Hasta La Gadget!

Details of OLPC XO-4’s release and price won’t be revealed until later this week, according to Marvell, but the company was happy to let this editor smudge the laptop with his fingerprints. It’s not the fastest machine imaginable, but it switched between screens and loaded content snappily with its Marvell-made 1.2Ghz dual-core ARM processor. A slight hint of choppiness appears when scrolling through lists, but the hardware is definitely useable and doesn’t aggravate. The unit on display didn’t have an internet connection, but Marvell was happy to point out that their hardware provides the laptop support for 802.11n, as opposed to only 802.11b/g.

The pint-sized laptop isn’t the sleekest or most compact device we’ve laid hands on, but it feels sturdy enough to survive abuse thrown its way from drops and temper tantrums. Its infrared touchscreen — which is optimized for small fingers — can be used in conjunction with the small keyboard, or swiveled around and laid on its back to transform the device into a chunky tablet. Odds are that fully grown hands won’t be comfortable with the kid-friendly keyboard. The OLPC 4.0 performed admirably during our brief stint with it, but you can look forward to more impressions when we eventually put it through our review gauntlet. In the meantime, hit the neighboring gallery for hands-on shots of the machine.

Filed under: Laptops

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Dell’s had a fairly minimal presence here at CES 2013 but it does have this bit of news to share: its XPS 13 Ultrabook is getting a 1080p screen later this month, according to a company spokesperson. In general, it’s encouraging to see PC makers step it up on the resolution front, but it’s particularly good news here, as the XPS 13’s mediocre 1,366 x 768 screen was one of the few things we criticized in our review. Now that the weak display is getting taken care of and the trackpad drivers have been fine-tuned, that leaves just one lingering flaw: no SD card reader. Perhaps we can’t have it all, but it does sound like this will be a stronger choice than it had been. No word yet on how much that upgrade will cost or when, exactly, it will become available, but we’ll keep you posted.

Filed under: Laptops, Dell

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Now I’m hardly what you’d call an athlete, but I’ve often been sucked into a sport because of some of the gadgets involved (don’t ask me how many fitness trackers I’ve bought since I started running). The recently released Apex HD+ goggles, which California-based Liquid Image was keen to show off here at CES Unveiled, is one of those gadgets — skiers and snowboarders can use them to record video on the fly as they zip down the slopes.

But let’s back up a minute first — the Apex sports a 12MP sensor and is capable of recording 720p video at 60fps or 1080p video at 30fps, and users fond of photographs can easily toggle the camera into its continuous-shot mode. Really though, the big draw here is that one of the Apex models is capable of pumping out its own Wi-Fi signal, which lets users stream their first-person exploits directly to an iPhone or Android device (provided they’ve got the related app already installed). Naturally, you won’t always be streaming videos, so users can connect the Apex HD+ to a computer and pull files off of microSD cards as large as 32GB.

As a nearly lifelong wearer of glasses, I had to try on the Apex HD+ for myself. First impressions? It’s remarkably comfortable considering just how big the thing is, though the control block can be hard to access since it’s normally stored inside a handsome fabric sleeve. A small LED is nestled just inside the top edge of the goggles to reassure users that the thing is actually recording (a blinking blue light means it’s recording in 720p, while red signals 1080p recording, etc.)

And what of the video streaming? Quality was generally quite good — company reps had their demo pairs linked up to a Nexus 10, and the whole affair was crisp and largely stutter free. Granted, the camera goggles were within fairly close range so actual use in the field may not be quite as sterling, but it seems more than up to the task of sharing videos with buddies nearby.

For the most part, the 2013 Toshiba Qosmio X875 gaming laptop is just like the 2012 version. The company just announced an updated version, but the only main difference is that it will now be offered with a 1TB 7,200RPM hybrid hard drive, which uses 8GB of flash memory to help speed up boot-ups and application load times. All told, Toshiba is promising a 3.6x increase in read / write speeds over last year’s model, and that programs will launch up to 30 percent faster. Other than that, this really is the same notebook. Same “Black Widow” design and even the same specs: up to 32GB of RAM, up to 2TB of storage (including a 1TB hybrid hard drive option), a 3GB NVIDIA GTX 670M GPU and an optional 3D display powered by NVIDIA’s 3D Vision 2 technology. If you’re interested, you can get it with the hybrid drive on February 3rd, starting at $1,480.

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops

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BeeWi may not be a well-known name in the audio world, but the company’s bringing some innovation to the space with its new Bluetooth headphones. Called Ghost Bee, the cans have capacitive buttons on the right earpiece that serve as music and phone call controls. The Ghost Bee also comes with a base station that connects to the headphones via micro-USB and hooks up to any home stereo’s 3.5mm audio-in jack. That base station is what really sets the Ghost Bee apart from other wireless headphones on the market. You see, using the free BeeWi iOS or Android companion app, you can dock the headphones and stream both locally and cloud-sourced tunes from your phone wirelessly to the stereo speakers.

We got a chance to see the thing in action, and it works quite well. Once you’ve paired the headphones to your phone, it’s simply a matter of spooling up some tunes in the app, and you’re good to go — return the Ghost Bee to its cradle and the music starts coming out of the speakers. Easy peasy. Unfortunately, given the cacophony of the show floor, we can’t speak to the sonic quality of the headphones, but the system did work well in our brief time with it. Though its functionality is quite clever, we weren’t enamored with the Ghost Bee’s glossy plastic exterior. Aside from giving it a smudgy look when handled, the plasticky build lends it a cheap appearance — not good considering the $180 asking price. The Ghost Bee is set to go on sale in the next month or so at retailers nationwide, so you’ll be able to see (and hear) it for yourself soon.

Jamie Rigg contributed to this report.

Continue reading BeeWi’s Ghost Bee Bluetooth headphones also stream music to your stereo (hands-on)

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio/Video

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