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Its only Apple who thinks that one product can be perfect for everyone, from the serious developer and power user to Joe Six-Pack. Other companies diversify to give each niche their own product at cheap price points.

To be fair, I don't think that Apple thinks that the iPhone is perfect for everyone. It's perfect for them--the people who make it--and they think it's perfect for enough people that it's a worthwhile product to make.

There are a lot of complaints about every company, including Apple, that I can understand. but their decision to focus on a limited product line is hardly a reason to get on them, any more than we should berate Samsung for making a mind-boggling 147 models.

The folks at Apple make what they make. If you don't like their phones, you've got hundreds of others to choose from.

I have a Samsung CLP-315. The printer is described by Samsung as the smallest and cheapest color laser in the market. I know the manufacturer isn't the most reliable source for such a claim, but it doesn't break the bank. It worked out of the box under Ubuntu and Debian Linux. Samsung also provides a proprietary CUPS printer driver which supposedly works better for printing photos and the like. But since I use the color printer mostly for spot color when not printing in monochrome I haven't bothered installing it.

Incidentally, my initial Google searches for printer driver support under Linux turned up mostly negative user comments ranging from barely functional to need-to-hack. Maybe I need to sharpen my Google skills, but fortunately the "sob" stories proved largely unfounded. The only quirk I've encountered with the FOSS driver appears to be an inability to print in 600x600 dpi mode (1200x600 and 600x600 work).

One caveat. Since this is a small printer, the toner cartridges are also correspondingly small. Expect higher cost$ per page than spaceprobe-massive workgroup lasers!

I have one of the old Samsung drives from 2007, a 80GB with 256MB of flash.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_drive
http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/office/hard-disk-drives/hybrid-hdd-flashon/HM08HHI/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail

I'm currently using a pair of SyncMaster 2443bw monitors. They're both running at native 1920x1200.

People tend to be surprised by my setup, however, because I have the left monitor in landscape orientation, but the right monitor in portrait orientation. I find that some things (such as spreadsheets) look better on a wide display, whereas other things (like web pages) look better on a tall display. It's the best of both worlds - I just click the content over to whichever screen it looks best on. This is especially easy to do with a program like Ultramon.

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/learningresources/tv/mediasolution/infolive_usersguide.html I don't think you are talking about the same setup. I believe you can either use a standard cat5/5e/6 cable or one of their infolink wireless usb adapters.

Wear leveling isn't some magical pixie dust that suddenly solves the write cycle limit. It just spreads the writes so that it takes longer wear it out.

But for some numbers they give (if I read it right) they say you can write 42.1GB each day on the largest (256GB) for 5 years. Which is about 76832GB before it goes 'poof'.

And some more info, the 256GB SSD contains 16x K9MDG08U5M-PCB00 chips. Which are 128Gbit each. Which comes to 256GB, which is odd, as you need spare space for wear leveling. But, specs save us again. 256GB SSD contains: 500118192 user sectors. Which is 238GB in flash. So that leaves 18GB for wear leveling.
(See: http://www.samsung.com/global/system/business/semiconductor/family/2010/1/1/Nand_Flash.pdf for info about the chip size)

Uh, where was I going with this? 42.1GB each day, or a max of 76832TB writing. On 238GB, which is 322 full write cycles.

Someone commented on the original article about the Samsung 'UTN' and 'UXN' professional displays. This one results in less than a quarter inch edge-to-edge.

http://www.samsung.com/ca/consumer/office/professional-displays/large-format-lcd/LH46MVTLBB/ZA/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail

I just got a roku for my parents, and at $100 it does what it needs to just fine. I can see Roku easily adding a USB port and "Media" channel to a future box without touching the pricepoint and doing the same thing all of these other boxes do.

Oh and it doesn't look like that stupid melted cube that D-link is trying to sell.

We were looking at a Roku over the holidays...

The laptop I was using to stream Netflix died on us, and I didn't have enough parts around to make a replacement Netflix box. The Roku looked like a decent device.

Then we noticed the Samsung BD-P1590... Costs more than a Roku, obviously, but it does more too. Plays DVDs, blu-ray discs, Netflix, Blockbuster, Pandora, YouTube...

We wound up buying the Samsung instead of the Roku. Replaced our old DVD player and the dead laptop.

We picked up a Samsung BD-P1590 as a replacement for our aging DVD player over the holidays...

