The Zone

I just recently came back from the MSI Media Tour 2007 in Shanghai, China so I apologise for the lack of updates on my side. While it isn't my first time visiting an assembly factory, it was for me for a notebook and motherboard assembly plant so watching its production unfolds was a terribly interesting endeavour. It's a pity we couldn't take any shots of our own, so all of the factory production shots that you'll see in the upcoming report for this trip are basically stock photos approved by MSI.

What I was surpised most of all was how much of the assembly work is still done manually by hand instead of by machine, judging by the hundreds of assembly workers at the factory. I had always thought that notebooks were always churned out by the dime by machines. 

Our office has been inundated with mooncakes boxes now that it's the mooncake festival. Favorite flavor so far? Still the classic lotus with single yolk. The most interesting flavor we got so far was a green tea mooncake with a milk core.

When we received this box from AMD recently with the Opteron Processor image on it, we thought a quad core processor lay inside. Instead 4 mini mooncakes greeted our eyes. Oh well, they're still equally sweet. *munch*

That's no typo there. Samsung's introducing a 40" 1080p LCD TV that's only 0.39" thick (10mm). No price or street date on when this incredibly thin screen will hit the market, but we hope they'll at least change the rather anemic-looking stand. The showgirl can stay. ;) 

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Yesterday at the World GameMaster Tournament Malaysia Finals, we managed to cradle Asus' baby of their notebook family, the Asus Eee PC. Unfortunately the battery was flat so we weren't able to check out its OS and applications. We still managed to get a nice, hands on look of its build, interfaces, and features.

Click the jump for more pictures!

Just came back from LowYat Plaza where XFX just launched the XFX GeForce 8800 GT in Malaysia, the first official launch of NVIDIA's new GeForce 8800 GT in the country. Click the jump for more pictures of the launch and images of XFX's spiffy new card! 

Continuing our love affair with the new Asus EeePC is the latest news that the company is planning a desktop version of their cut-down notebook for senior citizens and children. I've mixed feelings about this: while I think it's a great idea for new users or young children to dip their fingers into the world of IT, the mention that it will most likely not come with a monitor. Bummer. Not to mention you can now build a budget desktop systems for under RM1300, the same price of the Asus EeePC notebook.

Asus will need to pull off a hattrick for the desktop version for it to offer more features than the Asus EeePC, yet remain price competitive, which won't be an easy feat for a notebook that offers quite a fair amount of features for so little. We'll be following their EeePC desktop development news closely. 

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A quick look-see of the 305T Plus from Samsung. If you liked the previous Samsung SyncMaster 305T then you'll like the 305T Plus as practically all the features have been retained. It should be great for DVI-D port devices like PCs and PS3s.  Watch for the full review in HWM June 2008. Just remember, don't sit too close kids!

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the first and only Western Digital terabyte hard disk drive in Malaysia and we won it during their Green Power Hard Drive launch this morning! The Green Power range of hard disk drives gives up to 40% energy savings and they come in 500GB, 750GB, and 1 Terabyte flavors. Unfortunately I didn't win it but my colleague who did asked me to pose since I'm less scrawny than him. ;)

Raw, raw, fight the power!

Mimos Bhd has announced that they're releasing a low-cost computer dubbed the "Mak-Chik" computer for rural users. The model can be plugged into a TV and comes with a wireless Internet connection. The price? Only RM500. The Mak-Chik computer is expected to be released in the first half of 2008.

I haven't seen any pictures of this new "Mak-Chik" computer but it's a pretty neat idea. Will this be a strong contender to Asus' own upcoming Eee PC desktop model? I'm really curious how its specs will be like. 

I'm not sure what to make of the rumors that Sony plans to revive their little robotic canine companion by integrating it with the Sony PS3 and PSP; it sounds like a neat idea in theory, but whether it will actually be successful is another thing.

I remember coming across the Aibo a few years ago in a Sony showroom in Sydney and while I was impressed with it, I wasn't compelled to buy it. The original Aibo was a very expensive toy, and coupled with the expensive PS3, I doubt it will fly off the shelves. It should make an interesting technological showpiece though. Plus you don't need to worry about toilet training it.

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Although the usual PC Fair Girls post is a tad late, we bring to you a chick report on PC Fair which isn't dissapointing at all, and since its the end of the year, there's always the girls to look forward to. Enjoy

She was spotted at one of the smaller booths in hall 2...... more after the jump!!!

For the last few months, HWM Malaysia ran a series of Photo-Video guides sponsored by Sony, as seen above. What do you think of it? We value your feedback so if you found it insightful or useful, let us know! Likewise, if you thought that it could be improved, shout out about it here.

Too shy to comment here for fear of exposing your email address? Send your feedback to editorial@my.hardwaremag.com. The best feedback or comment will get a FREE Kingston 2GB DataTraveler USB Flash Drive. Only open to residents living in Malaysia! Closing dateline is next Friday, 21st of December 2007, so don't miss out on this one time offer!

(BTW when we say best feedback/comment, we don't mean 'best attempt to butter up to us'. The most constructive and useful feedback will earn the prize so don't just say "Yeah I think your guides were okay" or "Your guides suxkz0rrs") 

We just had to!!!!

Happy New Year from us all at HWM, GameAxis Malaysia and HWZ.my!! :D 

As promised, these are shots taken by the new Olympus E-3 DSLR in the January issue of HWM Malaysia. Check out the review for an analysis on what the camera can do!

For more images, please visit my Picasa Web album at = http://picasaweb.google.com/zerotauHWZ/Christmas2007 

We've finally got our hands on the 8800GT 1GB and yeah, it uses lovely, lovely GDDR3. Previously we've seen only marginal increases in the 8600 GT when upped to 1GB. We attributed that to the fact that it mainly used GDDR2 and still had that 128 bit bottle neck in the memory management factor. But now that we've got the 8800 GT (a much more noteworthy GPU) with a full complement of GDDR3 and 256 bit memory interface, we're kind of hoping for a better ride.

Our resident theorist posits that it shouldn't really make much difference since we'll be testing in DX10 which handles memory much better than DX9. Find out later when the review comes out.