Review: KingSpec Pro E3000 240GB SSD

The name KingSpec may be new to you, and indeed us, but the company has been in the flash storage business since 1995. KingSpec has also been one of the executive members of the Solid State Drive Association since 2008 and offers a wide range of SSDs for each class of usage, including mSATA and PCIe based drives, as well as the standard 2.5-inch models.

KingSpec's Challenger series has solutions for all three classes. The review drive, the E3000 240GB, comes from the Enterprise line, so it should come as no surprise to find the consumer drives labelled C. Not that usage is set in stone. The drives can be used wherever you feel like.

The E3000 is built on a 7mm format so it'll fit as a replacement drive in thin notebooks as well as more chunky ones.

Under the hood the E3000 uses the ubiquitous LSI SandForce SF-2281VB1 controller, but twinned with KingSpec's own custom-written firmware. The layout of the PCB is also pretty much the same as every other SandForce based drive with, in the case of the 240GB, eight Intel 16GB synchronous 25nm MLC NAND chips on each side of the PCB, with the controller sitting alongside one group of eight.

The choice of NAND is the major difference between the Enterprise E series and the consumer C series - the consumer series makes do with asynchronous NAND.

Its achilles heel is the way it deals with incompressible data, noticeable in sequential write performance. It is though the slowest SandForce drive on writes. Switch to compressible and 556MB/s read and 530MB/s write speeds are very fast.

Sequential read performance
AS SSD: Megabytes per second: Higher is better
KINGSPEC E3000 240GB: 507
OCZ VERTEX 4 256GB (V1.5FW): 435
KINGSTON HYPER X 3K 240GB: 504

Sequential write performance
AS SSD: Megabytes per second: Higher is better
KINGSPEC E3000 240GB: 174
OCZ VERTEX 4 256GB (V1.5FW): 477
KINGSTON HYPER X 3K 240GB: 315

4K random write performance
AS SSD: Megabytes per second: Higher is better
KINGSPEC E3000 240GB: 63
OCZ VERTEX 4 256GB (V1.5FW): 57
KINGSTON HYPER X 3K 240GB: 50

Like all SandForce based drives the E3000 has the same ol' problem dealing with incompressible data in the AS SSD benchmark. It's the same in the CrystalDiskMark benchmark where the drive gives up a sequential write figure of 231MB/s.

However if the benchmark is switched to compressible data mode then the resulting write figure is a hugely improved 482MB/s.

When it comes to the headline performance figures for the drive though, we found even KingSpec's own figures - up to 500MB/s for reads and 489MB/s for writes - were a little on the conservative side. When tested with the ATTO benchmark we achieved 556MB/s and 530MB/s for reads and writes respectively.

On these figures alone that makes it one of the fastest 2.5-inch SSDs we ever tested. Not only is it one of the fastest drives we've tested it's also got a relatively palatable price tag to boot, especially for a drive aimed at the enterprise side of things. Although there are cheaper 240GB drives in the market, the E3000-240 still comes in under the magic £1/GB ceiling. Which is pretty impressive.

Six months ago a drive like this would probably be around £300. KingSpec quotes a MTBF of 1.5 million hours for the E3000 series, some 200,000 hours longer than the drives in the company's consumer range, which is what you would expect from a drive like this.

On the minus side, there's no fitting kit or drive bay converter, or any backup/migration software. But given the market segment the E series is aimed at, it's no surprise.

What is a bit surprising is that KingSpec only backs the drive with a two-year warranty which, with competitors' three and five-year warranties, seems a bit stingy.

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Review: iPad mini

Superb designGreat batteryExtremely light and portableSmaller touch targetsHigher price than competitionLow-res screen

Apple has gone where we never thought it would, with the iPad mini bringing the Apple tablet experience to a brave new budget world.

The new tablet comes in at a wallet-friendly £279 / $US329 / $AU369 for the basic version, with 16GB of storage on offer for the Wi-Fi version. You can supplement the mini-slate with up to 64GB of space to chuck movies and music, as well as 4G LTE connectivity, but that will set you back an eye-watering £529 / $US659 / $AU729 for the top model.

But then again, the iPad mini release isn't about the top end specs with a whopping price tag – it's about beating the likes of the Google Nexus 7 and Amazon Kindle Fire HD in the budget stakes.

The two competitors have been getting many column inches so far thanks to the super cheap prices and the impressive specs on board – although with both only offering a 7-inch screen compared to Apple's 7.9-inch offering, the Cupertino board is confident its device will win the day when it comes to capturing consumers' hearts.

