I have no backwards R key on my keyboard and I don’t have the wherewithal to figure out the tricky Wingdingy ALT+numpad+four digit code voodoo it’d take to produce it (if it’s even possible), so let’s just say “Toys R Us” and enjoy the store’s Black Friday ad.

Stores open at midnight – yes midnight – on Thursday night/Friday morning. Doorbuster deals are marked with an asterisk and are good until 1PM on Friday.

Computers

VTech Learning Laptop – $14.99 *

Digital Cameras

Fujifilm FinePix Red 12MP Digital Camera – $69.99 *

iCarly Mini Digital Camera – $12.49 *

Pink Or Blue Digital Video Camcorder – $29.99 *

Vivitar 8.1MP Digital Camera – $39.99 *

Digital Media Cards

SanDisk 8 GB SDHC Memory Card – $19.99 *

DVD Players

Coby 7″ Portable DVD Player – $49.99 *

Digital Labs DVD Player – $19.99

Electronics

Grand Prix AM/FM Clock Radio – $4.99

iHome iPod Docking Station – $39.99 *

iHome iPod/iPhone Alarm Clock Docking Station – $49.99

Nickelodeon Portable CD Player – $14.99

Sakar Digital Photo Frame Keychain – $9.99

Singing Machine Karaoke System – $49.99 *

Home Theater

Coby Home Theater System – $49.99

Miscellaneous

Toys R Us Battery 20 Packs – $4.99 *

MP3 Players

$50 Gift Card With Any Apple iPod 8GB Touch – $0.00 *

Nextar 1GB Digital Mp3 Player – $11.48

Nextar 2GB MP3 Player With Video – $17.49 *

SanDisk 8GB Sansa Fuze MP3 Player – $49.99 *

Photos

Nextar 7″ Digital Photo Frame – $29.99 *

Televisions

Haier 22″ LCD TV – $199.99 *

Video Games

All iCarly Video Game Accessories – 50% Off

Avatar For Nintendo DS – $9.99

Avatar Into The Inferno For Nintendo Wii – $9.99

Carrying Case For Wii – $15.00

Cheetah Girls For Nintendo DS – $21.99

Chrysler Classic Racing For Nintendo Wii – $9.99

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (Wii Game) – $29.99 *

Club Penguin For Nintendo DS – $17.99

Crash Bandicot For Nintendo DS – $9.99

Dead Space (Wii Game) – $24.99 *

Forza Motorsport 3 (Xbox 360 Game) – $34.99 *

Gear Monkey Video Game Accessories – B1G1 Free *

Guitar Hero On Tour And Decades Two Pack Bundle (DS Game) – $29.99 *

Halo 3 ODST (Xbox 360 Game) – $34.99 *

Hannah Montana Guitar Video Game – $24.99 *

Hot Shots Golf – $21.99

iCarly (Wii Game) – $23.99 *

Ice Age For Nintendo DS – $9.99

Imagine Family Doctor For Nintendo DS – $9.99

Imagine Party Babyz For Nintendo Wii – $9.99

Kingdom For Nintendo DS – $9.99

Messenger Bag For Xbox 360 – $15.00

Monsters Vs Aliens For Nintendo DS – $9.99

Mushroom Men For Nintendo DS – $21.99

MySims Party For Nintendo Wii – $9.99

Narnia For Nintendo DS – $21.99

Need For Speed: Shift (PS3 Game) – $34.99 *

Need For Speed: Shift (Xbox 360 Game) – $34.99 *

Nintendo DS Lite Starter Kit – $11.99

Petz Horse Ranch For Nintendo DS – $9.99

Pirates Of The Caribbean – $21.99

PSP Accessories – 50% Off *

Scooby Doo First Frights (Wii Game) – $23.99 *

Select Nintendo DS Accessories – $5.00

Select Nintendo DS Games – B1G1

Select Wii Accessories – $10.00

Sonic Rivals 2 – $21.99

Spore Hero (Wii Game) – $24.99 *

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Wii Game) – $29.99 *

The Price Is Right For Nintendo Wii – $9.99

Tony Hawks Motion For Nintendo DS – $9.99

Transformers For Nintendo DS – $17.99

Ultimate Alliance 2 For Nintendo DS – $17.99

Video Game Charge Docking Stations – $15.00 *

Wii Fit Accessories – 50% Off *

Wii Nerf N-Strike Bundle (Wii Game) – $14.99 *

Xbox 360 Arcade System With Carry Case And Three Games – $229.95 *

Xbox 360 Wired Guitar Hero Game Controller – $9.99 *

Toys R Us Black Friday Ad [BlackFriday.info]

More Black Friday deals…

You can almost hear Steve Jobs flipping out right now. Psystar, notable for its efforts to sell generic PCs with Mac OS X pre-loaded, has just released something called Rebel EFI. It’s software that allows you to install Mac OS X on generic PCs without having to Hackintosh said PC. (Hackintoshing isn’t for the weak of heart!)

How does it work? I have no idea, but Matt (or someone, it’s chaos here today) is buying it right now and should have something up in a bit. (I don’t have any PCs here, I’m afraid.)

Nearest I can tell, you download and burn the ISO, it performs some sort of voodoo, then you insert the Mac OS X DVD and install like normal.

So if you’re even remotely interested in this I’d say to download it right now because Apple’s lawyers will be all over this within a matter of seconds. You can count on that.

Update: Psystar’s site is down but here are the installation instructions if you managed to grab the trial version in time. Anyone get it to work yet?

