Gizmodo: black edition

AMD's $69 2.8GHz Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition CPU Reviewed (Verdict: Not Bad For the Price)

Sean Fallon — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:12:00 EDT

Years ago I used to build with AMD processors because I was looking for decent power at an affordable price. Their new Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition claims to do that for only $69.

So far reviews have been generally positive, with the consensus being that the 2.8GHz chip with 2MB of L3 cache isn't spectacular, but it can deliver enough performance to handle the latest games. Because it's a Black Edition, users are going to want to overclock this thing, and the Overclocker's Club concluded that while it can't stand up to triple and quad cores, it could beat the Athlon X2 7750 as well as the Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 in several tests. The overclocking process was a bit tedious and they could only push it to x1.5 over stock, but overall it gives you a decent bang for your buck. If you are looking for additional opinions on the 7850, Engadget has rounded up several reviews. [AMD and Engadget]

Samsung's Black Edition Credit-Card Sized 1.8-inch HDs Are Tiny, Shiny

John Mahoney — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:40:00 EDT

Samsung's taking its large-capacity 1.8-inch HDs (found inside the Macbook Air, iPod, etc) and throwing them into this sleek bus-powered credit-card-sized casing, which looks to be about as small a form factor we're going to see for a 1.8-inch drive. They're only available in Asia at the moment, and on the high end (120GB) they're pricey (almost $300, but available on Chinese sites for considerably less). On the low end, a 20GB version that can basically fit in your wallet is around $45—not bad, if you're not feeling the flash route. And the form factor is pretty hot; "The Storage World In Hand," indeed. [Everything USB via Gadget Lab]

Parrot PARTY Black Edition Speakers Do Use Near Field Connection

Kit Eaton — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 09:10:00 EDT

Parrot has come up with a new Black Edition of their PARTY speaker which uses Near Field Communications to connect to audio sources, claiming it's the first commercial speaker system to do this. Basically you don't have to do any complicated Bluetooth paring, just tap your cellphone to the speaker and away you go. It uses a class-D amp, has a 6W power output, a "Stereo Widening" option to create virtual surround sound and its rechargeable batteries will last eight hours. Available in the summer in the UK for around $156. Update: Ok, we thought they did, then we thought they didn't: Parrot contacted us, very sweetly, to say "yes... they are NFC enabled." Hooray. Sorry for the confusion. [Pocket Lint]