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500

Can a 2-watt amp sound better than a 200-watt amp?

Americans love power. We buy 320-horsepower Chevy Tahoes to haul the kids to soccer practice. For home theater, the magic power number for receivers is 100 watts, and it has to be a seven-channel model, even though 80 or 90 percent of home theater buyers are perfectly happy with five-channel sound.

Americans equate power with quality, but I'm here to tell you there's another way. Sure, power is cheap, and a the-more-the-merrier strategy works well enough most of the time. Let's just be clear on what amplifier power provides: it defines the upper limit of how loud … Read more

CES: Acer shows nameless 7- and 4.8-inch tablets

LAS VEGAS--Earlier this week Acer introduced its 10-inch Iconis A500 tablet, but Acer also gave a sneak peek of 7- and 4.8-inch tablets.

Neither tablet has a name as of yet, and neither was functioning when we saw them. Acer is planning to release them, however no date was specified. No other information concerning operating system or processor was officially released.

One thing we did notice was that the 4.8-inch tablet's screen had a crazy aspect ratio, but Acer was unable to confirm exactly what it is.

Take a look at the pics to get an idea … Read more

Acer unveils 10-inch Iconis A500 tablet

LAS VEGAS--Tablet news just keeps a rolling in this week at CES and the tablet crew here at CNET remains focused on delivering as much as current U.S. labor laws allow.

On Wednesday Acer and Verizon Wireless announced the Iconis Tab A500. The tablet will use the latest version of Android and the Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core 1GHz processor to power its 10-inch capacitive touch screen.

The Iconis will also make use of Verizon Wireless's 4G LTE Mobile Broadband network and use Acer's UI 4.5 in tandem with Android as its interface of choice.

Other … Read more

Netgear out with 500Mbps four-port powerline kit

LAS VEGAS--Trendnet shipped the first 500Mbps powerline kit, the TPL-401E2K, a month ago, and now Netgear has upped this type of device another notch.

The company announced today its first 500Mbps powerline kit, the Internet Adapter for Home Theater XAVB5004; it offers four ports at the far end of the connection.

The XAVB5004 includes two adapters. The first one has a single Gigabit port to connect to an existing network via a router (or a hub); the second adapter has four Gigabit ports, meaning you can use up to four Ethernet-ready devices before having to resort to an additional hub. … Read more

Trendnet introduces first 500Mbps power-line adapter with Wireless-N access point

LAS VEGAS--Just a month ago, Trendnet debuted the first 500Mbps power-line adapter kit, the TPL-401E2K, and earlier than that, Netgear introduced the first 200Mbps power-line kit to incorporate a wireless access point, the AV 200 Wireless-N Extender Kit XAVNB2001.

Now, as predicted, it seems we will soon have the first product that combines both of these: Trendnet announced today the 500Mbps Powerline AV Wireless-N Access Point, model TPL-410AP. It's a 500Mbps power-line adapter that can also work as a Wi-Fi extender.

Similar to Netgear's XAVNB2001 kit, the TPL-410AP combines a high-performance 500Mbps power-line adapter with a 300Mbps Wireless-N … Read more

S&P 500 adds Netflix to its queue

Financial services company Standard & Poor's announced changes yesterday to its S&P 500 stock market index, a widely respected compendium of large-cap U.S. public companies: Netflix is on the list for the first time. In the same announcement, rather poignantly, S&P announced that newspaper giant The New York Times Co. has been demoted to its index of mid-size companies (the MidCap 400), as has photography equipment manufacturer Eastman Kodak.

Previously, Netflix had been on the MidCap 400 list.

Netflix has had one heck of a year, nearly a decade after it first went public … Read more

Trendnet debuts 500Mbps power-line adapter

Most power-line networking devices on the market, such as the Netgear XAVNB2001, the Western Digital WD Livewire, and the Linksys PLK300, are based on the HomePlug AV standard and therefore cap at 200Mbps. While this is plenty fast for general Internet-surfing needs, it's not fast enough for media-intensive applications, such as high-definition movie streaming. Trendnet is bound to change this.

The company announced today what it says are the first power-line options on the market to be based on the new IEEE 1901 standard. They will offer up to 500Mbps throughput speeds--again, that's 250 percent faster than the … Read more

Dell Duo: Are Windows tablets on the rise?

There's the iPad, and there are Android tablets, but the most intriguing dark horse of them all might still be Windows 7. Despite many products we've seen that have been awkward grafts of Windows 7 touch technology, the imminent arrival of the Dell Inspiron Duo re-confirms that Windows 7 convertible tablets aren't dead yet.

However, are they shaping up to be better than what we've previously seen?

We reviewed the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t earlier this year, a well-designed but flawed convertible Atom / Windows 7 convertible tablet that felt bulky and slow. Recent designs such as the … Read more

Fiat 500 debuts in production trim for U.S. market

It's been a while coming, but it's finally here. At the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show, the Chrysler Group debuted the first fruits of its union with the Fiat Group in the form of the production-spec, U.S. market Fiat 500.

Expectedly, the 500 looks and probably behaves similarly to the European market model. It features the same compact packaging and cute sporty looks. However, Fiat's engineers have tweaked a few bits beneath the sheet metal to make the ultracompact more U.S. market-friendly.

Under the hood is Fiat's award-winning 1.4-liter MultiAir engine, which uses … Read more

Hewlett-Packard runs out of Slates

Consumers still looking to buy one of Hewlett-Packard's new Slate 500 devices will have to wait awhile.

Only three weeks since its debut, HP's new tablet is on back order, according to a notice on the unit's order page. The notice says the tablet is scheduled to ship in another six weeks, and a person in HP's sales department confirmed that it would be shipping on December 27. This means that people who place new orders for a Slate 500 won't be able to get one in time for the holidays.

HP has attributed the … Read more