1. Download the Rebel EFI file, available here.
2. Burn the file to a CD.
3. Insert the Rebel EFI disc into your CD drive.
4. Start or restart your computer.
5. As computer boots up select, Boot Options or Boot Menu Key
**Boot Options or Boot Menu Key differ by motherboard manufacturer.
6. Select CD ROM
7. After CD loads press enter to run the CD
8. When prompted, Eject the CD and it will ask for the Snow Leopard DVD
9. Insert the Snow Leopard DVD
10. Select Main Language
11. Click Continue, if you want to continue with the installation of Snow Leopard.
12. Click Agree, if you agree.
13. Select the disk that you want to install Snow Leopard on.
a. If no disk shows, Click on Utilities on the tool bar, then select Disk Utilities.
b. On the left you should see your hard drive.
c. If not, a disk is not connected or cannot be read by your computer.
d. After selecting your hard drive click on Partition.
e. Under Volume Scheme, click current and select 1 partition.
f. Under Volume Information, name your hard drive.
g. Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
h. At the bottom of the window Click on the Options Button.
i. Select the GUID Partition Table
j. Click OK
k. Click Apply
l. Click Partition
m. Quit Disk Utilities
14. Select the disk that you want to install Snow Leopard on.
15. Click Install.
16. When Installation completes. restart the computer
17. As the computer starts up, insert the Rebel EFI CD
18. As computer boots up select Boot Options or Boot Menu Key
**Boot Options or Boot Menu Key differ by motherboard manufacturer.
19. Select CD ROM
20. Once CD loads you will see both the Hard Disk and the Rebel EFI CD
21. Use the arrow keys to highlight the Hard Drive
22. Press Enter to boot Hard drive.
23. Launch the Rebel EFI application from the CD.
24. Follow the on-screen authentication procedure.
25. Click Continue
26. Select your Keyboard
27. Click Continue
28. Select, Do not transfer my information now.
29. Click Continue
30. If, you have and Apple ID enter it now
31. If not, Click Continue
32. Enter your Registration Information
33. Click Continue
34. Create your Account Information
35. Click Continue
36. Select Time Zone
37. Click Continue
38. Click Done

The Envy 13 reflects a few trends in Windows hardware. First, consumers are realizing that notebooks are garbage. They are willing to pay a premium for a more powerful computer in a sexier case. Second, Windows 7 is here and it’s ready to kick posterior and jot down identifying information.

The model we tested was running Windows 7 Professional and had an Intel Core Duo 2 L9600 processor running at 2.13 GHz. It also had 3GB of 1067 Mhz memory. Its GeekBench score was 2375. To put this into perspective, this ToughBook scored 1893 and something like the MSI Wind it 837. This is, needless to say, a full-bodied machine. Battery life hit about 3 hours of movie watching.

The Envy is definitely quite a looker. Clad in metal alloy it’s not quite unibody but it does have some very slick design queues that tell you it’s a higher end machine. First, the glass on the screen is flush with the edges of the lid and melds seamlessly a la the Macbook. Then you have some nice dotted detailing on the wrist wrest which, I suspect, will be full of crud after a few weeks. The keys are a bit mushy but the keyboard is big enough for daily use. Then you come to the trackpad.

Your friends won’t “envy” this trackpad. It has two buttons, one on either bottom corner, and a central finger sliding area. It also supports limited gestures including two-fingered scroll but to activate them you need to tap the trackpad. Botton-scrolling is nigh on impossible because your thumb starts to touch the upper touchpad and results in all sorts of scrolling mess. HP tried to make a buttonless trackpad (like another laptop, ahem) but they failed. The trackpad is also very large and very sensitive, resulting in missed tracking every few swipes. This is the Envy’s biggest problem but something that can be accepted and even embraced given enough time and patience.

Like a lover, the HP Envy opens itself slowly and you come to realize the true majesty of future Win7 laptops. The operating system is specially tweaked to match the Envy’s style and the menu bars and buttons all flash for a moment before settling down. This is a nice touch.

The Envy also includes an instant-on OS which allows you to surf the web, run Skype, or listen to music. Is there value in this? That’s debatable, but it’s nice to know it’s there, I suppose.

The fan was a little noisy at boot-up and during major activities but nothing major. There is no optical drive but it has an SD card slot along with HDMI-out, two USB ports, and a headphone port.

Overall I was pleased with the Envy 13. It’s a small laptop with a minor trackpad quirk but it proves that the big guys like HP can still make a quality product without pandering to the Wal-Mart lowendization of the market. That said, guess how much this thing costs. $1,800 in this configuration. Oof.

Given that the cheapest 13-inch MacBook (I know, that word again) costs $1,199, the premium placed on this laptop is a little rough. Presumably this one is for the trendy early adopters, those who want Win7 Pro the very first week it’s on the market, and, to be fair, there’s a lot of machine here for the size.

Bottom Line
Windows 7 is going to be the belle of the ball in the next few months so expect lots of machines like the Envy to hit stores. While that price is fairly rough, there will be few options for folks who want the Win7 Pro experience on a laptop and those few options will be expensive. Manufacturers will have to clear out their Vista/XP netbooks before moving to Win7 and even then they won’t want to come down much in price. It’s the premium play all over again and it will suck for a while.

Also remember that this is based on the higher-end Voodoo Envy, a machine with a high price tag. Can HP take out the Voodoo DNA and sell laptops under the same branding without losing customers? Debatable, but we’ll have to see.

However, if you’re looking for a stylish, fairly powerful notebook with enough horses to run Win7, this is one of the better models out there. Give it a second look.

Product Page

There is simply no denying that the new HP Envy 13 and 15 look like an HP-ified Apple unibody MacBook Pro. Even the trackpad is a single, large glass button that supports gestures thanks to 3rd party software. I’m not saying they don’t look great, but seriously, someone copied off of Steve Jobs’ test. Good thing that these notebooks seem to have the power and poise to stand as HP’s flagship line.

While the Apple MacBook Pros are milled out of a single block of alumium, the HP Envy line takes a similar, but different approach. These notebooks are constructed out of magnesium and then coated with aluminum, which provides a very MBP look and feel, but it’s technically not as solid.

The Envy 13 rocks a Radeon HD 4330 discrete GPU that powers the 13.1-inch WXGA display. An Intel Core 2 Duo powers the rest while the optional Slim Fit Extended-Life battery can provide up to 18-hours of life while the standard kicks the can around 7 hours. (wow) However, the small size does come with some compromises. The Envy 13 doesn’t have an optical drive or an Ethernet port. Both are of course available as an extra accessory.

