Razer’s Slim Yet Crazy-Powerful Laptop Inches Closer to Perfection

Razer’s Slim Yet Crazy-Powerful Laptop

The last 14-inch Razer Blade laptop was released less than a year ago, and it was great enough to score a 9/10 in WIRED’s full review. A great laptop is about to get even greater, because there’s already a newer and even more powerful version of the high-powered gaming notebook.
Razer is calling its new 14-inch Blade “the highest power-per-cubic-inch laptop in the world,” and it looks like that isn’t just empty talk. It’s incredibly thin and light, but it’s built to be a gaming workhorse. Pound-for-pound power aside, the marquee feature of this new laptop is its 3200 x 1800-resolution IGZO touchscreen display.

“Many people were asking us for a 1080 screen,” Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan told WIRED. “We’ve gone way above that with a QHD+ display… This is, hands down, the world’s best laptop screen there is right now.”

Samsung’s Ativ Book Plus 9 and Toshiba’s 4K laptops may have a bone to pick with that claim. But the new Blade’s display is certainly sharp, bright, and vivid, and the sum of its parts looks like something far different from those laptops.

Its QHD+ screen has a significantly higher pixel density than the 13- and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros, and it offers a near-identical pixel density as the iPad Air’s IGZO display (262 ppi vs. the Air’s 264 ppi). The Blade’s screen has a 160-degree-wide viewing angle for its vivid, sharp picture, and IGZO’s power efficiency means that it can get bright (400 nits) without taxing the battery as much as it probably should.
“There’s a huge premium that we are paying for this (Sharp IGZO panel) versus a normal IPS panel, but the difference is that the IGZO panel’s response rate is incredible,” says Tan. “It’s much better than a normal IPS screen, so it fulfills our need for great resolution, super thin, and super fast response rate. Its color vibrancy and color gamut is incredible.”

Aesthetically, the new Blade isn’t much of a departure from the last version. If a MacBook Pro played football for the Oregon Ducks, it would look like the Razer Blade. The Windows 8.1 laptop offers the same black aluminum unibody and lime-green backlit chiclet keyboard as its predecessor, as well as the trio of lime-green-accented USB 3.0 ports.

However, it’s been redesigned from the inside out in order to make its next-generation components run smoothly. There’s some serious firepower under the hood: Nvidia’s brand-new GeForce GTX 870M GPU with 3GB of GDDR5 RAM and a 2.2GHz fourth-generation quad-core Intel i7 CPU with 8GB of 1600 MHz RAM.

“We’ve completely reengineered again the thermal system around the Blade, and we’re now using a GTX 870M,” says Tan. “It was all about making sure we optimized the thermals in this. We really made as much space as possible to put the battery in there. We’ve got a 70 Wh battery. We’ve also worked with Nvidia to do a battery boost.”

Specifically, Razer says the Blade’s 70-Watt-hour battery offers up to six hours of juice per charge. The laptop is a bit thicker and heavier than the last iteration of the Razer Blade, but not by much: The new Blade clocks in at 0.7 inches thick and 4.5 lbs., as compared to the predecessor’s 0.66-inch thickness and 4.1-pound weight.

It still doesn’t have an SD-card slot, which is a shame for photographers looking to view and manipulate images on that super-high-resolution touchscreen. But that just means there’s some room for improvement in the next-generation Blade.

“We constantly design and iterate over and over again, and it’s a little nuts,” says Tan. “But that’s how I think we’ve gone from launching our first laptop three years ago to probably the best laptop in the world right now.”

This premium portable will certainly cost you: The new 14-inch Razer Blade will start at $2,200 for its 128GB SSD base version. 256GB and 512GB SSD configurations will also be available for a bit more than that. Pre-orders start today, and the laptops are slated to ship in two weeks.

View the original article here

Razer’s Slim Yet Crazy-Powerful Laptop Inches Closer to Perfection

Posted by maghestra No comments

Razer’s Slim Yet Crazy-Powerful Laptop

The last 14-inch Razer Blade laptop was released less than a year ago, and it was great enough to score a 9/10 in WIRED’s full review. A great laptop is about to get even greater, because there’s already a newer and even more powerful version of the high-powered gaming notebook.
Razer is calling its new 14-inch Blade “the highest power-per-cubic-inch laptop in the world,” and it looks like that isn’t just empty talk. It’s incredibly thin and light, but it’s built to be a gaming workhorse. Pound-for-pound power aside, the marquee feature of this new laptop is its 3200 x 1800-resolution IGZO touchscreen display.

