Items tagged with tablets
Lenovo, the world's number one supplier of PCs, has reportedly decided to stop selling Windows-based tablets with screen sizes under 10 inches in the U.S. market. That includes the ThinkPad 8, which was launched in January, and the 8-inch version of the Miix 2, which Lenovo began shipping in October of last year. What it boils down to is a lack of interest. A spokesman for Lenovo told IT World in an email that North American buyers are trending more heavily towards bigger displays in the Windows tablet category, noting that the company is "pleased" so far with the demand for its ThinkPad 10. You can still find Lenovo's 8-inch Windows tablets in some market places like Amazon, though you can't...
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Samsung’s zero tolerance policy towards the use of child labor had a public test this week when Child Labor Watch accused a supplier of hiring children. Samsung investigated the Dongguan Shinyang Electronics Company over the next few days and announced that it is temporarily suspending business with the supplier, based on evidence “of suspected child labor at the worksite.” The allegations are grim: CLW alleges that the children it discovered were working 11 hour days and being paid for 10. It also claims to have turned up other labor violations, including a lack of protective equipment around chemicals. Samsung is promising to follow through on the zero tolerance policy. “If...
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Remember when only cheap knock-off tablets ventured into the realm of affordability? That was forever ago, and thanks to the proliferation of 7-inch Android slates that have been flooding the market, you don't have to search very far or wide to find a slate that won't kick your wallet in the gut. Just how low have tablet prices fallen, and are these low priced units any good? According to Digitimes, the lowest price point for a 7-inch brand-name tablet in the U.S. dropped to just $79 in June. That's great, but what's even better is that pricing is expected to decline even more as specifications in the 7-inch category gradually converge. At present, Samsung's 7-inch tablets tend to cost more than...
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Samsung unveiled its latest flagship tablet, the Galaxy Tab S, at an event in New York City, and the new device is thin, lightweight, and sports a killer Super AMOLED display. Samsung boasts that the Tab S’s 2560x1600 display has a 73% better color reproduction rate than conventional LCD displays and can match colors up to 94% of “nature’s true palette” with deeper blacks and a 100,000:1 contrast ratio. If Samsung is accurate in its boast, the Galaxy Tab S is a compelling device for anyone who regularly works with photography or video, not to mention frequent movie-watchers. The tablet also features Adaptive Display, which is a feature that optimizes the brightness,...
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Last year, at IDF, Intel announced that it would soon make a concerted push into both the Windows and the Android tablet markets, with an aggressive contra-revenue strategy (meaning, they'd ship devices at a loss) and a huge set of marketing campaigns. On the Windows side we've seen the fruits of that push; many companies now offer Bay Trail devices in the 8-10 inch market. On the Android side of the market, however, things have been almost entirely silent -- Intel has demonstrated a few systems and made a little noise, but it hasn't done much to actually field designs in the US market. Today, that may finally be changing. Dell, Asus, and Acer all announced various Android systems based on Intel's...
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Earlier this week we covered a deal between Intel and Rockchip that will combine Intel's Atom with Rockchip's graphics IP and considerable share of the Chinese market. I'm returning to the topic because there are some interesting big-picture facets to this move that we didn't cover with the initial announcement. Over the long term, this partnership could transform Intel's entire mobile division -- or cause it no end of headaches in the future. First, in order to partner with Rockchip, Intel must have definitionally granted the company some form of x86 license. This wouldn't necessarily be a license to design its own x86 processors (in fact, it almost certainly isn't), but the only way for Rockchip...
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For months, it's been rumored that Microsoft would unveil a new version of Windows 8.1 with specific Bing branding and a lower price tag. Now the company has formally unveiled the SKU, which will carry a "reduced cost" to manufacturers of PCs that cost less than $250. Microsoft also makes Windows free to devices with a screen smaller than nine inches, What this means is that devices that sell for less than $250 and have screens smaller than nine inches will get W8.1 + Bing for free. Other devices will be able to buy W8.1 at a reduced price, but the scope of the discount isn't known. The impact on the end user of the "with Bing" SKU is minimal. A system that ships with this version of Windows...
