3100

Motorola got a jump start on CES when it announced its new crop of phones two days before the show opens. The most high-end of the bunch is the new Surf A3100 smartphone, which offers an expansive touch screen and support for Windows Mobile 6.1. Starting Thursday in Las Vegas, it will join the Earth-friendly Renew W233 and the rugged Tundra VA76r at Moto's booth on the show floor.

Sporting a sleek, attractive design with rounded edges and chrome detailing, the Surf offers three ways for users to interact with it. They can use a stylus, a trackball, … Read more

Discontent with Intel graphics goes back a few years. But the unsealing of 3-year-old e-mail exchanges between Intel and Microsoft reveals something about the present, too.

First some background. Intel makes integrated graphics silicon--that is, graphics functionality that is built into its chipsets. Performance is not the name of the game for Intel. Delivering power-efficient, adequate graphics that can handle everyday tasks and do basic gaming is the goal. Anything beyond this is left to the high-octane discrete chips from ATI and Nvidia.

"We've always been consistent that high-end gamers should use discrete graphics," said Intel spokesman … Read more

Q: 1. Is there any in-car GPS that allows me to review the route from start to finish without driving, once I input destination address in the device? If yes, which portable navigation device (PND) lets me review the route before actually driving? - Wize Chap via e-mail

A: Dear Wize Chap, turns out you have a lot of choices. Most in-car GPS offers route simulation or fly-over simulation (the name varies by manufacturer) that provides a running demo of your route from a bird's-eye view. It's useful in that it gives you an overall idea of what … Read more

Intel's long-awaited DirectX-10 graphics update for its chipsets is available.

DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling multimedia tasks in Microsoft-based environments, especially those tasks related to games and video. DirectX-10 support was mentioned by Intel as far back as 2006 when its popular 965 chipset was introduced.

The new Windows Vista driver enables DirectX10 functionality for Intel GM965 and G35 Express chipset based platforms. The GM965 uses the X3100 Intel graphics engine, while the G35 uses the X3500.

The update is available here.

"We have been able to add features to products using … Read more

We already know that Nvidia doesn't think highly of Intel's graphics technology. But is it really that bad, or is it good enough for most PC users?

Let's focus on the graphics technology that Intel has been supplying in volume to notebook PC makers over the last year or so. Namely, the Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) X3100, which is integrated into the GM965 chipset. Like many graphics platforms (Nvidia and ATI not excluded) it has a checkered past: late drivers (very late in some cases), broken DirectX promises, and erratic performance.

That said, tens of millions of … Read more

Bluetooth hands-free calling systems in cars are nothing new, but they might start becoming a lot more commonplace as more and more states and cities adopt legislation banning the use of cell phones while behind the wheel. Over the past week, we have been comparing three of the most popular Bluetooth hands-free calling systems from Parrot to see how they measure up against the competition and each other. Check out our full reviews of the CK3000 Evolution, the CK3100, and the 3200 LS Color.

Back in mid-August, Intel's Nick Knupffer made a promise to casual 3D gamers by suggesting that a new driver update would give systems that use the Intel G965 integrated graphics chipset a much-needed performance boost. I was highly skeptical of this claim, but wanted to put Intel's claims to the test.

To test Intel's claims, I chose an Acer TravelMate 4720-6727 laptop, which uses a 2GHz Core 2 Duo T7300 CPU, 1GB of RAM, an integrated 965GM Express graphic chipset with 384MB memory allocated, and running Windows XP Professional SP2. While this hardware combination is not the … Read more