Virgin Media apologises in advance for Olympic issues

Olympic Route Network woesNetworking News By Patrick Goss Friday at 19:55 UTC | Tell us what you think [ 0 comments ]

Tweet VM - advance warning

Virgin Media has apologised in advance to thousands of customers that live in London for delays that will be caused by restrictions on digging up the roads on the Olympic Route Network.

In a postcard apologising to users on the route, Virgin Media explains that any necessary repairs to its cable will take 'longer than usual' between March and September, because it will be limited on what it can dig up.

"Thanks to the team's hard work. It's really unlikely that you there'll be a problem with your service," wrote VM.

Dig it

"If it turns out that we need to dig under your roads, it might take us a bit longer than usual...we're really sorry for any inconvenience this causes," the note continued.

The Olympics is inevitably causing some major gripes to those in the areas likely to be affected, with already overloaded transport links likely to be hit hard by the Games.

Virgin Media is, in fairness, making sure that it is being clear about a potential problem, rather than predicting one.

But here's hoping that your cable doesn't go down in a whopping seven month period, or you could find yourself listening to the 100m final on the radio rather than watching it in HD.

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Samsung Announces Galaxy S Advance

by Kristian Vättö on 1/30/2012 5:10:00 PM
Posted in smartphones , Samsung , Samsung Galaxy S Advance

Reports about a new Samsung Galaxy series smart phone have been floating around for a few days now, and today Samsung has finally made it official by announcing the new family member: Galaxy S Advance. It's a 4" higher middle-class model, so it's not competing against Galaxy S II or Galaxy Nexus. Below is a comparison table including the new Galaxy S Advance.

Physical Comparison Apple iPhone 4SSamsung Galaxy S IISamsung Galaxy Nexus (CDMA/LTE)Samsung Galaxy S AdvanceHeight115.2 mm (4.5")125.3 mm (4.93")135.5 mm (5.33")123.2 mm (4.85")Width58.6 mm (2.31")66.1 mm (2.60")67.94 mm (2.67)63.0 mm (2.48)Depth9.3 mm ( 0.37")8.49 mm (0.33")9.47 mm (0.37")9.69 mm (0.38")Weight140 g (4.9 oz)115 g (4.06 oz)150 g (5.3 oz)120 g (4.2 oz)CPUApple A5 @ ~800MHz Dual Core Cortex A91.2 GHz Exynos 4210 Dual Core Cortex A91.2 GHz Dual Core Cortex-A9 OMAP 44601.0 GHz Exynos 4210 Dual Core Cortex-A9 (?)GPUPowerVR SGX 543MP2ARM Mali-400PowerVR SGX 540ARM Mali-400 (?)RAM512MB LPDDR2-8001 GB LPDDR21 GB LPDDR2768 MB LPDDR2NAND16GB, 32GB or 64GB integrated16 GB NAND with up to 32 GB microSD32 GB NAND8/16 GB NANDCamera8 MP with LED Flash + Front Facing Camera8 MP AF/LED flash, 2 MP front facing5 MP with AF/LED Flash, 1080p30 video recording, 1.3 MP front facing5 MP with AF/LED Flash, 720p30 video recording, 1.3 MP front facingScreen3.5" 640 x 960 LED backlit LCD4.27" 800 x 480 SAMOLED+4.65" 1280 x 720 SAMOLED HD4.0" 800 x 480 SAMOLEDBatteryInternal 5.3 WhrRemovable 6.11 WhrRemovable 6.85 WhrRemovable 5.55 Whr

First, let's discuss the SoC. Samsung only lists it as 1GHz dual core processor, so we don't have any concrete specs (hence the question mark). The SoC selection of the Galaxy S lineup is fairly fragmented as well. The original Galaxy S uses 1GHz single-core Samsung Hummingbird S5PC110, Galaxy S Plus uses 1.4GHz single-core Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255T, and Galaxy S II moved to dual-core with 1.2GHz Samsung Exynos 4210, though there have been reports of TI OMAP 4430 based Galaxy S IIs as well. Then we have T-Mobile version of the S II that uses Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 APQ8060. Galaxy Nexus is another oddball as it uses TI OMAP 4460. Pretty simple, huh? 

Luckily, the frequency gives us some indication of the core SoC. Snapdragon S3 isn't available at 1.0GHz, so we can rule out Qualcomm. That leaves us with Exynos 4210 and OMAP 4430, of which both are available at 1.0GHz. Given the track record of the Galaxy S series, our guess would be Exynos 4210 as Samsung seems to prefer in-house SoCs. Then again, we may see country specific models utilizing TI's OMAP 4430, in which case the GPU changes to PowerVR SGX 540. Either way, we should be looking at lower performance than what the high-end smart phones provide. 

UPDATE: We have received data that the SoC is actually ST-Ericsson NovaThor U8500. This is a rare SoC as it has only been used in HTC Sensation Z710t in the past. Anyway, NovaThor U8500 consists of two Cortex-A9 cores and ARM Mali-400 GPU, so it's very similar to Samsung's Exynos 4210. We are still waiting for official confirmation, though.

Galaxy S Advance has Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) pre-installed, but unfortunately there is no word on Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwhich) support. According to the press release, Galaxy S Advance won't be available in the US; the release will happen gradually in Russia, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia and Latin America, starting in February. No pricing has been released either but we are probably looking at €400-500 (i.e. ~€100 cheaper than the high-end models), although the price will vary depending on taxation and contract. 

