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.
Back in early January, during our coverage of the Consumer Electronics Show, we gave you all a first glimpse of the Asus ZenFone 2. For those unfamiliar with the ZenFone 2, it is an Intel-powered smartphone, rocking Android Lollipop...
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Asus unveiled its latest addition to the Transformer series at CES in January, the Transformer Book Chi. Available in three sizes, the new Transformer Book Chi Series features a 2-in-1 detachable laptop design. Their flagship Transformer Book T300 Chi offers a 12.5-inch screen, an Intel Core M...
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At this point, it is clear that virtually all of the major mobile device manufacturers are laser focused on the wearables market. While one could argue that the war for the wrist began a couple of years ago, most of the smartwatches that have shipped thus far have served only a small niche. Early adopters have peeked at the Moto 360,...
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Asus announced the super slim Zenbook UX305 during the IFA trade show in Berlin in September. This ultrabook will be available in two models: one with a 1920x1080 IPS display and one with a QHD+ display that boasts a resolution of 3200x1800. Asus claims the latter model is the world’s slimmest...
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Dell took the wraps off a fresh, new revamp of their popular XPS 13 ultrabook line, out at CES in Las Vegas last week. The new machine was widely considered best-of-show for core computing products and racked-up awards left and right from...
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ASUS is a relative newcomer to the smartphone market in the US, but they have had worldwide presence for quite some time. Overseas customers have long enjoyed access to devices such as a giant 7-inch smartphone that makes American phablets look tiny by comparison. Even though most...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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:...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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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