“Many people were asking us for a 1080 screen,” Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan told WIRED. “We’ve gone way above that with a QHD+ display… This is, hands down, the world’s best laptop screen there is right now.”

Samsung’s Ativ Book Plus 9 and Toshiba’s 4K laptops may have a bone to pick with that claim. But the new Blade’s display is certainly sharp, bright, and vivid, and the sum of its parts looks like something far different from those laptops.

Its QHD+ screen has a significantly higher pixel density than the 13- and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros, and it offers a near-identical pixel density as the iPad Air’s IGZO display (262 ppi vs. the Air’s 264 ppi). The Blade’s screen has a 160-degree-wide viewing angle for its vivid, sharp picture, and IGZO’s power efficiency means that it can get bright (400 nits) without taxing the battery as much as it probably should.
“There’s a huge premium that we are paying for this (Sharp IGZO panel) versus a normal IPS panel, but the difference is that the IGZO panel’s response rate is incredible,” says Tan. “It’s much better than a normal IPS screen, so it fulfills our need for great resolution, super thin, and super fast response rate. Its color vibrancy and color gamut is incredible.”

Aesthetically, the new Blade isn’t much of a departure from the last version. If a MacBook Pro played football for the Oregon Ducks, it would look like the Razer Blade. The Windows 8.1 laptop offers the same black aluminum unibody and lime-green backlit chiclet keyboard as its predecessor, as well as the trio of lime-green-accented USB 3.0 ports.

However, it’s been redesigned from the inside out in order to make its next-generation components run smoothly. There’s some serious firepower under the hood: Nvidia’s brand-new GeForce GTX 870M GPU with 3GB of GDDR5 RAM and a 2.2GHz fourth-generation quad-core Intel i7 CPU with 8GB of 1600 MHz RAM.

“We’ve completely reengineered again the thermal system around the Blade, and we’re now using a GTX 870M,” says Tan. “It was all about making sure we optimized the thermals in this. We really made as much space as possible to put the battery in there. We’ve got a 70 Wh battery. We’ve also worked with Nvidia to do a battery boost.”

Specifically, Razer says the Blade’s 70-Watt-hour battery offers up to six hours of juice per charge. The laptop is a bit thicker and heavier than the last iteration of the Razer Blade, but not by much: The new Blade clocks in at 0.7 inches thick and 4.5 lbs., as compared to the predecessor’s 0.66-inch thickness and 4.1-pound weight.

It still doesn’t have an SD-card slot, which is a shame for photographers looking to view and manipulate images on that super-high-resolution touchscreen. But that just means there’s some room for improvement in the next-generation Blade.

“We constantly design and iterate over and over again, and it’s a little nuts,” says Tan. “But that’s how I think we’ve gone from launching our first laptop three years ago to probably the best laptop in the world right now.”

This premium portable will certainly cost you: The new 14-inch Razer Blade will start at $2,200 for its 128GB SSD base version. 256GB and 512GB SSD configurations will also be available for a bit more than that. Pre-orders start today, and the laptops are slated to ship in two weeks.

View the original article here

This Week’s Apple Rumors, Ranked From Dumbest to Most Plausible

iTunes Radio could get more visibility through its own iOS 8 app. Image: Apple
Each week, there are dozens of Apple rumors, reports, and patent filings that hint at what’s coming out of Cupertino next. Some are legit, but many are totally bogus. This week, reports on what to expect in iOS 8 have started rolling in. But as always, we’ve parsed the week’s rumors, ranking them in order from “utterly ridiculous” to “duh, of course.” First up…

DON’T COUNT ON IT: iOS 8 Icons Leaked
Apparently someone in China got their hands on an early build of iOS 8, and has leaked images of its homescreen, including icons of yet-to-be-released iOS 8 apps. Some of the icons are essentially copycats of their OS X counterparts, and as such, don’t fit in with the iOS 8 aesthetic at all. While 9to5Mac says these images align with what they’ve heard the icons will look like, we would expect them to look different in the final build of iOS 8, so we’re calling bogus on this one.