It plays DVDs, obviously... As well as blu-ray discs... And it can stream stuff from Blockbuster, Netflix, Pandora, and YouTube. We got ours for about $150 at WalMart, but I'm told they can be had for as little as $80 if you're willing to shop around a bit.

I guess I'm just wondering why you'd buy a Roku for $80 or one of these PopBoxes for $130 just to stream Netflix.

Yes, the PopBox can stream all sorts of other stuff... Plenty of stuff that my new Samsung can't... But what's being advertised as the "killer app" is Netflix support.

In fact, if you look around a bit, there's plenty of hardware out there that can stream Netflix. All sorts of Netflix-enabled televisions and boxes. So I'm having a hard time seeing Netflix support as the "killer app" they're making it out to be...

On a somewhat unrelated note: Has anyone else noticed that broadcast television seems to be rapidly disappearing? We've got boxes that let us stream what we want, when we want it, from various web pages... We've got televisions that are able to stream content right from sites like Netflix... And we've got DVRs to download, record, and time-shift everything else... How long do you suppose it'll be before there's no such thing as "broadcast" television and it's all downloaded/streamed from your local affiliate's website?

Why should these companies choose a different strategy for Android-based phones than they do for any other phones? A very quick glance at their websites reveals the total number of mobile phone products they produce:

Samsung: 166
HTC: 39
Motorola: 107

So, in answer to your question of "why", these companies are doing the same thing with Android that they do with other mobile platforms. Is it a good idea to make a huge number of different phones? I think Steve Jobs would agree with you that it isn't. However, HTC, Samsung, and Motorola are not doing anything new. This is their "tried and true" business model. In fact, it would be strange to expect them to do something different just because their new mobile OS of choice is Android.

The Moment is using a Samsung SOC maybe this one http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/productInfo.do?fmly_id=229&partnum=S3C6410. The performance difference will be interesting to see between Samsungs SOC and the OMAP3.
I really want an android device with Tegra, HD video recording, Android 2.0, big OLED screen, and a pony on the Sprint network.

Realy....

You don't think that its U14 on the bottom thats the flash chip?

http://diy.sickmods.net/images/hires-wii-bottom.jpg

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/productInfo.do?fmly_id=159&partnum=K9F4G08U0A#component03

Wow, you're clearly misinformed. Most netbooks come with Windows XP OEM preinstalled or Linux. There's no downgrade trick. Here...

Dell
Asus
Acer
Samsung
Toshiba
Sony

I agree. That is why I'm excited about the Samsung CL65 that should be coming out soon:
http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/photography/digital-cameras/compact/EC-CL65ZZBPBUS/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail

Specs:
3.93" x 2.39" x 0.74"
x5 optical zoom
3.5" wide display with full touch screen panel
Wi-Fi (802.11 b / g), Bluetooth 2.0, GPS for Geo-tagging and Location Name

Hybrid drives are a few years old, but apparently not very popular.

Samsung makes some with 256 MB of on drive NAND flash.

I do have to question the effectiveness in multiple drive scenarios. And they talk about 4 GB of space - how do you avoid getting your page file stored on it? And how quickly will the 4 GB be worn out and read only? From the latest AnandTech article on SSDs:

Intel estimates that even if you wrote 20GB of data to your drive per day, its X25-M would be able to last you at least 5 years. Realistically, thats a value far higher than youll use consistently.

My personal desktop saw about 100GB worth of writes (whether from the OS or elsewhere) to my SSD and my data drive over the past 14 days. Thats a bit over 7GB per day of writes.

7 GB of data, 4 GB of space to store it. And since it's only going to be used as a sort of intelligent cache, you'll have a lot of erasures, as you'll be moving data off of the cache onto the harddrive to make room for new stuff, and back onto the cache again.

They say they'll use SLC, but how quickly will the OEMs demand MLC for lower end models and thus cut the number of write cycles by 10?

And at what point can you be certain that the document you've been working on for several hours a day for the two weeks is stored on the laptop's harddrive and not on the cache? It's bad enough when your laptop dies on you and you have to send it in for repairs, but if you cannot be certain that your data is safely tucked away on your removable harddrive ... especially if it's the motherboard that developed a failure.

It's a nifty idea, but for stuff like this I'd be worried about data safety more than performance gains. I can get performance gains by putting an SSD into my laptop right now and I know that I can remove the SSD again if the computer needs repairs.

