Notebooks, Tablets, Smartphones, Wearables And Gadgets
In-depth product reviews and news of notebooks, tablets, smartphones, wearable technologies and gadgets. We're now living in a contextually-aware computing world and mobile devices can not only help us enjoy the ride but create and capture new experiences as well.
We're willing to concede that size matters, but too often in tech manufacturers take advantage of that notion by offering multiple size options of the same product without upping the ante in any other way. Without shaming specific manufacturers by pointing out some examples, let's just say that we've seen both knock-off and name-brand laptop...
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When Microsoft first released Windows 8, the company hoped that hardware manufacturers would get creative with form factors and customers would be enticed by the intriguing new PC designs. One of the clear leaders to emerge since Windows 8's launch is the Lenovo Yoga series of laptops, which fold in half to mimic tablets or can be used in...
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As it does every so often, Amazon recently updated and revamped its line of Fire tablets to include upgraded models and a somewhat simplified naming scheme. The new models abandon the "Kindle" branding and are now simply known as Fire HDX 8.9, Fire HD 7, and Fire HD 6. To flesh out the lineup, Amazon still sells a Fire HDX and a Fire...
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Most are in agreement that Apple's iPad Air 2 is one of the finest tablets ever produced, if not the best out there, period. Certainly, it's not difficult to make that case -- after all, the latest 9.7-inch iPad is thinner than its predecessor at just 6.1mm thick, wicked fast with its custom A8X System-on-Chip (SoC), and incredibly light at...
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The PC laptop market is a funny place. Good laptops are fairly easy to find, but great laptops are staggeringly rare. This is true even at the boutique end of the market, where manufacturers have a tendency to choose powerful components, but cram them into a chassis that can't handle the heat without sounding like a jet turbine, or pick...
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For the past few years, Intel has promised that its various low-power Atom-based processors would usher in a wave of low-cost Android and Windows mobile products that could compete with ARM-based solutions from its major competitors. And for years, we've seen no more than a trickle of hardware, often with limited availability and/or...
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When introducing the iPhone 6 Plus, Apple described it as the “biggest advancement in iPhone history.” Naturally, the use of “biggest” was quite intentional, a pun almost. Prior to 2014, Apple’s entire iPhone line had only ever had two screen sizes: 3.5-inch and 4-inch. Those sizes were perfectly acceptable...
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Today, Apple unveiled the upcoming iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, ending months of speculation over whether or not the company would ever move to larger screens or higher PPI. The answer, it turns out, is yes -- the iPhone 6 will pack a 4.7-inch screen while the iPhone 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch screen. Resolution on the iPhone 6 is...
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Bold. That’s the word that comes to mind when we consider Amazon’s Fire Phone. In a world where precious little has happened in the smartphone space over the past few years, at least in terms of groundbreaking innovation, Amazon’s entrance provides all the spark you need to sit up and pay attention. These days, a major OEM...
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ASUS recently refreshed its 7-inch MeMO Pad 7 tablet with Intel’s new Atom Z3745 Bay Trail-based processor. Having overcome its rocky start, the latest generation of Atom processors is building a reputation for power efficiency and computational chops. Despite its early days in ill-fated netbooks, today's Atom looks to be a good...
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AMD has had a tough time competing with Intel on the desktop lately, but when it comes to mobile technology, in the notebook arena, performance, value and power efficiency are measured against a very different yardstick. That's not to say that CPU throughput and IPC isn't important in a notebook, not by a long shot, but multimedia...
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It has been nearly a year since we visited ARM in Cambridge, UK, and the company recently held another tech day -- this time in Austin, Texas. During the three-day session, ARM covered a wide range of topics, with a primary focus on server ecosystems and next-generation mobile hardware. The company started off with an in-depth exploration...
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NVIDIA holds the lion's share of the market in mobile graphics hardware, but it's not the only competitor. When Alienware asked if we'd be interested in looking at a notebook based on AMD's top-end R9 M290X in a single-GPU configuration, we agreed. This system is based on exactly the same hardware and chassis as the Alienware 18-inch model...
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LG’s new G Flex smartphone is the “world’s first curved flexible smartphone” according to the company. We’ve seen smartphones that have curved bodies before, but this is the first smartphone to feature a display and battery that are curved as well. LG claims the curved design of the G Flex is optimized...
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Today is a big day for AMD. If you follow the company at all, you're probably aware that there's a new APU from AMD waiting in the wings. Today, AMD is disclosing more information about Kaveri, the first APU to support heterogeneous computing. Kaveri also includes a new CPU core, codenamed Steamroller, and the largest GPU we've seen...
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Intel's 4th generation Core processors, based on the company's Haswell microarchitecture, have done good things for ultrabooks this year. Thanks to Haswell, Ultrabooks have moved much closer to Intel’s original vision of thin, light, low-power (but still powerful) systems that eschew outdated components and usher in new...
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Thanks to the discourse that was exposed during Samsung and Apple’s legal spat in California, e-mail records revealed that Eddy Cue (senior vice president of Internet Software and Services at Apple) was pushing for a 7” iPad in 2011. Reportedly, Steve Jobs was very much against the 7” form factor, asserting that the 9.7”...
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Let’s just be honest right off the bat: You’re probably not reading our review of this product so much to check out benchmarks and other performance indicators as you are to see if we’ll clarify whether or not Google's strange, new browser-based Chrome OS operating system is really worth investing in. Chrome OS is indeed...
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So much has changed in the tablet market since Apple starting shipping its first iPad around three and a half years ago. Prior to the original iPad, the tablet category didn't really exist, not like it does today. Apple wasn't the first to market with a tablet -- not by a long shot -- but Steve Jobs and the gang were the first to release...
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The Asus Transformer Book T100 packs an impressive list of features into a diminutive chassis and companion keyboard dock. After working with system, it's clear that Asus is hoping to capture lightning in a bottle, for the second time in a row. It's been six years since Asus launched the first Eee PC and kicked off a miniature revolution in...
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I recently had the good fortune to sit down with David Drum, Research Manager at MOREnet and Google Glass Explorer, to get some hands-on time with the high-tech face computer that Google is testing in the wild. Over a cup of joe at a local coffeeshop, David gave me a chance to play with Google Glass for myself. The first thing I realized upon...
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If not for Apple's impending launch of the next-generation iPhone, the Moto X would be one of the year's most notable smartphone launches. And honestly, that's saying something. 2013 has also been a year where the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 came to light, but no Android phone has captured as many eyes as Motorola's simply-titled "X." The...
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