With Windows 8 on the horizon and the school season just beginning, it would appear that Intel’s profits this most recent quarter are not doing as well as they had the quarter before it. Today’s Q3 earnings report showed Intel to have a third-quarter profit fall of 14% while they noted operating expenses as being on the climb and personal computer sales declining. The quarter reported today showed Intel with revenue of $13.6 billion, this number having a range of error plus or minus $500 million.
This report had Thomson Reuters analysts nearly correct with their guess at $13.7 billion in revenue, with expectations hitting roughly 57% to 58% for expected gross margin. Chief Executive Paul Otellini spoke on the earnings call saying that the world was in the midst of a “period of breakthrough innovation and creativity.” With this in mind, he continued, “As we look to the fourth quarter, we’re pleased with the continued progress in Ultrabooks and phones and excited about the range of Intel-based tablets coming to market.”
Intel also reported a profit of $2.97 billion, this down from $3.47 billion a year earlier. The current shares ring in at 58 cents per with per-share profit falling from 68 cents to 60 cents year-over-year. This number excludes acquisition-related costs. Revenue fell 5.5% to $13.5 billion, this putting the company well in range with the company’s prediction from September of $13.2 billion (plus or minus $300 million). Gross margin also narrowed from 63.4% to 63.3%.
Operating expenses – noted above as one of the reasons the company isn’t doing quite as well this quarter – rose 10% this quarter to $10.4 billion. Data-center revenue increased 5.7% while Intel’s PC client group fell 8.3%. Stocks in Intel have fallen since the report was released earlier today down 1.9% to $21.92 in after-hours trading. In other news, Intel remains a mainstay in the vast majority of high-end computers working with Windows 8 in this upcoming holiday season – keep your head high!
Hot off the heels of a slightly disappointing Q2, mega chip-maker Intel’s Q3 results are in. Good old Chipzilla managed to wrangle $13.5 billion in revenues with a net profit of $3 billion. While Intel’s latest figures reflect a profit of about 5.1 percent sequentially, the company is still taking a dip year over year of around 19 percent. “Our third-quarter results reflected a continuing tough economic environment,” said Paul Otellini, Intel’s CEO. Happy to take progress in any form during a trying economy, the company’s fourth quarter strategy will highly focus on the success of ultrabooks, phones and Intel-powered tablets. While its recent gains may be somewhat slim, last we checked, a win is a win.
Looking to save some coin on your tech purchases? Of course you are! In this round-up, we’ll run down a list of the freshest frugal buys, hand-picked with the help of the folks at Slickdeals. You’ll want to act fast, though, as many of these offerings won’t stick around long.
If you’re looking to get a jump on some of your holiday shopping, perhaps this round of tech deals will provide the necessary motivation to do just that. A 60-inch Sharp AQUOS 1080p LCD HDTV tops the group, and a smattering of components round out the lot. Keep and eye on those pesky discount codes and rebate links, though, because we’d hate for you to miss out. Head on past the break to peruse the whole list.
Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it’s easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don’t escape without notice, we’ve gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!
You know why soldiers on the ground need to be so buffed up and fit? Well, not only do they need to make sure they are the toughest and meanest looking folks on the battlefield, there is also a whole lot of gadgets and equipment that they will need to carry in combat, so not having that rippling six pack is going to work against you. Researchers have a soft spot for the men and women serving our country on the frontlines, coming up with a prototype Wyss suit for battlefield personnel that enables them to walk longer than ever while resisting the incidences of injuries. How is this made possible? Part of DARPA’s Warrior Web program, a contract worth $2.6 million has been awarded to them to develop a “wearable system that would potentially delay the onset of fatigue, enabling soldiers to walk longer distances, and also potentially improve the body’s resistance to injuries while carrying loads.”
The Wyss suit remains a concept as at press time, and there is still a long road ahead before it becomes viable in the flesh, such as overcoming the battery issue. The thing is, the final suit will hopefully be soft as well as flexible, working alongside the soldiers’ bodies instead of adding additional gear and bulk to their already burdened frames.
Announced in Japan early June and known as the Let’s Note SX2, Panasonic announced today in North America the Toughbook SX2 will come basically with the same spec as its Japanese counterpart and will come powered with an Intel Core i5-3320M vPro, a nice 12.1″ 16:9 LED Backlight HD+ display and a 14.5h battery life ! Panasonic, an industry leader in rugged, reliable mobile computers since 1996, today announced the next generation of its business-rugged notebook PC line, the …
Today Sony outs in the US its latest Vaio line-up and introduces some already well known devices including the stunning Vaio Duo, and the Vaio Tap 20 alongside the new Vaio T Series, E Series and S Series T Series The top-selling stylish T Series Ultrabook made with an ultra-smooth brushed aluminum shell now comes with a touch display on the new T13 Ultrabook to allow consumers to experience Windows 8-based touch in a clamshell form factor with optional touchscreen. Sony is also introducing …
Keep lurking long enough and you’ll find the unexpected. Even at MobileCon 2012. Exhibit A: the Kupa UltraNote modular tablet running Windows 8. This 0.6-inch (15mm) thick slate is powered by an Intel Core i7 processor (Ivy Bridge) with 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 64GB SSD. It features a 10.1-inch 1920 x 1200-pixel IPS display with a ten-point capacitive multitouch layer and a Wacom-like digitizer for pen input. Other amenities include WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 and 3G/4G (LTE) radios along with dual cameras (2MP in front, 5MP in back), NFC and a fingerprint reader. There’s a SIM slot, headphone jack, mini HDMI output and two USB 3.0 ports on the right side of the device, plus a proprietary power / docking connector on the bottom edge. A 45Wh slide-out Li-Ion battery is located on the left side.
