Category: PC

Asus is all set to launch its new mini PC in the month of November that features an Intel Haswell processor but what really caught our eye is the price tag of Asus Vivo Mini – just 149 dollars.

Sine Asus will be marketing it as barebone PC you will be able to Windows, Linux or hackintosh on it. And of course the downside of buying a bare bone PC is that you will have buy / torr*nt operating system for it along with memory, storage (HDD / SSD) and even wireless card.

Coming to its processor choice, you get the choose between the Intel Celeron 2957U haswell, i3 or i5. If you choose either of the last two, you will have to shell out more. Other Asus Vivo Mini specifications include 4x USB 3.0 ports, display port, HDMI, Ethernet, full + half size PCIe card slot, m SATA connector and support for up to 16GB RAM and 2x SODIMM slots.

The Vivo Mini measures 4.9″ x 4.9″ x 1.7″ and features a VESA mount-compatible design that lets you mount it to the back of monitor or TV.

There are so much more great options out there for bare bone PC’s, such as Zotac’s Nano CI320 bare bone for $130. And you can even get the variation with a 64GB SSD, Windows 8.1. preinstalled, and 802.11ac for $230. What I’m trying to say is, this Asus box is pretty worthless for what it is.

If you are a fan of Android mini concept, make sure to check out the INTV 19 CX-919 as well.

• Via liliputing

The Lenovo IdeaPad Z50-75 is a thin and light gaming laptop that has thickness of about 25mm and weight of little over 2 kilograms. The design of the Lenovo IdeaPad Z50-75 is nice with simple lines and soft touch finishes here and there. All in all it does not look like cheap at all especially when you take a look the Lenovo IdeaPad Z50-75 specifications.

Lenovo IdeaPad Z50-75 specifications

* 15.6 inch display with full HD resolution with optional 2k and 4k panels
* AMD quad core FX series APU
* 16 gigabytes of DDR3L RAM
* Hybrid storage with HDD capacity ranging up to 1TB
* AMD Radeon R7- M260DX GPU with 2 GB of RAM onboard
* 3x USB ports out of which one is v3.0
* LAN port connecting to Ethernet networks
* Audio jack for headphone and microphone
* And since it is a big laptop, Lenovo equipped it with an optical DVD drive.

Our friends at Simona Menghini have told that the Lenovo IdeaPad Z50-75 will go on sale between the month of October and November for around 599 euro.

As all of you know CM11 team has been working day and night for bringing the latest Cyanogen Mod to the Moto G 4G android phone and thanks to folks at XDA it is finally here. Flashing instructions are given below.

1. First get the latest build from this link.

• Download link

2. Now make sure you have the boot loader unlocked because without that we cannot proceed. Then ensure you have either CWM or TWRP recovery on board as it is not possible to flash a ROM with a custom recovery.

3. Now copy the ROM onto the SD card and reboot into recovery. Flash the ROM from recovery and wait for sometime for the system to settle down.

Since this is an ongoing project some bugs do exist. The one we have come across is the low RAM bug where after 24hours an unknown process will take up a good amount of your ram and eat it until you factory reset/flash clean. Another minor bug is that sometimes the Moto G would not connect to certain router securities.

We have an exciting news for all the new and potential Moto G users. According to users on XDA the Motorola Moto G 2014 2nd generation model does in fact comes with a built in gyroscope. This means all Google camera features like photo sphere, lens blur, panorama works for this device.

So there is no need for Motorola to push an update to enjoy the features. Just download Google’s camera from play store to enjoy enhanced camera experience. This also makes the phone compatible with Google cardboard.

So yes Moto G 2014 plays just fine with virtual reality applications just like high end Android phones in the market. When I was buying the the phone I did not pay too much attention to it. It’s also great because it works with several games that make use of gyroscope feature of Moto G 2014.

I have also noticed that it works great with most of the vr apps available for android and that too with good FPS.

If you despite the bloated user interface of Sony you can get enjoy total freedom on your Xperia U by installing CM10 on it. This brings jelly bean Android 4.1.2 on it. Here are its list of features:

* ROM compiled with Linaro Tool chain 4.7,
* Kernel compiled with Linaro 4.6.2 or Google 4.6.x,
* Added some governors
* Deleted some Cyano app, Zip aligned,
* Pre-rooted, Nova Launcher, New * Boot animation, Cwm v6.0.2.8,
* Possibility to change color notification * LED charging, added menu for disable flashing led when battery is low.

Here are its installation instructions:

* Make a backup of your current rom
* Wipe data/factory reset in recovery
* Flash CM10 Limited Edition (If you get error 7 while flashing extract the boot.img from the rom zip, and flash it via fast boot)
* Flash Ultra Slim Gapps
* Reboot and enjoy

We suggest you to remove audio like dial pad touch tones, touch sounds, screen lock sound and vibrate on touch. Also do not use swap with this ROM.

• Download the ROM from here.

The Asus G771JM is the top of the range gaming laptop from the electronic giant. Encased in aluminum alloy, the Asus G771 JM features backlight keyboard to help you type in dimly lit areas. It is outfitted with 17 inch IPS type full HD display packing 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution that provides excellent quality and therefore easy to read in bright sunlight.

We spent some great time with it and loved how powerful and fast its Intel Core i7 4710HQ 2.5 GHz processor felt. The CPU is backed by 16 gigabytes of RAM and dedicated Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M GPU with 4 gigabytes of onboard RAM. However considering the imminent launch of new GPU like Nvidia 900M, we can expect Asus to equip it with this latest GPU.