The Envy 15 however doesn’t lack anything. In fact, it has pretty much everything a user would want in a high-end notebook: a Core i7 CPU, up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM, room for two SSDs, a 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830 GPU, 15.6-inch LED backlit display, a VGA webcam with nightvision, and all of this in a package that’s 1-inch thin and only weighs 5.18-pounds.

Let’s hope you weren’t thinking that these high-end HP notebooks wouldn’t command a MacBook Pro type price. They do. The Envy 13 and 14 will be available on October 18 starting at $1,699 and $1,799, respectively.

Precision-Crafted, High-Performance Notebooks Are Bright, Thin, Deliver Superb Experience

HP today redefines the premium notebook PC experience with the introduction of the HP ENVY sub-brand, which offers customers precision-crafted, high-performance models featuring HP Metal Etching and concierge service and support.

The new HP ENVY 13 boasts the brightest display in its class, and the HP ENVY 15 is the company’s fastest consumer notebook PC ever.

“HP ENVY includes the latest in materials and technology inside and out and pushes the technological and performance boundaries of what can be done in sleek, powerful and lightweightnotebook PCs,” said Ted Clark, senior vice president and general manager, Notebook Global Business Unit, Personal Systems Group, HP. “Discerning consumers will get a premium experience and performance.”

With HP ENVY, the focus is on designing an entire premium experience to satisfy the most demanding customers — from the products to the packaging to the service and support.

Breakthrough HP Metal Etching on the lid and palmrest of the ENVY 15, and on the palmrest of the ENVY 13, subtly signals luxury. The combination of materials provides exceptional mobility and a compelling metal look and feel, while using energy-responsible manufacturing methods.

The HP ENVY line — building upon the Voodoo ENVY legacy — includes leading-edge components optimized to yield power and performance. To offer consumers the best audio experience available on a notebook PC, HP partnered with Beats™ by Dr. Dre™ to develop a unique, high-performance audio software solution. Available exclusively on the HP Envy, Beats Audio offers users playing music or audio through headphones or external speakers the optimal sound experience — the way the artist intended it.

The lightweight heavyweight: ENVY 13
The ENVY 13 balances style and substance. Carefully crafted details inside and out will satisfy the cravings of demanding mobile customers.

The HP Radiance display is twice as bright as other notebook displays in its class — 410 nit (a measurement of display brightness) — and provides an exceptional movie and photo experience, even in high ambient light conditions. With 82 percent color gamut (versus standard 45-60 percent), photos appear richer with amazing color depth. Additionally, with fast 8-millisecond response time, customers can view movies with TV-like performance.

The ENVY 13’s strong performance is delivered in a small frame — less than an inch thin and weighing 3.74 pounds.¹ The exterior’s aluminum and magnesium construction provides durability in a sleek design. An etched-metal palmrest further sets the PC apart from others, and a VGA webcam³ optimized for low light also is included.

HP placed the same focus on design into its optional Slim Fit Extended-Life Notebook Battery. Taking the form of a “slice,” it preserves the sleek look of the ENVY 13 while giving users up to 18 hours of battery life with the extended-life battery.² The standard battery is user-replaceable.

ATI Switchable Graphics technology dynamically switches between ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4330 discrete graphics and the Intel® integrated graphics processor for either high-powered graphics processing or low power consumption for long battery life without booting the notebook. The Intel Core™ 2 Duo processor provides the power of dual processor cores while delivering extended battery life when the notebook is unplugged.

Designed with the most demanding mobile user in mind, the ENVY 13 notebook’s premium AC adapter is small and light. It draws minimal power, has built-in surge protection and includes a rubberized strap that keeps the cables organized and the adapter from slipping off a slick surface. An optional HP USB Ethernet Adapter also is available.

The performance powerhouse: ENVY 15
This lean, mean, dream machine is HP’s fastest consumer notebook. The full metal case features a sleek, subtly crafted, laser-etched metal design on the lid that is repeated on the palmrest. The magnesium alloy casing provides lightweight durability in a 1-inch thin, 5.18-pound package.¹

Customers have maximum speed and mobility with the future Intel Core i7 processor⁴ and up to 16 gigabytes (GB) of DDR3 1,066-MHz system memory in four SODIMM memory slots. Versatile storage options include the ability to add two solid-state drives in a RAID-0 configuration to improve the overall speed of the ENVY 15 while providing excellent disk performance. Creative users will appreciate the ENVY 15 notebook’s performance and full versions of Corel® Paint Shop Pro® Photo X2 and Corel VideoStudio® Pro X2 for creating photo and video content.

Power users and gamers can take advantage of premium graphics performance via ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830 graphics with 1 GB of dedicated video memory for visually intense applications, DirectX® 10.1 games and high-definition video playback.

A choice of two 15.6-inch HP Brightview high-resolution LED backlit displays, including the Full High Definition LED HP Ultra BrightView Widescreen Display with up to 300-nits brightness, provides a superb display experience for a notebook in this class. A Nightvision VGA webcam that is optimized for low-light or zero-light conditions is standard on the HP ENVY 15, incorporating an infrared LED that assists the webcam³ by providing the necessary illumination in dark environments.

The ENVY 15 has an optional Slim Fit Extended-Life Notebook Battery, giving users up to seven hours of battery life.²

Designing the ENVY experience
The HP ENVY line includes a 360-degree approach to product design — from the products to the packaging:

• Building upon HP’s success with instant-on technology, HP QuickWeb allows customers to access key applications without booting the PC. In less than 30 seconds, users can access the Internet, music, videos and photos, and email.³
• HP Clickpad integrates the buttons into the touchpad and allows for fluid movements, while also allowing users to disable the clickpad if desired.
• The keyboard’s direct-action keys (versus typical function keys) allow users to quickly access often-used commands such as print and volume adjustment.
• Minimal desktop clutter and trial software adds to notebooks’ simplicity.
• An optional external optical drive complements the ENVY design and gives users the flexibility to carry the extra weight only when necessary. Two USB ports also transform the drive into a dock for additional capability.
• The ENVY 13 and 15 are presented in streamlined paper carton boxes using minimal ink. Included in the packaging is a simplified setup poster and documentation contained within an SD card.

