Video Reviews, How-Tos, Events And Our Two And A Half Geeks Webcast
In-depth video reviews, news and Tech event coverage of computers, smartphones, tablets, notebooks, PC components, and tech gadgets. Here you'll find supplemental content that you can also find on our YouTube channel, right here.!
Intel’s newest 8th generation Core processors are here and have delivered promising early results in our initial tests on the desktop, and more recently in Dell's XPS 13 laptop. The biggest change with Intel's 8th Gen Core Mobile processors comes by way of doubled core counts. This makes many of this new generation of Core i5 and i7 mobile chips true quad-core processors now, with support for up to eight threads with Hyper Threading, all within a 15W TDP target. This improvement does not come without trade-offs, of course, as we see base clocks dropped by up to 900MHz relative to each chip’s predecessor. However, Intel has also seen fit to keep boost clocks high and even increased...
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We first got an official look at the Intel Compute Stick earlier this year, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In one of those “But wait! There’s more!” kind of moments common at trade shows, one of the good folks at Intel that was previously showing off a few upcoming NUC systems pulled a tiny device from his shirt pocket and revealed the diminutive Compute Stick. If you’re unfamiliar with the Intel Compute Stick, it’s essentially a fully-functional, low-power, Atom-based system—with memory, storage, and an OS--crammed into a form factor not much bigger than a large flash drive. Though Intel has had their hand in similar devices like the MeeGoPad...
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As Intel (and other chip makers) have been able to shrink its processors, integrate more features, and reduce power requirements over the years, manufacturers have been able to fit them into smaller and smaller form factors. That means notebooks and tablets have gotten thinner, lighter, faster and more portable over the years, of course, but it also means that desktop systems no longer need to be big boxes crammed with numerous components and cooling hardware. In some ways, Intel’s NUC series of products are the epitome of this dynamic. Intel’s NUC systems are ultra-small form factor systems that pack almost all of the features of a full sized desktop, but with minimal expansion options. Intel...
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Intel is readying its latest generation of NUC small form factor systems, based on the company’s recently-released Broadwell-U processors. We got our hands on a Core i5-powered version dubbed the NUC5i5RYK. To be more specific, this little machine is packing a Core i5-5250U processor with on-die Intel HD 6000 series graphics. The system also sports built-in 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 and USB 2.0, M.2 SSD support, and a host of other features. We’re still readying our full review, but in the meantime we thought you’d like to take a peek at the diminutive Intel NUC5i5RYK to get a sense of what the system can do. As you’ll see, not only is the machine nice and small, but it packs...
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This morning at the Intel Developers Conference in San Francisco, Intel PC Client Group Vice President Kirk Skaugen offered a live demo of "Skylake," the follow-on to the company's Broadwell processor platform. Set for launch before the end of 2015, the platform is claimed to offer significant battery life gains for 2-in-1 hybrids and tablets. Though they're built on the same 14nm process as Intel's Broadwell architecture, the design is reported to incorporate some significant advancements including, finally, the full realization of wireless charging and data streaming between devices in what Skaugen noted as a campaign to"ditch the brick" (meaning the power brick). Skylake is reported...
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As you can imagine, we tend to get a lot of boxes here at Hot Hardware. Some packages are small, some larger, some fancy, some pretty ho-hum. Intel shipped us a package this week. It came in a typical, brown cardboard box. However, inside that box was something more than a little flashy (it flashed us quite a bit actually), it was downright freaky... Behold, it's some sort of spacey, alien cargo capsule... I think. Now typically we don't open what looks to be at least a twelve pack of Halo plasma grenades; well, not one that is shipped from strangers anyway. Since this one came from our friends (?) at Intel, rather than take it straight to the bomb squad for detonation, we decided...
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We spent some time with representatives from Intel at the Consumer Electronics show and saw a couple of interesting demos in action. In addition to announcing that 7W Ivy Bridge-based processors are coming down the pipeline, Intel was touting the low power characteristics and efficiency of its current Clover Trail Atom processors, which are featured in a number of Windows 8 tablets. Intel is on a mission to rebut the notion that ARM-based processors are more power efficient than Intel’s. In one demo, Intel had wired up a number of sensors to the batteries on a quartet of tablets to monitor power consumption in real-time. Two of the tablets (a Samsung ATIV and Dell XPS 10) were built...
