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.

NVIDIA just officially announced the SHIELD tablet (powered by their Tegra K1 SoC) and SHIELD wireless controller. As the SHIELD branding implies, the new SHIELD tablet and wireless controller builds upon the previously-released, Android-based SHIELD portable to bring a true gaming-oriented tablet to consumers. In some ways, the SHIELD... Read more...
If you want the latest and greatest Nokia-built Windows Phone phone, and you’re an AT&T customer, the Lumia 1520 is a beast of a smartphone, but it’s not available to Verizon customers. Instead, Verizon offers the newer, and arguably more refined, Nokia Lumia Icon, which has nearly all of the same internal specifications... Read more...
NVIDIA's Jen-Hsun Huang took the stage at CES 2014 to discuss NVIDIA's overarching gaming technology efforts, starting with a discussion of PC gaming streaming courtesy of NVIDIA's Shield. We've discussed Shield's game streaming capability before -- it's easily one of the stronger selling points for the product. According to the NVIDIA CEO,... Read more...
We're inching closer to the end of an era. Now that Microsoft has acquired Nokia's mobile phone unit, we'll soon see Microsoft-branded handsets rolling out in place of Nokia's own hardware. The company has made a heroic attempt to fight the tide of Apple's growing popularity coupled with the surging share of Android, but currently, Windows... Read more...
Nokia's battle in the global smartphone race is an intriguing one, and those who follow technology have long wondered if the company's decision to hitch its wagon to Microsoft was a wise one. When Stephen Elop came in as CEO, Nokia was in a rare position: it could choose which platform it wanted to support for the foreseeable future. Of course,... Read more...
NVIDIA made quite a splash at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show when they first unveiled their SHIELD portable gaming device. If you missed the original announcement, or the myriad of related posts we’ve put up about the device since then, SHIELD is a Tegra 4-based portable gaming machine that’s packing a 5-inch... Read more...
Nokia has been trying hard to play catch-up in the smartphone race for a long time now, and as Microsoft's strategic partner with the Windows Phone operating system and ecosystem, they've got their work cut out for them, with a gridiron full of Android and iOS devices offering compelling and powerful solutions.  And so, Nokia, perhaps... Read more...
Microsoft and its partners were pushing Windows Phone 8-based smartphones hard this holiday season. In a market that's already crowded with plenty of great Android and iOS options, Microsoft and its partners definitely have their work cut out for them. Given its touch-friendly features, unique UI, and personalization options... Read more...
In a sense, it feels like Windows Phone 8 is Microsoft's first real foray into the smartphone space post Windows Mobile. Of course, Microsoft made a concerted effort with Windows Phone 7, but there's something vastly different about version 8. WP8 borrows from the underpinnings of Windows Phone 7, but there are so many differences... Read more...
Windows Phone is only about a year and a half old in the market at this point but Nokia has a much longer lineage. In the past 12 months though, their two worlds have collided in a fashion that will have repercussions for quite some time to come, with Nokia CEO Stephen Elop firmly committed to focusing his company's turnaround on what... Read more...
Typically mobile graphics launches trail their desktop counterparts by a few months, as major GPU players like NVIDIA and AMD wring out power consumption and performance from their architectures in order to accommodate the tighter thermal and power budgets of notebook form factors. However, NVIDIA has obviously been refining their new... Read more...
For all but the most budget conscious buyers, piecing together a home brewed rig often entails forking over a premium for certain components, depending on what you're trying to accomplish. If you're a gamer, you probably bought a high-end graphics card (or at least that's what you should have done). Do you spend more time ripping videos than... Read more...
Lately, it seems like Desktop Replacement notebooks don't get any respect, at least in our humble opinion.  The trend for thin and light mobile computing is massive these days, with good reason. However, there is a market and usage model for these beefier, significantly more robust machines the deliver the multimedia horsepower,... Read more...
Ever since NVIDIA's original ION chipset proved it was possible to pair Intel's low-power Atom processor to a relatively powerful graphics core and attain acceptable multimedia performance, the market has been curious as to what NVIDIA's Ion 2 Next-Generation Ion product might offer. This has also been a topic of some discussion between... Read more...
A few years ago and again only recently, a select few notebooks hit the scene with "switchable graphics". That is to say, these notebooks are able to manually switch between low-power integrated graphics solutions in the notebook chipset, to more powerful, and higher-performing discrete graphics processors. To enthusiasts, power users, or... Read more...
NVIDIA invited members of the press to a briefing at the Las Vegas Hilton so that the company's fearless leader, Jen-Hsun Huang, could unveil their latest highly integrated mobile processor.  Dubbed only "the new Tegra processor," but known now as the Tegra 250, NVIDA's CEO spoke of their commitment to improving the mobile computing experience... Read more...
Consumer DSLRs with HD video capabilities are becoming more and more prevalent these days. As a result, manufacturers are constantly battling to find ways to differentiate themselves and their products from the others. Nikon's D5000 offers a few features that help set it apart from other options in the company's line as well as from the models... Read more...
NVIDIA has built its brand and reputation as a GPU designer since the company was founded in 1993, but recent comments by the company have implied that it believes platforms like Tegra and ION will be key revenue generators in the future. We've previously discussed NVIDIA's ongoing emphasis on the GPU as a massively... Read more...
Don’t be fooled by the Nikon Coolpix L100’s DSLR-like looks. Although the L100 looks like a high-end camera that could compete with the functions of a DSLR, it’s really a relatively simple point-and-shoot with a wide angle 15x zoom lens as well as image stabilization, a 3-inch LCD, and a high speed burst shooting mode of 13fps... Read more...
Digital designers and video editors will tell you that one display is often not enough. With so many different tool and palette windows, a single display can get crowded very quickly, leaving little room for the primary workspace. Add some other apps to the equation, such as e-mail and Web browsers, and you can wind up with a desktop... Read more...
Back in August of last year, at the NVISION visual computing conference in San Jose, NVIDIA publicly demonstrated some new stereoscopic 3D technology. While stereoscopic 3D in and of itself is not new, the devices on display at NVISION were, and featured new hardware, monitors, wireless glasses, and software. At the event, the technology was... Read more...
When we first looked at the NVIDIA GeForce 8M series of mobile graphics chips, over six months ago in early May, the series had just been announced. At the time, the lineup only consisted of the 8400M mainstream series and the 8600M mid-range series. Although rumors had been circulating about the possibility of a high-end, G80-based enthusiast... Read more...
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