Samsung NV9

We’ve reviewed quite of few ultra compacts lately that go all the way when it comes to packing features, but suffer considerably when it comes to performance. Samsung hopes to break away from that trend by balancing the two, with the Samsung NV9.

To start off, the NV9 boasts of a really compact frame that measures a measly 95 x 60 x 21 millimeters. Add to that the fact that it weights just 180 grams, and you have a really portable camera. The left and right sides of the camera are rounded and there are no protruding parts, ensuring that its portability isn’t marred by the odd edge that tugs at your pocket when you slide it in.

The camera features a black metallic finish (it’s available in silver too) that looks great and doesn’t attract fingerprints. The button placement’s pretty much on target – the shutter button and mode dial are placed on the top side (towards the right) of the camera, while the power button’s on the far left, ensuring that you never press it by mistake. Between these buttons, nest two analog meters to show your current battery and memory’s status. While it’s not the most useful feature, it works well and adds to the camera aesthetically; call me silly, but I find the touch of analog in a digital camera really cool.

Getting back to the button placement, the facing side of the NV9 has a zoom toggle near the top. It isn’t the most convenient placement for it, since it’s a little high for your thumb to reach naturally, but it’s in no way a deal breaker. Below the toggle are the Image Stabilization, Function, Preview and Exit buttons. In between them is the navigation pad with a menu/ok button in the middle. Besides the buttons sits a 2.7 inch, 230,000 pixel screen.

Overall, the NV9 boasts of simplistic design, accentuated by a few features like two analog dials and a lit up blue ring around the power button, that add aesthetic appeal and a touch of individuality.

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Samsung P3

A while back Samsung had launched their YP-P2 PMP with its touch screen capabilities and Bluetooth functionality. While it wasn’t much of a comparison to the iPod Touch, the additional features both players employed like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth was what made me a personal fan. Not particularly of either device, but of devices in general that offer something a little more than just video and music playback. Samsung’s latest, the P3 is also equipped with Bluetooth and tries to offer a more iTouch-like interface. Here’s how it fares as a standalone device though.
Form Factor
It’s an eye-catcher, no doubt. Its sleek and slender lines with a metallic finish also gives it a little bit of a classy feel. It’s light weight, so portability is one of the few things you won’t have to worry about. The 3-inch TFT touchscreen display has a 480 x 272 pixel resolution and also supports very intuitive haptics. A touch sensitive quick access bar to the currently playing music and skip keys is located just under the display.

A hold/power key along with volume control keys and a tiny speaker are located on the top of the device. Samsung’s proprietary connectivity port is located at the bottom near the 3.5mm earphone socket.

While I do like the overall design, the speaker is negligible. Some of the cheaper mobile handsets provide louder and better quality sound.
Features and Performance
Interface
The P3 comes loaded with features. First off is the display characteristic and touchscreen functionality. Like the P2 before it, Samsung hasn’t managed to fix the sometimes awkward touchscreen. It tends to be a little too responsive at times and sometimes annoyingly non-responsive. I do like the interface though. It’s vibrant and colorful, depending on the theme you choose and can be spread across more than one screen, just like in the iTouch.

Trying to keep pace with Samsung’s Omnia and F480 mobile handsets, the P3 also has a Widgets section that can be accessed by simply pressing the screen at any place. The widgets themselves are very animated and serve a variety of purposes. Some are useful, like the dimmer for the display, clock, notes, access to the photo album and calendar. Some don’t seem to serve any purpose at all like the flower or the butterfly and some other odd animated characters. Other than some inane provision for entertainment in those moments of sheer boredom, they don’t do much else. You can also adjust the layout by moving the icons around just like you would in the… wait for it… iTouch.

Samsung to Launch Android Phone This Year

Reports are stating that Samsung is gearing up for the launch of an Android powered mobile handset sometime this year. Unfortunately, we are still not yet a target audience for Android as Samsung is planning on launching the device with T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel.

The handset would of course feature a touchscreen UI and include Google-oriented applications like Google Maps, Search, Gmail for mobile and of course a mobile G-Talk application.
As of now there’s no pricing on the handset or a time frame of its availability.

Samsung Launches New Laptops, Netbook

Samsung India has announced its entry into the portable PC segment with a lineup of notebook PCs and has also made a foray into the fast growing netbook segment with its N series.
The notebook lineup includes notebooks in different categories – Premium – X series; Mobile Optimum – Q series and Mainstream – the R series.
The X360 and X460 are 13.3-inch and 14.1-inch premium thin and light notebooks. The X360 weighs in at 1.29 kgs and is capable of 10 hours of continuous usage.

Both laptops feature the latest Intel Centrino 2 processors, have a rugged magnesium alloy chassis, a strength providing aluminum plate behind the LCD, a ‘pebble’ style keyboard and lightweight components.

While the X360 is priced at Rs. 115,014, the Samsung X460 is priced at Rs. 80,614.

