Update 7/8/14 12:34 p.m.: Samsung just informed us that the prices on three of its four 850 Pro SSDs have dropped. The 256GB version now costs $199.99, the 512GB model can be had for $399.99, and the 1TB variant will now run you $699.99. For each of those drives, that’s a $30 price drop. The 128GB model is still priced at $129.99.
Samsung just announced that it is launching a brand new lineup of SSDs.
Dubbed the 850 Pro, these drives are powered by the company’s 3D V-NAND tech. According to Samsung, V-NAND “features a proprietary vertical cell structure and represents a breakthrough in overcoming the density limit currently facing planar NAND architecture used in conventional flash memory, yielding significant speed, endurance and energy efficiency improvements.”
Samsung claims that its new 850 Pro drives will shuttle data at blazing rates, which doesn’t surprise us one bit. The company says these new SSDs will reach read speeds of up to 550MB/s, and write speeds of up to 520MB/s. For what it’s worth, according to this page, the Samsung 840 Pro has the same write speed, but is 10MB/s slower on the read speed front (540MB/s).
From an aesthetic standpoint, Samsung didn’t do much, if anything, to switch things up with the 850 Pro’s exterior. In fact, it looks identical to the 840 Pro, right down to the orange square underneath the logo, along the side of the drive’s top panel.
The Samsung 850 Pro will come in one of four storage varieties. The entry level version packs 128GB, and costs $129.99. The next step up is the 256GB model for $229.99. From there, Samsung doubles the storage to 512GB, and attaches a $429.99 asking price to the drive. Finally, there’s the 1TB version, which will run you a whopping $729.99.
Though Samsung hasn’t provided us with an exact release date for their new 850 Pro drives, we have been told that they should be released sometime later this month. Once we get more precise release date information, we will update this article accordingly.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Google DeepMind's AI world model Genie 4 can now build interactive worlds that you can explore and reshape as they run. It also generates ambient sounds, music, and dialogue that respond to your actions.
The new world model builds on Genie 3 with improved realism, more natural human movement, and better simulations of real-world physics. It could eventually help with everything from game development to training robots.
Apple has an incredible talent for making me admire its products while simultaneously questioning what on earth it's thinking with the pricing. This isn't even something as bizarre as a monitor stand, but the audacity for starting a new laptop lineup from $2,000 doesn't surprise me.
The newly announced 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 is just the latest to showcase this. The funny thing is, I already know that it's going to be a reliable workstation. You get a powerful new 2nm M6 processor, a gorgeous Liquid Retina XDR display, and up to 24 hours of battery life. We were impressed by the M5 MacBook Air, so the high-end M6 powered MacBook Pro definitely won't let us down.