Mar 02

Intel’s New Convertible Classmate PC Doubles as E-Reader

Posted in: intel, Notebooks, PC, tablet, Today's Chili

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The Intel Classmate PC has been around for the last three years as a low-cost notebook meant for children to use at school and for learning. Now, Intel is looking to refresh the design with a new, convertible model that can also be used like a tablet.

The convertible Classmate PC can be twisted into a slate, similar in form factor to the Apple iPad, or used as a traditional notebook with a full keyboard.

“This is not the cheapest netbook in the market,” says Jeff Galinovsky, regional manager for the Classmate PC ecosystem. “But if you look at the features like ruggedization, design and the software, it offers great value in the education market.”

The new convertible Classmate PC has an Intel Atom processor, 10.1-inch display, up to 160-GB hard drive including both solid-state and disk-drive options, up to 8.5 hours of battery life, a resistive touchscreen,and a range of wireless connectivity options including Wi-Fi and WiMax. The device also has a 1.3-megapixel rotating camera and two speaker jacks. It is available with either Microsoft Windows or Linux operating system.

Intel won’t disclose the pricing for the product. It says that will depend on the configuration and the device manufacturer. But there’s no doubt the convertible Classmate PC will carry a premium over the clamshell version that currently sells for $200 to $400.

Intel hopes to launch the convertible PC in the second quarter.

So far about 2 million Classmate PCs are being used worldwide, says Intel.

See below for a closer look at the latest design from Intel.

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The PC feels a little hefty but that seems to be by design. The entire machine is meant to withstand the not-so-delicate handling of a 7-year-old. The new Classmate PC is rugged enough to survive a fall from the desktop and has a thick rubber coating that offers a good grip and is spillproof. The keyboard is also anti-microbial. Even the hard drive includes shock protection.

The convertible style also comes with a pen-like stylus that is chunky and comfortable to use. Along with the touchscreen, there’s handwriting recognition and note-taking software available for the device.

Reading on Intel convertible Classmate PC

One of the features of the new Classmate PC that Intel’s especially keen to tout is is its e-reading software. The device supports EPUB and PDF formats so you can download books from the library or from Google’s cache of free books. The touchscreen allows you to do the familiar “flick to scroll” gesture, though the experience is not as smooth as it is with a capacitive touchscreen. There are also hardware buttons and software icons for turning pages.

The PC includes an accelerometer so it can switch from portrait to landscape mode automatically.

The reading interface Intel designed also allows you to take notes on the page or save highlights — a feature that will be handy for students.

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Mar 01

Convertible Notebooks Seek to Share the Spotlight on Tablets

Posted in: HP, lenovo, Notebooks, Panasonic, tablet, Today's Chili

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PC makers are betting the attention on an upcoming generation of consumer tablets could help generate interest in their less attractive cousins–convertible notebooks that are also referred to as tablets.

HP has announced a new touch-enabled notebook that can twist into a slate-like tablet and open up to offer a traditional full keyboard laptop. Separately, Panasonic has launched a rugged convertible notebook called Toughbook C1, while Lenovo introduced its X201 convertible notebook earlier this month.

“Up till very recently, the tablet market was irrelevant,” says David Daoud, an analyst at research firm IDC. “Now with the iPad and Apple, the industry is paying attention to it again.”

Though PC makers have offered convertible notebooks for nearly a decade, consumers haven’t paid much attention to them.”Tablet PC sales are just a drop in the bucket,” says Daoud. IDC estimates that worldwide sales for tablet PCs barely breached 1 million in 2009. That’s a very small fraction of the 162 million mobile PCs that were expected to be sold last year.

But with their hefty price tag and clunky design, these hybrid monsters are as far as you can get from the sophisticated, sleek and lightweight Apple iPad. That could be a reason why the latest convertible PCs are targeted at “business users.”

HP’s convertible notebook, the EliteBook 2740p tablet PC, is targeted at “users on the go.” The machine starts at 3.8 lbs and has a 12.1-inch diagonal LED display. Compare that to the 1.5 lbs iPad and its 9.7-inch screen. But, unlike the iPad, HP’s convertible tablet–priced starting $1600–has a multi-touch touchscreen and a full size keyboard.

Panasonic’s tablet also weighs 3.7 lbs (with two batteries) and has a stylus in addition to a touchscreen and a keyboard.

“It’s light enough to carry around but also tough enough so if you drop it you are not going to fry it,” says Kyp Walls, director of product management at Panasonic Computer.

Panasonic is betting doctors and sales executives will want to carry one of the convertibles around. Panasonic’s tablet, which starts at $2500, will start shipping in June.

Daoud says convertibles have always appealed to a niche set of users, especially in healthcare and the military. But their design and cost makes it unlikely they will ever cross over to consumers or become more popular among executives.

“Convertibles are just too heavy to carry around,” he says. “And the price premium for them is on an average at least $150.”

Convertible tablets can also be difficult to use. HP and Panasonic’s convertibles run Windows operating system and its user interface makes it difficult to touch and click. For instance, opening a program through the ’start’ icon on a touch-enabled device running Windows requires great positioning skills and a really skinny finger. As for the touchscreen itself, it just isn’t zippy or smooth as an iPad or an iPhone.

