Hasta La Gadget!

While the biggest story of CES 2013 may have been Ultra HD, Android was still a huge part of the show, and it showed up on a handful of new devices that were unveiled this past week. Nobody can deny the impact that Android has had in the technology industry, as well as in tech culture, throughout that past several years. We ended up getting a ton of hands-on time with a number of new Android-powered devices, one of the most-popular being the IdeaPhone K900 from Lenovo, and we ended up talking with Lenovo’s Mark Pinner about the new device.

The IdeaPhone K900 is a beast of a phone. It has a 5.5-inch 1080p IPS display with an Intel Atom Clover Trail Z2580 processor inside. There’s also a Sony Exmor BSI sensor with an F1.8 focal length lens to make up the 12MP rear camera, and it has the widest aperture of any smartphone-based camera right now. The front-facing camera has an 88-degree viewing angle, which again, is the widest angle lens on the market right now for a smartphone.

We also took a look at the Sony Xperia Z, which is a completely waterproof smartphone and the company’s newest and best device to date. It’s got a 5-inch TFT LCD HD Reality Display, Qualcomm’s S4 Pro APQ8064+MDM9215 quad-core processor with 2GB of RAM, and an internal storage size of 16GB. There’s also a 2,330 mAh non-removable battery that provides up to 14 hours of talk time or up to 510 hours of LTE standby time. And of course, the 13MP camera on the back will allow you to get some excellent shots.

The infamous YotaPhone also made an appearance this week, and it’s a smartphone that actually has two 4.3-inch displays — there’s the main one on the front that’s a regular LCD 720p HD display, and then the back has an e-ink display. The e-ink screen is meant to stay on all the time, and the purpose of the phone is to push whatever you have showing on the LCD to the e-ink display for saving battery.

Chinese manufacturer Huawei unveiled two new phones at CES, with one being a gargantuan 6.1-inch phablet-style smartphone, the Ascend Mate. The specs are fairly disappointing, with only a 720p HD display and an 8MP camera, but the 6.1-inch screen definitely turned some heads at the show, for better or for worse. The company also announced the Ascend D2, which has a 5-inch 1080p HD display and a 13MP camera. It also has a 1.5 GHz quad-core Hi-Silicon K3V2 + Balong V7R1 processor, 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of internal storage. The device itself is a little chubbier than most smartphones on the market right now, but it’s extremely lightweight.

ViewSonic, who’s mostly known for their great computer displays, outed a new 24-inch Smart Display that runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. It comes packing with an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor with 4-PLUS-1 technology, and it also has HDMI via MHL, full-sized USB, and Bluetooth connectivity. While the company refers to it as a display, it’s essentially a massive tablet that comes with all sorts of goodies, including Tegra Zone with a handful of games the work with NVIDIA’s Tegra line of processors. Of course, it has a stiff MSRP of $675, so be sure to bust out that piggy bank and save up your coins.

Some other new Android stuff we saw was the ZTE Grand S LTE, packing a 5-inch 1080p display, as well as the Pantech Discover, which is AT&T’s latest budget powerhouse, sporting a 4.8-inch 720p TFT display, a 13MP camera, and a dual-core Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 processor, all for the price of only $50 after signing a new two-year contract.

As far as Android tablets go, there were a few that stood out. We took a look at the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet, which was revealed for Verizon this week, and it essentially comes with the same features as the other variants, except that it runs on Verizon’s blazing fast LTE service. We also fooled around with the Archos GamePad, which comes with a 7-inch 1024×600 display and has built-in physical controls on the sides.

Overall, while a lot of the new Android devices that we saw this year weren’t anything to write home about, a few stood out from the crowd. One reoccurring theme is certain though: bigger screens, faster processors, and better cameras, are continually making their way into smartphones every year, and we’re already pretty excited for what 2013 has to offer in the Android industry, and we can’t wait to see what CES 2014 will have in store. Let us know what you were most excited about from CES in the Android realm, and be sure to hit up our CES portal for all our CES 2013 news and hands-on.

CES 2013 wrap-up: All about Android is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This year at CES we saw one whole heck of a lot of PCs, quite a few of them working with Windows 8 – but most of them focusing on their unique hardware offerings to the point where Microsoft’s offering seemed almost secondary. One cannot deny the influence of the touch-friendly nature of Windows 8 on the other hand, and starting right away with the very first PC we had hands-on time with, touchscreen controls were right at the center of our attention: the Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC is first on our list of hands-on deliveries.

The massive beast known as the Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC was by far the most unique offering in the PC hardware space at this year’s show, creating not just a massive touchscreen interface, but a table on which you can play games with specialized accessories that come with. Have a peek at the smart dice, game pieces you can use to play table hockey, and more! We’ll be looking for this monster on our review bench soon.

Lenovo also brought on one sharp looking gaming PC known as the Lenovo Erazer X700 as well as a transforming tablet with a keyboard dock known as the ThinkPad Helix. We actually have a short version of the Helix hands-on as well as an extended Lenovo ThinkPad Helix hands-on for more “rip and flip” action than you’ll be able to handle. The Lenovo ThinkVision mobile monitor was also revealed, bringing you Windows 8 touchscreen-friendly action either wired with a brand new USB 3.0 B cord or completely wirelessly and across the room – mirroring or no!