Asus has wisely used the massive casing by allowing the user to fit it with three storage drives. In two of the bays, you can fit in regular sized SSD / HDD but the third one can accommodate smaller M.2 SSD only.

Measuring 418 x 284 x 37 mm and weighing 3:32 kilograms, the Asus G771JM comes with enough ports for connecting printers, flash drivers and whatnot. You get four USB 3.0 ports, HDMI digital video output port, mini display, SD card reader, RJ-45 LAN port and Kensington security lock. There is an optical drive that reads Blu-ray and for connectivity you get Gigabit Ethernet LAN, Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11ac radios.

Battery life is under five hours when you do not gaming but we expect no one to not use it for gaming.

Overall this is a solid laptop and we whole heartedly recommend it for gaming.

• Via notebookitalia.it (Italian)

An XDA user Mackay has released an Android 4.4.4 ROM for the Samsung Galaxy S smartphone. The ROM is based on Android 4.4.4 kitkat and Cyanogen mod. Also to flash it you require Mackay’s own kernel that can be downloaded from here.

The ROM is close to stock and no additional application are included which also means that it is bloatware free. The best thing is that you can flash it over a Cyanogen mod ROM. Here are the installation instructions.

* Do a factory reset
* Flash ROM
* Flash gapps
* Reboot your phone

The ROM is backed by CM11.0 codebase and bnew kernel: 0.692: updated recovery to TWRP 2.8.0.0. The TWRP has orange theme. Video editor and demo video files have been removed to free up more space. 

Mackay kernel settings options include:
* WiFi PM mode selection
* BLX settings
* BLN activation
* Navbar selection
* Low RAM mode selection

• Download the ROM from here.

CyanogenMod 11 for the Samsung Galaxy S1 is now available for download which allows Galaxy S users to enjoy vanilla Android experience that is free of bloat ware.

How to download and install CM11 on Samsung Galaxy S 1

Are you first time flashing CM11 to your Galaxy S (or coming from another ROM)?

* If you’re on a ROM prior to 2.3, upgrade to 2.3 is recommended.
* Root your device and install ClockworkMod Recovery.
* Reboot into Recovery using 3-button-combo
* Do a Nandroid backup!
* WIPE (wipe data/factory reset + wipe cache partition)
* Install the ROM from internal sdcard using ClockworkMod Recovery
* Optionally install the Google Addon

Upgrading from CM7/CM9?

* Do a Nandroid Backup
* WIPE (wipe data/factory reset + wipe cache partition)
* Install the ROM from internal sdcard using ClockworkMod Recovery
* Optionally install the Google Addon

Upgrading from CM10/10.1?

* Do a Nandroid Backup!
* Install the ROM from internal sdcard using ClockworkMod Recovery
* You will finally see a "set_metadata_recursive" status 7 error. That is normal.
* Reboot back into recovery (the reboot is required)
* Install the ROM again from internal sdcard using ClockworkMod Recovery
* Optionally restore /data from Nandroid Backup (the update will wipe your /data)
* Optionally install the Google Addon

Upgrading from CM10.2?

* Do a Nandroid Backup!
* Install the ROM from internal sdcard using ClockworkMod Recovery
* Optionally install the Google Addon

Upgrading from another build of CM11?

* Do a Nandroid Backup!
* Install the ROM from internal sdcard using ClockworkMod Recovery

• Download the ROM from here.

The Medion Akoya E1233T is a new 10-inch tablet with Windows 8.1 that is being offered at a price tag of 299 dollars. This Windows 8 tablet offers full HD IPS display, an Intel Atom CPU and 2 GB of RAM for uncompromising performance.

The Medion Akoya E1233T offers a very attractive bundle at an attractive price tag. It measures 258 x 172 x 10.1 and has a weight of 560 grams including battery.

Medion Akoya E1233T specifications

* Intel Atom Z3735F processor
* 2 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage
* Expandable via a 3 in 1 memory card reader. Supported formats are micro SD / SDHC / SDXC.
* 10.1 inch display with IPS panel technology and Ahva (Advanced Hyper-Viewing Angle)
* 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution with multi touch capability
* One micro USB 2.0 port, micro HDMI video output
* A combo audio jack for Line In and Out
* A 5 megapixel rear camera and a front 2-megapixel webcam
* Wi-Fi 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0 modules
* Battery life up to 7 hours
* Windows 8.1 operating system.

The Medion Akoya E1233T will be on sale from the last quarter of this year.

Qualcomm has released two new processors that will target the low cost smartphones. This Californian chipmaker has always impressed us with their products and now they have created two SoC that will bring more advanced features to the smartphone devices at very low cost.

We are in fact very intrigued by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 that comes with integrated 4G LTE radio with carrier aggregation technology that allows the user to obtain high peak bandwidth.

The Snapdragon 210 supports dual SIM configuration that is very popular in developing countries like China. Recent stats show that the dual SIM feature is getting popularity in European countries as well.

the specifications of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 include support for the Bluetooth 4.0 and comes with Adreno 300 GPU on board that is capable of driving display with HD resolution and up to 8 megapixel cameras with full HD video support.

the specifications of snapdragon 208 are identical to the 210 but lacks 4G support. However it is 3G out of the box and has maximum resolution of 960 x 540 pixels. Companies call this resolution quarter HD.

Both of these new processors will be offered to the OEMs within the first half of year 2015.