Items tagged with Ultrabook
One of the companies I like keeping an eye on at any given major conference is ASUS. Without fail, the company always seems to manage to show-off products that both get people talking, and have some serious questionability about their potential success. At CES this past January, one such product touted was the company's "Taichi", an Ultrabook with not one, but two displays. Interestingly, ASUS announced its first Taichi model this past fall, although it didn't get too much coverage until a big unveil at CES. That notebook, Taichi 21, comes in at 11.6-inches, while this new model, Taichi 31, bumps that up to 13.3-inches. Aside from that, we're not too sure if that's the only way the notebooks...
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The latest addition to Samsung’s ultrabook family is the 13.3-inch Samsung Series 9 Premium, which boasts a 13.3-inch Full HD (1920x1080) display with Samsung SuperBright technology that the company says makes the machine twice as bright as most notebooks. The Series 9 Premium rocks an Intel Core i7-3537U (2GHz) processor, 4GB of memory, and a 128GB SSD, Intel HD 4000 graphics are on board, too. There’s a pair of 1.5W speakers and a 1.3MP HD webcam, and the ultrabook has 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, WiDi, and Bluetooth 4.0 for connectivity. The 2.56lb ultrabook claims a battery life of 5.8 hours. The Series 9 Premium has a solid array of ports, including micro HDMI, USB 3.0 and USB 2.0, headphone...
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Windows 8 with LTE? Yep, that's a thing. AT&T and Samsung have just announced the launch of the ATIV Smart PC Pro as well as the Series 9 Premium Ultrabook, both featuring built-in AT&T LTE support. Each is shipping now, with the Series 9 Premium Ultrabook boasting Windows 8, a 1920x1080 Full HD display (13") and an sleek Ultrabook frame, while the ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T has an 11.6" panel. The ATIV Smart PC Pro comes with a detachable keyboard, 10-point touch capability and the Samsung proprietary S Pen, while the Ultrabook arrives with a Core i5 CPU, 4GB of RAM and up to 8 hours of battery life. As for pricing? The Smart PC Pro will sell for $1600, while the Ultrabook goes for $1900....
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Lenovo pretty much nailed the thin and light Ultrabook form factor with its ThinkPad X1 Carbon, which we gave an Editor's Choice award last summer, but what about the enterprise crowd? For business users, Lenovo just launched its ThinkPat T431s Ultrabook with design enhancements the company claims were "inspired by the results of an extensive global research project." As a result, this is the thinnest and lightest T series ever made. The ThinkPad T431s sports a carbon fiber top cover and magnesium exterior. It weighs a mere 3.6 pounds and measures a scant 0.82 inches thick (20.6mm), which means it's not going to slow you down during your travels. On the inside, it has a new, larger multi-touch...
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Technology marches to the beat of its own drum and the hard part is keeping in step with the rhythm. You may recall, for example, that we already reviewed Dell's XPS 13 Ultrabook a year ago, singing high praise for its edge-to-edge display, stellar battery life, and overall performance, which at the time was the best we'd seen from an Ultrabook. If we were to compare it with today's crop of Ultrabooks, however, we'd have to sing a different tune now that Ivy Bridge is pervasive in the market. Or would we? Dell went back and re-wrote the lyrics without changing the name of the song, which is our way of saying the XPS 13 Ultrabook we have for review is a refreshed model... Revisiting Dell's XPS...
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Technology marches to the beat of its own drum and the hard part is keeping in step with the rhythm. You may recall, for example, that we already reviewed Dell's XPS 13 Ultrabook a year ago, singing high praise for its edge-to-edge display, stellar battery life, and overall performance, which at the time was the best we'd seen from an Ultrabook. If we were to compare it with today's crop of Ultrabooks, however, we'd have to sing a different tune now that Ivy Bridge is pervasive in the market. Or would we? Dell went back and re-wrote the lyrics without changing the name of the song, which is our way of saying the XPS 13 Ultrabook we have for review is a refreshed model. The biggest upgrade comes...
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Although the cool factor of toting around a Dell Latitude 10 tablet pales in comparison to the iPad, Dell believes that when it comes to the workplace, the Latitude is a far better option. In a press release, Dell called its Latitude 10 Enhanced Security tablet “up to 17 times faster and 94 percent less expensive to deploy than iPads in large scale enterprise implementations”. We’ve already peeped the “Essentials” version of Dell’s business-oriented tablet, but today the company announced the Enhanced Security version which is designed to offer the features most ideal for the enterprise, including Dell Data Protection/Access that uses fingerprint, smart card...