Samsung’s famous Touch of Color design with its black to red color gradation – featured in Samsung HDTVs and desktop monitors – can be found in the Q and R series notebooks. The Q310 is a highly portable all purpose notebook featuring a 13.3-inch wide LCD display while the R610 features a 16-inch wide LCD with HD compatibility, 512 MB memory and 17 key full size numeric keypad, making it a delight for gamers.

The Q310 is priced at Rs. 61,694 and the R series notebooks are priced between Rs. 34,604 and Rs. 62,339.

The Samsung’s NC10 is a netbook with a 10.2-inch wide LED display, enhanced capacity battery, Intel’s Atom N270 Processor, 160 GB hard drive and weighing in at 1.33 kg.

The sleek and stylish NC10 comes with a 3-in-1 Multi memory slot, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and a built in 1.3 mega pixel webcam. It features a 93% full size keyboard and its standard 5200 mAH high capacity 6 cell Lithium battery, providing up to eight hours of use on a full charge. The NC10 is priced at Rs. 28,477.

VIA TECH2

Samsung, Microsoft in Talks to Speed up SSDs on Vista

Samsung isn’t just pushing the envelope in storage capacity of SSDs (solid-state drives), it is also working with software makers to boost SSD performance on operating systems. The company on Wednesday said it was in talks with Microsoft to improve the performance of SSDs on the Windows OS.

The speed and way in which SSDs fetch and cache data are different than hard drives, said Michael Wang, flash marketing manager at Sun. Samsung hopes to work with Microsoft to boost SSD performance on Windows by discovering optimal packet sizes for data transfers and the best ways to read and write files, for example.

“We have been so used to hard drives for so many years, Windows is optimized for that obviously,” Wang said.

Windows is designed to fetch and cache data using rotating media, but by working with Microsoft, Samsung wants to distinguish SSDs from hard drives on the Windows OS, Wang said.

Wang declined to provide further information on the discussions with Microsoft.

It is generally thought that SSDs could replace hard drives, but both differ in data sizes and how Windows should treat both, said Gregory Wong, an analyst with Forward Insights.

There is a mismatch in the way Windows Vista handles data sizes on hard drive and SSDs, Wong said. Vista has been optimized to handle hard-drive data in smaller chunks. In contrast, the sector size — also known as page size — of SSDs are larger than hard drive sector sizes. That results in inefficient SSD performance when slotted into a disk drive bay, Wong said.

“My guess is that [Samsung and Microsoft] are maybe working on the OS recognizing an SSD with a 4K-byte sector size instead of a hard disk drive with a 512-byte sector size,” Wong said.

Sun is already working with Samsung to bulk up SSD support on the ZFS (Zettabyte File System), which is included in the Solaris OS, and will also be supported in Apple’s upcoming Mac OS X 10.6, codenamed Snow Leopard. Sun is adding capabilities to boost the durability and performance of SSDs on ZFS-based operating systems. For example, Sun may add defragmentation capabilities for SSDs, which organizes data in a particular order to enable quicker data access.

SSDs were not considered ideal for defragmentation because of limited read-and-write capabilities, Wong said. However, Samsung and Sun in July jointly announced an 8G-byte SSD that bumped up durability from 100,000 read-and-write cycles to 500,000. That brings defragmentation in SSDs closer to reality, which could improve its caching and provide quicker access to data. Sun plans to put SSDs into storage products later this year.

Samsung will release 128G-byte SSDs in the third quarter, and by the end of the year it will put 256G-byte SSDs into production, Wang said. The density of SSDs are doubling every 12 months, Wang said. That means a 512G-byte SSD could be coming soon, although Wang neither confirmed nor denied it.

“It is a matter of cost, demand and requirement,” Wang said.

Samsung is also working to reduce power consumption and developing controller algorithms to boost the longevity of SSDs, Wang said.

Despite the continuous improvements, price-per-gigabyte could continue to be an issue when comparing SSDs to hard drives, Forward Insight’s Wong said.

“The cost per gigabyte of a 2.5-inch SSD is something like five times that of a hard disk drive,” Wong said. The price difference mainly applies to the consumer space, where PC makers like Apple, Dell and HP offer SSDs in laptops.

Samsung’s Wang said the company is working with PC makers to develop SSD form factors that could fit into different laptop models.

In the server space, customers may bypass price for performance, said Michael Cornwell, lead technologist for flash memory at Sun in a recent interview. Server-grade SSDs usually perform better in certain environments like Web 2.0, where they are comparatively faster and more power efficient than hard drives.

Web 2.0 applications could drive the adoption of SSDs in the enterprise, Cornwell said. Delivery of distributed Web 2.0 applications — like cached photo content — may be delivered quicker from SSD nodes than hard drives, Cornwell said.

Many server vendors have announced plans to include server-grade SSDs in systems, including Hewlett-Packard. Samsung is working with PC makers and server vendors on the implementation of SSDs, Wang said.

“Most of these data centers, when they employ a new technology, it takes a long time to … qualify and evaluate,” Wang said.

Source: pcworld