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.
When it comes to wireless earbuds, you might say we're fairly particular and almost snooty about them. It's not easy to reproduce decent acoustics with such tiny drivers, never mind with quality active noise cancellation (ANC) that doesn't make it sound like you're listening to music in some kind of weird anechoic chamber. Regardless,...
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In 2020, TCL ventured beyond its successful TV business by launching three TCL-branded phones in the US -- the $450 TCL 10 Pro and $250 10L (which we both reviewed), followed by the $400 TCL 10 5G UW. The company is no stranger to mobile, having previously sold budget handsets under the Alcatel brand. But last year’s TCL 10-series was...
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This is undoubtedly the year of video conferences and virtual meetings. Perhaps nothing makes one of these conferences more insufferable than someone’s scratchy, low-quality integrated microphone -- and the last thing you want is for that scratchy mic to be yours. Fortunately, upping your microphone game can be...
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What do the Alcatel, BlackBerry, and Palm smartphone brands all have in common? They’re all owned by Chinese electronics giant TCL -- which also manufactures products under the RCA brand in the US. TCL is best known for its stratospheric rise in the TV business, where it regularly battles with LG for second place in terms of number of...
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We are almost to the end of yet another wonderfully innovative year in technology. The non-stop innovation of the tech sector has presented us with products and services that deliver more horsepower, lower power consumption, and smaller form factors that deliver more value and features. The tradition of Black...
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The annual Consumer Electronics Show – CES – is typically chock full of bleeding-edge technology. Numerous companies take advantage of CES as the backdrop to launch or announce new products, and this CES 2017 was no exception. But for every killer piece of technology shown off at CES, there are a dozens of chintzy unmentionables that...
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With the KIRAbook 13 I7, Toshiba is flexing its muscles and taking on the likes of Apple, Asus, and Lenovo in the ultrabook arena. And you know what? Toshiba seems to be on the right track. With clean lines, a 2560 x 1440 resolution display and a slick magnesium alloy body, the KIRAbook is anything but a typical laptop....
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Toshiba is claiming to have the world's thinnest 10-inch tablet with its Excite 10 LE. This Android 4.0-powered tablet is indeed thin and lightweight, measuring 0.3 inches thick and weighing about 1.18 pounds. In addition to its thin design, the Excite 10 LE also offers a number of ports and expansion slots. With its size, range of IO ports,...
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We're going to let you in on a little secret, and while you're free to pass it on, understand that nobody will ever believe you. In fact, if you do share this secret, you might suffer a barrage of insults, and depending on your stature, could even end up with a wedgie. You've been warned. Are you ready? Here goes: Many Windows users,...
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If 2011 was the year of the tablet, then Q4 2011 had to be the quarter of 7-inch versions. With a late-in-the-year burst of releases from various manufacturers spurring break-out products like the Kindle Fire and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, it's as if manufacturers made a concerted effort to target lower price points in an move...
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One of the most dramatic shifts in portable gaming history has been the surge in popularity of smartphones and tablets in the past two years. In 2009, Android and iOS devices accounted for ~19 percent of game revenue. In 2010, their combined share nearly doubled, while Flurry Analytics estimates that the two platforms will account for...
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Android Honeycomb based tablets are beginning to feel like they're a dime a dozen. 10.1-inch slates are coming out of the woodwork from a bunch of major players, and for all intents and purposes, they're built upon very similar base platforms with NVIDIA's Tegra 2 processor powering them. Capacitive touch displays, integrated...
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This year's Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas, Nevada offered some of the most exciting product announcements we've seen in any previous CES show thus far. The past three years' CES shows have been rather snoozy, to be honest, with the economy taking its toll on product design investment and innovation. However, this...
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The ultraportable notebook marketplace is hotter than ever before. In years past, buying a sub-14" machine generally meant a couple of things: low power and high price. Today, it's still fair to say that ultraportables are generally less powerful and more expensive than the standard-sized 15" machines that sit above them, but the gap is closing...
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Toshiba's Tecra Series of laptops have traditionally been marketed as high-performance business laptops, designed to be capable of handling demanding tasks. Earlier this year, Toshiba announced the Tecra A11. The new Tecra A11 is thinner and lighter than its predecessor and features a 10-key numeric keypad. Designed as a desktop...
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Last year, Toshiba announced the Satellite T135 series, a line of thin-and-light ultraportable laptops that offered a good balance of performance and price. Toshiba got our attention with this line so we reviewed the Satellite T135-S1310RD, an Intel Pentium SU4100 powered machine that featured an ultra-low voltage processor. At a time when...
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If you could design your own laptop in an effort to have the perfect balance of performance, price, size, weight, and features, what would you include and what could you live without? As part of its Blue Label program, Best Buy asked that question of its customers--accepting as much feedback as its customers could give and then channeling...
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We're seeing more and more CULV notebooks hit the market these days. The growing sector of Consumer Ultra Low Voltage machines attempts to bridge the gap between lower cost netbooks and full-size notebooks, offering a more powerful chip than the ubiquitous Atom options we see in netbooks, but one that consumes less power than the mainstream...
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Toshiba’s Qosmio X305 is the company’s flagship gaming notebook line, with configurations that include dual graphics cards, dual storage drives, and the latest Intel Core 2 quad-core processors. At CES, Toshiba introduced a new Qosmio X305, the X305-Q725, which competes with the company’s higher end X305-Q708, but at a much better price ($2,699.99...
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Long gone are the days when the primary differentiating factors between competing laptops models were just battery life and weight. Don't be mistaken---battery life and weight are still important; but with so many folks now using a laptop as their only computer, laptop manufacturers have stepped up their efforts on the very look of their notebook...
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Mobile computing has come a long way in the last few years. Notebook manufacturers have been squeezing more power and features into ever more portable packages. As technologies have continued to be refined, shrinking in size and power requirements, manufacturers have been able to expand their creative ideas, bring ever more...
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