I’ve always wanted something a bit bigger than my iPad that I could use for both desktop and laptop computing, but carrying around a 21-inch PC seems like it might be a bit of overkill. But weighing in at 11 pounds, it sounds like Onkyo’s TW21A tablet PC [JP] isn’t really designed for portability anyhow.
This oversize Windows 8 tablet is basically one of those touchscreen AIO PCs but can lay flat, so it can be used on a tabletop. It also supports up to 10 points of input at the same time, so multiple users can interact with it at the same time. You can prop it up like a traditional AIO PC too. It also has VESA mounting screw holes so you can easily attach it to a wall mounting bracket.
One thing that definitely sets it apart from desktop PCs is that it will actually run on battery power, and has a 2200 mAh lithium-ion pack built in – though with a screen that big, and a beefy CPU in the best model, I can’t imagine battery life is great.
The TW21A-B3C67 – the top of the line model of the capacitive-touch tablet PC – features a full 1080p (1920×1080) HD display, and is powered by an Intel Core i7 2.9GHz CPU. Other specs include both USB 2 and 3.0 ports, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, 8GB of RAM, 128 GB SSD storage, and a built-in 1.0MP webcam. There are two less expensive configurations, both of which decrease CPU power and SSD capacity, and the bottom of the line has less – and slower – RAM.
This Jumbo Japanese import is a little hard to come by stateside, but the guys over at Dynamism have you covered – though at $2599(USD), it’s quite expensive for what it is. If you’re fortunate enough to live in Japan, you can find the TW21A-B3C67 for ¥154,800 (~$1772) over on Amazon Japan.
Previous attempts at turning TVs and monitors into huge tablets were either very expensive or were DIYprojects. We’ve seen cheap Android-on-a-stick devices, but they don’t have the full functionality of a tablet, i.e. multitouch. Archos wants to cover all bases – availability, price and features – with the TV Connect.
Unlike Android sticks, the TV Connect is barely portable. It’s clearly meant to be your HDTV or monitor’s permanent sidekick. The unit itself sits on top of your TV like a Kinect. It runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, has a 1.5GHz “multi-core” CPU, 1GB RAM and 8GB of Flash storage that you can augment with microSD cards. It also has a front-facing camera, an Ethernet port, Wi-Fi connectivity, mini-HDMI-to-HDMI output, a micro-USB port and a USB host port. Then there’s the huge-ass controller.
The controller makes it possible to use touch commands even though you don’t have a touchscreen TV or monitor. You can move the entire controller to use it like a mouse cursor, while you can use the thumb sticks to emulate multitouch gestures like pinching or scrolling. Archos also claims that you can map virtual buttons in games to the TV Connect’s gamepad buttons using their software. Beyond giving you access to Android’s apps, the TV Connect also has a built-in media player.
The controller looks silly and its weight – which Archos didn’t mention yet – could be a dealbreaker. Still, if it does the job I wouldn’t be surprised if this product takes off. I think an integrated sensor like the Leap would be a much better control solution though. The TV Connect should be available by February for $130 (USD), although I’m sure you’ll be able to pre-order it later this month.
What we’ve got here is the HP EliteBook Folio 9470m Ultrabook, a business-oriented notebook made to work in the Windows 8 environment with an amalgamation of hardware that’s precision-tuned to suit your in- and out-of-office needs. At first glance, this machine doesn’t strike one as the most unique piece of machinery on the planet – it’s a silver laptop, after all. But what it lacks in unique aesthetics, it more than makes up for in details that we’d consider suggesting this device to friends for on their own.
Hardware
This machine measures in at 13.3 x 9.09 x 0.75 in (33.8 x 23.1 x 1.89 cm) and works with a lovely 14-inch LED-backlit HD anti-glare 1366 x 768 pixel resolution display and is cased in mostly hard and soft plastic. While the bulk of this machine is metal, its ever-so-slightly soft along the top and the bottom while a ridge of almost rubbery soft plastic runs along the head – above the display, the area that you’ll use to pull the notebook open – very well placed. This notebook is 3.6 pounds – not the lightest Ultrabook in the universe – and is 0.74-inches thick.
