I’ve been tracking ‘smartbooks’ for a few years now. I’ve tested the Android-based Compaq Airlife 100 and owned the Toshiba AC100. I also have a couple of Android tablets here in my life, one of which I use daily for work. I have tried many times to integrate them into my work processes but only the Galaxy Tab 7” has made any impact because it fits nicely as a microblogging and social networking tool. There are some good music, radio and podcast apps that I use too. The problem with […]

I don’t put question marks at the end of an article unless I really don’t know. In this case I really don’t know if AMD can enable an Ultrabook-like device. There are talks of a 17W TDP Trinity CPU with the same processing power as the 2011 A-Series and that sounds fantastic although I’m yet to see any real figures. The only conclusion I have come to in my research was what I wrote in December –

I’m extremely happy with my Panasonic FZ150 – a 12MP bridge camera with 24x optical zoom and a compact sensor. Yes, a compact sensor. Although I get the advantage of a lightweight cam with up to 50X of non-degraded zoom (at 5mp) I don’t have the advantage of tiny F-Stops or sensors that are able to receive 10 times the light that a DSLR would. It would be a major issue if the FZ150 didn’t have such an amazing stabilization system…   The two pictures above were taken at full […]

We were told that 30-50 ultrabooks would appear at CES last week and while there was indeed a lot of buzz and news, there really are only two truly new models to consider today. Everything else was either already reported, a future, demonstrator or prototype Ultrabook. Some will make it to the shelves, most won’t. In total we added 9 devices to the database (along with a ton of links, images and videos) and there are a few more that may appear later in the year but let’s go over […]

When I tested an Intel Menlow-based MID in July 2008 and saw the PC architecture streaming music into a browser-player running at 2.8W I knew Intel were on the right track. Two years later with their next-gen architecture, Moorestown, they tackled the standby power drain and managed to get it into a phone. I had exclusive hands-on and although the device was hot and eventually deemed uncompetitive, it was clear to see where this was heading. This week at CES I put my hand on the back of an Intel […]

I honestly expected to see more, and better netbooks at CES. The Cedar Trail platform is a solid one and there’s absolutely no reason why netbooks need to fade away because with a bit of a re-design (thinner, SSD, better connectivity, hi-res screens) they could still control a good segment of the market. Asus were showing their ‘flare’ netbook in three variants (1025CE, 1025C, 1225B) and the X101CH. The X101CH provides some interesting mobility for the cost but as with the Flare netbooks, there is little attempt to push any […]

You know what you want in an Ultra Mobile Computing solution. You want a rich spectrum of quality desktop applications with security, flexibility and processing power wrapped up into a handheld device. Unfortunately, after a busy CES, your options remain limited. Computing at CES this year was all about Ultrabooks and Ice Cream Sandwich and while both of these topics are interesting, neither of the sectors produced anything that can be used today as a handheld PC. Android devices continue to be crippled by low-quality and restricted software despite some […]

Don’t expect touch to roll-out to the whole Ultrabook category but expect that Windows 8 will make manufacturers think about making touch-enabled options in their Ultrabook portfolios later in 2012. Sensors, on the other hand, could find themselves in most of the devices hitting the market. Location and context-sensitive applications in Metro apps could really boost the usefulness of an Ultrabook, especially with instant-on and smart/always connected features.