Yanko Design is at it again, and their utterly useless combination of a toaster and battery charger design is utterly interesting and compelling. Getting ready for your day? Skip the breakfast and charge up all of your electronic doohickeys with this fanciful little gadget, and you’ll still get the fulfilling sensation of “toast” popping up and satisfying your hunger, but only in your mind of course.

Over the course of a year, the HWZ team has attended dozens of launches and events, most of them in hotels and convention spaces. The recent MSI X58 launch was a different animal altogether, with MSI Taiwan and the local distributor Network Essentials choosing to hold the event at a restaurant close to where the action is: the Gilmore IT center.

                                            Vanessa Yang, Regional Marketing Specialist takes the floor to explain MSI's promotional activities.

With Christmas just right around the corner, Sony presented a dazzling showcase of their latest and finest products and technologies at the SMX Convention Center last December 5 to 7, 2008. Visitors were treated to a variety of interactive displays and games, each allowing everyone the opportunity to experience Sony’s technologies first-hand. The Manila event was a follow up to the successful Sony Expo held in Cebu last November, an event which also kicked off Sony’s Christmas Treasures campaign.

                                             Anyone can get in for free! Yay!

There’s always been a couple of chipset-exclusive brands available in the videocard market such as XFX which only sells Nvidia videocards, or PowerColor, which concentrates on ATI products. With the rising popularity of ATI products, we also see some previously one-brand videocard makers also adopting ATI chips, as well as totally new brands popping up in the market to wholly concentrate on producing ATI-based videocards. One such company that only recently increased its presence locally is Force3D, of which we have two sample cards.

Fortunate is the human being who is able to witness a once-in-a-lifetime natural phenomena, be it a solar eclipse, a visiting comet, or a natural alignment of heavenly bodies. The PC enthusiast’s little world of technology may not have the same impact as a rare heavenly phenomena, but certain events have just as much impact as a falling meteorite, when we consider the anticipation that accompanies the release of one of the most awaited PC component ever – the Intel Core i7 processor.

                                             An older version of CPU-Z could not identify this brand new Core i7.

It’s to be expected that we approach a particular subject with some pre-conceived notions and (usually logical) assumptions. In the case of cellphones, pretty much everyone has had some type of hand-held phone, especially here in the texting-mad Philippines. Directly proportional to the increasing number of cellphone users and cellphone savvy is an increase in what can be termed “high-end” cellphone units as prices go down, number of features go up, and cellphone users become more knowledgeable.

This year’s Computer Manufacturers, Distributors and Dealer’s Association of the Philippines (COMDDAP) seemed more compact, yet more packed than ever, no doubt due to the presence of none other than HardwareZone Philippines, plus the simple fact that there’s simply more products being displayed this year, from all of the usual suspects plus a couple of new entrees.

                                            As with last year's comddap, Canon had one of the biggest booths during the event.

Samsung’s Pixon Launch held at A.Venue on December 3 was an all-out party bash that surprisingly was not celebrating the launch of a cell phone per se, the whole event revolved around the Pixon’s strong performance as a camera and multimedia device on top of its seemingly more mundane call phone functionality.

                                             Samsung's Pixon launch hosted many interpretative performances perfect for sampling the Pixon's photographic prowess.

“Established in 18xx”. Have you ever seen one of these pronouncements proudly displayed in front of a snooty, well-respected establishment? These establishments boast of brands that have been in their respective trade for hundreds of years. They trade on their perceived long experience and the traditional values of old, implying a product that has resulted from long refinement of a basic but sound concept. If GELID Solutions is any indication however, being long-established isn’t the only way to produce quality products that can instantly endow a formidable impression on a company.

                                              One of GELID's "Wing" case fans.

In street racing, there’s a type of vehicle that’s called a “sleeper” – not because it can double as a camper or mobile, overnight accommodation, but because it slips “under the radar” and remains unnoticed in the face of the mag-wheeled, rear-winged, overly loud street racers that just begs to be stared at. Tech industries and the products it produces have their own versions of sleepers, and from these types of products we get the term “sleeper-hit” or “sleeper-sizzlers”, describing products that are very capable but does not draw too much attention to themselves.

                                            Sanyo executives, including Mr. Joseph Sanchez, Product Manager for Imaging, and Joseph Chua, GM for Sanyo Philippines (2nd and 3rd respectively), flank some of the launch models.

Samsung has been charging full speed ahead with their product releases, the most obvious evidence of this being in their increasing number of LCD products available locally as “local release” models. It’s a heartening thought that the Philippines is increasingly being considered a mature market that can garner high-end model sales as well as the more bread-and-butter mid-range LCDs and even CRT units.

PC component buyers are a fickle group. Not only do they have to have products matching up to their budgets, they also need to match up their specific needs to specific features of the same products. Regardless, manufacturers are happy to oblige, and thus today we have a virtual smorgasbord of models, sub-models, special variations and overclocked versions of videocards in the market. Out of all of the dross, we pluck out a unique card coming out from the Manli camp: the Manli 9600OC 512MB.

Being tops isn’t always the glorious experience it’s made out to be, especially when the title of “best” or “fastest” can be snatched away from you at anytime. Such is the competitive arena in the CPU space that Intel cannot afford to rest on its laurels with their excellent Core2 series of processors. With this in mind, Intel put the “tock” of their tick-tock strategy into motion with the release of the Core i7 processors last November 21, 2008.

It's no secret that netbooks are hot items on the tech market at the moment, and Asus is one of the biggest players in this relatively young niche product line. It is a very healthy indication of just how big a player Asus is that they organized and hosted a 5-day, 4-night tour extravaganza to Shanghai as a dealer's appreciation event, bringing together over 40 members of the Philippine's many computer retailers.

                                             Asus' Philippine dealers and distributors near one of Hangzhou's numerous gardens.

It’s always the little things that tickle our fancy. Unlike the 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss lens camera, the quad-band, Wi-Fi, and fast 3.5G HSDPA connectivity, or the touch-sensitive Navi Wheel that bludgeons you over the head with their sheer high-tech flavor, the first thing that the editors here at HWM remarked upon with the N79 was the “smart” Xpress-On back covers that carries microchips to tell the phone to change to the corresponding color/theme when a new backplate is snapped on.