Tag: Comparison
VIDEO: BlackBerry PlayBook vs Apple iPad in browser battle
The gloves are most definately off in the battle of the tablets now, as RIM prepare to launch their BlackBerry PlayBook device with this side-by-side comparison against Apple's iPad. Showing off Flash support, interesting HTML5 facts and Javascript details,…
TweetDeck versus Seesmic: battle of the Twitter apps
TweetDeck and Seesmic are desktop clients designed to make communicating on Twitter and managing your accounts easier.
Here they go, head to head: TweetDeck version 0.26 versus Seesmic version 0.4.
Look & Feel
Both TweetDeck and Seesmic are built using the Adobe AIR platform, and have a similar look and feel.
Seemsic appears to have more subtleties designed to make it easier to decipher tweets from multiple accounts at once, yet neither application is hugely customisable when it comes to the overall look.
If you only run a single Twitter account then seeing how applications handle multiple accounts won’t matter to you, but if you’re a “power user” handling two or more active accounts, you’ll find Seesmic offers more options for handling them.
Both applications let you view columns for each account’s tweets, replies, direct messages and so on, but Seesmic also allows you to view a single stream of messages from all your accounts at once, ordered by the time tweets arrive.
Whether this works for you depends on how you like to view accounts, but at least you have the option. TweetDeck (currently) doesn’t offer this.
APP OFF! App Store vs Ovi vs App World vs Android Market
As part of this week’s App Store birthday extravaganza, I thought it might be an idea to compare what Apple has put together with all the different mobile program delivery platforms out there.
I may have described the iPhone service as a pile of novelty nonsense – you can throw your rotten fruit and broken 2007 iPhones at me later – but how does it measure up against its peers – BlackBerry’s App World, Nokia’s Ovi and the Android Market?
Click on the image below to start the tour
Guide: The difference between SSDs and HDDs
This guide outlines the main differences between solid state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs).
There are two major types of SSD in current production — NAND and DRAM. This guide focuses on the more common one: NAND.
It’s worth noting that advances are being made all the time on both types of drive and that these differences are generalisations. Individual performance will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.
1. Speed
Most solid state drives, except ones made using cheaper components, are significantly faster at reading data than a hard drive.
This is because there are no moving mechanical parts on a SSD and so the “seek time” is significantly reduced. Incidentally, DRAM drives are faster still.
Writing large files is also generally quicker on a SSD, though at present there are often performance problems when trying to write a lot of small files to a SSD. It’s possible to overcome this through improved system design.
In general, though, SSDs are faster than HDDs.
(PS: SSDs are generally quieter than HDDs because they don’t have any moving parts and are usually fanless)
Alienware versus Predator: top spec gaming desktop PCs go head-to-head
It’s time to put two maxed-out gaming PCs to the test — the best Alienware versus the best Acer.
Here’s a raw specs comparison for a top-of-the-range Alienware ALX X-58 and Predator Crusader II. Which one will cut it as the ultimate gaming PC?
| Alienware ALX X-58 | Predator Conquerer II | |
| Processor: | Overclocked Intel® Core™ i7 Extreme 3.86GHz 8MB Cache | Intel Core i7-965 3.2GHz 8MB Cache |
| Graphics: | Dual 1792MB NIVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 with Optional Ageia PhysX Physics Processing Unit | 2* Nvidia® GeForce® 2* GTX 285 + Nvidia® nForce® 780i SLI (3 way SLI) 2* 896MB VRAM |
| Audio: | 7.1-channel audio + Sound Blaster X-Fi High Definition Surround Sound Audio | High Definition (7.1) channel audio support + Dolby Home Theatre audio enhancement + Creative EAX 4.0 support |
| Memory: | 12GB Triple Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz | 12GB DDR2 1066MHz SDRAM |
| Storage: | 2x256GB SSD + 1.0 TB SATA 3Gb/s 7200 RPM | 2* 1TB SATA Hard Disk Drives & 1* 150GB WD Raptor® Drives |
| Optical drives: | 4x Dual Layer Blu-ray Burner | BD Burner + SuperMulti burner |
| Other connections: | 8xUSB 2.0, 2xFireWire, 1xESATA, 2xheadphones, 2xmicrophone, 1xEthernet | 9xUSB 2.0, 1xFireWire, S/PDIF, 2xEthernet, 18-in-1 memory card reader, 1xline out, 1xmicrophone |
| Cooling: | AlienIce™ 3.0 high-performance cooling | Liquid Cooling on the CPU |
| Other: | Customisable lighting, acoustic dampening, Killer Xeno Pro networking card, Alienware TactX Headset | |
| Guide price: | £5,353.25 | £3,999.99 |
LG Viewty Lite versus LG Viewty II (Smart)
The LG Viewty II (Smart) is due out in the UK next month, but the original LG Viewty – now dubbed the LG Viewty Lite – is still a capable and popular phone.