Concierge service and support
The ENVY experience extends to premium service and support via the award-winning HP Total Care program. This includes expert agents dedicated to addressing ENVY customers’ questions via phone, online chat and email as well as next-day shipping for hardware customer service.

Pricing and availability
The HP ENVY 13 and ENVY 15 are expected to be available in the United States on Oct. 18 with a starting price of $1,699 and $1,799, respectively.⁵

The unannounced HP Envy 13 and 15 popped up today on a couple of foreign sites just as Rahul Sood, Voodoo founder, Twittered about something new coming. Let’s just assume that the HP Envy 13 and 15 is what he’s talking about. They seem like solid performing notebooks, but what’s the Envy naming doing there?

HP’s high performance line, Voodoo, also uses the Envy product name for its mobile computers but this notebook isn’t branded a Voodoo product. So what the hell is going on here? Has HP changed its product focus and showing the Voodoo brand the door? Or is the HP Envy 13 the first product in a line that will take cues from Voodoo products? It could be both.

There is still a certain degree of esteem with owning a computer from a boutique manufacture like Voodoo or Alienware. It’s somewhat like driving a BMW 5 Series verses a Pontiac G8 because while the G8 might technically be a better performer at a lower price, the BMW is put together so much better.

But both Voodoo and Alienware are owned by HP and Dell respectively. It’s tough times in the consumer electronic world and we’ve already seen the Alienware brand become more mainstream with the recent announcement of an Alienware-branded keyboard, mouse, headset, and LCD. What’s happening is that Dell is trying to milk the highly-regarded brand. The same thing might be happening in a different way with Voodoo and HP.

Voodoo has always been known for killer looking, high performance systems and that didn’t change once HP bought the company. In fact, its rigs only got better. The Voodoo Envy 133 is one of the best looking notebooks I have ever seen and is wildly different than anything else in the HP lineup. It has sharp lines, no fluff, and is very clean.

But while the new model maintains the naming scheme, the look has been very HP-ified for the new notebook even though you can still kind of see the Voodoo influence. The HP Envy 13 now has a rounded-off and a more mainstream look. I wouldn’t be surprised if this notebook will eventually be available in a wide range of colors. The HP Envy 13 might have taken notes off the Voodoo Envy 133, but it doesn’t have the same sex appeal at all.  HP hasn’t even announced the specs on the new Envy 13 but it doesn’t matter. Even if the notebook runs a quad-core in the tiny package, it will still will not be the same as an HP product.

But then again, perhaps the HP Envy 13 is just another notebook and has nothing to do with the Voodoo brand. Maybe the product designers just liked the Voodoo Envy 133 enough that they carried over the name. Even though HP hasn’t announced anything about the new notebook, chances are that this model will sport everything that the Voodoo Envy 133 had months ago, but at a much lower price when it eventually launches.

Hopefully the HP Envy 13 isn’t a sign that the Voodoo brand is being absorbed by HP entirely. The Voodoo brand used to be something special. Hopefully HP knows that.

If you have a technophobic spouse or work somewhere where people think “PCI express” is a kind of train, you probably should hide this article from view. Picture after picture of glorious old-school video cards, along with their specs and impact. It’s enough to send any sane person running for their lives. The rest of you, get your bookmarking hats on.

Back in the day, things were a lot different: no fewer than five or six companies were serious contenders in the video card game, as opposed to the two there are today. That must have been hell for game developers, although DirectX did serve as a handy rallying point. Anyhow, it’s a great little trip to make if you like being nostalgic about old computers (I hope I’m not can’t be the only one).

Case and exterior
The left panel is opened by pressing a button on the “chin” of the case. It pops open smoothly and looks very cool. It only opens up to about 90 degrees, which would be a problem if you were doing a lot of tinkering (Actually, I’ve learned that the case door pops right off, it just doesn’t look like it). I don’t think you’ll need to, though. The inside of the translucent portion of the case is mirrored, for extra vanity. It’s also got blue and violet lighting which I can’t decide whether I like or not.

Inside you’ll find a layout quite unlike your average “ATX in a box” computer. Most prominent is the liquid coolant piping and big silver coolant container stamped with the Voodoo logo. It should be mentioned that the Firebird has what HP calls “Voodoo DNA,” which isn’t so much a real thing but a remnant of the defunct Voodoo brand’s design philosophy and pride in fine PC construction.

There’s a slot-loading Blu-Ray drive, which worked excellently but has no indicator as to which side of the disc goes right or left. Not exactly a deal-breaker (and the manual eject button is tastefully hidden but right there), but could be confusing to a non-tech-oriented person.

Form beats down function
Now, take a look at the front of the Firebird. What do you see? Or rather, what don’t you see? That’s right, you don’t see any ports at all. I talked with HP about the design of the Firebird and asked about this specifically. They felt that they were designing an object that was trying to avoid the traditional PC form factor in many ways. For instance, the power supply is external, a rather rum thing that makes sense once you understand that it makes the PC smaller, quieter, and cooler. So with no ports on the front, they feel they’re encouraging use of wireless devices and alternatives to the usual tentacular spectacular that is the front of every other PC out there. I can’t fault them for that, but let’s be honest: there are ports on the front for a reason. Hide them if you must, but to shift them completely to the back is a nightmare for people who have to use thumbdrives a lot or plug and unplug headphones and microphones. There is a multi-card reader right on the top of the thing, hidden by a little sliding panel; why didn’t they just make that thing bigger?