Gallery: Samsung Galaxy S Advance

Source: Samsung

Print This Article 14 Comments View All Comments Post a Comment Should have been called... by Paulman on Monday, January 30, 2012 Galaxy S Advance... I dub thee, "Galaxy S II Lite".

P.S. Anybody else think of the Game Boy Advance when they saw this news item? :) Paulman Reply 800x480 or 480x800? by uhuznaa on Monday, January 30, 2012 Yeah, doesn't really matter, but please use a common way to put either the width or the height first.

Reading a table with resolutions given as 640 x 960, 800 x 480, 1280x720 and 480x800 somehow hurts. uhuznaa Reply RE: 800x480 or 480x800? by jibberegg on Monday, January 30, 2012 +1 ^This

Some consistency (especially within a single table!) would make me feel 3.14x better about the world. jibberegg Reply RE: 800x480 or 480x800? by Kristian Vättö on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 Oh, sorry about that. Samsung had 480x800 on their site so I just copied it. I've fixed it now :-) Kristian Vättö Reply RE: 800x480 or 480x800? by uhuznaa on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 In the table the iPhone is still the other way round ("640x960").

(This just happens everywhere on Anandtech, it grates every single time...) uhuznaa Reply Sigh by dagamer34 on Monday, January 30, 2012 I really hope having 25 different phone models eventually crashes on OEMs like the complicated stack of cards this strategy is. dagamer34 Reply OMAP-based SII is real by warisz00r on Monday, January 30, 2012 http://10division(dot)com/samsung-galaxy-s2-gt-i9100-vs-gt-i9100g-ultimate-comparison-guide-all-you-need-to-know/

http://www.gsmarena(dot)com/ti_omappowered_samsung... warisz00r Reply RE: OMAP-based SII is real by warisz00r on Monday, January 30, 2012 http://www.gsmarena(dot)com/ti_omappowered_samsung... warisz00r Reply RE: OMAP-based SII is real by jibberegg on Monday, January 30, 2012 You mean http://www.gsmarena.com/ti_omappowered_samsung_gal... ? jibberegg Reply RE: OMAP-based SII is real by warisz00r on Monday, January 30, 2012 yeah. The site won't let me post unmodified links it seems, but clearly now that it is only for the first link. warisz00r Reply Subject Comment Post Comment Please login or register to post a comment.
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Review: Advance Tec AT-FX Polaris

We may have mentioned once or twice how much we like Corsair's Graphite Series 600T case. Not only did we give it 4.5/5, we stuck it on last issue's cover too. If any system is going to win us over, this is the outfit to do it in.
But by the same principle that got Susan Boyle recording contracts and Wayne Rooney a career in professional football, it's what's inside that counts. Do the components inside deliver the goods, or is the pretty case a distraction from a mediocre build?
Categorically, yes they do and no it isn't. The AT-FX Polaris is a really powerful, future-proofed, well-cooled, highly overclockable machine that manages to keep a reasonable price tag despite some fairly luxurious features.
The feature-rich ASRock Z68 Fatal1ty Pro Gen3 is a worthy motherboard for this rig. Its most enticing feature, in our opinion, is PCIe 3.0 compatibility. It offers not only a bit of future-proofing peace of mind by means of compatibility with PCIe 3.0 graphics cards further down the line, but also improves the performance of PCIe-based flash storage drives such as the OCZ Revo Drive.
There's still no word on when we may see PCIe 3.0 graphics cards, but then we're waiting for Ivy Bridge for that fun to begin in earnest.
Fatal-one-tified
As you might expect from a board endorsed by a rather famous pro gamer, there's an emphasis on overclocking, too. Along with an all-in-one auto-overclocking program that tweaks everything from memory frequency to fan speeds, there wellare gold capacitors and huge heatsinks over both bridges and PLL.
You're not starved for USB 3.0 or SATA 6Gbps ports either. That sets the stage nicely for a graphics card and CPU both ripe with overclocking potential. Advancetec has pumped the i5 2500K in this rig up to a very respectable 4.8GHz, and the overclocked KFA2 GTX 580 runs incredibly cool at 48ºC under load, especially considering that GF 110 core's running at 800MHz.
Out of the box, the 1TB hard drive and 60GB Corsair F60 SSD are set up in a Smart Response array, which is becoming increasingly popular among system builders and with good reason – it's a great way to bridge the gap between solid state and magnetic platter storage while keeping costs down by opting for a smaller SSD; 60GB is more than enough capacity to work as an effective cache device.
In all areas, the AT-FX Polaris delivers with bags of power. So how does it measure up against the competition?
TechRadar Labs
CPU rendering performance
Cinebench R11.5: Index: Higher is better
AT-FX Polaris: 7.80
Phoenix Hydro X: 7.84
DirectX 11 tessellation performance
Heaven 2.5: Frames per second: Higher is better
AT-FX Polaris: 21.7
Phoenix Hydro X: 38.4
DirectX 11 gaming performance
Shogun 2: Frames per second: Higher is better
AT-FX Polaris: 47.5
Liquid i7 High: 48.8
Well, it's a hugely more enticing option than the last rig we looked at from Advancetec, the AT-FX Tron, priced almost identically.
Last month's Liquid i7 High from Cyberpower arguably offers better value with the inclusion of a screen and peripherals, but if you're already set for those then we think the Polaris matches it in the components department, considering the overclocking and cooling on offer.
The current cream of the sub-£1,500 crop is still Palicomp's Phoenix Hydro X, offering an i7 2600K and two 2 GB HD 6950s.
Advancetec's Polaris is cheaper though, and ideal for any gamer who can afford it.
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