Today is a great day. Why, you ask? Because the Humble Indie Bundle program just announced something awesome: their first ever Humble Bundle to include Android versions of 5 excellent games. First, let me tell you about the Humble Indie Bundle: The Humble Bundle Inc. puts together gaming bundles which feature notorious indie games which are “donated” by their respective developers. The bundle is then sold with a name-your-own-price model and you get to decide where the money goes — to the developers, to Humble Bundle Inc. (so they can continue doing what […]

At last year’s Google I/O, a great new program was announced — Google was working with a group of equipment manufacturers to create a sort of ‘update guarentee’ which would explicitly inform customers how long they could expect their shiny new Android device to receive updates, and how quickly they could expect those updates from carriers or manufacturers. Google never named the program as far as I can tell, so I gave it one (after all, it needs a name if we’re to talk about it); the Android Update Alliance. I was […]

The Asus Padfone seemed to have gone into hibernation after it’s Computex debut way back in May. It popped up at CES and now, according to a story from MoDaCo, the Asus Padfone will be officially announced at Mobile World Congress (MWC) at the end of February in Barcelona. Using the world ‘announced’ might be a bit confusing because Asus already officially revealed the device. However, the initial unveiling at Computex was more of a demonstration of a concept design, while I would expect the announcement from MWC to show off production […]

Ultrabooks are all about getting full computing power in a lightweight, stylish and long-battery life solution.  Core i3, i5 and i7 ‘ultra low voltage’ platforms are the core of these systems but there are a few non-ultrabook solutions that use this platform and still provide a thin and light solution. One of them is a true alternative. It’s a tablet/docking station combo that I’ve written about before. The Samsung Series 7 XE700 and today the prices are looking a lot better than they did a month ago.

Thanks-you for your 600+ votes in the recent ‘Favorite Ultrabook’ poll. The results are worth discussing. The top three remain the same as in November last year when we ran the same poll with only 5 Ultrabooks. The Dell XP 13 and HP Envy 14 Spectre enter at #4 and #5 [poll id="3"]

I suspected that the Acer S5 shown at CES was going to be an Ivy Bridge Ultrabook as it fits with the Q2 timescale, previous leak and hidden CPU information on the demo we saw at CES. it looks like another tech site saw the possibility that the S5 is based on Ivy Bridge too and took the chance to benchmark it. CPU figures are slightly better than on Sandy Bridge but the GPU figures show a marked improvement.

Step into a German newsagents, look at the magazine rack and you’ll find more testing notes than in a NASA launch sequence. That’s why I pay attention to the German tech press – they know how to analyse a product. Chip.de is one of the more well-know computer magazines in Germany and as you’d expect, they’ve got early hands-on with the HP Envy 14 Spectre that will be available in Germany in March for about €1400. It’s a sample unit rather than a final retail build but it’s unlikely to […]

I really thought we would be in a position, in 2012, where mobile operating systems would be able to offer a full Web experience but we’re not. My recent experiences with Google Plus drove me to dig out an UMPC. Google Plus is becoming a business-critical application for many. Blogger, marketeers, brands and bands are all jostling for position. Millions are enjoying new online relationships and a huge amount of interactivity through photos, live video and circles but what happens when you’re mobile? The Android and IOS based solutions are […]