Performance and specs
Using the Firebird was a joy. Before I go on, let’s just get the specs out of the way:
Processor: Core 2 Quad Q9550
Chipset: nForce 760S
RAM: 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2
PSU: 350W external (!)
Storage: 2×320GB 2.5″ 5200RPM HDDs
Video: 2xGeForce 9800S 512MB (SLI)
Sound: X-Fi Mini
Ports: 6xUSB2, 1xFirewire 400, 2xeSATA, 1xHDMI, 1xDVI-I, 1xExpressCard-54

So as you can see, it’s quite well-equipped, and only uses 350 watts of power — a paragon of economy.

Obviously it’s powerful enough to run just about anything, but it’s clear from the lack of current-generation hardware (no GeForce 285 or Intel Core i7s here) that it’s not a beast — nor is it meant to be. I had to adjust my expectations, knowing this was the son of Blackbird but also knowing it was what they called the “baby bird.” I’m not a big believer in artificial benchmarks, but let’s just get a couple in here:

>In 3dMark06, the Firebird scored 13089, a perfectly good score but by no means extraordinary. Real gameplay is what matters, after all.
>In Geekbench, it got a 4768, which is about average for a Q9550. Faster hard drives and probably DDR3 would bump this up.

Obviously, what really matters is real-life performance in stuff like games, so I fired up FRAPS and tried out the first few chapters of Project Origin and about half an hour of Far Cry 2.

>For Far Cry 2 my settings were 1920×1200, No AA, DirectX 10, all settings on high (some settings go up to ultra-high, but IQ change is questionable). During a nice little assault with plenty of bullets, fire, and running around, I got a minimum of 30fps, a maximum of 57, and an average of about 40. Lowering the resolution to 1680×1050 got me another 10 frames, but honestly it looked better at full res and ran acceptably.

>Project Origin ran more smoothly, averaging 50fps, with min and max about 10 below and 10 above that. Firefights obviously had a bit lower, but I never went below about 35. I found that for this game, 1680×1050 with 2x AA looked the best, with everything else set to maximum.

In normal system use and housekeeping (working with photos, unzipping big files, copying, installing, playing movies) it was beyond reproach, although I didn’t get to test out its video editing chops.

Firebird at home
Throughout my use of the Firebird, I noticed (or didn’t notice, rather) the noise. There isn’t much. Thanks to the external power supply and liquid cooling, it’s practically silent. There’s a light hum, but when you start it up and it does a quick fan check, you hear what the fan noise could have been.

The two 320GB hard drives, at 2.5″ and 5200RPM, aren’t going to set any retrieval time records, but copying 3.5GB from one to the other took about a minute, which is better than I can say for my own rig. I wouldn’t worry about the performance, but if you do, you can always swap out the drives for your own preferred ones; I confess I couldn’t make sense of the mechanism and didn’t want to dig out the manual, but it looks easy enough.

The rear panel is a little crowded in the USB area, especially if you’ve got external hard drives and stuff that always need to be plugged in, but otherwise it’s clean-looking and solid. HP hopes that because of its nice looks and quiet demeanor, the Firebird could be considered a really nice HTPC — thus, the featureless front and the HDMI-out, handy if you want to make this your media box.

Accessorize!
The Firebird comes with a wireless keyboard and mouse designed to complement its design. The keyboard is a great success, the mouse not so much. Of course, I’m predisposed towards plain keyboards and spoiled by better mice, but hey. The keyboard is very attractive and extremely flat, and I even found it very comfortable to type on. The sleep button is easy to hit on purpose but difficult to hit by accident, as it should be. There are volume control buttons, but play/pause/etc is built on top the F-keys, which is kind of puzzling on a keyboard designed to be used with a HTPC. Still, it’s a very nice keyboard. The mouse not so much. Not particularly comfortable, lacking extra buttons, and prone to skipping and unresponsiveness; avoid at all costs.

The bottom line
The Firebird we reviewed is the $1799 “803″ version, which HP tells me is actually getting a bit rare. Fortunately, there’s an “802″ version for $1299 which I would honestly recommend over this one, looking at its specs. It loses out on 120GB of hard drive space due to dual 250GB drives instead of 320GB, and its processor and L2 cache are reduced: the 803 has a Q7550/2.83GHz/12MB L2 and the 802 has a Q9400/2.66GHz/6MB L2. That’s definitely a step down, but $400 in savings is significant, and you’ve still got the same case, RAM, video cards, cooling, and everything.

I think that the 802 version of the Firebird (sight unseen, but I can imagine it) is the better deal here, and is actually a good deal, period. $1300 plus tax gets you an attractive, quiet, and reasonably powerful machine; you could certainly build your own with the components for less, but that’s beside the point because you couldn’t get this freaky case and it wouldn’t be so well constructed and wired. So what you’re missing out on in customization potential, you’re gaining back in quality. If you’re looking for a ready-made PC, this is a great setup for the price, and apart from the front USB issue it’s been nice to use (and invest in a hub and that’s no longer an issue). This would be a great rig for a kid going off to college, or just as an all-purpose PC around the house.

Listening to music is fun. Listening to the same song again and again is fun too but only if it keeps your ears interested. Professional mastering is the key to that. Of course you need proper mixing, etc but in the end you need someone qualified and in possession of good ears to listen to your song and do voodoo stuff with it.

Online-Mastering.com is offering professional mastering service for those in need. It’s very simple to use their service: register an account, upload your song and wait. After a while you’ll receive an email once your track can be downloaded for a preview. If you like what you hear, pay online and receive the fully mastered track immediately. It took about a day to receive the master for the song I uploaded. Mastering a single song costs $120 and you get a discount if you want more songs to be mastered. In my case the unmastered song I uploaded got twice as loud than it was before. The vocals are clearer and better and the whole song is more in place somehow: it’s good to listen to it over and over again.

You can compare the unmastered version with the mastered one below. Oh and by the way we are launching a remix contest tomorrow with great prizes to win. For instance the best mixes will be professionally mastered by Online-Mastering.com

unmastered

mastered

The 13.4-inch Adamo will be the first in the series and comes in a oh-so-sexy aluminum package. The whole thing weighs a pound more than the Apple MacBook Air, but manages to measure in at .65-inches. Sadly it seems that this guy doesn’t pack the goods where it counts to justify the $1999 price though.