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Google’s Project Ara seeks to develop a modular smartphone that could revolutionize the mobile industry, but one company--Entegra Technologies--has already announced a modular tablet that it believes will bring about radical change perhaps even sooner. The Entegra Crossfire Pro is a tablet whose components you can swap in or out without upgrading the entire system. At launch, it will sport a 9.7-inch daylight-readable display with a resolution of 1024x768 that supports touch, glove, or stylus input. The device is no featherweight at 2.5lbs. The heart of the system is the quad-core Intel M-Series N2930 COM (computer on module), which itself can be swapped out for another COM when necessary,...
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Market research firms have a tendency to separate traditional PC sales (desktops, laptops, and ultrathins) from tablets, but Canalys clumps them together, thereby giving us another angle to analyze the landscape. So, according to Canalys, the two categories combined to reach 123.7 million unit shipments worldwide in the first quarter of 2014, up only 5 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago. A major factor that resulted in the nominal jump is that growth in the tablet sector slowed to 21 percent. We've seen other reports suggesting that tablet demand is cooling off, as consumers are finding themselves content with their current slates and aren't seeing enough reason to upgrade. This...
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Intel is announcing its new tablet and smartphone designs this week at Mobile World Congress, alongside a major push to drive adoption of its 28nm XMM 7160 and XMM 7260 modem technology. It's been two years since Intel launched its first serious Atom-based smartphone platform, codenamed Medfield, and it's safe to say that those two years haven't gone precisely as Intel intended. Originally, the company planned to have a solid market share built up by now. Instead, it's planning a major tablet initiative with multiple partners with a few possible smartphone SoC wins on the side. The chips that will power these efforts are the Z34 and Z35 families, known as Merrifield and Moorefield... Intel Debuts...
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Intel is announcing its new tablet and smartphone designs this week at Mobile World Congress, alongside a major push to drive adoption of its 28nm XMM 7160 and XMM 7260 modem technology. It's been two years since Intel launched its first serious Atom-based smartphone platform, codenamed Medfield, and it's safe to say that those two years haven't gone precisely as Intel intended. Originally, the company planned to have a solid market share built up by now. Instead, it's planning a major tablet initiative with multiple partners with a few possible smartphone SoC wins on the side. The chips that will power these efforts are the Z34 and Z35 families, known as Merrifield and Moorefield, respectively....
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Microsoft is reportedly cutting the cost of its Windows 8.1 licensing fees on cheaper PCs and tablets in an attempt to remain competitive in the lower-end market. According to Bloomberg’s sources, manufacturers will pay just $15 to preinstall the OS on any device that sells for less than $250 instead of the normal $50. It’s notable that there’s no form factor requirement or size restrictions, nor a touch requirement, meaning that the discount could apply to inexpensive notebooks and tablets alike. This is a clear effort to fight back against market-invading forces such as inexpensive Android tablets and the growing spate of chromebooks on the market. The measure to slash licensing...
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Preliminary data from International Data Corporation's (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker indicate that tablet shipments around the globe grew to 76.9 million units in the fourth quarter of 2013, representing an impressive 62.4 percent sequential growth rate and a 28.2 percent year-over-year increase. However, as obscene as those numbers are, they're down "dramatically" compared to the 87.1 percent growth in 2012. According to IDC, this slowed growth indicates that some markets are becoming saturated with slates, including the U.S. Demand remains ultra high in emerging markets, though not to the extent that it can sustain the same level of growth as in years past. "We expect commercial...
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Intel may seem like an unmovable juggernaut, but the company is actually in the midst of major changes. The PC industry is shifting, and the old Wintel paradigm isn’t what it used to be. The company has a new CEO in Brian Krzanich, and the new boss is tasked with captaining the turning ship; unfortunately, he’s doing so in part by cutting a lot of jobs. Intel announced that it’s cutting 5% of its workforce, which is more than 5,000 jobs. The casualties are coming as Intel realigns some of its business segments, moving more resources to focus on data center tech (which is a big cash cow for the company), more low-power processors, and tablets. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich Intel recently...
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Lenovo has already announced its new lineup of smartphones ahead of CES, and now the company is pulling back the curtain on the rest of its computing devices. The list is rather long and consists of new laptops, multimode devices, displays, and some intriguing products that include an Android desktop and a home cloud solution. Lenovo Miix There are two Miix tablets, one a 10-incher ($499) and the other an 11-inch model ($699). The former boasts a quad-core Intel Atom processor and a 1920x1200 multitouch display, as well as 128GB of eMMC storage and JBL surround sound speakers. The device offers WiFi and optional 3G for connectivity, and there are front (720p HD, 2MP) and rear (5MO) cameras. The...