Along the sides you’ve got more ports than you’re going to know what to do with, including 2x USB 3.0, 1x USB 3.0 (charging), DisplayPort 1.1a, VGA, AC power, headphone/mic jack, RJ-45, and a single SD/MMC card slot. You’ve also got an ethernet port so you can hard-wire to the web if you’re not all about wi-fi connectivity. You’ve also got a Kensington lock slot so you can keep the machine secure if you’re at a trade show or in a particularly nefarious office setting.
Note also that HP has made a point of assuring the public that their Elite line of products is hardcore – have a peek at our HP Making of Elite Tour Roundup to see our adventures all those months ago – smashing inside!
Also important if you want to keep your machine secure is the built-in HP Fingerprint Sensor which appears on the right side of your palm rest – make sure you’re not eating too much cake before you try to get read. Up to the right above your keyboard you’ve got dedicated on/off switches for both wi-fi and sound (muting, basically), and up and to the left you’ve got your power button – heavy metal!
The model we’ve got here works with a 3rd Gen (Ivy Bridge) Intel Core i5-3427U (2.80/1.80 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache, 2 cores) and has a Mobile Intel QM77 Express chipset. You’ll be able to see some standard performance results in the benchmark listing we’ve got below, but know this: this machine is performing at a 2013 level. It’s swift and powerful, more than ready to take on your standard business needs.
Software
The security and business-friendly options you’ve got on this machine are just what your manager’s been looking for, including HP’s ProtecTools suite with so many tools to keep people out of your computer that you’ll forget why they wanted to get in in the first place – pre-boot authentication and a password vault included! You’ve also got SpareKey for when you forget your own password. And of course, a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) built-in.
You also get a tossing of apps that HP’s decided to add-in above what Microsoft’s Windows 7 or 8 gives you, including such gems as PowerDVD and PDF Complete. You do get Evernote right out of the box though, a good incentive to keep taking notes on your smartphone as well as your laptop. You get the option of working with Windows 7 Pro, Windows 7 Home Premium, or the version of Microsoft’s OS that we’re working with here, Windows 8.
If you do choose Windows 8, you’ll need some time to get used to the gestures you’ll be needing to make your own in order to get friendly with your everyday average apps. If you’ve got no touchscreen (this device does not have one, mind you), you’ll be dragging two fingers to the right or the left to navigate your Live Tiles. If you don’t know what that means, we suggest you pick this machine up with Windows 7, without a doubt.
The display on this machine is decent, but not spectacular. The same can be said about the speaker system. HP didn’t put as much effort into this machine’s entertainment abilities as it has with some of its more eye and ear-pleasing machines like the HP ENVY Spectre XT Ultrabook. This Folio machine is, on the other hand, one of the more well-put-together business-minded machines we’ve seen through the past 12 months.
System – LENOVO 344422U
Manufacturer
Lenovo
Product Type
Notebook
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)
Motherboard
LENOVO 344422U
Processor
Intel Core i7-3667U
Processor ID
GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 58 Stepping 9
Processor Frequency
2.00 GHz
Processors
1
Threads
4
Cores
2
L1 Instruction Cache
32.0 KB
L1 Data Cache
32.0 KB
L2 Cache
256 KB
L3 Cache
4.00 MB
Memory
3.73 GB DDR3 SDRAM 666MHz
FSB
99.8 MHz
BIOS
LENOVO G6ET22WW (1.01 )
Have a peek below at our standard benchmark test results for this machine and remember that it’s not an entertainment machine, and certainly isn’t made for gaming. Instead you’ve got a bit of a worker her made for a worker, inside and out.
Benchmark Score – Hewlett-Packard HP EliteBook Folio 9470m
Section
Description
Score
Total Score
Windows x86 (64-bit) – Microsoft Windows 8 Pro (64-bit)
Integer
Processor integer performance
3538
5029
Floating Point
Processor floating point performance
6639
Memory
Memory performance
4933
Stream
Memory bandwidth performance
4812
Battery Life / Options
On the bottom of this machine you’ve got both a docking connector and a secondary battery connector. HP doesn’t mess around when it comes to a strong accessories ecosystem and will certainly have your back when you look to expand with extra long-life-loving batteries and/or if you want to dock this beast up at your house when you get home from the cube. That said, the battery life on this machine is rated by HP for “up to 9 hours and 30 minutes” with its HP Long Life 4-cell (52 WHr) Li-Ion unit, and we’ve seen it bringing on easily 5-6 hours of up-time while using it for medium-to-heavy lifting on an average day.