However, the more frugal shopper, and especially one buying for a loved on, may not agree with this idea, as the Nexus 7 or Kindle Fire HD costs 30% less and when faced with a choice between the three might opt for the familiar Amazon brand or the sheer power of the Nexus 7, with its mightily impressive spec list and legions of Google apps.

That said, Apple fans need not worry too much when it comes to whether the iPad mini is a worthy addition to the iBrand, as it comes with enough power and reams of Ive-inspired design to make it a worthwhile addition to the range – this isn't a shrunken down iPad, it's a whole new product again.

Be it the larger screen size, the impressively low weight or the alternative design compared to the competition there's a lot to chew over with the iPad mini – but is it worth spending your hard-earned when more cash will get you a fully-fledged version of Apple's tablet?

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Review: Sky+ HD 2TB

With 65 HD channels and a newly extended catch-up service, Sky is now comfortably ahead of the rest when it comes to offering pay TV subscribers a range of channels to choose from. But with so much to dine on you're gonna need a bigger boat if you want to keep on top of all the sport, movies and other entertainment available. Enter the new Sky+HD 2TB PVR.

The nomenclature is a tad misleading, though. This latest receiver only offers 500GB more user recording space than its Sky+ HD 1TB predecessor. The remaining 500GB is portioned off for on-demand services.

But whatever way you cut it, it can sure fit in a heck of a lot of TV episodes.

Design wise, the new Sky+ HD 2TB is a dead-ringer for its sibling. This Sky/Amstrad-made box measures a compact 351 x 265 x 73mm (13.8 x 10.4 x 2.9 inches) and has a curvy, glossy finish and comparable jack pack.

In addition to HDMI, there are two digital audio outputs (optical and coaxial), Scart (needless to say you'll not benefit from HD if you use this), a pair of F-connectors, Ethernet, RJ45 telephone jack plus inactive e-SATA and USB ports from and back.

The Sky viewing card slots lurks behind a small fascia flap on the right. The default Sky remote is also supplied.

The Sky+ HD 2TB set-top box is priced at £49 (around AU$76/US$79) for existing Sky customers who take an HD subscription. New customers joining with HD can get the box for £149 (around AU$231/US$240).

Other charges may apply depending on your chosen package or setup. Sky charges £30 as a standard set-up cost for new customers, and £60 for existing Sky TV customers. However, self-set up is available for £15.

To access the full bouquet of Sky+ HD channels requires a £10.25 increment to your chosen Sky package price.

If you want to buy an extra Sky+ HD 2TB box, or buy the box without a Sky+ HD subscription, it will cost you £249.

The original Sky+ recorder effectively set the template for all other PVRs to follow, and this latest iteration doesn't deviate much from the formula.

A seven day ahead electronic programme guide (EPG) enables you to record shows or series, plus there's Live Pause and - most recently and excitingly - Undelete.

The latter provides a welcome safety net. Should a family member 'accidentally' erase your carefully manicured stack of Star Trek: TOS Remastered (thank you CBS Action), you can pull Kirk and co back from the black hole of oblivion.

The most fundamental change from earlier Sky propositions is the revamped and engorged on-demand offerings.

Thankfully Sky continues to push new shows and movies into the box overnight just as it did with AnyTime, which enables you to find surprises that might otherwise have been lost amid the EPG, and now there's Pull-based catch-up content as well.

In addition to BBC iPlayer, ITV Player and Demand 5, there's content from Sky One, Sky Atlantic, Sky Living, Sky Arts and Sky Sports. And 4od is promised for 2013.

When it comes to sheer usability, Sky has this game nailed with the Sky+ HD 2TB. The main menu navigation is clean and simple, sub-menus are clear, and the EPG is snap to navigate.

When it comes to searching for content, though, it's a bit of a dog's dinner. Finding a needle in a haystack would probably be easier.

Thankfully, this no longer really matters, since search functionality is now very effectively covered by the Sky+ app, which increasingly is becoming part and parcel of the user experience.

The latest version of the Sky+ app for iPad, blessed with Zeebox technology, enhances viewing with metadata-linked search and some social media. The Android app isn't as advanced, but still offers remote recording, search and channel highlights.

In terms of raw audio-visual performance, the Sky+ HD 2TB box doesn't disappoint (although there are the usual caveats). The best of Sky's HD channel output, which includes Sky Sports F1 HD, is recorded with mirror-perfect fidelity.