Which one’s best? There’s only one way to find out…
Hang on, we can’t make two mobile phones fight each other, so instead here’s a rundown of each handset’s main features…
UK Satellite TV Comparison Guide: Sky versus Freesat
Two services that require you to stick a satellite dish to the side of your house.
One has been around for two decades, the other has just celebrated its first birthday.
Both will demand an upfront payment: one will continue to drain money from your bank account each month.
So which is best? Read our comparison guide to see if you should go with coming-of-age Sky or new-kid-on-the-block Freesat.
Read on to find out…
iPod touch vs Sony Walkman X Series vs Samsung P3
Intro
Apple’s iPod touch has some serious rivals in the form of the Sony Walkman X Series and Samsung P3 PMPs.
Which one stacks up as the best for music, video, and all round appeal? Read on as the Tech Digest guide pits these mighty touchscreen handsets against one another.
Battle of the Specs: Feature Comparison
Let’s leave aside fanboy love for Apple and Sony (does Samsung have fanboys too? I’m not sure) and take a look at how the main features stack up.
This is top-of-the-line stuff. If you want detailed specifications you’d better skip to the end of the page.
Display
For pure real estate, the iPod touch trumps both the Walkman X Series and the P3, with a 3.5-inch display compared to just 3-inch for the others.
However, when it comes to aspect ratio, the Samsung’s screen is 16:9 — perfectly suited for widescreen video — whereas the Sony has a rather bizarre 9:5 aspect ratio and the touch 3:2.
That means, in raw resolution terms, the touch (480 x 320) trumps the P3 (480 x 272) which trumps the X Series (432 x 240).
Having said all that, Sony’s screen is based on OLED technology for a much brighter, crisper display than the other two handsets…
Nintendo DSi vs Sony PSP Go!
This morning we got some details on the the Sony PSP2, which they now seem to be calling the “PSP Go!”. I thought it’d be interesting to compare and contrast it with the Nintendo DSi, which is by far Sony’s greatest competition in the handheld market.
Storage
Sony’s completely dumping the UMD format, after it’s been such a massive flop. The new PSP will instead have plenty of storage onboard – 16GB or 8GB, and let you download content to the device over the air.
The DSi still relies on cartridges, though I suspect that’s for backwards compatibility more than anything else. The latest version of the handheld lets you download content over-the-air as well, and you can store the content on an SD card upto 16GB.
Game Catalogue
For the PSP Go! there’ll be 100 titles available at launch, including Gran Turismo. Any games you own for your PSP won’t work, as the UMD format won’t be supported. All DS games are still compatible with the DSi, though there’s far fewer titles available in Nintendo’s download store.
Controls
While the DSi’s much touted touchscreen has proved a bit of a headache for some games developers, others have used it fantastically. There’s no word yet on whether the PSP Go! will have a touchscreen but it will have an analog stick, a feature sadly missing from Ninty’s handheld.
Size and shape
We don’t know how big the PSP Go! will be, yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s rather more compact than the rather chunky original PSP. What we do know is that the slide-out screen will definitely be present.
The DSi, on the other hand, is a svelte 137mm x 74.9mm x 18.9mm and 214g. It folds in half like a book, and can easily be slipped into a coat pocket. Portability is obviously an important factor for these devices.
Release date
The DSi came out on April 3rd 2009 in Europe, and in November 2008 in Japan. The PSP Go! won’t be out until the last quarter of 2009, i.e. not before October. It’ll be shown off at E3 in June, though, so we should get some pictures of it soon that we can use in place of all the concept art that we’ve been employing up till now.
Conclusions
The most important things for Sony to get right are the look of the thing, and the game catalogue available. It’d be a good move for them to implement a system where you can get your old games on download when the PSP Go! is released, otherwise I think there’ll be a certain amount of consumer backlash.
As for me, though, I’m sticking with my DS Lite. I don’t feel the push, just yet, to switch to downloadable games – particularly as backing them up seems to be an issue. When the next generation of devices comes round, I’ll be ready.
Guess how big a Nokia N810 is?
Guesswork is YESTERDAY’S NEWS when it comes to accurate gadget sizing, thanks to oddball thing-size display site Pective.
Pective asks you for your screen size then lets you select from a vast array of gadgets to see how big they are. Yes, that is all it does. Good luck “monetising” this in the future, guys….