And even business users now hold their devices up to higher standards. For the current crop of convertible tablets, it sounds like another missed opportunity.

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Photo: Pansonic rugged convertible laptop/Panasonic


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Feb 26

Video: Old Apple Notebooks Modded Into a Snowboard

Posted in: Notebooks, Today's Chili, videos

Reduce, reuse, and, if all else fails, recycle, the old mantra goes. But how exactly can you use reuse a dead laptop? In the video above, two German geeks drilled apart their old Mac notebooks and combined them into a snowboard to take to the slopes. As The Unofficial Apple Weblog notes, this is probably just a viral video to plug some Asus notebooks. But we have to admit it’s mighty entertaining to observe just how awful an “Apple snowboard” would be. It’s a heck of a lot easier to watch than dudes catching MSI notebooks with their butts.

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Feb 12

Video: Soybean Sleeve Protects Gadgets From Nasty Impact

Posted in: accessories, Notebooks, Today's Chili, videos



Accessory maker FastMac grabbed people’s attention at Macworld Expo 2010 with its shock-absorbing laptop sleeve mighty enough to fend off a hammer.

The Impact Sleeve is lined with with gel pads composed of soybean oil. After placing M&Ms inside the sleeve and smashing them with a hammer, the candies remained intact.

Shipping next month, the sleeves will start at $30 and come in four different sizes: 13-inch, 15-inch, 17-inch notebook or iPad.

Company page [FastMac]

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Video: Jon Snyder/Wired.com


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Feb 02

Dell’s Hot Alienware Notebook Just $800

Posted in: Games, Notebooks, Today's Chili

Alienware’s hot (literally) new gaming laptop,the M11X, is finally on Dell’s site for your personal configuration pleasure. When Dell announced the tiny, power-packed gaming rig last month at CES, the machine was promised to sell for “under $,1000″. Dell kept its promise, and then some: The base model can be had for just $800.

The M11X uses a low-power processor (1.3GHz Pentium SU4100) coupled with a 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT335M graphics card, 2GB RAM and a 160GB hard drive. You can also pick which color the glowing, internal lights will be when you first switch it on (changeable at any time) and have a name-plate custom engraved (Dell tries to get hip by allowing you to pick your “full name, nickname or handle“).

If you want to spend a little more, you can pimp the rig with an Intel Core2 Duo SU7300 running at 1.3GHz ($100), 8GB RAM ($350) and a 256GB SSD ($570). You can also opt for a 3G data slot and antenna for $125. We like that upgrading the CPU still keeps it under a grand. Also, please excuse the hair in the video above: I’m no Danny Dumas.

Alienware M11X [Dell]


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Feb 01

Video: MacBook Air Knockoff Runs Mac OS X

Posted in: Apple, macbook air, Notebooks, Today's Chili

Chinese knockoffs are often awful compared to the products they ripped off, but I have to admit the MacBook Air counterfeits I spotted last week actually look attractive. Thinner than the average netbook? Check. Bigger screen? Check. But of course, I wondered if they were hackable to run Mac OS X. It turns out they are, as demonstrated in the video above.

What’s more, they cost about $325 — a heck of a lot cheaper than Apple’s $1,500 subnote. That is, of course, if you’re able to even find one and are willing to risk entering your credit card number in a shady wholesaler website, which we wouldn’t recommend. If anything, it’s at least fun to look at.

Via Liliputing

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Jan 27

Tech Pundit Leaks Apple Tablet Specs?

Posted in: Apple, ipad, leaks, Media Players, Notebooks, slate, Today's Chili, twitter

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Apple is set to launch its new tablet today but entrepreneur and web personality Jason Calacanis seems to have stolen the company’s thunder by revealing a few key details ahead of the official event.

On his twitter feed Tuesday night, Calacanis claimed Apple gave him a tablet to test 10 days ago under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). That NDA ended midnight Tuesday, he says. “It is the most amazing device ever,” Calacanis tweeted.

For those hungry to know more, Calacanis claimed to offer a peek into the Apple tablet’s features:

  • The tablet runs an “iPhone flavor operating system” and can handle multiple apps at the same time.
  • The display is OLED but the device also offers an e-reading mode with longer battery life.
  • It has two cameras–one in front, one at the back of the device so it works well for video conferencing.
  • There’s a built-in HDTV tuner and PVR.
  • There are thumbpads on each side for mouse gestures and fingerprint security for up to five profiles.
  • The tablet will cost $600, $700 or $800, depending on size and memory
  • There’s also a wireless keyboard and monitor connection for TV available, he says.
  • The tablet connects to other tablets over Wi-Fi for gaming and will include games such as Farmville, the Facebook game that has become a rage among users.
  • Overall the tablet offers a battery life of two to three hours while playing games. But there’s a solar pad for recharging.

Sound too good to be true? We will know soon enough. Read Gadget Lab coverage of Apple’s tablet event live.