Lifting, in this case, consists of editing enough video and photos for a full day of work on SlashGear, browsing massive amounts of content on the web, and items as simple as editing text documents (plus lots, lots more, of course). If you’re all about document editing and basic reading, you’ll have no trouble reaching up further for the beastly time HP suggests.
Wrap-up
With the HP EliteBook Folio 9470m Ultrabook you’re getting one of the nicest business-minded computers on the market today. Priced at $1,349.00 USD straight from HP, you’re going to get what you paid for. This is a machine you’re going to be able to use for years to come, and with the hardware this Ultrabook comes with right out of the box, it’s unlikely you’ll need to update your innards any time soon.
Earlier this year, Canonical threw its hat into the mobile arena when it announced Ubuntu for Android, a variant of the open source operating system that can be installed on phones already running Android. But today the company unveiled Ubuntu for Phones. What’s up with that? Is that one hat too many, or is this an idiom too stretched out?
I think the thing that needs to be made clear first and foremost is that Ubuntu for Phones is exactly the same as the desktop version of Ubuntu, only with a different, phone-friendly interface. Compare that to Apple’s OS X and iOS, which are still two very different operating systems. Windows 8 could be a more apt comparison, except Ubuntu avoids Windows 8′s problem. Microsoft’s new OS also crams the mobile interface into the desktop version, but Ubuntu will only have a phone interface on phones. Revolutionary, I know.
With Ubuntu for Phones, Canonical hopes to enter the budget phone market and also create the legit “phone that doubles as a PC” market. Cheap phones with low hardware will only use the Ubuntu phone interface, but high end phones with beefy specs can be connected to a typical desktop setup – monitor, keyboard, mouse – and let users access the full Ubuntu desktop interface. That, by the way, is the exact same thing that Ubuntu for Android does. I guess Canonical will eventually ditch that if Ubuntu for Phones takes off. Skip to around 5:20 in the video below for more details on Ubuntu for phones.
On one hand we have Android-on-a-stick computers. On the other hand we have Ubuntu for Phones – and you can bet your RIM stock that Apple is planning something very similar to this. Which portable desktop do you prefer? There’s a lot I didn’t cover here so if you want to know more I suggest you head to the Ubuntu website for more information on Ubuntu for Phones.
I’ve had problems with computers and video game systems overheating over the years, so I’m all for good cooling systems. And while some computer modders have solved the problem by adding more cooling fans and heat sinks, I think this build might just be a bit more than most of us need.
What you’re looking at here is the Wind Tunnel Computer. It was built by Mike Schropp over at Total Geekdom, and it’s nothing short of awesome, if you ask me. Those giant ducts you see on the left and right are air intakes and outputs for the 6-foot-wide system, which is mounted in a contraction chamber in the middle designed to take full advantage of the increased air speed as it flows through.
The beefy Intel Ivy Bridge 3770k powered system is overclocked to a whopping 4.5GHz, along with overclocked Radeon 7970 GPUs running on Sapphire Dual-X cards. But it doesn’t just run fast, look cool and stay cool – Mike built it for a good cause. It’s connected to the World Community Grid project, and its CPU and GPUs spend their days and night crunching numbers to help cancer researchers find a cure. And thanks to the massive throughput of the system, it’s able to push through about 20x the workload of an average 4-core system. While that’s all awesome, I do wish Mike had actually built a small wind test chamber inside of it for other science experiments. Maybe for version 2.0.
He built the system using large MDF wood panels for the vent sections, and there’s a big box fan installed in one end of it to generate the wind. Mike assembled the main computer section using custom-cut Lexan so you can see through to it, and aluminum pieces to finish the look. It’s even got a control panel on the front with LED temperature gauges and key switches for turning the fans on and off.
Using a wind-speed tester, Mike was able to determine that the inlet takes in air at about 0.6MPH, and the exhaust port pushes out air at 1.4MPH. However, it’s the center contraction section where the computer is that really benefits from the design, where the wind reaches 12MPH – or 9MPH with the computer in place. He actually was able to push wind speeds as high as 26-30MPH with the fan set on a higher setting. He even used smoke testing to ensure optimal airflow over the components.
