Sony X-Series laptop review

The Sony X-series laptop is a sleek, stylish device that delivers on both looks and performance. Pity about the high price...

CES 2010: The Year of the Tablet PC

Apple’s iSlate

Ah the illusive iSlate! Like most new Apple products we haven’t seen it, we’ve just heard of it—and the lack of details is driving us crazy. Apple did not (does not ever) attend CES, so there was no debut of the iSlate, but the company did set a press conference date for late January.

HP Multitouch Tablet

This unnamed HP tablet was announced at CES by Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer. The nameless tablet was runs Windows 7 supports multitouch gestures, and is due out in mid-2010 for under $500. HP-slate

Dell Android Tablet

Dell’s “tablet concept” features a 5-inch display, a 5 megapixel camera and is an Android-powered device. Dell’s being very hush-hush about any other specs and details concerning its new tablet. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Archos 9 PC Tablet

This poor guy was overshadowed by all of the “newer” tablets, like HP nameless one, because it technically came out in mid-2009. Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer announced this tablet as well during his CES keynote. The Archos tablet sports a 1.1GHz Intel Atom Z510 processor, a 60GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM, and offers networking via 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and 100-mbps Ethernet. Archos-9-PC-Tablet

Lenovo IdeadPad U1 Hybrid

Tablet or notebook? How about both—Lenovo’s new Ideapad U1 starts out as a lightweight, Windows 7 laptop running on a Core 2 Duo CULV processor and a 128GB solid-state drive, but if you remove the 11.6-inch display you’ve got yourself a stand-alone Linux tablet PC, powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon ARM processor with 16GB of flash memory. ideapadu1hybrid

Freescale Tablet

This year’s affordable tablet PC—the $199 Freescale Tablet. The Freescale tablet includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth wireless connectivity, and also features a 3D desktop framework with touch screen/QWERTY keyboard support. The company says this $199 tablet also boasts a power-efficient ARM processor: the i.MX515 chip based on ARM Cortex-A8 technology.

Pegatron Tablet

Another highly overshadowed tablet PC—also announced by Ballmer during his keynote—doesn’t even have any glamour shots. Pegatron—spin off of AsusTek Computer—didn’t release many detail either. Neowin described the tablet as having thesespecs: An 11.6-inch touchscreen display, 1GB of RAM, 32GB of on-board storage, a Webcam, and HDMI-out.

Innovative Converged Devices’ Ultra and Vega Tablets

ICD has revealed a pair of Android 2.0 tablets, the Ultra and the Vega. The Ultra was on display at both Verizon and Nvidia’s CES booths since the two companies teamed up on the tabletsmodem and processor. The Ultra tablet has a 7-inch touchscreen and is powered by a 1GHz nVidia Tegra T20 processor, which lets you watch smooth 1080p video; the device also includes 4GB of on-board storage space, as well as a MicroSD card slot for further expansion.  The ICD Vega, has a 15.6-inch, 1366-by-768-pixel touchscreen and a 32GB solid-state drive.

Apple tablet could land By March

Apple Inc. plans to unveil a long-awaited tablet computer this month which may begin to ship in March. A Taiwanese components supplier has notified longtime Apple analyst Gene Munster at Piper Jaffray that it is "likely" the tablet could be available by late March. Munster says he has not been briefed by Apple on the product.

Munster and other analysts have speculated the tablet — expected to be introduced in late January — will come with a 10-inch touch display that lets consumers read newspapers and books, watch movies and TV, play games and use the Internet.

"It's a combination of e-book reader/Web-surfing device/e-mail/video player," Munster says. Third-party applications, which are so popular on the iPhone, will extend the tablet's functionality and "really let it rip," he says.

Published reports have speculated the tablet could cost $1,000 and could include a Wi-Fi subscription. USA TODAY could not independently verify the reports. Apple declined to comment.

An Apple tablet that is bigger than an iPhone and smaller than a laptop "is likely to be a terrific product, but unless it meets some need not currently met by a netbook or iPhone, it's a limited opportunity," says Charles Wolf, a longtime Apple analyst at Needham & Co. Still, Apple's entry could significantly perk up the $950 million U.S. market for tablets. Sales declined 25% in 2008 and were expected to drop again in 2009. "It has been a disastrous market because there has been no champion," says David Daoud, an analyst at IDC.

