Being a Big road bike fan i couldn't help myself putting this on.. :)
A number of bike manufactures have started to develop aero road bike frames, these are claimed to save a number of watts (energy) of the rider.. in other words. go faster for longer. In theory, in a race, a rider with conventional tubing on a bike will have less energy to the rider with the aero road bike..
Specialized McLaren venge
Claimed weight for the Venge frame is 950g, with the complete module (frame, fork, seatpost, crankset) tipping the scales at 2.07kg for the McLaren and 2.18kg for the S-Works. Claimed watts saved by the Venge range from 3W at 20km/h to a whopping 23W at 45km/h, and presumably a lot more than this at Mark Cavendish's sprint speed of around 70km/h. Giving a professional rider that sort of advantage is incredible and should be apparent from very early on in the season.
Specialized say their 2010 S-Works Tarmac SL3 is 124.3 (Nm/deg)/kg (stiffer, but not an aero road bike) but the 2011 Felt AR1 aero bike is only 56.4 (Nm/deg)/kg.
Every part of the AR1′s frame has been carefully designed to be aerodynamic as possible, while the incredible stiffness of the frame guarantees efficient energy transfer; these features ensure that the rider can reach competitive speeds in record time.
The Mobira Senator was released in 1982 and is seen as one of the first true mobile phones. Nokia's telecommunications branch originally existed as a merger between themselves and Salora OY. The two companies released handsets under the name Mobira. It was not until 1989 that Nokia began manufacturing phones under its own name.
compared to the best phone on the market today
The Samsung Galaxy S II is the phone the Korean firm deems the successor to its best smartphone so far. And with a 1.2GHz processor, super-slim chassis and feather-light innards, it's easy to see why.
Coming in at £35 a month and £519.99 SIM-free, the Galaxy S 2 isn't the cheapest phone out there by a long chalk – so let's see if it can match up to that larger price tag.
You can check out our Samsung Galaxy S 2 video:
The Samsung Galaxy S2 is almost impossibly thin when you pick it up – dimensions of 125.3 x 66.1 x 8.5mm mean it's one of the thinnest smartphones on the market at the moment, rivalling the likes of the iPhone 4and Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc for the title.
It's crazy-light too – when we show you what tech is rammed under the hood, you'll be amazed that it all goes in a device that weighs only a shade over 100g (116g, to be precise).
Samsung clearly traded the premium feel an all-metal chassis might have brought to keep the grams off the Galaxy S2 – pop the battery cover off and you'll find you're holding a piece of pretty flimsy plastic.
However, most of the time you won't be removing this and it fits nicely into the contoured chassis – the mesh feel on the rear also helps keep your hand from getting warm during extended holding.
The other thing you'll notice when you first pick up the Galaxy S2 is the screen – at 4.3 inches it's hard to miss, and when you turn it on the Super AMOLED plus technology hits you square in the eyeballs (once it's got through the toughened Gorilla Glass).
We called the Samsung Galaxy S "the best phone on the market for media"when we reviewed it, thanks to its first-gen Super AMOLED screen. Now the Galaxy S2 has definitely improved on that, with a superbly crisp and vibrant screen.
The only problem is a slightly schizophrenic auto-brightness - if you try and save battery by having the sensor monitor ambient light levels, then the screen decides to bounce about with light levels even in same conditions.
UPDATE: Samsung has released a fix to solve this problem already, so forget about it. Un-read what you just read. We could delete it, but that would be lying to you.
In the hand, the Galaxy S2 sits much better than we'd have expected, given the whopping screen on offer, and that's mostly down to its slim depth.
The front of the phone is pretty sparse, with the home key the only piece of furniture on offer. This rectangular button flanks two touch-sensitive buttons – Menu and Back – so there's no room for contextual search here.
The volume keys are located on the left-hand side, and the power/lock key is on the opposite flank; both are easy enough to hit without error, and crucially the travel on the power key is softer so that it's much easier to hit when you're juggling it in the palm – compare that to its predecessor, where you could accidentally drop it trying to shut off the screen.
The 3.5mm headphone jack lives on the top of the phone, bucking the lower placement on other 4.3-inch screen phones, and the microUSB slot (which also doubles as an HDMI out port) lives on the bottom.
The only other element of note is the 8.1MP camera with single LED flash on the rear – it's slightly raised, but not so much that it disrupts the Galaxy S2 when you're placing it on a table, thanks to a rear lip to help you hold the phone.
We actually (foolishly, in hindsight) unboxed the phone while bouncing about on a powerboat on the Thames - and luckily, there was a camera rolling the whole time. (note - we're well aware of the stupid spec mistakes on the boat. Some were down to information given to us by Samsung that has since changed, and some due to sheer confusion at being thrown ten feet in the air and having our spine crushed.)
Samsung Galaxy S2
For a long time, if any technology writer was asked what phone they would recommend to most users, the answer was simple. Even for the least Apple-inclined, ‘Get an iPhone’ was the only honest answer. It was not perfect, but it was the best on the market bar none.
Since then, devices such as the HTC Desire have provided worthy challengers. Today, the Samsung Galaxy S2 is the only phone that challenges the iPhone 4. That’s because it’s elegantly designed, has decent battery life and a superb interface, but it also offers features that are unavailable elsewhere.
So whether it is full HD video recording, the Super Amoled 4.3” screen or just general, remarkable speed, the S2 pretty much has everything. As an Android phone, its integration with Google Maps is superb, but it’s faster than any other on the market to find your location, for instance. It offers impressive new apps such as WiFi Direct, to connect to other devices. Buy a Samsung TV and the S2 is the remote control you wish you’d always had.