I'll save myself from repeating and just point you out to this:

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/products/dram/Products_XDRDRAM.html

That 256 megs of 4GHz XDR eats up your puny 4GB of 1066MHz DDR2 without thinking twice, in clock speed, latency, and actual bandwidth throughput.

It uses an nVidia graphics the RSX core, which is pretty much a hyped-up Geforce 7800.

It sucked because of the hypervisor. They just removed it. Time for custom firmware to re-enable installing a third-party OS and time for direct access to the hardware.

2TFLOP supercomputer at your fingertips. The best high-end gaming PCs can barely hit 1TFLOP with all their hardware combined.

That 256MB of XDR will kick the crap out of any 1GB of DDR2.

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/products/dram/Products_XDRDRAM.html

What matters is how you USE the memory to achieve the highest performance.

From what I can tell online, that only runs at 1680x1050 even though they advertise "Full HD" support. They must be downscaling. http://www.samsung.com/ar/consumer/detail/detail.do?group=computersperipherals&type=monitors&subtype=lcd&model_cd=LS22TDSSU/ZB Also, I couldn't seem to find an english language page for that product and a search on samsung's website for Canada and US turned up nothing.

is your new TV Energy star 3.0? if not the only consumption category it passed was its power draw while off. Doesn't change the fact that even the new rating is more of a "relative" to similar products, so your smaller lcd can be estar, even though it likely uses similar power to the bigger samsung 61" dlp led (230 watts)

I stopped caring about blu-rays, they became too much hassle (and too expensive) for not enough of a quality boost.

I disagree. First of all, it can be as hassle-free as plugging one cable between a player and a screen. What's the big deal?

As for quality, try watching something like Planet Earth in full 1080p resolution. Many of the scenes are positively breathtaking in their detail and clarity. I happen to be watching on a bargain 72" TV. At this size, DVD's are very visibly inferior in resolution. I recently rewatched Terminator 2: Judgment Day on DVD and was struck by how noticeable the quality difference was. It really detracted from my enjoyment of the movie until I became caught up in the action enough to stop thinking about it.

I've sat beside people who simply can't tell the difference, however. I suspect these are the same people who stretch standard 4:3 aspect ratio programs across their wide-screen TV's and are oblivious to the distortion.

Indeed while the Samsung LED TVs are not true LED TVs, I noticed that they are using free software in them. Page 91 of the fine manual reads...

• This product uses parts of the software from the Independent JPEG Group.
• This product uses parts of the software owned by the Freetype Project (www.freetype.org).
• This product uses some software programs which are distributed under the GPL/LGPL license. Accordingly, the following GPL and LGPL software source codes that have been used in this product can be provided after asking to vdswmanager@ samsung.com.
  GPL software: Linux Kernel, Busybox, Binutils
  LGPL software: Glibc, ffmpeg, smpeg, libgphoto, libusb, SDL

Kinda neat, though I wonder what kind of VD they have in mind for their software manager...
-l

Early models are already for sale. Samsung has been selling them for a while now. The price needs to come down to be a great alternative, but the power savings of having the pixels generate light rather than having a harsh backlight shining through the screen should help.

Samsung has a 55" OLED for $4000 and a 46" for $3300.

Right away, if North Korea and South Korea destroyed each other, it would be better for American car companies. We wouldn't have as many Hyundais and Kias running around the USA.

Well, Im not going to even comment on the rest of your post, but in your mind, if Korea destroys itself, the first thing that comes into your mind are Korean car companies?

And you know, this being slashdot and all, maybe you heard of a little company named Samsung, which is just one the biggest semiconductor companies in the entire world and the largest manufacturer of DRAM and Flash memory chips, not to mention hard disks and LCD technology?

As for the rest, suffice to say that I strongly disagree with you.

Right away, if North Korea and South Korea destroyed each other, it would be better for American car companies. We wouldn't have as many Hyundais and Kias running around the USA.

Well, Im not going to even comment on the rest of your post, but in your mind, if Korea destroys itself, the first thing that comes into your mind are Korean car companies?

And you know, this being slashdot and all, maybe you heard of a little company named Samsung, which is just one the biggest semiconductor companies in the entire world and the largest manufacturer of DRAM and Flash memory chips, not to mention hard disks and LCD technology?

As for the rest, suffice to say that I strongly disagree with you.

