Today’s the day, Apple unleashed their tablet PC, the iPad, on the unsuspecting world. The iPad sports a 9.7 inch multi-touch screen and comes in a range of sizes, 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB. Add in 3G connectivity to the 64 GB version and it’ll set you back $829 to keep up with the Joneses. If that’s your thing then read the full specifications
* 9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit widescreen Multi-Touch display
* 1024×768 res at 132 ppi
* 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash drive
* 1GHz Apple A4 processor
* Accelerometer sensor
* Audio formats supported: AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible, Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV
* H.264, Main Profile level 3.1, MPEG-4 video support
* Up to 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching video, or listening to music
* 3.5mm stereo headphone jack
* Built-in speakers
* Microphone
* 9.56 x 7.47 x 0.5 inch
* 1.5 pounds
The Apple iPad obviously sports Wi-Fi connectivity and for a premium it’ll hook up via 3G. It uses Apple’s Safari browser, handles emails, has a funky photo gallery and cool looking book app, iBooks. Needless to say there will be plenty of apps available for the iPad which will all look groovy and make your friends go ‘ooooo’, but surely the iPad is just a bigger version of the iPhone? We feel the iPad is trying to fit into a market that isn’t really there, but it’ll sell mainly because of the logo on the back and we’re sure its good at what it does but do we really need it? Well that’s your call.
Unfortunately the maxxed out 3.33GHz Xeon will also add $1200 to the base price of the Mac Pro, but hey it’s a 3.33 GHz processor. Here’s the various options currently available for Apple’s Mac Pro
* 2.66/2.93/3.33 GHz Quad_core Intel Xeon
* 3/6/8/12/16 GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
* 640 GB/1 TB/2 TB 7200 rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
* NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
* 18x double-layer SuperDrive that burns and plays both CDs and DVDs
The base configuration will set you back a mere $2499 and that’s without a display unit. Adding in the new 3.33 GHz Xeon will add $1200 to that price as mentioned. Even with the large price tags the specifications are pretty impressive so if you’re still keen check out the base product over at Amazon.
Having told you recently about the new whizz-bang iMacs from Apple, we’ve now got hold of a neat bit of hardware to turn those fine iMacs into fully touchscreen play things. The guys over at Troll Touch have developed touch sensitive overlays called the SlipCOVER incorporating their PSR-1 (Pressure Sensitive Resistive) touchscreen technology. Slap one of these on your iMac monitor and you have a touchscreen iMac. Here’s a brief video demo from Troll Touch themselves
Pretty impressive eh? As an addon, it’ll set you back $900 for your new shiny 21.5 inch iMac or $1100 for its 27 inch big brother. Troll Touch also have prices for older iMacs too, check them all out on their product page.
Troll Touch seem to know what they are doing too, with their touchscreens being used in museums, colleges and schools. So if you want to get all touchy, feely with your iMac then stroll on over to Troll.
Apple have upgraded their iMac range with 16:9 ratio displays and Intel’s Nehalem processors. The all-in-one iMacs come in two display sizes, a 21.5 inch 1920 x 1080 res and a nice 27 inch 2560 x 1440 res. Here are some more details about the latest iMacs
* Perfect viewing from almost any angle with IPS technology
* LED backlighting remarkable brightness and efficiency.
* A seamless, precision-forged enclosure makes the back one continuous aluminum surface.
* Apple Wireless Keyboard and the new wireless Magic Mouse
Processor options
* 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB shared L2 cache
* 3.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 6MB shared L2 cache
* 2.66GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor with 8MB shared L3 cache (27 inch only)
* 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with 8MB shared L3 cache (27 inch only)
* 4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; four SO-DIMM slots support up to 16GB
HDD options
* 500GB Serial ATA 7200 rpm (21.5 inch only)
* 1TB Serial ATA 7200 rpm
* Slot-loading 8x SuperDrive with 4x double-layer burning (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Graphics options
* NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory3 (21.5 inch only)
* ATI Radeon HD 4670 with 256MB of GDDR3 memory
* ATI Radeon HD 4850 with 512MB of GDDR3 memory (27 inch only)
* FireWire 800 port, 4 USB 2.0 ports, SD card slot
* Built-in stereo speakers with two internal 17-watt high-efficiency amplifiers, built-in microphone
* Optical digital audio output/headphone out, optical digital audio input/audio line in
* Ethernet Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T (Gigabit)
* AirPort Extreme 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless networking
These latest iMacs certainly look very sexy, but is that enough to persuade you to buy one? The price tags don’t look too bad as well, with the 21.5 inch model starting at $1,199 and the 27 inch version at $1,699. Needless to say the higher specced options mentioned above will increase that figure. Crave have started the ball rolling with a review of the 21.5 inch standard model iMac.
