Things We Loved This Week: Tiny Chairs, Fancy Pants, and the Awesomely Bland Google Phone

Things We Loved This Week: Tiny Chairs, Fancy Pants, and the Awesomely Bland Google Phone

It’s been wall-to-wall good stuff in the Gadget Lab this week. Here are the highlights from the past seven days.

    



Review: Kindle Fire HDX 8.9-Inch

Review: Kindle Fire HDX 8.9-Inch

Like the 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX released last month, this new 8.9-inch HDX hitting the market today shows that Amazon is no longer interested in skimping on its mobile hardware.

    



Review: Apple iPad Air

Review: Apple iPad Air

The iPad Air features an impressively slender form factor and, thanks largely to its A7 processor and optimizations in iOS 7, it still manages to perform twice as fast and deliver just as much battery life as its predecessor.

    



Amazon Makes Kindles Cheaper for One Day

Amazon Makes Kindles Cheaper for One Day

If you’re looking for a cheap e-reader and/or handheld Amazon consumption device, today is your day. Amazon has announced a one-day-only price cut on a few of its Kindle e-readers. It’s all in celebration of the fact that we won’t …

    



How Steve Jobs Made the iPad Succeed When All Other Tablets Failed

How Steve Jobs Made the iPad Succeed When All Other Tablets Failed

The world needed a device in the middle that combined the best of both — ‘more intimate than a laptop, and so much more capable than a smartphone’. Only after more buildup did Jobs say what the world was waiting …

    

Barnes & Noble’s New Nook Is Lighter and Softer

Barnes & Noble’s New Nook Is Lighter and Softer

The new $119 Nook Simple Touch GlowLight keeps up with its contemporaries with an updated display. But it also goes one step further when it comes to refreshing pages and making the device easier to hold.

    



Lenovo Debuts New Tablets, and With Them, a New Identity and Pitchman

Lenovo Debuts New Tablets, and With Them, a New Identity and Pitchman

Lenovo debuts two new Android devices: the 7-inch and the 9-inch Yoga tablets. The company also began its plans to reboot its image in the U.S. by enlisting a celebrity spokesperson.

    



Don’t Be Silly. Lock Down and Encrypt Your Smartphone

Don’t Be Silly. Lock Down and Encrypt Your Smartphone

Your smartphone is your most portable computer. It’s also a treasure trove of information. You wouldn’t leave your laptop unlocked in public, so why leave your phone’s data unprotected?

    



This Is the iPad You Should Buy

This Is the iPad You Should Buy

Yesterday, Apple rolled out a new iPad Air and a mini with a Retina display. Including the iPad 2 and the original iPad mini — which company left the in its lineup — that leaves four tablets with multiple configurations. …

    



The iPad Mini Finally Gets a Retina Display

The iPad Mini Finally Gets a Retina Display

Apple’s popular iPad mini has had one glaring omission from the start: a Retina display. That changed at Apple’s San Francisco event today.