Within the ultra thin body is a 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo U9300 with integrated Intel X4500 graphics, 2GB of memory, with a 128GB SSD and optional mobile broadband. This notebook might even pack a five hour battery life. Just like the Air and other ultra thin notebooks, the optical drive will be external but available in both the standard CD/DVD or Blu-ray flavor.

Those keeping track will note that while this notebook comes with a 128GB SSD, which Apple charges $500 for on top of the $1,799 base price, everything else within this Windows Vista machine is sub-standard for that pricepoint. Besides that SSD, the $1799 base price of the Air nets you a faster CPU, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics, and an OS that isn’t Windows Vista. Or, the Voodoo Envy which has similar specs and size, but is a tad less expensive.

Maybe the next incarnation of the Adamo will come packing the with something other than just good looks. And maybe some modern specs to justify the very high price. As it stand right now, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to purchase this notebook when it launches on March 26th over the equally sexy Voodoo Envy or OS X-running MacBook Air.

ROUND ROCK, Texas, March 17, 2009 – Style-minded people who place a premium on precision craftsmanship and design can now add Adamo to their list of must-have items for 2009. Dell today unveiled the world’s thinnest laptop as a kick off to the new Adamo by Dell brand.

Adamo, derived from the Latin word meaning “to fall in love,” will serve as a flagship in a line of products created to disrupt the personal computing space with the combination of new design, aesthetics, personalization choices and sought-after technologies.

The News:

Adamo is the pinnacle of craftsmanship and design and features:

· A chassis milled from a single piece of aluminum featuring precision detailing and a scalloped backlit keyboard

· Striking high definition edge-to-edge glass display

· Fully connected with WiFi, Bluetooth(tm) and optional integrated mobile broadband* and full complement of connectivity ports with no compromises

· Cool, quiet and robust solid state drives

· Available in Onyx and Pearl colors with a broad range of complementary accessories

· Price starting at $1999

Quotes:

“Great design needs to be timeless and evoke emotion in people”, said Alex Gruzen, senior vice president of Dell’s consumer products. “While a premium computing experience was assumed for Adamo, the intent was for people to see, touch and explore Adamo and be rewarded by the select materials and craftsmanship you would expect in a fine watch.”

“Dell continues to signal a commitment to design and personalization across its entire product line and has made significant strides forward in the past year,” said Rob Enderle, Principal Analyst, Enderle Group. “The Adamo laptop is a showcase for this commitment and a flagship product that will draw buyers to the brand.”

People who choose Adamo will be offered a unique color matched collection of Adamo by Dell branded peripherals and accessories including, in the U.S. an exclusive line of bags from TUMI. Choices will include:

· External storage option with 250GB** or 500GB** external hard drive.

· External DVD+/-RW or Blu-ray disc drive.

· 8GB** USB drive.

· Connectors and cables including DisplayPort to HDMI, DVI, and VGA.

· Adamo Premium Service (US Only):

o 24/7 access to Dell’s best trained technicians

o Consistent communication with a dedicated personal team

The Adamo by Dell brand is being supported by innovative and new approaches to marketing and promotion for Dell. Designed to challenge people’s perceptions of what a computer is, the Adamo by Dell brand was inspired by fashion, luxury brands and timeless design.

Dell has looked beyond traditional approaches to reaching computer shoppers and launched a provocative campaign featuring:

· A stylish worldwide print campaign shot by acclaimed British-based photographer Nadav Kandar and featuring high-fashion models that reinforces the “fall in love” positioning. Kander, whose work is celebrated in galleries worldwide, also shot the moving portfolio, “Obama’s People,” which appeared in The New York Times Magazine earlier this year.

· AdamoByDell.com , the centerpiece of the campaign and a highly stylized site where viewers can learn about Adamo, register for updates and, beginning today, place orders. Since its launch last month, AdamoByDell.com has attracted nearly 800,000 unique visitors from around the world and more than 1 million page views.

· Artful packaging in which the product arrives “floating” in a clear box with minimal clutter – a beautiful experience for a sophisticated product.

Product Specifications:

· Intel® Core 2 Duo processors with Intel® Centrino ® technology

· DDR3 system memory

· 13.4-inch 16:9 HD display

· Draft-Wireless N

· High-performance solid state drives standard

· Bluetooth 2.1

· Mobile Broadband* option

· Up to 5+ hours of battery life (preliminary)***

· 2 USB ports, 1 USB/eSATA combo port, Display Port, RJ-45 port

· Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1, 64-bit

Available for pre-order today at www.adamobydell.com and shipping worldwide starting March 26, 2009, Adamo will be available online for purchase in 24 countries including U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, U.K. France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, ANZ, China, Honk Kong, India, Korea, Malaysia/Singapore, Japan, and Indonesia.

Short Version: A good value for a NAS drive thanks to nice extras like a built-in print server, easy setup, and a straightforward interface. The Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive would be right at home in a small office or a multi-user household.

Features (according to Iomega):

• Simple to use—Three step set-up – simply plug into your router, power on, and install the software CD. Friendly web screens for easy management.
• Sharing—Access files from any networked Windows PC or Apple computer for easy file sharing.
• High Performance—Gigabit Ethernet connectivity combined with a high performance processor.
• UPnP AV Media Server—Compatible with DLNA certified media players, able to stream photos, audio content and videos to a variety of media devices like game consoles, audio bridges, DMAs (digital media adapters), picture frames and more.
• iTunes™ Server—Store your audio content in one central location and share it across your iTunes players.
• Network File Protocols Supported—CIFS/SMB (Microsoft), AFP (Apple), HTTP 1.1
• Expandability—Add storage capacity by connecting external USB Hard Disk Drives. Supports FAT32 and NTFS formatted hard drives.
• Network Discovery—Automatic network discovery by Apple Bonjour and Microsoft Windows Rally devices.
• Data Protection—Touch-free professional-level backup for all your critical data with EMC® Retrospect HD backup software. Effortlessly back up files on a pre-set schedule.
• Print Server—Intelligent network print sharing capability for one USB printer directly attached to the HomeMedia drive

MSRP: $159.99 for the 500GB version, $229.99 for the 1TB version

Setting up and using the drive

Believe it or not, this NAS drive is ridiculously easy to set up. You power up the drive, plug it into your router, and install the software on your computer. When the installation’s all done, a window pops open with five default drives: Music, Movies, Backups, Public, and Photos.

