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Posts Tagged ‘Sacrifices’

Screen Grabs: Nokia N96 preserves the evidence on Dexter
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today’s movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com.

No this isn’t the first Nokia-wielding fictional character or celeb that we’ve seen in this space, but the N96 recently spotted in the hands of our favorite psychopath has us wondering: would Dexter Morgan try N-Gage? And wouldn’t he prefer something with a QWERTY keyboard? Come to think of it, we always thought of him as a smartphone guy. Then again, times are tough, and as a new father he has to make… sacrifices.

Update: We originally identified this one as the N81. Thanks to all you raving Nokia fanatics who pointed out the error.

Gallery: Screen Grabs: Nokia N81 preserves the evidence on Dexter

Filed under: Cellphones

Screen Grabs: Nokia N96 preserves the evidence on Dexter originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hands on with Synology’s DS409slim: 2.5" drives in a NAS

For the growing number of users who are ditching the desktop PC and going laptop-only, some form of external storage is a necessity, if only for backup purposes. But the housings for most external solutions tend to come with loud fans, which poses a problem for those of us who live in small apartments, where an external storage unit might sit right next to the dining table. And then there’s the size issue, which crops up whenever you consider anything more ambitious than a simple external USB drive. Any amount of RAID means multiple drives, and multiple drives mean more space, more fans, and more noise.

As a laptop-only user in a New York City apartment, I’ve faced all of the above issues when looking for an external storage solution. So I was intrigued by the announcement of Synology’s DS409slim, the baby brother of the DS409 NAS. Synology took a standard four-bay NAS box and shrunk it to host laptop drives—even with four drives, this thing is tiny, comparable in volume to a Mac Mini. The laptop drives are meant to keep the heat and power use down, so there would presumably be little in the way of loud fans. And, despite the compact form, it had all the ports—gigabit ethernet, USB for drive, camera, or printer sharing, and eSATA for backing up its contents—that are found on the larger version. It seemed like NAS Nirvana.

Well, on paper at least. Laptop drives would almost certainly involve some sacrifices, but I was interested in finding out what you’d have to give up to go slim.

As the results of this brief comparison between the DS409slim and its full-sized brother, the DS409, indicate, those cool and quiet laptop drives may make less of a difference than you think.

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BeamBox Essential G2 projector is tiny, available for pre-order

Remember when 190 grams felt feathery light? BeamBox wasn’t satisfied with that, and has put its pocket projector on a strict diet, cutting its weight all the way down to 75 grams. The Essential G2 promises 20 lumens of brightness, VGA resolution and up to a 73-inch projection — nothing here sets the world on fire, but you have to expect sacrifices when moving to such miniature dimensions. USB connectivity takes care of both power and image source, though there’s 1GB of integrated memory if you don’t feel like lugging a comparatively monolithic laptop or netbook along. If this has piqued your interest, a remote control comes as part of the deal and pre-orders are being taken now — £220, $250 or €240, depending on your local currency — with general availability set for July 29.

Filed under: Displays

BeamBox Essential G2 projector is tiny, available for pre-order originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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