Hasta La Gadget!

HP has been offering plenty of glimpses of its upcoming Windows 8 tablet, but it so far hasn’t been doing much talking about it — or about Microsoft’s own entry into the tablet market with Surface, for that matter. That’s now changed thanks to an interview senior sales VP John Solomon gave to CRN, however, where he promises that HP will have more to share about its business-minded tablet “pretty soon.” What’s more, unlike some other big OEMs, Soloman says that HP doesn’t see a problem with Microsoft’s Surface plans. He says that he thinks Microsoft “was basically making a leadership statement and showing what’s possible in the tablet space,” adding that, “our relationship has not changed at all due to Microsoft’s announcement. In fact, I applaud it.” That’s not to say he doesn’t take some issue with Microsoft’s efforts, though, noting that while the Surface’s keyboard accessory is “a great occasional use keyboard,” there’s “no way” that professional content creators will “use a keyboard like that for everyday use.” You can find the full CRN interview at the source link below.

Filed under: Laptops, Tablet PCs

HP says Surface has not changed its relationship with Microsoft, promises more tablet details ‘pretty soon’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Aug 2012 13:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google and ASUS shocked consumers when they revealed that the Jelly Bean-based Nexus 7 tablet would retail for $199, but is Microsoft poised to do the same come October? That may be the case according to a report from Engadget. Microsoft was coy on the pricing details for its Surface tablet, with one report suggesting the 32GB model would retail for $599. According to Engadget’s sources, launch details suggest that the tablet will retail for as low as $199 on October 26th.

Microsoft recently held a session at its TechReady 15 conference that detailed the exact launch plans for the Surface tablet. Surface for Windows RT is planned for release on October 26th, which lines up with previous information, but the shockingly low price is new. Surface for Windows RT reportedly features a similar quad-core Tegra 3 processor to the one found inside the Nexus 7, but the construction materials along with the internals are vastly different.

If you believe the $199 price point, then Microsoft will be attacking the market held by the Nexus 7 along with other budget tablets rather than facing the iPad head-on. That may be the smart play, as it puts Windows RT tablets into the hands of consumers and captures mindshare in the process, something that Windows Phone has failed to do so far. Just look at the recent Nexus 7 launch or the HP TouchPad firesale and you’ll see the virtues of aiming for a lower price point, with consumer scrambling to get their hands on the product.

Having said that, can Microsoft really afford to release the Surface at that price? The Nexus 7 was a careful balancing act between affordable internals and pricing, with Google admitting that it essentially sells the tablet at cost. In comparison, Microsoft is using premium materials, highlighting the magnesium chassis at its Surface event back in June. Not only that, but OEMs are already reportedly unimpressed with Microsoft’s tablet attempt, believing the company blind sided them at the announcement. Will Microsoft risk further damage with a super cheap tablet that partners may not be able to compete with once license fees for Windows RT are added into the mix? We’ll have to wait and see if this one pans out, but take it with your daily dose of salt in the meantime.

Microsoft Surface reportedly aiming for $199 is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Welcome to Friday everyone. The weekend is here is last, and what better way to kick it off than with a giveaway? We’ve teamed up with NVIDIA to hand out three 16GB Google Nexus 7 tablets, so be sure to enter (but read the rules before you do!). Apple and Samsung’s ongoing patent trial gave us a glimpse at sales numbers for both companies today, and we also found out that Apple is looking for a whopping $2.45 billion from Samsung. Even though Google has remained publicly silent about this whole suit, it turns out that it has been providing support for Samsung behind the scenes during the trial.

Let’s talk about space for a moment: today we found out NASA’s plans for observing the weather on the surface of Mars, and Elon Musk seems to think that we’ll have humans on the red planet within 12 years. We also found out why the Curiosity can’t send back better pictures of Mars, so if that has been an annoyance for you, be sure to give that a read. Google has gone to war with piracy, and the FTC has told Facebook that it needs “express consent” before it shares any information on users which would normally be prohibited under its own privacy settings.

Many of you have heard by now that Blizzard’s battle.net servers fell victim to a security breach this week, and we detail what you can do to make sure that you stay protected. Today images of both the new iPhone’s battery and its reported mini dock connector surfaced, as did more Geekbench results for a computer that looks an awful lot like a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Samsung has detailed its new Exynos 5 Dual chipset for smartphones, and Acer expressed concerns over Microsoft making Surface too cheap while unleashing details about its own upcoming Aspire S7 Ultrabook. Speaking of Microsoft, it appears that the company is considering yet another replacement for the Windows 8 Metro branding it can no longer use.

After hearing that Samsung isn’t interested in acquiring RIM, we’re now being told that IBM might be considering a buyout. MIT has developed a new resilient robot that’s the size of an Earthworm (it’s been dubbed the “Meshworm”) and a few new details about the next iteration of Kinect were leaked today. Finally, Rovio has announced that a new pink-feathered fowl will be joining the roster of temperamental birds in the next Angry Birds Seasons update, so watch out for that.