When it comes to 1080i TV transmissions, you won't find better. Naturally some of the lower budget SD channels aren't up to snuff, although the box will try valiantly to upscale them depending on how the picture set-up menu has been configured.

The service is also fully compatible with Sky's Side-By-Side format 3D output. While this lacks the clarity of flat high-definition, it's entertaining enough if funny spectacles are your thing.

Sky deserves a pat on the back for at least maintaining its commitment to the third dimension, given the withering disregard expressed by consumers at large. It's probably fair to say that we won't see 3D being ramped up much going forward, but at least there's been no let-up in free and new Pay TV offerings from the channel.

Perhaps disappointingly, Dolby Digital 5.1 is still only available over a separate digital audio lead - the HDMI feed is slavishly chained to stereo.

Consequently you can expect some faffing around with your AV receiver if you plan on employing the recorder in a home cinema system. Once up and running, though, it's a solid enough multi-channel sound experience.

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Economic Impact of the ITRs

The ITU’s upcoming World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) could have dire implications for global economic growth and development.  Proposed revisions to the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) could fundamentally change the way the Internet works, diminishing the positive impact of the Internet on economies around the globe. Certain treaty proposals would exacerbate the global digital divide by increasing the cost of sending traffic over the network and inhibiting nations from adopting network neutrality rules. Such extreme revisions to the treaty could change the economics of the Internet by shackling it to the rules and operating principles of twentieth-century telecommunications systems.

One proposal makes an audacious bid to replace the proven system for sending Internet traffic with a "sender pays" telecommunications model that pre-dates the World Wide Web.  Through increasing costs and constraining traffic flows, this proposal would rein in the Internet's ability to drive business, social change, and innovation. And it could limit its global reach by fracturing the network into the Internet equivalent of gated communities. CDT's new paper, Economic Impact of the ITRs, outlines how some of the proposed revisions to the regulations may have significant and far-reaching consequences on economic growth and development around the globe.

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Hands-on review: Samsung Ativ S

For anyone wondering what Samsung's answer to the Windows Phone 8 question will be, we've got the answer. It's the Samsung Ativ S, an aluminum beauty with a 1.5GHz processor that's ready to rock with Microsoft's new smartphone OS.

Thanks to phones and phablets like the Galaxy S3 and the Galaxy Note 2, Samsung has established itself as an industry leader in mobile hardware. While the Ativ S closely resembles its Android cousins, can it make good on Samsung's stellar reputation?

At Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 event in San Francisco, we went hands-on with the Ativ S. While exact pricing and release date for this device are still murky, we think both Galaxy S3 fans that are Windows Phone 8-curious and those new to Samsung devices have plenty to be excited about with the Ativ S. In fact, it might be the best Windows Phone 8 we've seen yet.

On first impression, the Ativ S looks a lot the Galaxy S3. With the same aluminum chassis, it's just a tiny bit longer than the S3 and sports a physical Windows button and capacitive back and search keys, like we've seen on all Windows Phone 8 devices so far. As far as thickness goes the two devices are extremely comparable.

S3 on the left, Ativ S on the right

The similarities run deeper than just the chassis. While it lacks the S3's quad-core, the Ativ S has a Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor running at 1.5GHz. There's 1GB of RAM, 16 or 32GB of storage with the option for MicroSD expansion and a removable 2300 mAh battery.

Ativ S on top, S3 on bottom

That 2300 mAh cell is the largest battery we've seen yet on a Windows Phone 8 device. It's even a little bigger than the one on the S3. While we have to reserve judgment until we give the Ativ S the patented TechRadar battery test, that big cell and dual instead of quad-core processor could give it even better battery life than the Galaxy S3, which is no slouch in that department. It also has the potential for the best battery life among Windows Phone 8 devices.

Battery size isn't the only category where Samsung claimed to be on top. Representatives also bragged that the Ativ S is the thinnest Windows Phone 8 yet announced, and the one with the largest screen.

Just like the Galaxy S3, the Ativ S has a big, beautiful 4.8-inch AMOLED screen. It should have some durability thanks to Gorilla Glass 2, which you can find on pretty much any smartphone these days.

Those signature Windows Phone 8 Live Tiles looked especially lively on this sharp display. The familiar blue of Facebook just about popped right off the screen.

Here's one more Galaxy S3 similarity, an 8-megapixel camera with LED flash. Just like the S3, it takes sharps snaps at a responsive rate.

The camera is one place where Microsoft really wants Windows Phone 8 devices to distinguish themselves. The Ativ S has a dedicated camera button on the lower right side. Once in picture-taking mode you'll immediately notice the large software buttons for functions like adjusting flash, taking video and switching to the 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera.