They’re all accessible using Iomega’s interface or as separate networked hard drives inside your operating system. Notice that, again, they appear as five distinct drives.

There’s a pretty straightforward web-based interface for creating new drives and tweaking various settings. As you can see, I created some extra essential drive-spaces: Bucketlist, Dreams, Enemies, Fashion, Hopes, Hotpants, Raffle, and Recipes.

Unfortunately, I meant for “Raffles” to be “ROFLs” – a place to store hilarious jokes and whatnot but I wasn’t able to easily change the name from Raffles to ROFLs, so I just deleted it and made a new drive. Also, each drive name has to be all one word without any spaces. I would have liked to have “Bucket List” and “Hot Pants” but, alas, t’was not allowed. Any new drives that you create will appear as network drives in your operating system as well.

Once everything is set up, you can add users and dole out various levels of access, or just keep everything open to everyone. This drive would work really well in a small office or in a family where the parents are into some weird voodoo that they don’t want their kids to see.

Nice extras

The drive comes with EMC Retrospect, which is automated backup software. It’s easy to use and lets you set a schedule for backing up important files. The getup also comes with 2GB of free Mozy online backup service. You can get 2GB free from Mozy no matter who you are or what drives you own, though, so it’s mostly just a little extra fluff.

From a hardware standpoint, there’s a USB port on the back of the drive that can be used to hook up a second external hard drive or as a print server. That’s a great little feature that I think adds a fair amount of value to this thing. You can just place your printer and your backup drive next to your router and be done with it.

The drive also works seamlessly with iTunes, Xbox 360, PS3, and various other network-enabled devices. My Xbox 360 picked the Iomega up as a networked hard drive and streamed an HD movie file (Ethernet to Ethernet) with ease.

Noise and heat

The drive doesn’t get too hot thanks to a built-in fan, but it’s that same fan that emanates a dull whine all the live-long day. I had this drive sitting right next to me on my desk and I’d have to turn the whole thing off after about an hour. It’s not loud, so it’s possible that the noise could easily be drowned out if you work around other people or listen to music all day but I prefer to work with as few distractions as possible, so I could definitely hear the drive. If I were to use this drive as my own, it’d be in a drawer or on the other side of the room for sure.

Here’s an audio file: Iomega.mp3

As you can hear, it’s not that bad at all. It’s just that dull whine bobbing up and down every so often that gets agitating after a while.

Transfer speed

The internal drive has a 7,200 spindle speed but most of the bottleneck is going to occur at your router. I transferred a 3.64GB file wirelessly (802.11g) from my laptop to the drive and it took just under a half hour. Naturally, hard-wired speeds will be much faster but keep in mind how you usually access your network and plan accordingly.

Conclusion:

The Iomega Home Media Network Drive is an easy-to-use, affordable solution if you need a backup solution that multiple computers can access. The included print server and user management features make it a great option for any small business or medium-to-large family.

Product Page [Iomega]

All-star modder Ben Heckendorn takes a walk down memory lane with the (surprisingly) one and only PC case mod he’s ever built. It’s a computer ensconced in an empty 18-pack of Miller Genuine Draft that he built back in 2004 when he "needed a portable computer to do the looping for [his] independent film but was too cheap to buy a laptop."

While it’s probably not exactly rocket science to build a PC inside a cardboard box, the attention to detail that’s made Ben Heck a household name among DIYers everywhere is there in full force with an elaborate CD burner apparatus jutting out of the top of the box. He basically took the entire drive apart and rebuilt it in layers, creating a cool 3D effect using cardboard from a second MGD box. The end result looks like some sort of Star Wars building.

Other features aren’t interesting now that it’s 2009 — 4GB hard drive, K6-300 CPU, 16MB VooDoo video card — but it’s nice to remember the good old days of dropping a mint on a VooDoo card and a multi-gigabyte hard drive, eh?

[via Make]

Ever wondered what happened behind the scenes when your IKEA table was being designed or what was going through Jonathan Ive’s head when he penned the design for the original iPod? Well then you have to see this.

Its a new documentary called “Objectified.” It covers the industrial design behind big names such as Muji, IKEA, Apple, Flip Video, and BMW. I think it will open our eyes to the people that design what we see and interact with daily. The world premiere will be at South by Southwest in Austin and a world tour will follow. If you live in San Fransisco, Chicago, New York or London, you might even be able to catch a special preview screening.

Check out this trailer and visit their site for more info.

[via The Next Bench]

HP finally came clean on its Firebird midsize gaming rig and we just spent a few minutes with the liquid-cooled machine. It seems that HP had the traveling gamer in mind as it’s light enough to lug between LAN parties thanks to its laptop components. But don’t forget that Gideon Bible-sized power brick. Overall though, it’s a hot little rig that’s sure to make all the nerdy LAN chicks giddy.

HP’s latest Voodoo rig, the HP Firebird, is a fine machine for gaming and video/photo buffs. With two SKUs to appease all sides the Firebird is sure to give PC users everything they want or even need in a relatively small and extremely quiet high performance package.

The 802 features an Intel Core 2 Quad Core 2.66GHz processor while the 803 packs a 2.83GHz processor. Both come with Vista Home Premium 64-bit editions. Graphics are taken care of with dual Nvidia GeForce 9800S cards in an SLI config. To keep the rigs cool under pressure, the Voodoo team equipped the Firebird with a liquid cooling system to ensure the proc, chipset (Nvidia nForce 760S) and graphics cards don’t have a major meltdown while you’re fragging or editing. Both come with 4GB of DDR2 RAM.