The Lenovo team kept on bringing in hits with the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11S, a smaller version of the IdeaPad Yoga 13 we reviewed late last year. Lenovo got sharp a couple more times with the ThinkPad Edge E431 and E531, and kept it mainstream with the lovely IdeaPad U310 Touch as well.

One of the most important sets of announcements of the convention as a whole came from NVIDIA, their press event revealing first and foremost a system called NVIDIA GeForce Experience, this allowing users to get instant game optimization from the folks who know how to do it best, the GeForce team. Cloud gaming companies also got a massive jolt in the side at the announcement of NVIDIA GRID, stacks of servers made to turn cloud gaming into a real way of the future. NVIDIA also tied mobile gaming to full-power PC gaming with a device called NVIDIA Project SHIELD. We’ll see more information on that system by the time of its release in Q2 of 2013 (this year). For now you’ll have to survive on this simple demonstration video courtesy of NVIDIA:

The folks at 3M showed off their rather sizable 84-inch multi-touch table the night before CES began, here bringing real-deal 4K technology to this emerging market. At the moment this machine is still a prototype, but we’ll be seeing a real product later this year. ASUS took on the Windows 8 world with a unique slate by the name of ASUS VivoTab Smart Tablet, complete with an origami fold-up cover with magnets and a wireless keyboard.

Samsung brought on some heat with the Samsung Series 7 Chonos and Series 7 Ultra, both of them extremely lightweight and bursting with immensely high resolution displays – touchscreens, too! The Xi3 7 series modular computer gained some notoriety this week as Valve was hinted to be working with them in the very near future. Vizio essentially updated their entire PC lineup including notebooks, all-in-one, and and a brand new 11.6-inch Windows 8 Tablet.

If you though you’d seen the only massive tablet-like gorilla of a unit of the show up above with Lenovo, you were mistaken. Above you’ll see the Panasonic 20-inch 4K Windows 8 Tablet, a monster with 3840 x 2160 pixels to its name, running full Windows 8 with a release date set some time later this year. Sony also brought on a little bit of heat with the Sony VAIO T15 Touch and T14 Touch, both of them ready with Intel under the hood and Windows 8 for your everyday use.

In short, what we saw this year at CES was a set of upgrades to machines that were already out, touch added to displays that were before without, and some ever-so-slightly interesting innovations in how devices were connected to one another. Let us know what you were most excited about from CES in the PC space below, and make sure not to skimp on the possibilities for the future! Also hit up our CES portal for everything we saw and reported on over the course of the week!

CES 2013 wrap-up: PCs and Windows 8 is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

With $10m in the Kickstarter bank and a product shipping in two weeks time, Pebble was arguably the king of the crowdsourcers in 2012. The smartwatch already has us tempted after our hands-on, so we caught up with Pebble CEO Eric Migocovsky to talk lessons-learned from the original InPulse model, the process of growing a company in the public eye, and what’s next in the smartwatch’s future.

With so many rival smartwatches already on the market and in the pipeline – Toshiba is showing one such concept here at CES – Migocovsky says it’s been a “perfect storm” of publicity, timing, and attention that has seen Pebble capture the imagination. Part of that is backer engagement, Migocovsky believes: the fact that Pebble is contactable by Facebook, Twitter, and other routes to anyone with a question or a suggestion.

Those suggestions have come thick and fast, though Migocovsky is wary of over-promising at this stage. The current SDK only caters for alternative watch faces – the first thing you’ll see when you glance at your wrist, given the e-paper display is permanently on (and a tap of the watch triggers the backlight) – and there’s no timescale for when third-party applications will be enabled. Still, the If This Then That integration does make for more flexibility for those willing to craft a few web-app macros.

Pebble Smartwatch demo:

Pebble doesn’t see that app limitation as a drawback, however; in fact, Migocovsky argues it’s an advantage. If the initial product isn’t good enough to be deemed worthy of a place on your wrist, you won’t wear it, he points out: if people aren’t wearing it, then developers won’t recognize it as a worthy market to code for, and the carefully-honed ecosystem will shrivel.

Pebble Smartwatch interview with Eric Migicovsky

That commitment to Kickstarter backers isn’t going anywhere, either. Not only will the 85,000 people who supported Pebble with cash up-front be the first to get their smartwatch, Migocovsky is also determined to make sure they don’t end up with an outmoded device any time soon. The “added extra” hardware features – such as the Bluetooth 4.0 capabilities, despite the fact that Pebble currently only uses Bluetooth 2.1, and the ambient light sensor – are a big part of that, and Pebble will be pushing out firmware updates every 2-3 weeks until every initially-promised feature is present and correct.

Next step, though, is batch-shipping of the first Pebble units to backers, with Migocovsky saying the factory is capable of producing 15,000 units a week when at full tilt. When the initial list is done, then they’ll turn to the reservations list that opened after the Kickstarter closed; that currently measures in the tens of thousands, Pebble says, though not quite the same number as the watch start-up saw backers.