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Ultrabooks are, in a word, cool. They’re slim, flashy, and lightweight, yet they’re rather powerful and offer users a laptop that can do it all in a form factor that begs to be touched and carried around (especially if it’s a convertible ultrabook, in which case the unit can double as a high-powered tablet). Business-class laptops tend to be the opposite. With all due respect, business machines are often almost comically boxy and dull, offering the bare essentials in terms of looks and performance. The Dell Latitude 6430u ultrabook falls somewhere in between... Dell Latitude 6430u: An Ultrabook That's All Business ...
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Ultrabooks are, in a word, cool. They’re slim, flashy, and lightweight, yet they’re rather powerful and offer users a laptop that can do it all in a form factor that begs to be touched and carried around (especially if it’s a convertible ultrabook, in which case the unit can double as a high-powered tablet). Business-class laptops tend to be the opposite. With all due respect, business machines are often almost comically boxy and dull, offering the bare essentials in terms of looks and performance. While it’s true that a fleet of plain yet somewhat rugged mid-range notebooks makes perfect sense in terms of TCO and lifecycle management, you’re already bored...
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As more and more low-cost ultrabooks enter the market, the shipments of solid state drives could more than double in 2013. An IHS iSuppli Storage Space Market Brief suggests shipments of SSDs could rise to 83 million units this year, which is more than double the number of shipments in 2012. By 2016, iSuppli expects shipments will continue to rise and could reach 239 million units. If this holds true, SSDs would hold about 40 percent of the hard disk drive market. These figures include SSDs for both the consumer and enterprise markets as well as cache SSDs. They do not include hybrid hard drives. In addition to increased consumer interest in ultrabooks, lower prices for NAND flash memory have...
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Tablets are extremely popular right now, but many users still need a more powerful machine to do serious work. For people who don't want two devices but desire the touch screen controls and convenience of a tablet, as well as the productivity capabilities of a notebook in a single machine, a convertible ultrabook may be a good fit. We're starting to see more and more ultrabooks that convert from a traditional laptop into a tablet. Not long ago, we took a closer look at Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga 13 Ultrabook which features a touchscreen display with a dual-articulating hinge that allows the machine to convert to tablet mode. Today, we're going to take a hands-on look at Dell's XPS 12 convertible ultrabook,...
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Tablets are extremely popular right now, but many users still need a more powerful machine to do serious work. For people who don't want two devices but desire the touch screen controls and convenience of a tablet, as well as the productivity capabilities of a notebook in a single machine, a convertible ultrabook may be a good fit. We're starting to see more and more ultrabooks that convert from a traditional laptop into a tablet. Not long ago, we took a closer look at Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga 13 Ultrabook which features a touchscreen display with a dual-articulating hinge that allows the machine to convert to tablet mode. Today, we're going to take a hands-on look at Dell's XPS 12...
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While at MSI’s suite today, we had the chance to get some hands on time with the company’s latest ultrabook convertible, the Slider S20. Announced late last week, this ultrabook is set to be available later this month with a price tag of $1,199.99. Key specifications and features include Windows 8 along with an Intel Core i5 processor, 1920x1080 HD IPS 10-point touchscreen, 8GB of DDR3 memory, and a 128GB SSD. This ultrabook weighs in at 2.2 pounds and measures less than 1 inch thick. As you’ll see in the video below, the Slider S20 has two USB 3.0 ports, miniHDMI, headphone, LAN, and volume controls. The sliding mechanism is nice and smooth, and you can tilt the...
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We had a chance to stop by Lenovo’s suite today at CES 2013 in Las Vegas, to check out some of the latest and greatest offerings from the company. First up is the new Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2. This tablet runs on Windows 8 Pro and features a 10.1-inch multi-touch HD display. Lenovo claims this is the lightest Windows 8 tablet on the market with a starting weight of 1.25 pounds. A dock is available for this tablet that offers port replication. On the dock, you’ll get HDMI out, LAN, speaker, power, and USB ports. A Bluetooth keyboard stand is also available for this tablet. Next up is the ThinkPad X1 Carbon ultrabook that has the footprint and weight of a 13-inch notebook but features...
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MSI announced a new ultrabook convertible known as the Slider S20. This new ultrabook runs on Windows 8 and features an Intel Core i5 processor. As you may expect from its name, the Slider S20 utilizes a slide-out keyboard that enables it to convert from an ultrabook to a tablet. Other key specifications of the Slider S20 include a 16:9 1920x1080 full HD 10-point touch screen, 8GB of DDR3 memory and 128GB of SSD storage. The Slider S20 weighs 2.2 pounds and measures less than 1 inch thick. Connectivity features include a Jackson Peak Wireless adapter, Ethernet, 2 USB3 ports, Bluetooth capability, mini HDMI-out connector and an integrated 720P HD webcam. “Many users prefer the mobility...