The 802 comes with two hot swappable 250GB hard drives for half a terabyte of whatever you want to store. The 803 bumps up to 640GB total and comes with a Blu-ray player and SuperMulti DVD burner. The 802 settles for a DVD optical drive. There’s an external 350W power supply that is extremely quiet.

The Firebird is somewhat modular and having seen it in person I walked away very, very impressed. For example, the fans are removable to make cleaning extremely easy and the hard drives can be removed effortlessly (which can be seen in the images). Despite the high price tag, I’d say these are some mighty fine PCs. The 802 starts at $1,799 with the 803 starting at $2,099.

HP and the Voodoo team also announced a new keyboard, the NC730AA. More details on this coming soon.

The HP Gaming Keyboard with Voodoo DNA has backlit illumination with cluster lighting options so gamers never miss a shot. Fully programmable keys have macro capabilities, while the gaming cluster has anti-ghosting capability.

Laptop Magazine’s gotten their grubby little hands on a new concept notebook from Voodoo (HP) called "Firefly." It’s one beefy flying insect, too, at 17.1 inches and 13 pounds.

After the big 17.1-inch, 1920×1200 screen, the machine sports a secondary 4.3-inch screen at 800×480, handy for checking e-mail, various widgets, and even full web pages. Under the hood, there’s a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 250GB 7,200 RPM hard drive, and two ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 GPUs set up in CrossFire mode.

Other features include a side-mounted multi-touch trackpad, backlit keyboard, Creative X-Fi audio, and a built-in webcam with night vision features. Yes, night vision.

The Firefly apparently blasted through Far Cry 2 with all the settings on "Very High," which is mighty impressive for a laptop. It should be noted that this specific rig might not ever make it to market, as it’s just to show off what’s possible, although we’ll likely see similar offerings from HP/Voodoo in the near future.

Glastonbury, England, renowned for its hippy culture and often thought to be the last resting place of King Arthur and/or The Holy Grail, is reportedly seeing an increase in minor health problems, like headaches, dizziness, rashes and even pneumonia. The cause of these illnesses? Nasty, filthy wi-fi networking. No one ever got sick until the city rolled out a £34,000 wi-fi network.

“One theory they came out with is that wi-fi suppresses the production of melatonin, a hormone which helps to control sleep patterns, regulates the body’s metabolic rate and boosts the immune system.”

To fend off the wicked wi-fi, Glastonbury hippies have deployed orgone generators. Silly hippies: everyone knows that the problem with wi-fi is an excess of phlogiston!

Via The Inquirer.

The Blackbird 002 that launched last year may be impressive, but the design is nothing special and the price range isn’t very attractive at $1,799-$4,999. Now, HP with VoodooDNA has given us something to look at. The HP Firebird 803 gaming tower flips the disc drive and most other components on their sides to allow for this sleek looking design. The Firebird doesn’t leave much room for modification or expandability, but the standard features sure do give me chills inside:

• NVIDIA nForce 760i SLI chipset
• Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz processor
• 4GB of RAM
• Dual NVIDIA GeForce 9800S cards
• Two 320GB SATA drives
• Blu-ray
• 5-in-1 card reader
• 6 USB, 1 FireWire, 2 eSATA, 1 S/PDIF and 1 DVA dual-link
• Bluetooth
• 802.11n WiFi

The Firebird unusually uses an external power supply to save on space and heat. It also comes with a wireless keyboard and mouse. Hopefully we’ll see this at CES next month and get some pricing and availability info.

via Engadget

Spending your fiat money from the comfort of your iPhone is even easier, now that Amazon has released an application (“App”) for Apple’s little wonder. The mundane functions are as you’d expect: you launch the app, then you can browse and buy goods from Amazon just as you would from your computer.

What’s worth singling out is this little photo-takign feature. Using the app, you take a photo with your iPhone then send it to Amazon. Then, after a bit of voodoo, Amazon sends you an e-mail with a link to products that match the photo (or its best guess). For example, you take a photo of a a french press, then Amazon sends you links to french presses you can buy from them. Technologically neat, sure, but you wonder how well it works in practice… and me without an iPhone!

Now that we’ve had our history lesson, it’s time for the news: it seems 3dfx has randomly decided to release a unified driver architecture for the Voodoo cards and has updated them with a set applicable to any of the Voodoo series. I confess I haven’t been following 3dfx news these last few years, so if they’ve been doing this all along let me know. I think it’s great no matter what, though, that this old hardware is still supported. It’s be like getting a patch for Warcraft 2.
[via the Inquirer]

The ClarityLife C900 succeeds in so many places that the iPhone fails that it’s not even funny. First of all, it’s unlocked and, at $269.95, it’s not that much more expensive than an iPhone with a two-year contract. Once you get to a certain age, locking into contracts is silly. As my ninety-one-year-old grandmother says when asked about remarrying, “What’s the point?” The same can be said for cell phone contracts.

Second, the ClarityLife C900 has a ringer that’s “twice as loud as an ordinary cell phone,” which oughta scare the bejesus out of anybody under the age of 60 while providing optimal ring volume for our beloved seniors. Oh, and lest you think that the phone simply rings when a call’s coming in, the blaze-orange LCD also flashes like mad and the phone vibrates as though the old folks’ home sat atop the San Andreas fault.

Third, the phone has only four ginormous buttons and none of that fancy, convoluted, voodoo multi-touch stuff. Just some good, old fashioned button mashing.

And not to be outdone by Apple, there is, of course, “one more thing.”

On the back of the phone is a red, heart-shaped emergency button. Press it, and the C900 “calls and sends text messages to five pre-programmed numbers,” cycling through each contact until someone picks up. Boom. Mind blown? I know.

Now all Clarity needs to do is add a flashlight feature to the phone and – whoa, whoa, whoa, I spoke too soon. It’s got a built-in flashlight. I’ll be damned. Mind blown again.

ClarityLife C900 Amplified Mobile Phone [ClarityProducts.com]