While the specs are pretty much what you’d expect from a decent Windows 8 tablet, it’s the modular design that makes Kupa UltraNote unique. There’s an Asus Transformer-like keyboard dock which boasts an additional battery, power jack, SD card slot, Ethernet connector, VGA output and two USB 3.0 ports. Accessories such as credit card reader can be attached the left or right edge of the slate thanks to a built-in latch mechanism. It’s clear that the company is targeting the enterprise and vertical markets and even positioning itself as an ODM. We spent a few minutes with the device and were impressed with how lightweight it was (760g / 1.67 lbs). Build quality, however, left a lot to be desired, even for a prototype. Still, overall performance was solid, both in terms of speed and responsiveness.
Looking to save some coin on your tech purchases? Of course you are! In this round-up, we’ll run down a list of the freshest frugal buys, hand-picked with the help of the folks at Slickdeals. You’ll want to act fast, though, as many of these offerings won’t stick around long.
If the mid-week blues have you down, perhaps a new batch of discounted tech will be just the thing to cheer you up. This time around, solid state drives from both Samsung and Intel make the cut alongside a pair of in-ears from Sennheiser that will allow you to use that Yacht Rock playlist to drown out your coworkers. Jump past the break to view the whole group, but remember to be mindful of those coupon codes and rebate forms.
If you’re in the market for a no-nonsense travel-ready notebook you can take with you on any business-related trip where data input, web browsing, and typing in general are your game, the Acer TravelMate P243 may be just the device you’re looking for. This machine has proven itself to be both reliable and deceptively simple in the way it both looks and feels, bringing with it more power than you might ever need for a price you’ll be well satisfied with. With features like a spill-resistant keyboard and a lovely 1366 x 768 pixel resolution ComfyView LCD, you might just find that this notebook is just the right combination of light computing in a relatively small package you need.
Hardware
Inside you’ll find several possibilities for what you’ll be able to work with, with a 3rd Generation Intel Core i5 processor to start things off right with current-generation processing power – backed up by Intel Turbo Boost technology, of course. You’ll also be working with 4GB of DDR3 memory (that you can upgrade easily under the hood to 8GB if you wish. You’ve got a SATA hard drive 500GB large as well as a collection of connection ports for several different purposes.
This device is made for business, and that’s definitely what you should be using it for. It’s tough – though not necessarily tough enough to bring along with you camping. It’s powerful – though not really for video processing, when it comes down to it. It’s got security – Acer’s own ProShield pre-boot authentication makes for that added bit of calm in your mind when you’re thinking about your data being destroyed – not here it wont!
Of course before we launch into the software side of things, we’ve got to have a peek at all those ports. You’ve got one USB 3.0 port and a couple of USB 2.0 ports, HDMI and display port in addition to Wireless Display technology (WiDi) if you’re into the wireless HD display era. Built-in ethernet port keeps you wired if you’re not all about wi-fi data, and your wi-fi connection can be turned on and off with a physical button up in the left next to the power button right above your keyboard.
The keyboard itself is rather nice, certainly generous for the intent of the notebook and more than ready for a business environment. Several lights sit in the lower left below the area where your wrists will be sitting with notifications for your power, wi-fi connection, and more. Next to this is an SD card reader that you’ll be able to use for your camera and – if you’ve got a converter – your micro-SD card-holding smartphone as well.
Notice that the display does not have perfect viewing angles as its given the hands-on treatment in the video above. It’s not perfect, but it’s certainly bright and sharp enough for your everyday web browsing, email reading, and document typing needs. The build of the notebook is also, again, solid and ready to work for you for many years to come.
Software
Inside you’ve got a lovely Windows 7 build that you can read just a bit more about in the readout we’ve got below this paragraph. It’s a relatively standard build and won’t bring on a whole lot of surprises, but you will get items such as the ability to run Acer Video Conference with your video camera (above the display) and Acer Backup – more than helpful for those of you that accidentally download your fair share of adware. Back it all up on the regular!
You’ve got Acer Office Manager as well, this made for the small business to be able to easily deploy security policies and monitor IT assets. You’ll be able to schedule maintenance tasks and roll out with a full set of solutions for basically anything you’ll want to do with your employees working with the TravelMate. Connect and make it work!
System – Acer TravelMate P243
Manufacturer
Acer
Product Type
Notebook
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)
Motherboard
Acer BA40_HC
Processor
Intel Core i5-3210M
Processor ID
GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 58 Stepping 9
Processor Frequency
2.50 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
3.00 MB
Memory
4.00 GB DDR3 SDRAM 666MHz
FSB
99.8 MHz
BIOS
Insyde Corp. V1.01
Benchmark
Have a peek at our standard benchmark readout here with Geekbench and take note that this should be more than enough of a processing beast to get you going throughout the day. Compared to gaming rigs and high-powered notebooks with no need to be transportable, this isn’t the biggest and the most beastly – but it’s certainly fine for your business needs.
Benchmark Score – Acer TravelMate P243
Section
Description
Score
Total Score
Windows x86 (64-bit) – Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)
Integer
Processor integer performance
6197
7769
Floating Point
Processor floating point performance
11453
Memory
Memory performance
5718
Stream
Memory bandwidth performance
4482
Wrap-up
Acer TravelMate P243 is available in many Acer reseller stores across the USA right this minute in a couple different iterations. The one we’re using here will cost you right around $999 USD, while a much more conservatively powered iteration with a 2nd Gen i3 processor from Intel will run you around $599.99 USD. That’s the one you want if you only want the basics – don’t expect to do the big tasks there, but traveling around with it will be a perfectly good experience.
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