That about does it for the SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up for this Friday, so now all that’s left for you to do is to go out and enjoy the weekend! Have a good one, folks!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: August 10, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft’s Surface Pro has company, with Lenovo revealing its own Windows 8 slate, the ThinkPad Tablet 2, targeting the all-important enterprise segment. Like the higher-spec Surface, Lenovo’s new tablet has content-creation features like a digital pen and all the remote management your IT team demands; it also has the more flexible full version of Windows 8, rather than Windows RT. And, like Microsoft, Lenovo is playing pricing cards close to its chest. One thing is already becoming clear, however: Windows 8 may well struggle to compete in business markets.

While official numbers are in short supply, Lenovo’s intentions are likely to be in keeping with Microsoft’s own estimates. The Windows maker said it planned to offer the Surface Pro at a price akin to an ultrabook, figured to mean a $699+ sticker. With similar specifications under the hood, the ThinkPad Tablet 2 will probably amount to the same, options depending.

Unfortunately, Apple’s iPad already has a head start, even if it wasn’t originally intended for business users. The iOS tablet may not have been designed with enterprise in mind – there’s no biometric security, no digital pen – but what it lacks in tailoring it makes up with ubiquity, and that counts for a lot. Individual users and IT departments alike are familiar with the iPad, and while it demands compromises, they’re already a known quantity.

“Microsoft has purposefully crippled Windows RT to leave a market for Windows 8”

Microsoft’s segment positioning may well prove the downfall to competing with all that. The entry-level Surface is expected to be competitive with the iPad – the unofficial guesstimate is around $499+ – but runs Windows RT rather than Windows 8. That version will be cheaper, certainly, but Microsoft has purposefully crippled it so as to leave a market for Windows 8 and the machines the full OS will run on.

Apple’s price advantage and dominance of the tablet segment are therefore balanced against Microsoft and Lenovo’s more suited specifications and Windows familiarity, each of which come with a price disadvantage. Lenovo could try to upset that balance by undercutting Surface and trying to bring its Windows 8 model closer to the iPad, but that’s a considerable challenge given the hardware. Intel processors and the graphics, memory and storage to go with them generally add up to a more expensive machine than an ARM-based tablet such as Apple’s; we’re basically talking keyboardless ultrabook, with extra thrown in if you want the optional pen.

Microsoft’s two new versions of Windows might look like they increase flexibility, but OEMs may well find they’re an inadvertent pincer-movement, trapping them between locked-down consumer functionality or something that’s comes enterprise-ready but at a cost. That sort of premium is easy to explain if you’re first to the market, but Windows faces all the challenges of following not one but two high-profile platforms into a segment where some might argue that consumers have already picked their winner. It’ll take more than a stylus and a slick new UI to address that.

Windows 8 tablets are bad business is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Welcome to Tuesday evening, folks. Apple and Samsung’s patent suit is still going on, but today we didn’t get too much news about it. Samsung said that the high return rates of the Galaxy Tab had to with the devices malfunctioning, and not because customers were confusing it for the iPad like Apple claimed Apple’s expert witness, Peter Bressler, said today that the iPhone brought on a “crisis of design” over at Samsung headquarters, and we found out just how much Mr. Bressler is getting paid to sit on the stand and testify for Apple. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot of money, and now we’re on the lookout for “expert witness” job openings.

Just as Acer told Microsoft that launching Surface was a bad idea, we caught wind of some Microsoft job listings that point to next generation Surface devices. We also received reports that Windows 8 can’t boot directly to the desktop, which is going to be annoying for those who were hoping to bypass the tile-based start screen entirely. More bad news for HTC today, as it reported that July revenues dropped 45%, and Motorola has started teasing a new 4G LTE capable smartphone, so be sure to keep an eye out for that one.

Some developers are thinking that we might be getting an increased screen resolution with the next iPhone, and it looks like Apple is at least somewhat partially stuck in 2008, as it decided to Rickroll developers in the iOS 6 beta 4 changelog. Apple has also opted to pull its Genius ads, so if you liked the exploits of the Apple Genius as he tried to turn consumers into Apple fans, you’re going to have to resort to YouTube to watch. Facebook has rolled out real-money gambling games in the UK, and Amazon has apparently fixed the security hole that led to a massive breach for one unfortunate journalist.

We’ve got quite a bit of gaming news today, as OUYA gave us some new renders of the Android-based console and announced a partnership with the team behind the open source XBMC media player. ArmA 2 mod DayZ is getting a full release soon, and today Activision and Treyarch gave us our first look at Call of Duty: Black Ops II multiplayer. NASA has revealed the Curiosity rover’s landing video and let loose some more pictures from the surface of Mars, and if you’re the mood for a show this weekend, you might want to look to the Northeast sky after the Sun sets on Saturday – it’s there that you’ll see the Perseid meteor shower at its peak.

That does it for the news, but we’ve also got a couple SlashGear originals you should have a peek at. With the Nexus 7 still selling like hotcakes, we ask if Android has it’s first tablet hit in the 7-inch slate, and Chris Burns has a review of the Olympus LS-100 Sound Recorder. Enjoy the rest of your evening!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: August 7, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.