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Last winter, Intel made waves by demonstrating a number of cutting-edge technologies it believed could drive the next-generation of lower power devices. In addition to its pioneering work with Near Threshold Voltages, the company showed off Rosepoint -- a prototype SoC that combined a dual-core 32nm Atom with an all-digital radio. As we covered at the time, current radios use a mixture of analog and digital circuitry, with the analog side of the equation consuming disproportionately more power and board real estate. Today, Intel demo'd Rosepoint in functional hardware. While the company still hasn't committed to a schedule for bringing the dual-core SoC to market, a live tech demo is a way to...
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During the Day Two keynote address at the Intel Developer Forum, Renee James, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Software & Services Group, talked about software development, security and services in an “age of transparent computing”. Much of the talk was geared towards software developers and the desire to code once and deploy across a variety of hardware platforms, which of course lead to a long discussion on the benefits and virtues HTML 5, which Intel obviously is firmly behind. During the security-centric portion of the keynote, however, Renee brought out a rep from Intel’s McAfee division to show off a beta release of the McAfee Social...
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Traditionally at IDF, Intel's Advanced Technology Zone is where all the cool stuff happens. Whether it be public demos setup for hands-on opportunities with next generation Intel technologies or backroom sessions with Intel Advanced Engineering and Marketing teams showing early engineering samples to members of the press, this place is where we get up close and personal with many of the unveilings that Intel rolls out over the course of the conference. Yesterday we spent time with Intel's Performance Engineering and Benchmark teams discussing what encompasses a satisfying user experience on the ultra-mobile platforms that are all the rage in the market today. On display were...
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Intel's Dadi Perlmutter took to the stage in the opening keynote of Intel Developer's Forum 2012 to greet an enthusiastic crowd and evangelize the company's vision of what they call the rise of "natural, intuitive computing." On stage with Dadi were a number of Intel-powered devices including a myriad of Windows 8 tablets and new Ultrabooks from various manufacturers. To be honest, Intel didn't disclose a lot of juicy detail on next generation hardware for the first 20 minutes or so of Dadi's presentation but they focused on a few very innovative new usage models, user interfaces, capabilities and features that are now possible as a result of Intel's relentless, continuous advancements...
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Intel’s Dadi (David) Perlmutter, General Manager Intel Architecture Group and Chief Product Officer, opened up the 2012 Intel Developers Forum by reflecting back on the significance of this day, the eleventh anniversary of the attacks on 9/11. Today, however, also marks the fifteenth anniversary of IDF, so Dadi ultimately moved on to a quick overview of the many advances and innovations that have taken place at Intel since the event began in 1997. Perlmutter showed off a Medfield SoC alongside a Xeon Phi, along with a number of Intel Atom and Core powered Windows 8 tablets and Ultrabooks, but he finished with a couple of live demos showing the company’s upcoming Haswell-based...
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Early this morning, in a conference room behind Intel's booth, we got a first hand look at Intel's latest refinements with their recently launched Sandy Bridge processor with integrated graphics. One question that some of you have been concerned about is if Sandy Bridge will allow users to access the chip's Quick Sync video encoding engine if there is a discrete GPU in the system. This is a common configuration in both the desktop and notebook space obviously, with solutions from various OEMs that include the likes of NVIDIA Optimus, etc. Surprsingly, Intel has been spending resources with third party developers like Lucid Logix who has been developing middleware that will allow access to both...
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Is this the showdown of the year? In the smartphone world, we would argue that it is. If you're looking for arguably the world's best 3G smartphones right now, you're likely considering two specific choices: Apple's iPhone 4 on AT&T, or HTC's DROID Incredible on Verizon Wireless. Both phones provide an excellent user experience, and both are as cutting edge as they come. Both they also offer very different and distinct experiences, with one coming by way of iOS 4 and the other Android 2.1 with HTC's Sense overlay. In other words, both of these devices are competing for the same crown, but each one is its own beast, with its own list of pros and cons. If you're in the market to upgrade...
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