At the Windows Phone 8 event in San Francisco, Samsung was not yet ready to start talking about carrier information or release date. As far as when consumers will be able to pick up an Ativ S, they wouldn't get anymore specific than "holiday." However, we do know that Verizon will be getting its own alternate version of the Ativ S, called the Ativ Odyssey, which will arrive in December.

While some U.K. pricing information has already been leaked, there's no firm word on what we'll be paying for the Ativ S when it launches.

As an Ativ-branded device, the Ativ S is part of Samsung's line of mobile devices designed specifically for Windows 8. This includes the Samsung Ativ Tab, Ativ Smart PC and Ativ Smart PC Pro.

Samsung was eager to show how pictures snapped on the Ativ S would quickly sync across Windows 8 devices via Microsoft's cloud solution Skydrive.

The Windows Phone 8 race has just begun, but there may already be a frontrunner. We loved both the specs and the construction of the Ativ S.

First off, the dual-core processor strikes us as a great choice. While devices like the Galaxy S3 and the LG Optimus G get a lot of bang out of their quads, we think Samsung was smart to favor battery life and reliability with the Ativ S. Tossing in that sizeable 2300 mAh cell may have given us a recipe for a phone with some real electrical longevity.

We also loved the big and bright display. Windows Live Tiles are sort of like Android app icons cross breed with widgets, and being able to get so many on one screen while looking so good is a real boon. It really shows you how smart a Windows Phone 8 device can look.

Finally, the thin aluminum construction of the device is fabulous. It's definitely the kind of thing you can slide into a pocket or purse and forget you're even carrying. Between the HTC Windows Phone 8X, HTC Windows Phone 8S, and Nokia 822, there was an awful lot of plastic on the show floor. While we personally don't think the the Ativ S or it's cousin, the Galaxy S3, feel quite as nice as the iPhone 5, it felt like a step up from the other Windows Phone 8 devices on display.

The Ativ S is our favorite Windows Phone 8 smartphone so far. While we like the eye catching and grippy construction of HTC's Windows Phone 8X and 8S, and the colorful, swappable backplates of the Nokia Lumia 810, Lumia 820 and 822, the Ativ S looks great. It's plenty thin and you can't argue with those specs.

We're excited to give the Ativ S a full run-down once we get one in for review. The same goes for the Verizon version, the Ativ Odyssey, which may come with even more perks. We can't wait to find out what they are.

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Review: Arctic Cooling Accelero Hybrid

Great cooling performanceVery quietGood fitting instructionsBy Simon Crisp from PCFormat Issue 272  October 30th 2012

Water-cooling, which was once the domain of the true geek/enthusiast, has become quite the thing over the last year or so. Those crazy geeks have graduated to using liquid nitrogen and other glamorous, if not down-right dodgy, cooling liquids.

But a number of DIY CPU cooling kits have recently flooded our labs. And there are more of them on the way from the likes of Enermax. What we haven't seen is that enthusiasm being transferred over to the GPU cooling arena.

Arctic Cooling has taken the bull by the horns and released a DIY liquid cooling kit, but this time not for a CPU - instead it's for keeping a graphics card cool. Be warned, though - it comes at quite a price.

As you might be able to summise from the name, the Arctic Cooling Accelero Hybrid is not a pure liquid cooler. Rather, it's a hybrid between liquid cooling and standard air cooling. The graphics core is cooled by the closed loop liquid cooling system while the air cooling looks after the memory and power chips.

It fits a wide range of both AMD and Nvidia cards from the AMD 7 series (7870, 7850) down to the 4 series (4890, 4870, 4850) and Nvidia's GTX (680 down to 460), including the latest GTX 660 Ti and even the wee GT 520. There's a full list of compatible cards on the Arctic Cooling website, so it's definitely worth checking before you buy to see if your card is okay to use.

Bear in mind, though, the list is for reference designs, but there are enough kinds of fittings included that you should be able to find ones that fit. We used a non-reference Sapphire HD7870 FleX to test with and didn't have any problems.

If you're new to dismantling a graphics card, especially one that costs around £200, then what you want from the instructions is a complete guide that holds your hand. Arctic Cooling has got this spot on with the step-by-step fold-out guide. There are illustrations throughout and the parts list is very clear - it's a good job, too, as there are quite a few bits and bobs in the box.