Munster expects Apple to sell about 2 million tablets in its first year. The company has approached some book publishers with proposals to distribute content, he says.

The product already has commanded attention ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas, where several tablets are expected to be unveiled, including one from Notion with paper-quality screen graphics for easy reading outdoors.

CES 2010 Flashpoints: The platforms for the next decade in electronics

Every year, the Consumer Electronics Show is a gauge of the directions in which platforms are moving, a barometer of the evolution of functionality. In no doubt, we see ample of tidy toys, many of which wind up either being for kids or making us feel like kids. And definitely, we hear ample of slackly coupled metaphors that play to our need to be excited, like how a certain device unleashes connectivity or harnesses the power of disruption -- phrases that read like they were assembled using that word game you play with refrigerator magnets. The devices, known as tablet computers, have screens of between 7in and 10in in size, and dissimilar traditional laptops, they use an on-screen "virtual" keyboard, like that used by Apple's iPhone, rather than a physical keyboard.

From March Apple is likely to open its own tablet computer, alleged to be named the iSlate and competitor computer makers are thought to be keen to expose their designs ahead of any Apple press conference.

Freescale, A US company, has shown off a archetype device that could be used by other electronics manufacturers to create advanced tablet computers that will cost less than $200. The 7in touch-screen tablet turns on quickly and connects instantly to the internet via Wi-Fi or the mobile phone network, and provides a full day of battery life.

Dozens of other manufacturers will also use the Consumer Electronics Show to showcase their tablet devices. Notion Ink, an Indian manufacturer, will unveil its tablet computer, which runs Google's Android operating system and features an energy-saving 10in scratch-proof touch-screen, and will allow users to watch high-definition video on the move, and to surf the internet and send emails. Dell might also launch an Android-based tablet device, while gadget fans will be hoping that Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, uses his keynote speech on Wednesday evening to share more details about the Courier, a dual-screen tablet computer and ebook reader that Microsoft is rumoured to be working on.

"Missing link" between PCs and smartphones" Henri Richard, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Freescale, said "The PC has been stale in terms of its ability to innovate. Smartphones have been making progress, but they have limitations," he said.

Analysts at DisplaySearch expect the tablet computer market to be worth $3.5 billion by the end of the year, a significant figure for an emerging device category. "We're talking about a brand-new market," said John Jacobs, a senior analyst with DisplaySearch.

The tablet revolution is being driven by the growing ubiquity of wireless internet connections, and consumers' desire to surf the internet and watch videos on devices that are bigger than a smart phone, but smaller than a conventional laptop.

Glen Burchers, director of consumer product marketing for Freescale, said his company's tablet computer was aimed at people aged between 12 and 30, who wanted a web-friendly device with a bigger screen than a smart phone to surf sites such as Facebook and YouTube.

"The tablet is the newest category of mobile device, and we believe it has the potential to be the fastest-growing," he said. "Everyone who uses the internet finds value there."

Sony X-Series laptop review

TWe’ve admired the thin and light MacBook Air before, and come to terms with our disappointment that Windows users didn’t have a comparable equivalent. The recent Nokia Booklet 3G comes close, but if you want something more powerful and with a screen approaching the Air’s 13-incher, this new and beautifully designed machine from Sony has a lot going for it.

No surprise that such a stylish machine would come from Sony’s stable – the company has a history of making great-looking computers which few other manufacturers can match. So it’s certainly a laptop that will look great in your CEO’s possession, as it’s casually plonked onto to the boardroom table or the desk in the First Class lounge.

It’s spectacularly slim and in certain configurations qualifies for shouting out that it’s the World’s Lightest Laptop from behind its demure gloss-black casing. But does it do the business? Pretty much, yes. The 11.1-inch screen is bright and pin-sharp with HD resolution despite its modest size. The keyboard is expertly spaced so that it’s easy to type on even for longer documents. Small laptops traditionally have poor mouse pads, but the one here is highly usable.
Onboard memory is not outstanding at 2GB, but nippy enough to work well and at speed, even when multitasking. The hard drive (choose from 128GB or 256GB capacities) is also fast and responsive as it’s the light flash memory kind. And if you’re not in a wireless hotspot, the sim card slot hidden under the battery means you can connect through the 3G phone network, too.
This is a really excellent laptop, delivering classy looks and performance. It is absolutely unbeatable for portability. But the high price, though good value given the components, just denies it a fifth star. Even for your CEO.