ASK AGAIN LATER: Apple Exploring Optical Sensing for 3-D Gesture Recognition
A a pair of patent applications published Thursday highlight how Apple could use 3-D gesture recognition to enhance its mobile and desktop products (and it’s certainly not the first time). Apple could perform Microsoft Kinect-like object identification, according to the first of the two patents, “Imaging Range Finding Device and Method.” The method involves an array of light emitters and photodetectors that would direct light at an object, which would then bounce back and get analyzed through an optical lens. Adding a couple more lenses would be an option that increases the system’s accuracy. This technology could be used in a variety of ways, including to help guide the visually impaired, to scan 3-D objects, for photo editing, and for night vision. The second patent describes how optical sensing could be used in a trackpad scenario. Your position on the pad is tracked by reflected light, and it can measure vertical, horizontal, and angular positioning as well as things like acceleration, pressure, velocity, force, and pressure. Thus, the system could detect different gestures that mean different things based on the angle and force that are applied. This sounds like it could allow for a variety of complicated gestures, particularly ones geared toward accessibility.

ASK AGAIN LATER: Next iPhones to Take Design Cues From the iPhone 5c, 7th Gen iPod
Japanese Apple blog Macotakara says that the two new iPhones coming out this year, rumored to be 4.7 and 5.7 inches in size, will take design cues from the iPhone 5c and fifth gen iPod nano. Think anodized aluminum, but available in a wide variety of colors, with the mute and volume button styled like those on the iPhone 5c. It would also have rounded rear edges, akin to the 5c. These rumors don’t sound completely far-fetched, but it’s still fairly early in the year, so accuracy and validity are still in question.

ASK AGAIN LATER: Apple Looking Into Better Pedometer Step Detection
Oh look, another wearable-related patent! Also applicable to the iPod nano, which has a built-in pedometer, the patent filing “Wrist pedometer step detection” looks into how Apple could perform better, more accurate step detection with a device worn anywhere on your body. The system would be able to detect steps, filter out noise, and tell when a step is “missed” (in terms of signal detection) because you were swinging your arm. Using a technique called a Fourier Transform, the device would also be able to automatically tell if it’s worn on the wrist.

ASK AGAIN LATER: Apple Updating Lightning Connector to Stop Counterfeits
An Apple patent application published Thursday describes a way for Apple to put unique identifiers in Lightning cables to stop third party counterfeits from working. While we think, in some respects, this is totally lame, on the other hand, faulty third party chargers have also been known to explode. No signs as to whether this would roll out any time soon, but it does seem like something Apple would do.

SIGNS POINT TO YES: Apple Making All Sorts of Tweaks for iOS 8
Apple will likely give us a first look at iOS this June at WWDC — just three months away. So it’s not too surprising that the look and features of the next version of iOS are starting to take shape. Each iteration of iOS features a number of enhancements, but 9to5Mac lists a few possibilities: The Game Center app may get nixed, while the service continues to exist in apps that use it; Apple could implement automatic deletion of iMessage threads to free up space on your device; and a redesign of the Voice Memos app could make it more intuitive. At the moment, these particular examples are all “maybes,” according to 9to5Mac, but no doubt small (and large) changes like these will eventually show up in the new OS.

SIGNS POINT TO YES: Apple Moving iTunes Radio to Its Own App in iOS 8
In an effort to boost usage, Apple could move iTunes Radio from the Music app to its own app in iOS 8 this year. This would give the feature greater visibility, and make it more of a direct competitor with other streaming apps like Rdio, Spotify, and Pandora. Apple does have a history of doing this: Its Podcasts app had its beginnings in the Music app, and Apple gave iTunes University content its own app too.

SIGNS POINT TO YES: Apple Expanding iCloud Functionality in iOS 8
Apple will likely be expanding iCloud to make it a more robust file system replacement with new features in iOS 8. Namely, Apple will introduce TextEdit and Preview apps so that you can view those files (saved in iCloud) both on iOS and OS X devices. However, the apps will be read only, according to 9to5Mac’s report, with document editing available in iBooks, for PDFs, and Pages, for TextEdit documents. TextEdit and Preview were two of the questionable leaked icon images we mentioned above.