It's true that TRIM is very much in it's infancy, but the clouds aren't as dark in SSD's future as they once were (even as little as a month ago). Many, many, many companies see SSD's as the future of storage and I'm inclined to agree with them. With that kind of muscle propelling development and increased consumer interest fuelling funding, the landscape is and will continue to change very rapidly.

My own take on things, FWIW, is that tapes will go the way of the floppy and spinning disks will become near-term storage for most enterprises. Look for SSD's to become mainstream SAN devices, especially as hardware manufacturers remove the driver/OS hurdle and present SAN devices as "just another disk". And as SSD's mature, I expect the performance gap between DRAM and SSD's to shrink quite a lot.

The screen aspect ratio is locked at 16:9 even though no such monitor exists for PC

While I won't argue that it's stupid to have a locked aspect ratio, you are very much mistaken in your claim. Even if we ignore the fact that you can easily hook up your PC to your full HD tv or projector, there are quite a few 16:9 monitors on the market.

BenQ has at least one series of Full HD monitors
Samsung has at least one full HD monitor
Acer has 8 models tagged as 16:9 HD
Fujitsu Siemens has at least two models

I am patiently waiting for these SSDs and plan to test them on a MythTV distro box. I will get a fully compatible Linux SSD notebook onto which a MythTV distro will be installed.

Then with 3 TV cards, I will see how these SSDs measure up on reading/writing/transcoding etc. My intention is to work the SSD for about a week. Watch this space for results.

I do not think that Intel will deliver the "golden" SSD. I think Samsung's SSD effort will bear results faster. Those videos say a lot.

This is the same Chinese outfit that makes such great knockoffs of other stuff, like this copy of a Samsung WEP-200.

When the WEP-200 first came out, I ended up needing a new headset, and it looked cool to me. Imagine my surprise when I couldn't even buy one for two weeks. All the mall carts had were the copies. And they weren't that good.

China has a ways to go. Creative I wouldn't call them. Opportunistic. Which also works.

Wrong. Some do extended surface read-write-scans and offer options like disk erase etc. Like this here for example.

You need to read a few words further in wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#USB_3.0
Maximum bus power is increased to 150mA per unit load (+50% over USB 2.0). An unconfigured device can still draw only 1 unit load, but a configured device can draw up to 6 unit loads (900mA, 80% over USB 2.0).

USB 1 and 2 had a maximum current of 500mA for a configured device USB 3 has 900mA.

Looking here

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/productmodel.do?group=72&type=62&subtype=67&model_cd=325&tab=spec&ppmi=1159

The 250GB HM251JI has a 900mA spin up current so it will work. The 500GB HM500LI has a 1000mA spin up current. Slightly over the limit but it will probably work.

Actually being able to run a 250GB 2.5" drive from one port rather than needing a Y cable to power it off two is quite handy.

If you read my comment again, I asked for reference...
So here is a 17-inch CRT monitor and it is rated 64 watts average power consumption.
And here is a 20-inch LCD monitor and it is rated 50 watts.

So can you please elaborate on your point?

Not to the same extent but it has a high voltage power transformer for the backlight.

Guess again. This Samsung has an LED backlight system for the LCD panel. All low voltage, and no hi voltage inverter to make a trashy magnetic EM field around it.

http://opensrc.sec.samsung.com/document/Getting_Familiar_with_uClinuxARM2_6.html

Why stop there, 5.4 Gb/s is more than (single link-) DVI does, which hopefully will make USB monitors more mainstream.

Nope. They're all 262K native screens, except for a few oddball 17 inch panels that started life as desktop LCDs.

A couple links to get you started:
Samsung - http://www.samsung.com/global/business/lcdpanel/productList.do?upper_fmly_id=601&fmly_id=611
LG - http://www.lgdisplay.com/homeContain/jsp/eng/prd/prd300_j_e.jsp
Toshiba/Matsushita - http://tmd-product.tmdisplay.com/index_e.cfm#index_2

Those are the major suppliers, and as you can see, they're all 18-bit panels.

OK, realize that an iPhone that would be powerful enough to run Flash... would look more like this, and would [b]STILL[/b] be too slow - even if it were running it in IE on Windows, which is the fastest Flash Player:

http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/detail/detail.do?group=computersperipherals&type=ultramobilepc&subtype=ultramobilepc&model_cd=NP-Q1U/000/SEA

I'm pretty happy with my Syncmaster226bw
sure it doesn't have all the ports on it, but if you're main point in purchasing a monitor is "more ports!!!!" you might consider saving money and getting a usb/firewire hub instead... I know 3 people that have either watched me play or played a game on mine and within 2 weeks decided they had to have one.

