The TR Podcast 85: French fries and system guides

	Date: April 10, 2011 Time: 1:12:35 Hosted by Jordan Drake Co-Hosts: Scott Wasson, Cyril Kowaliski, Geoff Gasior Download: MP3 (52.4MB) | M4A (71.6MB) Subscribe: RSS (MP3) | RSS (M4A) iTunes (MP3) | iTunes (M4A)
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Sponsored by XFX. XFX has not only sponsored this episode of the podcast, but also donated a brand-new Radeon HD 6870 Black Edition graphics card, which is clocked at 940MHz and cooled by dual fans. We're giving that card away as part of our latest contest. To enter, you'll need to listen to the podcast and answer a couple of related questions.

Show notes
We're back with another episode of the podcast, which kicks off with listener mail concerning the iPad 2's competition (or lack thereof) and a new project from one of our loyal listeners. (Be sure to check out ssidbroadcast's new iOS game, Super Block Party.)

After listener mail, we spend a solid chunk of this episode going over our latest TR system guide, partially because of the return of Sandy Bridge... and because Jordan is planning to build himself a new PC. Scott and Geoff also discuss some of the readers' comments and objections related to the guide. After that, the panel switches gears and discusses a pair of new Radeon graphics cards, a dual-core Sandy Bridge notebook, and Geoff's latest solid-state drive review.

As mentioned above, this podcast is also tied to our latest giveaway, as part of which we're giving out an XFX Radeon HD 6870 Black Edition. Head over to this page for more details.

Send in listener mail, and we'll answer on the podcast. - jdrake@techreport.com

Follow us on Twitter - Scott - Jordan - Geoff - Cyril - The Tech Report

Listener mail:

iPad 2 competitor - from Gabriel - (0:04:36):

"On the last episode, you talked about the iPad 2, what do you mean no one is competitive at that price point? I give you the Elocity A10, a tablet with great user suport, highly moddable, 10 inch screen, 4gb on board storage , dual 1ghz cortex A9 tegra2 CPU, microsd slot, hdmi slot, 1.3MP webcam - $450 at a high priced retailer. It's not that there aren't competitors, it's that they don't have $50 billion advertising budgets...this has been out a couple weeks now and IMHO runs circles around a ipad2. Minus the lame front video only camera...which serves no real use."

Check out my first iOS game! - from Cassidy a.k.a. ssidbroadcast - (0:15:38):

"Cassidy, a long time listener and reader, wrote to us to let us know about his first iOS game - check out Super Block Party!"

Tech discussion:

Is Android 3.0 a bust? (0:12:23)- Read more

TR's Spring 2011 system guide (0:20:18)- Read more

AMD's Radeon HD 6450 graphics card (0:43:06)- Read more

AMD's Radeon HD 6790 graphics card (0:54:58)- Read more

Asus' K53E dual-core Sandy Bridge notebook (1:04:17)- Read more

Crucial confirms m4 SSD pricing (1:07:19)- Read more

Intel's 320 Series solid-state drive (1:07:54)- Read more

That's all, folks! We'll see you on the next episode.