SIGNS POINT TO YES: iOS 8 Will Include Vastly Upgraded Maps App
9to5Mac is also offering a detailed look at one of the biggest new features of iOS 8: Maps. Maps launched with iOS 6 so riddled with errors and mistakes that Apple fired both SVP Scott Forstall and Maps manager Rich Williamson over the debacle, and issued a public apology. Since then, Apple’s improved the looks of the app, and has made several acquisitions that will let Apple improve data on the backend, including better labeling and points of interest. Apple will also finally add public transit directions — perhaps the largest missing feature of the app (at least for city dwellers). Apple could also add an augmented reality feature for finding nearby points of interest in the app, but this could be further down the pipeline.

View the original article here

This Week’s Apple Rumors, Ranked From Dumbest to Most Plausible

Posted by maghestra No comments

iTunes Radio could get more visibility through its own iOS 8 app. Image: Apple
Each week, there are dozens of Apple rumors, reports, and patent filings that hint at what’s coming out of Cupertino next. Some are legit, but many are totally bogus. This week, reports on what to expect in iOS 8 have started rolling in. But as always, we’ve parsed the week’s rumors, ranking them in order from “utterly ridiculous” to “duh, of course.” First up…

DON’T COUNT ON IT: iOS 8 Icons Leaked
Apparently someone in China got their hands on an early build of iOS 8, and has leaked images of its homescreen, including icons of yet-to-be-released iOS 8 apps. Some of the icons are essentially copycats of their OS X counterparts, and as such, don’t fit in with the iOS 8 aesthetic at all. While 9to5Mac says these images align with what they’ve heard the icons will look like, we would expect them to look different in the final build of iOS 8, so we’re calling bogus on this one.

ASK AGAIN LATER: Apple Exploring Optical Sensing for 3-D Gesture Recognition
A a pair of patent applications published Thursday highlight how Apple could use 3-D gesture recognition to enhance its mobile and desktop products (and it’s certainly not the first time). Apple could perform Microsoft Kinect-like object identification, according to the first of the two patents, “Imaging Range Finding Device and Method.” The method involves an array of light emitters and photodetectors that would direct light at an object, which would then bounce back and get analyzed through an optical lens. Adding a couple more lenses would be an option that increases the system’s accuracy. This technology could be used in a variety of ways, including to help guide the visually impaired, to scan 3-D objects, for photo editing, and for night vision. The second patent describes how optical sensing could be used in a trackpad scenario. Your position on the pad is tracked by reflected light, and it can measure vertical, horizontal, and angular positioning as well as things like acceleration, pressure, velocity, force, and pressure. Thus, the system could detect different gestures that mean different things based on the angle and force that are applied. This sounds like it could allow for a variety of complicated gestures, particularly ones geared toward accessibility.

ASK AGAIN LATER: Next iPhones to Take Design Cues From the iPhone 5c, 7th Gen iPod
Japanese Apple blog Macotakara says that the two new iPhones coming out this year, rumored to be 4.7 and 5.7 inches in size, will take design cues from the iPhone 5c and fifth gen iPod nano. Think anodized aluminum, but available in a wide variety of colors, with the mute and volume button styled like those on the iPhone 5c. It would also have rounded rear edges, akin to the 5c. These rumors don’t sound completely far-fetched, but it’s still fairly early in the year, so accuracy and validity are still in question.

ASK AGAIN LATER: Apple Looking Into Better Pedometer Step Detection
Oh look, another wearable-related patent! Also applicable to the iPod nano, which has a built-in pedometer, the patent filing “Wrist pedometer step detection” looks into how Apple could perform better, more accurate step detection with a device worn anywhere on your body. The system would be able to detect steps, filter out noise, and tell when a step is “missed” (in terms of signal detection) because you were swinging your arm. Using a technique called a Fourier Transform, the device would also be able to automatically tell if it’s worn on the wrist.

