If they include even a bit of exclusive content, I'll have to buy it, even though I bought all the games individually upon their release. Even with the controversial (and to me, disappointing) ending in 3, this was still the best game series I've ever played (from a storyline and overall perspective point of view). Now as an adult, I think about Mass Effect the same way I thought about LOTR as a kid.
Much faster than stock SSD, better capacity, minimal hit on battery life. It's a great alternative for those planning to purchase the $500 512 GB Apple SSD upgrade.
Just finished three days of repeat testing on the final builds of 10.8.2 and 10.7.5. Good news is that battery life remains restored in Mountain Lion compared to the developer builds.
I have to say I was a bit worried it wouldn't last, given Apple's recent software missteps (i.e., the battery life in the developer builds was restored by disabling critical underlying code, etc). Glad I was wrong!
Pre-release benchmarks didn't lie. The iPhone 5 is dramatically faster than the 4S and even the iPad 3 in some tests.
Of course, this only has value for those looking to stay within the iOS ecosystem. Many current and upcoming Android phones score as high or higher than the 5.
Good point, gojomo. Sorry about that! I used Apple's Numbers app to make the graphs and it doesn't do too well at offering color customization. It's often an all or nothing approach.
We got some feedback on our last virtualization benchmark. Lots of people wanted to know how Parallels 7 compared to 8 and Fusion 4 to 5. They were also curious about how well the free VirtualBox performs and how they all stack up to Boot Camp.
Short answer: Boot camp is the champ (obviously) and Parallels 8 is second. Fusion is third, but not by much, and VirtualBox is a distant fourth ("you get what you pay for").
Okay guys, here it is! It took weeks of non-stop testing but we finally have the comprehensive look at battery life from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion.
This was requested after we performed our earlier tests that focused on Lion to Mountain Lion. The good news is that 10.8.2 seems to bring a HUGE improvement. I just hope whatever changes Apple made survive into the final version.
I hope we were able to answer your requests and comments. Please continue to let me know if you want us to test other scenarios.
Hi guys, thanks for the feedback. We didn't have access to a copy of Parallels 7 for an 8 vs 7 comparison, but we're working on getting one and will update the article when we do.
We're also planning to run tests in native Boot Camp, and we're going to take a look at the free VirtualBox to see if it's worth even paying for these apps at all.
Thanks again, and let me know if you have any other specific benchmarks or apps/games that you'd like us to test. We'll do our best to try everything.
Ha, I know, I wrote the article. I think I didn't correctly articulate my first comment. What I meant to say was something like "I don't think there's any way to overlook this, and that's a problem" because many of media outlets covering the trial have not even mentioned it.
I just imagine a bunch of Apple legal team members watching the foreman's interviews and all of them simultaneously face-palming. It probably won't cost Apple the verdict, but it will cost them more time and money on appeal.
This is certainly more legal than technical, but I've been very intrigued by the comments that the jury foreman has made to the media.
After some research, and speaking with attorneys, I think there may be a problem with the way the verdict was decided. Not that I'm trying to make a judgment on who should have won, but it seems that this foreman was a bit too excited by his role and the information he claims to possess.
Never liked OnLive's technology. It was certainly cool, but I must have been too far from the servers; always had slight, infuriating lag whenever I tried it.
You're right; I'm sorry I missed discussing that. Our testing methodology is to run each test at least 2 times and if the second test is within 5 percent of the first, to average the two results. If there's a greater than 5 percent difference, we run multiple tests until we can determine which result was abnormal and why.
It's not THE most scientific methodology, but it's a decent balance between time and accuracy. In the case of our most recent round of tests, none of the second results were more than 4 percent off the first test.
Yep, I'm currently sitting here running 10.6.8 battery life tests as we speak. I'm going to make it as comprehensive as I can and run multiple tests on each build of OS X from 10.6.8 to 10.8.2 (prerelease). It will take a while; should be ready by the middle of this coming week.
10.8.1 improved things a little bit, but running time is still short of where it was in Lion.
We only have one Mac in our test suite that can support it, but we're going to try to test the 2011 MBP with Snow Leopard and compare that to the results on the same machine for Lion and Mountain Lion.