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One of the biggest days of the year to get a close look at iOS versus Android is Christmas Day, and IBM put together some interesting numbers that show a surprising discrepancy between the two platforms and their respective sales and traffic. As it pertains to online activity, iOS destroyed Android with 32.6% of overall traffic to 14.8%, and when you look at online sales, the gap is even greater. iOS outpaced Android by a factor of five, ringing up 23 percent of online sales versus Android’s 4.6%. iPad Air What’s more, the average iOS user spent $93.94 per order while Android users averaged barely more than half that with $48.10. Other interesting stats from the day showed that smartphones...
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If you haven't been to Applebee's in awhile, you should stop in and order the steak fajitas (tell Jessica "Hi" for me if you happen to be in the Portage, MI area when you decide to go) -- they're delicious. As a fan of technology, I'll soon have another reason to stop by my local Applebee's restaurant. DineEquity, franchisor of Applebee's and IHOP, announced plans to install 100,000 Intel Atom-powered E la Carte Presto tablets on every table and multiple bar positions at more than 1,800 Applebee's restaurants in the U.S. by the end of next year. Applebee's has been testing the use of tablets for almost two years now. The initiative is designed, in part, to speed up checkout by allowing patrons...
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Portable devices are becoming ever more powerful, and users are increasingly utilizing them to keep up with news and friends, get work done, and for entertainment. Smartphones and tablets have never been so powerful, and if you're in market for either, it's going to be a fun holiday season, packed with some great options to choose from. Whether it's for you or someone else, consider this your go-to guide for picking out the perfect tablet or smartphone. We're all about spreading the holiday cheer around here, and if it means sifting through dozens of devices to find the best ones, then so be it. That’s what we do, and we'd much rather you spend your time this holiday season with your family...
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The PC market has tumbled throughout the past 18 months, but Intel believes the worst of the decline is over -- and that the tablet market is poised to boom. At its Analyst Day today, the company forecast stable PC sales through 2014, with gains in the market driven by an estimated 4x increase in tablet sales. And make no mistake -- Intel wants to be in those devices. What a difference a few years makes The Asus Transformer Book T100 has transformed my view of how useful x86 devices can be in the $400 market. True, it has some flaws -- the power adapter is extremely slow to charge the device -- but on the whole, it's absolutely functional for basic traveling and work. Convertibles like this blur...
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Make no mistake, the war over CPU supremacy is shifting to mobile, and unlike traditional battlegrounds like desktops, notebook PCs, and servers, it's ARM, not Intel, that has the biggest army. Of course, that's not to say that couldn't change in the blink of an eye, and if Intel attacks the mobile market with the same vigor that it did on the desktop, we could be looking at a x86 revolution among smartphones and tablets. Before that can happen, Intel needs to produce chips that are more competitive with current ARM processors. If you're rooting for Intel, or are a fan of competition in general, you'll be happy to know that the Santa Clara chip maker may soon disclose an accelerated release schedule...
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According to a joint survey from Intel and IDC, the PC market could see sunnier days in 2014. That's the proposed takeaway from a survey IDC conducted of 3,977 adults across both suburbs and cities. The respondents, who all owned at least one PC or Mac, were organized into two basic groups -- those using a PC 4 years old or older, and those using a PC purchased in the last 12 months. Between the two groups, 45% had tablets and 64% owned smartphones -- further underscoring that tremendous popularity of tablets in the American market. According to the survey, 40% of buyers are interested in upgrading a PC within the next 12 months. 97% identify the PC as their primary computing device, 83% believe...
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Nvidia posted its earnings for the second quarter of 2013 (Q2 of fiscal year 2014 by the company's reckoning) and the results are relatively great. The company posted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.16, beating analyst expectations by three cents, with total revenue of $977 million. While that's still a decrease of 6.6% compared to last year, it's a mitigated decrease in line with Intel's sales decline, as opposed to AMD, which saw revenue fall by 18% year on year. Strong gross margin of 55.8% (up 4% year-on-year), new GPU launches, and sustained Quadro demand all helped anchor revenue. Tesla revenue surged in particular; up 127.5% year-on-year, while Quadro recorded a 14.3% gain. Consumer GPU...
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