Hasta La Gadget!

The Eee Pad Transformer is one of many Android tablets aiming to stand out among the crowd. (Photo courtesy Asus)

If you’ve seen one tablet, you’ve seen ‘em all: a flat slab with a glass front. A few hardware companies want to break that image with a different kind of slate: the hybrid.

It’s based on the idea that your tablet can be more than just an armchair device. Hook your pad up to a keyboard — sometimes provided, sometimes an optional accessory — and it’s an instant laptop solution, a relatively low-cost netbook for times when a touchscreen keyboards may not suffice.

“Hybrid tablets represent an attempt by manufacturers to fully explore the space of design possibilities,” Gartner research analyst Ray Valdes says. Hardware companies need to find a sweet spot with their tablet offerings, or “sustainable market niches” as Valdes puts it, in order to differentiate from what other companies are doing.

As new tablets hit the market every week, manufacturers are doing everything they can to stand out among the crowd. HTC was one of the first to experiment with the option of adding a stylus with its Flyer tablet, and Lenovo also plans to offer a tablet with an accompanying pen. Other companies have played with the idea of the form factor, sizing tablets anywhere from 7 to 10 inches in screen size. The tablet-laptop lookalike is the latest iteration of the theme.

“With hybrids, product designers are moving the needle in one direction and then back again,” Valdes said. “First strip out certain aspects of a netbook or laptop, such as the keyboard, and then reverse course by adding these pieces back in.”

The Asus Eee Pad Slider, for instance, is playing with the idea of the tablet-netbook hybrid. Essentially, Asus takes the concept of a smartphone slide-out keyboard and brings it to the tablet form, somewhat like a gigantic Motorola Droid phone. It’s an evolution of the company’s first big hybrid option, the Eee Pad Transformer.

The aptly named Eee Pad Slider includes an attached keyboard, which slides out from underneath the tablet screen. (Photo courtesy Asus)

Similarly, Lenovo plans to debut its ThinkPad tablet this fall, easily the most interesting of three tablet devices the company will release this year. Aimed at the business crowd that needs to respond to e-mails quickly, the ThinkPad comes with an optional folio-style case, complete with keyboard attachment. From what we’ve seen, it looks like a nice compromise between a carrying case and a functional peripheral input device. Keeping in line with the ThinkPad laptop heritage, the signature red-dot arrow controller appears smack in the middle of the keyboard.

We see countless laptops come and go through the seasons, but a rare few have built up something of a following. Make no mistake: the Sony VAIO Z, a skinny ultraportable brimming with cutting-edge technology and powerful innards, is that kind of gem. So when it disappeared from Sony’s online store earlier this year, more than a few techies took note. After all, the Z is part of a small fraternity of notebooks that combine an impossibly lightweight design with performance worthy of a larger system. People who missed out on the last-gen Z wondered when they’d next get the chance to buy, while some lucky folks out there with thousands to burn started itching for something thinner, something lighter, something… better.

Well, it’s here. The 2011 VAIO Z is, indeed, thinner, lighter, and more powerful. It also might not be the Z you were expecting. Whereas the last generation combined it all, cramming in an optical drive and switchable graphics, this year’s model leaves much of that at the door — or, at least, in an external dock that ships with the laptop. This time around, the Z has no optical drive, and packs just an integrated Intel graphics card on board. (Don’t worry, it does squeeze in lots of other goodies, including standard-voltage Sandy Bridge processors and expanded solid-state storage.) If you want that Blu-ray burner or the stock AMD Radeon HD 6650M graphics card, you’ll have to plug into the Power Media Dock, an external peripheral that uses Intel’s Light Peak technology.

That’s quite the gamble Sony is taking — after all, the company is essentially betting that you won’t need to do anything too intensive while you’re on the go. On the one hand, this inventive design is sure to intrigue the Z’s usual early adopter fanbase. But will it satisfy those who always liked the Z because of its no-compromise design? And then there’s the issue of that $1,969 starting price, a likely stumbling block for people trying to decide between this and an equally thin, less expensive ultraportable. What’s a well-heeled geek to do? Let’s find out.

Continue reading Sony VAIO Z review (2011)

Sony VAIO Z review (2011) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jul 2011 16:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS has gone and made its super svelte Eee PC X101 official with a dedicated product page live on its site. We’d already gotten our hands-on with the crimson-colored ultraportable, but now there’s a whole list of specs to flesh out this 920g wonder. The MeeGo-running netbook’s rocking a 10.1-inch 1024 x 600 display, 1.33 GHz Intel Atom N435 (or N455) processor, 8GB SSD, Bluetooth, WiFi, SDHC card support and USB 2.0. Oh, and did we mention this 17.6 millimeter thin beauty comes in three shades of awesome? That’s right, when this $199 netbook finally hits retailers’ shelves, you can also snag it in white and brown (a Zune homage, we presume). There’s still no word on just when this slight badboy’s going to be available, but at least you now have a place to go and drool in anticipation.

ASUS Eee PC X101 product page goes live, still no release date originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jul 2011 19:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s Verizon Wireless’ first LTE-powered laptop, but is it really anything to write home about? The familiar HP Pavilion dm1 — which emerged last year on Big Red’s 3G network — has undergone a minor revision, this time surfacing with a 4G radio and a far more respectable processor. The dm1-3010nr is expected to ship two days from now (you know, alongside that grotesquely overpriced Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE), with an 11.6-inch (1366 x 768) LED display, 1.6GHz AMD Zacate E-350 APU, 320GB hard drive, 2GB of DDR3 memory, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, a VGA webcam, multi-format card reader and a 64-bit copy of Windows 7 Home Premium. It measures in at 1.2-inches thick and weighs 3.52 pounds, and so far as we can tell, the $599.99 asking price doesn’t require a constricting two-year data agreement. We’re awaiting specific word from VZW to confirm, but as of now, it looks as if you can get 5GB per month for $50, or 10GB for $80. Looking for that $30 / 2GB plan? Tough luck, bub — she ain’t available here.

Update: We’ve confirmed with VZW that no two-year contract is required with that price. You buy it outright, and then pay month-to-month for data.

Continue reading HP’s AMD-powered Pavilion dm1-3010nr arrives at Verizon with LTE, $600 price tag

HP’s AMD-powered Pavilion dm1-3010nr arrives at Verizon with LTE, $600 price tag originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jul 2011 10:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When you head to Apple’s online store to configure your MacBook Air, you’ll find options to increase processor speed or SSD capacity — depending on the model you select, of course. There’s no mention of flash drive speed, however, though it’s now clear that not all SSDs are created equal at Apple — not only when it comes to capacity, but also performance. Jonathan over at TLD discovered a fairly significant discrepancy when benchmarking both MacBook Air models over the weekend. The 128GB Samsung SSD in his 11-inch Air was able to achieve 246 MB/s write and 264 MB/s read speeds. When he switched to the 13-inch model, however, speeds dropped to 156 MB/s and 208 MB/s, respectively, using that notebook’s 128GB Toshiba SSD. We compared speeds on two generations of 13-inch models, and confirmed Jonathan’s findings. During our tests, the 256GB Samsung drive in our older model achieved 214 MB/s write and 251 MB/s read speeds, while the 128GB Toshiba drive in the new MacBook Air scored 184 MB/s and 203 MB/s during write and read tests, respectively. Overall, you’re not likely to notice a significant difference during normal usage, though it’s certainly an interesting find, nonetheless.

[Thanks, Larry]

Continue reading PSA: Apple using slower SSDs in some MacBook Air models (video)

PSA: Apple using slower SSDs in some MacBook Air models (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jul 2011 13:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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