ASK AGAIN LATER: Apple Updating Lightning Connector to Stop Counterfeits
An Apple patent application published Thursday describes a way for Apple to put unique identifiers in Lightning cables to stop third party counterfeits from working. While we think, in some respects, this is totally lame, on the other hand, faulty third party chargers have also been known to explode. No signs as to whether this would roll out any time soon, but it does seem like something Apple would do.

SIGNS POINT TO YES: Apple Making All Sorts of Tweaks for iOS 8
Apple will likely give us a first look at iOS this June at WWDC — just three months away. So it’s not too surprising that the look and features of the next version of iOS are starting to take shape. Each iteration of iOS features a number of enhancements, but 9to5Mac lists a few possibilities: The Game Center app may get nixed, while the service continues to exist in apps that use it; Apple could implement automatic deletion of iMessage threads to free up space on your device; and a redesign of the Voice Memos app could make it more intuitive. At the moment, these particular examples are all “maybes,” according to 9to5Mac, but no doubt small (and large) changes like these will eventually show up in the new OS.

SIGNS POINT TO YES: Apple Moving iTunes Radio to Its Own App in iOS 8
In an effort to boost usage, Apple could move iTunes Radio from the Music app to its own app in iOS 8 this year. This would give the feature greater visibility, and make it more of a direct competitor with other streaming apps like Rdio, Spotify, and Pandora. Apple does have a history of doing this: Its Podcasts app had its beginnings in the Music app, and Apple gave iTunes University content its own app too.

SIGNS POINT TO YES: Apple Expanding iCloud Functionality in iOS 8
Apple will likely be expanding iCloud to make it a more robust file system replacement with new features in iOS 8. Namely, Apple will introduce TextEdit and Preview apps so that you can view those files (saved in iCloud) both on iOS and OS X devices. However, the apps will be read only, according to 9to5Mac’s report, with document editing available in iBooks, for PDFs, and Pages, for TextEdit documents. TextEdit and Preview were two of the questionable leaked icon images we mentioned above.

SIGNS POINT TO YES: iOS 8 Will Include Vastly Upgraded Maps App
9to5Mac is also offering a detailed look at one of the biggest new features of iOS 8: Maps. Maps launched with iOS 6 so riddled with errors and mistakes that Apple fired both SVP Scott Forstall and Maps manager Rich Williamson over the debacle, and issued a public apology. Since then, Apple’s improved the looks of the app, and has made several acquisitions that will let Apple improve data on the backend, including better labeling and points of interest. Apple will also finally add public transit directions — perhaps the largest missing feature of the app (at least for city dwellers). Apple could also add an augmented reality feature for finding nearby points of interest in the app, but this could be further down the pipeline.

View the original article here

Psyched About In-Flight Gadgets? They Could Make Your Trip Even Worse

Modern air travel is miraculous. It’s cheap, fast, and makes it easy to cross the country or globe in a matter of hours. It’s also excruciatingly tedious and uncomfortable for all but the wealthiest passengers. Yet new federal rulings promise to either improve it drastically or make it much worse—depending on whom you sit next to.

The FAA has at long last ruled that reading Fifty Shades of Grey on your Kindle during takeoff won’t fry the instrument system on a 767, transforming the plane into a rubble-filled crater at the end of the tarmac. In other words, we can finally use our gadgets from gate to gate. Ladies and gentlemen, you may now feel free to play Candy Crush nonstop or snap that skyline Instagram you’ve always dreamed of. You’ll never have to talk to the mouth-breather in the seat next to you again. Nor will you ever have to break away from your ebook to pretend you’re watching a safety demonstration pantomime you could perform yourself. The FCC is even considering allowing airlines to install picocells on US planes that would let you make calls or surf using your own cellular data. Guh. Cell service on planes. Great.

The airlines are going to need to step in with some rules here.
The airplane used to be one of the last refuges from our always-on world: a big Internet black hole where you could legitimately say you couldn’t be reached. That culture has already changed once, with the introduction of in-flight Wi-Fi in 2004, and it’s about to undergo another radical shift. The airplane is going to be more like an overcrowded Starbucks than an electronic sanctuary.
Look, I’m sure you can restrain yourself, but that isn’t going to be true of everyone—at least not without some rope or some rules. And while, yes, it’s great that the FAA loosened its guidelines, here’s hoping the airlines put some new forward-thinking ones in place.