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Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com


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Jan 25

Acer Plans a Million Chrome OS Netbooks, New E-Reader

Posted in: Chrome, e-readers, Google, netbooks, Notebooks, operating system, os, Today's Chili

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Google is yet to release its Chrome operating system for netbooks but already Acer is betting big on it.

Acer says it plans to ship about one million netbooks this year running Chrome OS.

“For Chrome, we’re aggressively pursuing to become one of the first,” Jim Wong, Acer’s president of IT products division told Bloomberg, “so there’s a change to the Microsoft-Intel environment.”

The Acer netbooks with Chrome OS are expected to be released in the third quarter of the year.

For the fledgling operating system, Acer’s support will ensure it debuts with a bang.

Google introduced Chrome OS two months ago as a lightweight, browser-based operating system that would boot up in seven seconds or less. The first Chrome OS netbooks will be available in late 2010, the company said, through hardware from manufacturers Google has partnered with.

Acer’s support is important for Google as the former is one of the biggest netbook makers. Acer’s also an ambitious company that has set its sights on overtaking HP to become the leading PC maker.

Acer hasn’t mentioned pricing for its Chrome OS netbooks but Google has said that it will cost about the same as those running Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

Acer’s ambitions extend beyond netbooks. At the end of June, the company plans to launch an e-reader with a 6-inch black-and-white screen.

Though Acer has been one of the pioneers in the netbook market, it is a late entrant to the fast-growing e-readers segment. So, instead of competing with rivals such as Amazon’s Kindle, Sony’s Reader and Barnes & Noble’s Nook in the U.S., Acer plans to focus on Europe and Asia.

The company says it will target its e-readers at customers outside North America and build partnerships with publishers in other countries.

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Photo illustration: Charlie Sorrel/Wired.com; Original photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com


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Jan 22

Designers Unearth Apple Tablet Prototypes — From 1983

Posted in: Apple, Notebooks, prototype, tablet, Today's Chili

apple_bashful_with_stylus

Here’s a blast from the past: In the early 1980s, an industrial design firm helped create some early prototypes of tablets for a young Steve Jobs.


The tablet was called “Bashful,” in reference to the dwarf in the fairy tale Snow White. Bashful was created alongside the Apple IIe as an extension of the Snow White industrial-design language that Apple used from 1984 to 1990.

Now Frog Design, the firm that created those mock-ups, has unearthed some photos from its archives that show what the tablet might have looked like more than 25 years ago. With Apple expected to unveil its long-awaited tablet device on Wednesday, it seems like a good time to bring these photos out of the archives, Frog Design’s people thought.

There are none of the sleek contours that characterize Apple’s products today. But you can still see the emphasis on ease-of-use and a slim profile (relatively speaking, anyway). And it shows how long Jobs has been mulling the idea of bringing a tablet to market.

Variations of the Bashful tablet included one with an attached keyboard and one with a floppy-disk drive and a handle for portability. Some of the tablet prototypes included a stylus. And one concept even had an attached phone.

Frog Design also helped create the Apple IIc, the fourth in the wildly popular Apple II line of personal computers.

The Bashfuls never made it to market, and the prototypes are probably still in the hidden, underground storage vaults of Apple or Frog Design.

Take a look at more photos of the prototype tablets below.

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Photos: Frog Design

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Jan 21

Chinese MacBook Air Knockoffs Actually Look Awesome

Posted in: Apple, macbook air, netbooks, Notebooks, Today's Chili

macbookair

Chinese knockoffs of the MacBook Air could actually be a compelling option for those desiring the razor-thin form factor of the subnote without paying the premium.

Pictured above and below, clones of the MacBook Air are appearing for sale everywhere in Shenzhen, China, according to MIC Gadget. They feature the guts of a standard netbook: a 1.66GHz Intel Atom processor, a 3-cell battery, a 160GB hard drive, 1GB RAM and 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi. What sets the knockoffs apart from netbooks is the 13.3-inch, 1280-by-800-pixel LED backlit screen, which is the same size as the MacBook Air’s. They’ll only cost you about $300 — a hefty discount compared to Apple’s MacBook Air, which starts at $1,500.

There’s even some stuff the knockoff has that the original Air doesn’t: an SD card slot, Ethernet port and HDMI out.

Of course, the knock-off is cheaper partly because you don’t get the aluminum enclosure of the real thing; you get a white plastic simulacrum body instead. Plus, the Apple glows in different colors as opposed to the original white. But that’s not too bad: These differences make the knockoff look special (from these pictures at least). Imagine all the head turns you’ll get at the coffee shop.

Because the insides are so different from the original MacBook Air, it’d be more fair to compare the knockoff to the slew of netbooks available on the market. Want a cheap portable with a bigger screen and larger keyboard? This looks like a really attractive option compared to the crampy 10-inch netbooks out there.

The knockoff isn’t shipping with Mac OS X, but rather Windows XP. Question is, can it be turned into a Hackintosh? We’ll try to get one just to see. We found one at DHGate.com for $325, and we just might order one for testing and review.

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Via Cult of Mac

Photos: MIC gadget


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