of the Das Keyboard. While this product is still plain black like its predecessor, a number of other changes were made in order to get it more in line with what consumers are looking for from an elite keyboard. The Das Keyboard is designed for power users who have the layout of a traditional keyboard memorized and interested in doing two things- increasing their typing speed and impressing their coworkers."
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Western Digital Agrees to Class Action Settlement

  Submitted by luna6 Hardware 23 Comments
"Western Digital has settled a class action lawsuit concerning the deceptive labeling of their hard drives. The problem occured when consumers bought hard drives with a stated capacity. As an example, let’s say you purchased a Western Digital 250 gigabyte hard drive. After you install the drive into your computer, you will notice that the drive size has become 231 gigabytes. The reason for this is that Western Digital, along with most hard drive manufacturers, calculates the storage capacity of their hard drives using the decimal system. This in contrast to virtually all operating systems that calculates the capacity of the hard drives with the binary system. As hard drives become larger, this discrepancy grows larger."
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USD100 Laptop Project Is ‘Fundamentally Flawed’

Hardware 73 Comments
The One Laptop per Child scheme is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the history of the IT industry, according to Tony Roberts, chief executive and founder of UK charity Computer Aid International. Speaking to ZDNet UK last week, Roberts claimed that although he would be delighted if the OLPC scheme proved a success, he had severe reservations about the strategy underpinning the project.
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