The TR Podcast 109: Dude, where's my Apple tax?

	Date: April 8, 2012 Time: 1:22:10 Hosted by Jordan Drake Co-Hosts: Scott Wasson, Geoff Gasior, and Cyril Kowaliski Download: MP3 (59.3MB) | M4A (80.5MB) Subscribe: RSS (MP3) | RSS (M4A) iTunes (MP3) | iTunes (M4A)
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Show notes
We kick off this episode with a sizable amount of listener mail, and then dive into two OCZ SSD reviews with Geoff. Next, we cover a trio of Apple stories, including Geoff's blog post highlighting the disappearance of the infamous Apple tax. Jordan follows up his smartphone earbud roundup from episode 104 with five new models, and then, it's on to AMD's new Radeon HD 7850 and 7870, followed by our musings on Google's futuristic HUD glasses.

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/tweets:

Windows 8 benching?(0:37:68) - from Paul:

"I've liked the new approach you guys took with the frametime benchmarking. I've been seeing a few things where people have benched Windows 7 against the Windows 8 Preview, and was wondering if it would be possible to do something similar. Possibly comparing the kernel time thing that shows up in the Performance tab of Task Manager or some other management tool? I know it probably wouldn't be apples to apples as Windows 8 might have newer SATA controller drivers or something, but I think it might be interesting. Any thoughts on this?"

HTPCs? (0:04:25) - from Garrett:

"I would love to see some in-depth reviews or at least some discussions regarding HTPC equipment. I was using HTPCs all the back in the Windows 98 SE days and did for many years until it just got too cumbersome and annoying with all the software required for ATI-AIW cards. Anyway I built one about a year ago and enjoyed the results quite a bit. I think it would be cool to see you guys suggest some basic pre-built, custom-built and uber-cheap configurations. It also might be interesting to see a combination of a HTPC/STORAGE/SERVER device."

HTML 5? (0:05:34) - from Garrett:

"The play button for the PodCast is flash...seriously...is this necessary? Here are some alternatives/resources: HTML5Rocks - Alistapart - HTML5Audio."

Transformer OS upgrades (0:07:24) - from Dash:

"Question for Geoff: Is Asus responsible/the gatekeeper for upgrading Transformer's OS (ICS currently)? How fast were they in rolling out the update?"

Tech discussion:

OCZ's RevoDrive 3 X2 240GB solid-state drive - (0:08:54) - Read more

OCZ's Vertex 4 solid-state drive - (0:15:47) - Read more

Steve Jobs movie to star Ashton Kutcher as Jobs - (0:24:53) - Read more

Mac trojan affects at least 600,000 systems - (0:27:51) - Read more

The death of the Apple tax - (0:29:25) - Read more

Jordan's smartphone/iPhone earbud roundup part 2- (0:42:22) - V-Moda Vibrato - Marshall Minor - Etymotics Mc5 - Shure SE215 and iPhone cable - Ultimate Ears 500vi

XFX's Radeon HD 7850 and 7870 Black Edition graphics cards - (0:58:19) - Read more

Google shows HUD glasses concept - (1:14:40) - Read more

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