Think of all the annoying things people do today at coffee shops. The loud conversations you can only hear one side of. Hogging power outlets for hours on end. Using bandwidth-intensive applications that cripple everyone else’s Internet. Playing videos or music without headphones. The airlines should address these issues before they become a problem.

Take the power outlets in between seats, for example. There are certainly going to be cases where people refuse to unplug. No problem if everyone has one, but in a three-seat row, there are typically only two (if they’re present at all). Who gets to use the one between two seats? And for how long? Should we be charged for power the same way we are for Wi-Fi?

Some airlines, like Virgin America, JetBlue, and Delta have embraced in-flight Wi-Fi as a marketing feature, acknowledging that the ability to get things done is just as important as leather seats or personal entertainment systems. Airlines that guarantee you won’t have to suffer louts with bad electronics etiquette—no matter where you’re seated—will have a similar selling point. Because honestly, the worst thing about the flight of the future isn’t going to be your seatmate hogging the armrest. It’ll be him prattling on to his buddy below while you’re trying to work—or, heaven forbid, relax.

View the original article here

Psyched About In-Flight Gadgets? They Could Make Your Trip Even Worse

Posted by maghestra No comments

Modern air travel is miraculous. It’s cheap, fast, and makes it easy to cross the country or globe in a matter of hours. It’s also excruciatingly tedious and uncomfortable for all but the wealthiest passengers. Yet new federal rulings promise to either improve it drastically or make it much worse—depending on whom you sit next to.

The FAA has at long last ruled that reading Fifty Shades of Grey on your Kindle during takeoff won’t fry the instrument system on a 767, transforming the plane into a rubble-filled crater at the end of the tarmac. In other words, we can finally use our gadgets from gate to gate. Ladies and gentlemen, you may now feel free to play Candy Crush nonstop or snap that skyline Instagram you’ve always dreamed of. You’ll never have to talk to the mouth-breather in the seat next to you again. Nor will you ever have to break away from your ebook to pretend you’re watching a safety demonstration pantomime you could perform yourself. The FCC is even considering allowing airlines to install picocells on US planes that would let you make calls or surf using your own cellular data. Guh. Cell service on planes. Great.

The airlines are going to need to step in with some rules here.
The airplane used to be one of the last refuges from our always-on world: a big Internet black hole where you could legitimately say you couldn’t be reached. That culture has already changed once, with the introduction of in-flight Wi-Fi in 2004, and it’s about to undergo another radical shift. The airplane is going to be more like an overcrowded Starbucks than an electronic sanctuary.
Look, I’m sure you can restrain yourself, but that isn’t going to be true of everyone—at least not without some rope or some rules. And while, yes, it’s great that the FAA loosened its guidelines, here’s hoping the airlines put some new forward-thinking ones in place.

Think of all the annoying things people do today at coffee shops. The loud conversations you can only hear one side of. Hogging power outlets for hours on end. Using bandwidth-intensive applications that cripple everyone else’s Internet. Playing videos or music without headphones. The airlines should address these issues before they become a problem.

Take the power outlets in between seats, for example. There are certainly going to be cases where people refuse to unplug. No problem if everyone has one, but in a three-seat row, there are typically only two (if they’re present at all). Who gets to use the one between two seats? And for how long? Should we be charged for power the same way we are for Wi-Fi?

Some airlines, like Virgin America, JetBlue, and Delta have embraced in-flight Wi-Fi as a marketing feature, acknowledging that the ability to get things done is just as important as leather seats or personal entertainment systems. Airlines that guarantee you won’t have to suffer louts with bad electronics etiquette—no matter where you’re seated—will have a similar selling point. Because honestly, the worst thing about the flight of the future isn’t going to be your seatmate hogging the armrest. It’ll be him prattling on to his buddy below while you’re trying to work—or, heaven forbid, relax.

View the original article here

Nikon’s New Mirrorless Wonder Fires 60 Shots a Second

A good thing has happened in the world of cameras recently. The megapixel wars are all but dead. Instead, much of the focus in recent cameras has shifted to speed: Faster autofocus systems, and faster continuous-shooting speeds.