There are 31 heatsinks of all different shapes and sizes alone. It's a pretty lengthy process, so put aside a couple of hours to get it fitted. We followed the instructions until we got to the part about gluing on the heatsinks for the memory and power modules. The card we were using was due to be returned to Sapphire and we didn't fancy the hassle of trying to prise the heatsinks off, so we used thermal pads instead of the glue provided.

In terms of actual cooling performance it acquitted itself well, keeping the GPU cooler than the stock Sapphire cooler on the card tested. It was particularly impressive when the card was being pushed, which is quite something, because the cooling system on a stock 7870 FleX is impressive in its own right.

Cooling performance
Idle: Degrees celcius: Lower is better
ACCELERO HYBRID (1,200MHZ OC): 28
SAPPHIRE HD 7870 FLEX (1,200MHZ OC): 30
ACCELERO HYBRID (STOCK): 26
SAPPHIRE HD 7870 FLEX (STOCK): 26

Cooling performance
Full load: Degrees celcius: Lower is better
ACCELERO HYBRID (1,200MHZ OC): 51
SAPPHIRE HD 7870 FLEX (1,200MHZ OC): 57
ACCELERO HYBRID (STOCK): 44
SAPPHIRE HD 7870 FLEX (STOCK): 46

In some ways it was a bit sneaky to compare the Accelero Hybrid with the FleX, as the card already has one of Sapphire's top Dual-X coolers keeping temperatures down. However, it shows how well the Accelero Hybrid performs if it can keep the GPU cooler than a system already around 20°C cooler under load than the reference design.

Compared to a reference-design cooler from Nvidia or AMD themselves and the cooling performance will be even better.

Despite the impressive performance, the package is tempered by that price tag. It makes this niche product appeal to an even narrower audience.

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Will Obama Support Open Access?

This post is part of CDT Fellows Focus, a series that presents the views of notable experts. These posts don't necessarily reflect the views of CDT.

Does the Obama Administration believe in the power of the Internet to maximize the value of public investments in scientific research? We are waiting to find out. Each year, the government spends about $60 billion on basic scientific research. About half of this money goes to the National Institutes of Health, which has an Internet-friendly Public Access Policy that requires all grantees to provide a copy of journal articles and other published results of taxpayer-funded research to be posted online within one year after publication. This policy has bipartisan support and has been an unqualified success. So, why not require the other agencies that fund basic research, like the National Science Foundation, NASA and the Department of Energy, to do the same?

The White House is in the process of deciding how to answer this question. Specifically, the Office of Science and Technology Policy asked for public comment on the issue of open access to science journal articles and scientific research data arising from all federally-funded research - twice. The responses to the White House inquiries show that posting scientific research online benefits multiple audiences: (1) researchers working from home or from a place where they do not have access to institutional subscriptions; (2) entrepreneurs who lack the funds to purchase expensive journal subscriptions; (3) students whose schools cannot afford subscriptions to all the relevant journals; (4) patients and their families who want to read the medical research for themselves; and (5) text mining software that can aid all of the above in interpreting the journal literature to make decisions about new research paths and to make new discoveries about patterns and associations that a human reader alone would never see.

The President has the authority to require that researchers who receive federal grants must agree to provide public access on the Internet to copies of research articles arising from this federal support. Such a policy is fully consistent with copyright law because authors of these articles make a choice to allow their articles to be posted online in exchange for the federal funding that allows them to do the research and write these articles. The Administration has delayed in exercising this authority because a group of journal publishers oppose the principle of taxpayer access to taxpayer-funded research even when the evidence is clear that the NIH policy does not impact their subscription revenues.

Frustrated by this delay, three open access allies, Heather Joseph, John Wilbanks, and Mike Rossner, and I lodged a petition on the White House's "We the People" website. The petition asks the Administration to extend the NIH Public Access Policy to all federal agencies that fund scientific research. If a petition gets 25,000 signatures within 30 days, the Administration says that it will issue an official response. We posted our petition on Sunday, May 20th, and started a website, www.access2research.org, to explain why researchers, students, librarians, innovators, patients' advocacy organizations, and Internet supporters of all kinds have risen up to meet the challenge, and the petition passed the 25,000 mark in just two weeks.

Now that the Administration has to respond at least to the petition, will it side with the public or with the group of publishers who actively resist the idea that publicly funded research should be available on the public Internet?

Michael Carroll is a Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law; Heather Joseph is the Executive Director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition; John Wilbanks is a Senior Fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and runs the Consent to Research Project; and Mike Rossner is the Executive Director of the Rockefeller University Press, which publishes three influential journals in the life sciences that make their content freely available online six months after publication.

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