If you’re keen it’s worth checking the two models out over at Amazon (21.5 and 27) where they are available for pre-order.
Today was the day that all the rumour-mongering ended and Apple unveiled the long-awaited, and I mean looong-awaited, 3G iPhone. So was that wait worthwhile - here are a few bits and pieces on the sucker
* 3G HSDPA connectivity
* Seamless connectivity with Wi-fi when available
* UMTS, HSDPA, GSM, Wi-Fi, EDGE, GPS, and Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity
* GPS functionality
* Ambient light sensor
* Proximity sensor
* 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm
* 133 g
* 3.5 inch widescreen 480 x 320 res display
* 8 GB or 16 GB flavours
* Audio support for AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 1, 2, and 3), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV
* Video support for m4v, mp4 and mov file formats
* 2.0 Mp camera
* 5 hours talktime on 3G, 10 on 2G
* 300 hours standby
* Plays nicely with Mac OS X v10.4.10 or later, Windows Vista, XP Pro or Home with SP2 or later
But here’s the killer punch, price tags of US$200 for the 8 GB model and US$300 for the 16. Not bad Apple, however the tags come with the usual plan shackles, but still not bad it has to be said.
The 3G iPhone will undoubtedly sell like the proverbial hot cakes and fanboys just about all over the planet will be camping out for one of these suckers come July 11th. As for us, well, we’ll be checking it out for sure but as for purchasing, we’ve already got mp3 players and cellphones thank you very much ;)
With the Macworld Expo in full swing, Apple have unleashed their latest notebook, the MacBook Air, on an unexpecting world. The ultra slimline notebook measures a mere 0.76 inches thick or a unbelievable 19.4 mm for the metrically minded. The unit sports a 13.3 inch display as well as a multi-touch trackpad enabling similar two finger action as on your iPhone. Other specs include
* 1.8 inch 80 GB HDD (64 GB of SSD storage is available at what we shall call a significant extra cost)
* 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
* 1280 x 800 res display
* mono sound output
* Micro DVI to DVI and micro DVI to VGA adapters (S-Video and composite will cost extra)
* 19.4 x 325 x 227 mm
* 1.36 kg
* 5 hr battery
* Optical Drive? Yeah that’s right an extra US$99 will get you a DVD drive, yes, really
In fact we not sure what you get if you don’t choose any optional extras? Seriously though Apple have obviously stripped all the bells and whistles off the unit to slim it down and thereby create a selling point. Quite good marketing really. Anyway I’m sure these suckers will sell like iPhones hot cakes and every Mac FanBoy will be queuing up for one. The basic model will set you back US$1,799 when it’s out and about in two weeks time.
Although there’s no official word from Apple as yet, in Walt Mossberg’s column at the Wall Street Journal he states
Also, some early iPod Touch units have had defective screens, where images appeared too dark. Apple says this problem affected a small number of units and is being remedied. My two test units displayed beautiful images.
during his review of the Apple iPod touch. Elsewhere there are many complaints regarding the iPods screen not displaying dark images and videos very well, the view is that they appear as if you are looking at the screen from an acute angle when in fact you are viewing it face on.
In fact the issue was highlighted over at iLounge in their own review and according to them some customers are being charged up to US$40 when attempting to return defective units along with the usual store staff attempts to blame the problem on customer high expectation or poor video encoding by the customer! Oh how I pine for the days when the customer was always right.
Come on Apple, sort this fiasco out, it was only a couple of weeks ago that you slashed the iPhone price by 33% in the US and had to placate the early-adopters with a $100 credit. Now you are trying to charge customers to get a faulty unit working. What’s the story?
Know a good story? Send it to tips(at)our-picks.com and we'll read it, turn it inside out, strip it naked, and we might transform it into a shiny front page article. And of course, you'll get your credit :).
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) where they are available for pre-order.