The combination of those two things — fast shot-to-shot times and the camera’s ability to automatically adjust focus between each photo in a rapid-fire sequence — isn’t just useful for the paparazzi and sports photographers. It can also come in handy for capturing that split second when your baby is actually smiling or your skittish dog is sitting in a perfect pose. You have a lot better chance of catching that perfect shot if you’re taking dozens of them in a single second.

The Nikon 1 V3 is the new clubhouse leader when it comes to continuous-shooting speeds with (and without) autofocus enabled. The new mirrorless camera is able to fire off 20 shots per second while automatically adjusting focus from shot to shot, and that ramps up to 60 shots per second with focus fixed on the first frame.

Those high-speed antics should also translate well to the V3’s super-slow-motion video mode. The camera shoots 720p video at up to 120fps in slow-motion mode, as well as 1080p video at 60fps.
The camera’s AF system looks like it will offer plenty of coverage: 105 phase-detection points (which are the important ones when it comes to the autofocus system adjusting to fast-moving subjects approaching or moving away from the camera) and 171 contrast-detection AF points.

Like the other cameras in the Nikon 1 mirrorless series, the V3 is built around a smaller sensor than most interchangeable-lens cameras. But the 18-megapixel sensor should be a good one: It’s the same 1-inch-type size found in Sony’s RX series of premium compact cameras. The crop factor is certainly larger than most, as any 1 Nikkor lens mounted on the V3 will have a focal-length multiplier of 2.7x.

Other key features include built-in Wi-Fi with sidecar apps for iOS and Android, ISO equivalency of up to 12,800, and an adjustable 3-inch touchscreen around the back. It’ll cost quite a bit more than any other Nikon 1 camera announced previously, including the everything-proof Nikon 1 AW1. Due in April, the Nikon 1 V3 will sell for $1,200 as a kit with a stabilized, electronic-zoom 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 lens.

View the original article here

Nikon’s New Mirrorless Wonder Fires 60 Shots a Second

Posted by maghestra No comments

A good thing has happened in the world of cameras recently. The megapixel wars are all but dead. Instead, much of the focus in recent cameras has shifted to speed: Faster autofocus systems, and faster continuous-shooting speeds.

The combination of those two things — fast shot-to-shot times and the camera’s ability to automatically adjust focus between each photo in a rapid-fire sequence — isn’t just useful for the paparazzi and sports photographers. It can also come in handy for capturing that split second when your baby is actually smiling or your skittish dog is sitting in a perfect pose. You have a lot better chance of catching that perfect shot if you’re taking dozens of them in a single second.

The Nikon 1 V3 is the new clubhouse leader when it comes to continuous-shooting speeds with (and without) autofocus enabled. The new mirrorless camera is able to fire off 20 shots per second while automatically adjusting focus from shot to shot, and that ramps up to 60 shots per second with focus fixed on the first frame.

Those high-speed antics should also translate well to the V3’s super-slow-motion video mode. The camera shoots 720p video at up to 120fps in slow-motion mode, as well as 1080p video at 60fps.
The camera’s AF system looks like it will offer plenty of coverage: 105 phase-detection points (which are the important ones when it comes to the autofocus system adjusting to fast-moving subjects approaching or moving away from the camera) and 171 contrast-detection AF points.

Like the other cameras in the Nikon 1 mirrorless series, the V3 is built around a smaller sensor than most interchangeable-lens cameras. But the 18-megapixel sensor should be a good one: It’s the same 1-inch-type size found in Sony’s RX series of premium compact cameras. The crop factor is certainly larger than most, as any 1 Nikkor lens mounted on the V3 will have a focal-length multiplier of 2.7x.

Other key features include built-in Wi-Fi with sidecar apps for iOS and Android, ISO equivalency of up to 12,800, and an adjustable 3-inch touchscreen around the back. It’ll cost quite a bit more than any other Nikon 1 camera announced previously, including the everything-proof Nikon 1 AW1. Due in April, the Nikon 1 V3 will sell for $1,200 as a kit with a stabilized, electronic-zoom 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 lens.

View the original article here