Nokia E51 mobile phone

The line that separates a business handset from a mainstream consumer one is hazy at best, and Nokia’s forthcoming E51 is a prime example.

The company’s E-series is aimed squarely at business users, yet there are enough multimedia features to make the E51 appeal to non-business types as well.

Nokia supplied us with a prototype (the handset won’t be available until November) and said it was very close to the finished article, but this prevents us from awarding a final score.

The phone is just 12mm thick and looks similar to the E50, though two new shortcut keys have been placed next to the centre four-way directional pad; the button in the middle of the four-way pad has also been made slightly bigger. It feels great in the hand and usability is equally impressive; buttons are large enough to bash out extended emails and notes.

The 2in display (240x320) won’t appeal to those wanting to watch video, but it’s of a good quality and is fine for browsing web pages.

Connectivity is excellent; GPRS, EDGE, 3G and HSDPA are joined by 802.11g Wifi. Email support is also impressive, with Activesync, Mail for Exchange, Visto Mobile and Seven Always-on are all catered for. And with poor battery life plaguing many new phones, it was good to see the E51 holding its charge for around four days with general usage.

The 2-megapixel camera at the rear lacks an LED flash, but it’s fine for taking quick snapshots. Other features include an FM radio (though you’ll need a 2.5mm adapter to use your 3.5mm headphones), Bluetooth 2.0 and a mini-USB socket.

There’s no built-in GPS and the slim screen might dissuade some, but Nokia’s done an excellent job with the E51 and it looks set to be just a popular with business and home users alike.

source : vnunet.com

10 Things You Should Know About Quad-Core Processors

In November 2006, Intel introduced the first quad-core microprocessors for the volume x86 market. The quad-core chips were designed to offer better performance compared with the previous generation of single- and dual-core processors. A little less than a year later, Advanced Micro Devices brought its quad-core Opteron to the market, showing that all four cores could be placed on a single piece of silicon. While chipmakers figure out their next chip moves, here are 10 things you should know about quad-core processors.

1. Intel vs. AMD: Different Packaging, Similar Results
While Intel came to market first with a quad-core processor, it did so essentially by tying two dual-core processors together on the same silicon package. AMD took more time to bring its quad-core chip to market but developed a manufacturing process that placed all four cores on the same piece of silicon.

2. The Advantage of Intel’s Quad-Core Processor
A 45-nanometer, quad-core Xeon processor is, on average, about two times faster than the previous-generation 64-nm, dual-core Xeons, according to new benchmarks released by Intel.

3. The Advantage of AMD’s Quad-Core Processor
A quad-core Opteron processor will offer, on average, a 66 percent performance increase compared with a dual-core Opteron processor, according to benchmarking results released by AMD.

4. Quad-Core Processors Work Best with Servers
Within an enterprise, servers remain the ideal platform for quad-core processors because the chips are designed to take advantage of the multithreaded software that runs within most data centers.

5. Quad-Core Processors Offer Few Advantages for Desktops
While quad-core processors provide a performance boost for digital content-creation and allow users to run certain tasks simultaneously, most desktop systems--outside of gaming PCs and high-end models-- don’t need quad-core chips.

6. Quad-Core Processors Provide Little or No Advantage for Mobile Systems
Currently, neither Intel nor AMD offers a quad-core processor for laptops, although that could change by next year. That said, many analysts believe that most users want notebook processors that offer better battery life and less voltage, not more cores.

7. Quad Cores Are Better for Virtualization
As virtualization becomes more important and widely implemented, businesses will need servers with quad-core processors to help support more than one workload on a system and to supply the computing power to run multiple applications or operating systems on a single server.

8. Quad Cores Can Help with Cooling, Consolidation
With more processing cores in each server, quad-core chips can help IT managers cut down on the number of systems each data centers needs.

9. Looking Beyond Quad Core
It’s only a matter of time before vendors offer up the next big thing in processors. Sun Microsystems already offers an eight-core UltraSPARC processor for servers, and Intel and AMD each have plans to move to eight-core x86 chips as early as the end of 2008.

10. What’s Next for Quad Cores?
By 2008, both Intel and AMD will offer quad-core processors built on a 45-nm manufacturing process. This will increase performance while keeping the thermal envelope the same, allowing for performance per watt.

By Scott Ferguson