Check out the complete build log, along with many more photos over on Total Geekdom.
With CES 2013 just days away, more items from the show are beginning to surface. One of the many items you’ll find in Samsung’s booth will be this cool looking touchscreen display, which can rotate 90 degrees.
Reminiscent of the clunky old Radius Pivot displays which could do the same thing, the Samsung Series 7 SC750 is designed specifically to offer images in either landscape or portrait modes. The ergonomic display also helps you get the screen up off the surface of your desk and to a better eye level when in landscape mode.
The display offers full 1920×1080 resolution, along with a 5000:1 contrast ratio, and a speedy 5ms refresh rate. The display has a modern brushed-metal stand, and a bright wide-viewing-angle LED backlight.
The SC750 will ship during Q1 of this year, but Samsung has yet to announce pricing.
Passwords are one of the weakest links of online security. Or rather, people who have weak passwords are the weakest links. I personally know of a couple of people who use dead simple passwords because they’re afraid that if they use more secure but more complex ones that they’ll just forget those and end up locking themselves out of their own accounts. That’s the problem that the Aladdin is designed to solve.
Invented by Alvin Chang, the Aladdin is a small USB device that generates a random password and types it for you by emulating a USB keyboard. Used in the simplest way, it really does work like a physical key: plug it into your computer and it unlocks your account. But for those who want added security, you can also modify – and re-use – the alphanumeric string generated by Aladdin by adding or subtracting characters from it. Skip to about 1:20 in the video below for the demo:
Note that there are free software alternatives to managing secure passwords such as LastPass and KeePass. Then there’s the security risk of losing the Aladdin or having it stolen from you. But if you just want to get in your Facebook account the same way you get in your house, pledge at least $20 (USD) on its Indiegogo fundraiser to reserve an Aladdin.
I always thought it was a combination of people wanting or needing new computer and an economy that meant they couldn’t afford normal notebooks that led those who would normally purchase notebooks to the netbook world for a few years. There were a few people out there who purchased the little machines simply because they were tiny and they wanted portability. The netbook also made a nice first computer for younger users.
You could still find few netbooks in 2012, especially earlier in the year but they were nowhere near as popular as they had been in years past. If you’re a fan of the netbook, the little machines are going extinct in 2013. The Guardian reports that Asus announced yesterday that it would not make any more of its Eee netbooks in 2013. During 2012, only Asus and Acer were making netbooks.
Acer also won’t make any more netbooks for 2013. Undoubtedly, there will be a few netbook sales this year as retailers both online and in the real world cut prices to clear remaining inventories. Once the machines Asus and Acer have are constructed are sold, there will be no more. The demise of netbooks is blamed on several factors.
Those factors included an uptick in the economy leading people back to more expensive and more powerful machines such as ultrabooks and traditional laptops. The incredible popularity of tablets such as the iPad and Android offerings are probably the biggest nail in the coffin of the netbook. In 2010 and 2011 netbook sales steadily declined from a high of over 2 million units in Q1 of 2010 to only about 750,000 units sold in Q4 2011.
Super Talent has unveiled a new SSD for data storage called the UltraDrive MX2. The company says that it has combined a state-of-the-art controller with high-speed cache of off-the-shelf SLC and MLC NAND flash storage. The combination of the flash storage and the controller promises read and write speeds in excess of 200 MB/s.
The drive uses a 2.5-inch form factor and is available in capacities of 60 GB to 480 GB. All versions of the SSD have a 64 MB DRAM cache. Access time for this SSD 0.1ms. Like most SSDs, this new offering is very robust and is able to withstand significant vibration and shock without damage because there are no moving parts.
The drive can withstand 16 Gs of vibration and 1500 Gs of shock. The drive can also operate in a temperature range of 0-70°C and is rated for meantime between failure of 1 million hours. The SSD is quiet with 0 dB of noise production when active.
The drive has a three-year warranty on the SLC chips and the MLC chips have a two-year warranty. Other features of the drive include advanced error correction, wear leveling, and bad block management technologies to increase reliability. The drive has both mini USB and SATA II connectivity options. Pricing is unknown at this time.
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