Isaiah's Tech

Today (Tuesday), HP has confirmed the new HP Firebird. For the price tag of $1,799 USD, you get "an Intel Core 2 Quad CPU, twin NVIDIA GeForce 9800S graphics cards in an SLI configuration, ... 320GB hard drives (two of 'em) and an advanced thermal management system to keep things cool, calm, collected and quiet." The Firebird will be released on January 9 from Voodoo. If you want to wait a little bit, it will be released to retailers on February 1st. Let's back-track a little bit. I mentioned that the graphics cards will have an SLI configuration. So what exactly does that mean? Well, SLI stands for Scalable Link Interface and this is, basically, when you link 2 graphics cards together to make one single output. In the end, this will free the graphics load off of your CPU. Moving along.

This week's CES we will see this new notebook from HP, the Pavilion dv2. It will be on "AMD's new Neo platform." This 12.1 inch notebook will weigh in at around 3.8 pounds and will have "a 1.6GHz Athlon Neo MV-40 processor." This laptop is loaded. For $699 USD, you get: "Bluetooth, HDMI-out, an integrated webcam and 3.5 to 4-hours of battery." This laptop is upgradeable for: up to 4GB of memory and 500GB of space, optional 802.11n Wi-Fi and WWAN support, which is short for Wireless Wide Area Network. For $899 USD you can configure it with "ATI Radeon HD3410 discrete graphics and an external Blu-ray player." Quite a bunch of stuff in this notebook. Did i mention that it is less than an inch thick? Wow. Looks like a beauty and it even has some designs to the left of the touchpad.

This HP Pavilion dv3 is actually out today, so if i talk about it and you want it so bad, go and get it. So anyways, the HP Pavilion dv3 is AMD-powered and has a wide range of specifications. The dv3 will have "WiFi / Bluetooth, a dual-layer DVD burner, gigabit Ethernet, an ExpressCard slot and a satisfactory array of ports including three USB 2.0 sockets, VGA, HDMI, eSATA combo and audio in / out." You can choose from a "2GHz (Athlon X2 QL-62) to 2.4 GHz (Turion X2 Ultra ZM-86) ... up to 8GB of DDR2 RAM, 160/250/320/400GB hard drive choices." I'll end it off by saying that this laptop has an ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics card and starts at a price of $799 USD.

HP Quad-Core Firebird (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/06/hp-officially-launches-firebird-with-voodoo-dna/
HP Pavilion dv2 (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/06/hps-12-1-inch-pavilion-dv2-dont-call-it-a-netbook/
HP Pavilion dv3 (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/06/hp-greets-us-with-13-3-inch-pavilion-dv3-entertainment-laptop/

So, the first 'official' review came out for Killzone 2. The Official Playstation Magazine has stated that it liked the game, a lot. They gave it a 5 stars out of 5 and even mentioned that it is a "powerful contender for the best game of 2009." This is pretty good news and i just hope that the magazine isn't being biased, since it is the Official Playstation Magazine and this game should be the game to go after in 2009, for Playstation 3 owners. I hope this game is all it's hyped up to be, even if i don't have a Playstation 3 by the time this comes out, which is very likely. Hopefully, we'll see more review's from other sites and magazines soon, since we can't base our whole point of view of the game on just one review, from the Playstation Magazine.

There is new rumour that says that the Blackberry Curve 8900 is going to come out a week earlier than scheduled. It is now reported to be releasing on T-Mobile on February 11. Unlike the [good-looking but terrible] Blackberry Storm, the Blackberry Curve 8900 will have Wi-Fi. The camera is also pretty decent at 3.2 megapixels. The release date for Canada is currently unavailable, but hopefully it'll be around the same date as when the US gets it. The Blackberry Bold is quite popular in Canada, so i wonder if this Curve will top the popularity of the Bold.

After my last blog post, i went to Wal-Mart and the mall near my place, Bramalea City Centre, with my mother. At Wal-Mart we got more Ferrero Rocher and i got myself some more sliced pineapples. Thanks to my girlfriend, who actually introduced me to such a good tasting fruit. Anyways, after Wal-Mart we went to the mall. I got hangers, for my clothes, and my mom sent some package to the Philippines or something, i think it was money. So, on our way home, i plugged my iPod into the radio in the car. I played "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith and we both sang the whole thing all the way home. And no, i do not listen to Aerosmith all the time, so do not ask why that's on my iPod. Anyways, we got home and as i was eating a Rogers Internet commercial came up. It's the commercial where one guy is on the computer and his friend is over his shoulder watching what he does. The friend on the computer shows the other friend a video, and what do you know, it starts buffering. The friend watching asks if he has Rogers and he says, "No, but look how fast it's going." When clearly, it is buffering and being utterly slow. The guy watching says, "You should get Rogers High-Speed Internet because it's the fastest." This is where my mom commented and said, "That's not true." I asked her, why she though that and she said because when she clicks on Chikka (some texting program) it takes forever to show up on her computer. I laughed and asked, "Do you mean when you click on the icon on your desktop, it takes forever to pop up." And she said, "Yeah, it takes forever because the Internet is so slow." I laughed really hard and explained to her that, her opening an icon on her desktop has nothing to do with the Internet. The reason that it took forever to pop up was because her computer is 9 years old now and running Windows 2000. She told me that she's going to get a new one and i told her to just wait until the new AMD's come out with Windows 7, since it will be a significant upgrade. If she gets a new computer, i know that, that's coming to me and i'm just going to give her this one that i'm using now. If i get a new desktop, i'll be ready for Starcraft 2 easily. Anyways, i just though i'd like to share that amusing story with you all. Time for me to play Hot Shots Golf Fore until i sleep. Have a good night everyone.

Killzone 2 Review (and picture): http://kotaku.com/5123687/the-first-killzone-2-review-is-in
Blackberry Curve 8900 (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/05/t-mobiles-blackberry-curve-8900-seemingly-pegged-for-february-1/