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Samsung added two new models to its Series 7 PCs. The Series 7 Chronos has been enhanced to offer professional performance in a thin and light form factor. The Series 7 Ultra is a new ultrabook that features plenty of computing power and graphics as well as touch capabilities. The new Series 7 Chronos features RAMaccelerator software that can provide up to a 150 percent increase in speed. This system also features ten-finger multi-touch capabilities as well as a touchpad and keyboard. The new Series 7 Chronos has a full aluminum body that measures just 0.82 inches. On the inside, you'll find an Intel quad-core processor with up to 16GB of memory, up to 1TB of storage, and dedicated 2GB external...
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Netbooks may be fading, but ultralight laptops still have quite a bit of life left in them. As the new year begins, Velocity Micro is refreshing its line of NoteMagix laptops. The 14" Ultrabooks are seeing revisions, with the U430, U450, and U470 also getting internal boosts to bring 'em more in line with what rivals are offering in the here and now. You shouldn't look here if you're angling for the absolute thinnest laptop you can find, but each of them finds room for a DVD optical drive -- an increasingly rare object to find in thin-and-light portables. Each of the units boast a 14" non-touch panel with a native resolution of 1366x768. Other universal specifications include a bloat-free install...
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The expression "better late than never" fits like a glove when talking about the recent trend towards 15.6-inch Ultrabooks. We fully appreciate that Intel and its hardware partners made a concerted effort to slim down the notebook without sacrificing performance (unlike the once popular netbook form factor), but limiting the segment to 14-inch displays (and smaller) felt like a step back in some ways. Enter Hewlett-Packard's Envy Ultrabook 6t-1000 Series. The Envy Ultrabook signals a return to the 15.6-inch form factor for those who want a larger size display, but otherwise find themselves, well, envious of slimmer laptops. Now you can have your cake and eat it, too, or at least that's the idea......
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The expression "better late than never" fits like a glove when talking about the recent trend towards 15.6-inch Ultrabooks. We fully appreciate that Intel and its hardware partners made a concerted effort to slim down the notebook without sacrificing performance (unlike the once popular netbook form factor), but limiting the segment to 14-inch displays (and smaller) felt like a step back in some ways. Enter Hewlett-Packard's Envy Ultrabook 6t-1000 Series. The Envy Ultrabook signals a return to the 15.6-inch form factor for those who want a larger size display, but otherwise find themselves, well, envious of slimmer laptops. Now you can have your cake and eat it, too, or at least that's the...
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Lenovo announced the new ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch. This ultrabook is optimized for use with Windows 8 and features touch capabilities. The X1 Carbon Touch weighs 3.4 pounds and measures just 20.8mm thick (about 0.82 inches). Thanks to its carbon fiber construction, the ultrabook offers strength and durability not found on other notebooks. The X1 Carbon Touch's 14-inch display (1600x900) supports 10-point multi-touch. The ultrabook also features a large multi-gesture glass touchpad. Processor options include Intel Core i5 and i7 options. For security, the X1 Carbon Touch offers an integrated fingerprint reader, Trusted Platform Module, and BIOS encryption. Mobile broadband 3G is also available...
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Although HP's attempt at competing in the consumer tablet market with the HP TouchPad may have been short-lived, the company has continued to compete in the business segment of the market with products such as the ElitePad. In yet another effort to attract the business crowd, HP recently announced the new HP EliteBook Revolve. The EliteBook Revolve is part of the company's ninth generation line of convertible tablets. What sets this convertible apart from previous generation models is the fact that it's running the touch-friendly Windows 8 OS. The EliteBook Revolve comes with third-generation Intel Core processor options, an 11.6-inch HD display, 720p video camera, USB 3.0 connectivity, and up...
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2012 has been a banner year for both notebooks and desktops, in terms of design and innovation. It's not every holiday season that you get to swoon over a new Windows operating system and freshly designed hardware to go with it, but those in the market this winter will be treated with Windows 8 and some slick new machines should they choose to go that route. Whether it's for yourself or someone else, consider this your go-to guide for picking out the perfect notebook or desktop PC this holiday season. We're all about spreading the holiday cheer, and if it means sifting through dozens or even hundreds of machines to find the best ones, then so be it. This is what we do, and we'd much rather you...
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