I can say the same for their widescreen tv's also, I know 2 or 3 people a with 40"+ samsung tv and they are more than happy with them.

Full Disclosure: I do not work for, nor am I affiliated with samsung in anyway. That said, there were some reports of the early releases of this monitor (which mine was) having MUCH better brightness and contrast out of the box than the newer models, this was (i believe) determined to be based on where it was made.

As a matter of fact, the 959NF is one of the few Arpeture grille CRTs that Samsung produced, IIRC - and yes, I do have the tell-tale wires across my screen ;)...

Just take a look at the specs in the manual... http://downloadcenter.samsung.com/content/UM/200308/20030830151753968_BH59-00266G-06en_AQ19.pdf

Can you show me your link to the exact drive model that you found for the Mac Air, I am unable to find it anywhere? However I will show you the data that I come to my information by.

If one goes to Samsung's website there is only 1x PATA SSD drive that is in mass production, all the others are in "ENGINEERING SAMPLE STATUS", including the model *you* listed.
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/productList.do?fmly_id=161

Not having the Mac Air part number directly, logically that leads me to one conclusion. The drive that is actually being produced is the one that is going to be used in the actually being produced Mac Air Looking up the part number that is an ACTUAL PRODCUTION, not fantasy engineering land leads me these results:

http://www.excaliberpc.com/SAMSUNG_FLASH_SOLID_STATE_DRIVE/MCCOE64GQMPQ-M1A00/partinfo-id-582173.html
Samsung FLASH SOLID STATE DRIVE MCCOE64GQMPQ-M1A00 64G PATA SLIM $962.20

http://triointernational.com/all.cfm/partno/MCCOE64GQMPQM1A00/stat/froogle
SAMSUNG FLASH SOLID STATE DRIVE MCCOE64GQMPQ-M1A00 64G PATA SLIM $966.90

http://www.pcsuperdeals.com/ProductView.asp?ProductID=a34bfeb9-6511-4c7e-8465-4dbd908e2175&Refer=11
SAMSUNG FLASH SOLID STATE DRIVE MCCOE64GQMPQ-M1A00 64G PATA SLIM $941.85

Need I go on, as you how exactly you are looking right now? I gave you a nice opportunity to walk away, but no you just said well you are correct it's Samsung but then you picked a PART THAT'S NOT EVEN IN MASS PRODUCTION.

I don't have to prove anything to you, but if you search the internet for InsaneGeek, EMC & SAN you'll find a number of blogs that I am a regular poster of; even some from here from a couple of years ago (but like usual you do such awesome "research").

The announcement was in March, mass production in June and availability in September.

I haven't seen a price yet but it's going to be at least close to a grand.

The announcement was in March, mass production in June and availability in September.

I haven't seen a price yet but it's going to be at least close to a grand.

The announcement was in March, mass production in June and availability in September.

I haven't seen a price yet but it's going to be at least close to a grand.

And we all know that anonymous cowards, with their anecdotal remarks, are always way right on.

Samsung hasn't enjoyed worldwide success & growth since 1970 by being 'off'. As well, it is more important to focus on who will buy what Samsung produces...in this case, Apple.

Your agenda? ...blather would be my guess.

In theory, if we could buy unlocked phones more easily, we could then choose whatever carrier we want, adn would probably be less likely to pay the cancellation fee.

In theory, if we could buy unlocked phones more easily, we could then choose whatever carrier we want, adn would probably be less likely to pay the cancellation fee.

http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/subtype/subtype.do?group=computersperipherals&type=harddiskdrives&subtype=hybridhdd_flashon

That's the page with 3 hybrid drives listed...

I just got back from WiMAX World in Chicago today.

The two popular USB WiMAX dongles are the ones by Airspan
http://www.airspan.com/products_wimax_custprem_mimax.aspx
and Samsung
http://www.samsung.com/us/aboutsamsung/news/newsRead.do?newstype=productnews&newsctgry=consumerproduct&news_seq=3584

Many of the silicon vendors and makers of filters and amplifiers at the show today
don't really expect to see much happening with WiMAX in high volumes for another year or so.