The wearables market is certainly heating up, with a range of form-factors (on the wrist, digital eyewear like Google Glass, clip-on activity trackers, and more) being played with, and it seems 2013 may be the year it all comes to a head. Our early impressions are definitely positive – several of the SlashGear team are also Kickstarter backers – but we’ll reserve our full opinion until we can live with Pebble on our wrist for a while.

Pebble smartwatch: CEO Eric Migocovsky talks Kickstarter loyalty and more with SlashGear is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week the Lenovo IdeaPhone K900 has been revealed: a massively powerful smartphone working with Android and a 5.5-inch 1080p IPS display with an Intel Atom Z2580 processor (that’s Clover Trail, mind you) under the hood. This smartphone is super slim at just 6.9mm and weighs in at just 162g, both of these specifications rendered extra impressive by the fact that you’re working with the features you’re about to read all about. This machine feels just as nice as it sounds, looking ready for the market in the very near future.

The Lenovo K900 is the company’s new hero phone, working with a composite of stainless steel alloy and polycarbonate in a Unibody mold – sleek and robust. The phone remains thin due to work Lenovo’s done on optimizing both the thinness of the camera setup and the layout of the internal battery. The front of this device is covered with top of the line Corning Gorilla Glass 2 for scratch protection as well – their newest solution.

Lenovo IdeaPhone K900 hands-on with Chris Davies:

Lenovo IdeaPhone K900 interview with Lenovo’s Mark Pinner:

Lenovo IdeaPhone K900 hands-on with 1080p display:

Though as Lenovo mentions, Intel has not released full specifications on the chipset as such, Lenovo will be bursting forth with this SoC sooner than later – April in China, in fact. Pricing, if you’re wondering, has not been announced at the moment. Then there’s the camera technology behind this machine’s lovely 13 megapixel shooter.

You’ll be working with a Sony Exmor BSI sensor as well as an F1.8 focal length lens. This camera has the widest aperture of any smartphone-based camera in the field today, and the front-facing camera has been given a boost as well. With a fabulous 88 degree viewing angle on the front-facing camera on this smartphone you’ll once again be working with the best of the best – no front-facing camera on a smartphone has a wider angle than that.

Have a peek at the hands-on look we’ve got above and below to get a handle on what this phone will mean for you in the very near future. At the moment it is, in fact, only announced for China – but we can dream! Stick around our CES 2013 portal all week long as well to make sure you’re into the fold with all of our up to the minute news bits and hands-on adventures.

Lenovo IdeaPhone K900 hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Panasonic has jumped on the 4K bandwagon, but not just in TVs: the company has a ridiculously appealing 4K Windows 8 tablet at CES, squeezing 3840 x 2160 pixels into a 20-inch frame. Officially a prototype, though one which Panasonic tells us is very likely to see production, the unnamed slate may not fit into your purse like an iPad mini, but it does have some compelling applications in graphic design, video editing, architecture, and more. Read on for our hands-on first impressions.

Panasonic’s claim that the 4K tablet is the “lightest and thinnest” in the the 20-inch category seems a little redundant, given the scarcity of rival machines, but the rest of the specifications hold muster. As well as the 230ppi 15:10 display there’s an Intel Core i5-3427U 1.8GHz processor and NVIDIA GeForce graphics keeping things ticking along, along with 4GB of RAM (up to 16GB supported) and a 128GB SSD.

Connectivity includes microSDXC, a single USB 2.0 port, WiFi a/b/g/n, and Bluetooth 4.0; there’s also a front-facing 720p HD webcam, though the absence of a rear camera is unlikely to disappoint too many people given the whole thing weighs in at 5.3lbs and measures 18.7 x 13.1 x 0.4 inches.

The display itself supports ten-finger multitouch, but also an Anoto-powered digital pen that can be used to annotate documents, sketch, or generally make more precise edits. Panasonic had a few suggested uses for the slate, with one demo showing a live preview from a nearby DSLR, complete with editing tools, while another demonstrated how a pair of the 4K tablets could allow for collaborative work in different locations, each mirroring the changes made on the other. The crispness of the display is what engages you first, though, with Panasonic’s demo schematics ink-on-paper precise even when you got up close to the glass.

While you might not whip the 20-incher out in the line at the grocery store, there’s nonetheless a battery inside with a “healthy” 2hr runtime estimate; given the size of the screen, and the fact that most users will probably only ever rely on onboard power when toting the slate between rooms, that’s probably more than sufficient. It’s definitely a two-hander when carrying it, but it’s not ridiculously heavy.

Pricing and availability are still a mystery, with Panasonic coy about being specific on launch plans. Still, there’s definitely a drive to get the 20-inch tablet onto the market, and with 4K still not having much relevance in TVs – despite the plethora of sets supporting it at CES – out in the mainstream, this could be the best application for Ultra HD resolution so-far.

Panasonic 20-inch 4K Windows 8 Tablet hands-on is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.