New Technology Reviews!.: back

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We’ve received none other than the Toshiba Thrive Android 3.1 Honeycomb tablet in the mail and it’s that time again – unboxing to the max! This device as you may well know is already available at your local Best Buy store in the sweet tablet area they’ve got going on, up for sale for you for one of the following prices: $429.99, $479.99, or $579.99 – the difference between these three being the hard drive of 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB. We’ve got the 16GB version on hand here and we’d just LOVE to show you around.</div>
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This tablet had a cool 10.1 inch screen at 1280 x 800 pixels, it being an IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen held by a chassis at 272 x 175 x 15 mm and 771g. Right from the start you should realize that this device is not going to be entering in any weight loss contests, as its a far cry from the thinness and lightness of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the iPad 2, but it’s certainly not the ugliest tablet we’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. You’ve got a 2 megapixel camera on the front, a 5 megapixel camera on the back, and some ribbed pleasure all around the sides and the back so you can hold on tight.</div>
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The casing is mostly made of ribbed medium-weight (not exactly hard, not truly soft) plastic while the front is all glass save for the lights in the upper right of the screen for battery, power, and Wi-Fi signal connection as well as a couple of chrome-looking plastic bits that appear to clasp the top of the device, showing you where the cameras are. This tablet is strange in that it appears to not quite know which way it wants to be situated. Not that all tablets don’t have somewhat of an identity crisis, but this one shows all signs of being a portrait-standing tablets save for the docking port at the bottom if you’re looking at it landscape-wise. Furthermore if you’ve ever used Honeycomb you know it feels more natural to use in landscape mode, wouldn’t you say?</div>
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Have a look at this initial hands-on look at the device as it stands directly out of the box, feel the excellence in the look of the device, then stick with us for a full review soon!</div>
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Toshiba Thrive Hands-on and Unboxing

We’ve received none other than the Toshiba Thrive Android 3.1 Honeycomb tablet in the mail and it’s that time again – unboxing to the ...

Samsung's top-of-the-line home cinema system is frothy, feature-rich and just a bit mad. Opening the box reveals a veritable forest of shiny black plastic.<br/><br/>The HT-D6750W package comprises two slim tallboy (1.3m) stereo front speakers which bolt together in the middle, and a pair of similar tallboy rears. They're joined by a small horizontal centre and a large (but light) subwoofer, which uses a 6.5-inch woofer and 10-inch passive radiator.<br/><br/>Samsung bills this as a 7.1 channel system, but there are no extra enclosures. Instead the main stereo loudspeakers each sport a separately driven, swivelling frog eye, which aims at the ceiling (or thereabouts). That counts, apparently.<br/><br/><strong>Core components </strong><br/><br/>At the heart of the shebang is a digital amp with integrated 3D Blu-ray player, two-in, one-out HDMI functionality and Smart Hub connectivity. For those who don't have a wired network connection handy, Wi-Fi is built-in.<br/><br/>One extra nicety is that the rears are wireless. That's to say you don't need to run speaker cable from the main amp. Instead there's a module, the SWA-5000, which receives a wireless feed (dual band 2.4/5.8GHz) from a transmitter plugged into the back of the main unit.<br/><br/>The 3D Blu-ray component of this system is clearly a derivation of the brand's standalone models. Video quality is high and functions broad.<br/><br/>Samsung proudly declares the power output of its digital amplifier to be 1300W. Given that it only draws 70W at the mains, this is obvious bunkum. I suspect it's more likely to be around 25-30W per channel. This is plenty for a smaller room; during my audition I never felt the system lacked volume, only dynamics.<br/><br/>So what of the HT670's 7.1 billing? Well, this is not a 7.1 system in the traditional AV sense, but Samsung's engineers maintain the HT-D6750W takes advantage of DTS' speaker remapping function, which uses 'sophisticated algorithms to electronically reposition speakers in the living room' if they don't match the placement used during recording.<br/><br/>But, if you think you can take a panned rear sound effect, throw it from a front height driver and get the same listening experience, you're simply delusional. Playing <em>Rush Hour 3</em>, a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix, there was simply no correlation between what came out of the back of a conventional 7.1 system and this front-weighted simulacrum.<br/><p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Samsung ht-6750w" class="aligncenter" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/Review%20images/Home%20Cinema%20Choice/HCC%20197/HCC197.sam6750.wood01-420-90.jpg" width="420" /></p><br/>However, rear back/front height speakers aside, the system does a spirited job panning 5.1 multichannel audio to and fro. The audiovisual excitement of <em>TRON: Legacy</em> (3D Blu-ray) is not lost here.<br/><br/>Without a doubt, the star of this particular show is the 50Hz Super Tweeter, which delivers a crispness and clarity that lifts this entire system above the purely mundane.<br/><br/>There are caveats of course. Voice matching is a little rough, while timbre across the L/C/R is compromised because the centre speaker doesn't sound the same as the tallboys. It lacks that splendid tweeter, and consequently sounds comparatively dull.<br/><br/><strong>Power consumption (Watts):</strong><br/><p style="text-align: left;">Idle: 20W<br/>Playing: 70W</p><br/><strong>Disc loading (Boot/Java):</strong><br/><br/>Boot speed: 10 seconds<br/>Tray in to main BD menu: 46 seconds<br/><br/><strong>Good value </strong><br/><br/>While I contest the value of this system's bonus height drivers, I do think that overall Samsung's HT-D6750W is rather good fun.<br/><br/>The functionality it offers is exceptional, ticking every must-have feature box, and overall can be considered a good value option if you're not interested in a larger separates-based home cinema system. Just don't tell me it's 7.1.

Review: Samsung HT-D6750W

Samsung's top-of-the-line home cinema system is frothy, feature-rich and just a bit mad. Opening the box reveals a veritable forest of s...