Hasta La Gadget!

While Microsoft’s Surface RT and Surface Pro tablets are certainly pretty devices with a ton of potential, there were several flaws to either device, price being one of them and battery life being the other. That being said Microsoft has been pretty quiet on how many Surface tablets they have sold to date, but thanks to inside sources (via Bloomberg), those numbers have been revealed. According to the source, a total of 1.5 million Surface tablets have been sold to date, making it half of Microsoft’s 3 million Surface tablet orders.

Out of that 1.5 million, about 400,000 were for the Surface Pro, and a little more than a million accounting for the Surface RT. Considering that the Surface Pro launched later than the Surface RT, we guess that might explain the difference in numbers, preferences and whatnot aside. Assuming those numbers are to be believed, it does feel somewhat underwhelming. However since we doubt this is the last we’ll be hearing of the Surface series of tablets, perhaps Microsoft’s next attempt will be able to rake in more impressive figures. In the meantime what do you guys think? Are those numbers on par with what you’re seeing around you in terms of adoption?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Microsoft Surface RT Launches In Japan Today, Apple Patent Suggests Using Smart Cover As A Wireless Charging Pad,

[CeBIT 2013] The Microsoft Surface Pro has been available for nearly a month in the U.S. and has steadily been making itself available again through Microsoft’s brick & mortar and online stores. Microsoft announced today the Surface Pro is heading to Germany during this year’s CeBIT, but it looks like clones of the company’s popular tablet has made its way to the show.

The Surface Pro clone looks an awful lot like the official tablet as it sports a 13.3-inch screen although it’s internals are quite different as the clone runs on either a Core i3 or i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and options for a 32 or 64GB SSD. The Surface Pro clone also has a 5MP rear-facing camera, a 2MP front-facing camera, a SIM card slot, SD card reader, two USB 2.0 ports and a mini HDMI port.

The manufacturers of the Surface Pro clone are HKC from Shenzhen who are an OEM, although it seems this “original” equipment might not be so original after all.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Android 4.x Finally Overtakes Android 2.3 Gingerbread, Future Ferrari Models Could See iPads Integrated Into Them,

A look at the adhesive Microsoft uses for its Surface Pro

iFixit has been taking apart tech-related products for years to educate us of their sweet, sweet innards, and today, they’ve released their Tablet Repairability list which scores a number of tablets based on their ease of repair.

According to their engineers, who have disassembled and analyzed each tablet on their list, the Dell XPS 10 receives a score of 9 out of 10 in its repairability due to the tablet being easy to open and even includes color-coded screws and labeled cables inside of it. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Acer Wants To Ship 7 Million Android Tablets And 3 Million Windows Tablets In 2013, The New York Times Gets Flipboard Treatment On Android And Kindle Fire,

Microsoft has just announced a piece of good news for those of you living in areas where you have yet to catch a glimpse of the Surface RT or the Surface Pro tablets – by saying that from late March onwards, the big marketing machine at Microsoft will be rolling into new markets, hoping to expand the availability of the Surface tablets across the board. Other than current areas where you are able to pick up both the Surface RT and Surface Pro without blinking at the moment, the coming months will see the Surface RT appear over at Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan.

As for folks who are looking for something with a little bit more firepower, well, the Surface Pro will soon be available beyond the borders of the US and Canada, making its way to the ends of the earth – namely Australia, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Between the two, just which model do you think suits you and your lifestyle best?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Acer Wants To Ship 7 Million Android Tablets And 3 Million Windows Tablets In 2013, The New York Times Gets Flipboard Treatment On Android And Kindle Fire,

Google hasn’t always been known for making breathtaking hardware, but today’s announcement of the Chromebook Pixel — arguably one of the best-looking laptops ever made, if nothing else — means that may no longer be the case.

Still, you can’t be blamed for being wary of shelling out a decent chunk of money on Google’s first foray into laptops, let alone a Chromebook of all things, so here’s a preliminary look at how the Chromebook Pixel stacks up against two prominent rivals in the computing space: the stock version of Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Air and Microsoft’s Surface Pro.

*Note that we compared the base MBA and the surface Pro with upgraded storage, to establish a better baseline in terms of comparing more similar price points and spec load-outs. 

Versus the 13-inch MacBook Air

Compared to the base 13-inch MacBook Air, Google’s Pixel has a lot of similarities. It’s priced around the same, but actually comes in as more expensive that the OS X ultraportable, at $1299 and $1449 for options with Wi-Fi only, and Wi-Fi + LTE networking. What does the Pixel offer to justify the extra cost? It does have a denser display, with 239 ppi on a nearly 13-inch display. And that screen is touch sensitive, which isn’t something Apple can claim. But until now, it hasn’t shown off much about how touch might work with ChromeOS, though it has reportedly been “optimized” for finger-based input.

Another place where the Chromebook Pixel falls short of its competition is in local storage. 32GB on the Wi-Fi model and 64GB on the LTE version is tiny compared to the MacBook Air, which is already pushing it with 128GB. LTE is nice to have, but, with the prevalence of hotspots and modems, arguably less important than more offline-accessible storage space.

The Chromebook Pixel is very much aimed at the same market as the MacBook Air, with Google stressing that it’s an upscale device. But despite what looks to be a beautiful screen, this arrives with an even more experimental, touch-enabled version of an OS that has yet to prove itself with general consumers, meaning that the reasons to opt for Google’s brave new laptop over the Air perhaps aren’t as apparent as Google would’ve hoped.

Versus the 128GB Surface Pro

I can’t help but think about the Chromebook Pixel in relation to something like the Surface Pro, another premium computing device from a company that has historically shied away from making its own computers. Granted, the differences in execution between the two are pretty staggering, but it’s hard not to look at both devices as fresh steps into a market increasingly driven by novel hardware.

The Pixel certainly has the Surface Pro beat when it comes to sheer screen size and resolution (it has a 12.85″ display running at 2560 x 1700, compared to the Pro’s 10.6″ panel running at 1920 x 1080), but the Surface Pro seems to sport better touch support with its included stylus and Wacom digitizer. It’s too early to say whether or not one device has a definitive advantage of the other because of their seemingly similar processors (though the Pixel could squeak by because of its slightly quicker chipset), but we’ll return to that once we get our hands on a review unit.

Again, the Pixel may fall flat with its paltry 32GB of internal storage (though folks who spring for the LTE model will have around 64GB to play with). Sure, having a terabyte of cloud storage is neat, but those in need of real speed will prefer the Pro’s SSDs and memory card slot.

The other big question mark here is Chrome OS itself. The Chromebook is a very handsome little machine that seems to have some horsepower under the hood to boot, but I’m curious whether or not people will choose to plunk down upwards of $1299 for a computer that exists outside of the two entrenched environments that have dominated consumer computing. Windows 8 isn’t a shining star yet either, but it’s far from a company’s side project.

In the end…

While the Air and Surface Pro have their share of advantages, it’s still a little too early to write the Chromebook Pixel off completely. It may just be the right computer at the right time to give Chrome OS the boost it really needs, but for now Google needs to make a better case for why people should spend $1299 on a computer that hinges on the cloud instead of, you know, anything else.