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Tag Archives: CES

Guide the New Ultrabooks

Guide the New Ultrabooks

CloudTag: Ultrabooks , CES , battery life , technology , Asus A2500h , A3000 Battery , Asus A31-f9 Batteries

intel ultrabook Guide the New Ultrabooks

The big hit at CES this year was ultrabooks.  Ultrabooks seek to bridge the gap between the functionality of a laptop and the convenience of a tablet.  They have a reduced size and weight, and an extended battery life without compromised performance. At CES, the prototypes included touch screens, a feature not currently available with ultrabooks.  So what makes a laptop an ultrabook?  What are the best ultrabook features?  And when should you consider buying an ultrabook?  Keep reading to find out.

What’s an Ultrabook?

An ultrabook meets the following requirements:

Weighs less than four pounds

·         Weighs less than four pounds

·         Is no more than 0.8 inches thick

·         Has at least a five hour battery life

Ultrabooks have these requirements to ensure that they are very portable devices, which is essential for the mobile worker.  Another feature is the fast start-up time, which was inspired by tablets.  This is accomplished by both flash drives and hybrid storage systems that pair flash memory with a traditional hard drive.  If you need more storage in your ultrabook, go with the hybrid.  But if you can live with less memory storage, then go with the really fast flash memory.  You’ll find ultrabooks screens range from 13 inches to 15 inches.

Best Ultrabook Features

So what features are the best among the different ultrabooks available?  Most ultrabooks are designed with a touchpad, so make sure you test it out before you buy it.  The touchpad should be able to do gestures easily, such as pinch-to-zoom and two finger scrolling.  Look for a keyboard with a backlight to extend usability in low light environments.  High screen resolution is important — look for 1600 x 900 pixel resolution rather than 1366 x 768.  Your eyes will thank you.  Since ultrabooks are thinner, they won’t have all the ports and slots you might be used to in a laptop.  If you need to connect a camera to your ultrabook, make sure you get one with an SD card slot.  Most business professionals will need an Ethernet port and video graphics array (VGA), so look for those as well.

When to Buy

If you are an early adopter of technology (technology blog) , I bet you’ve already looked at the current ultrabooks available at your favorite computer store.  But if you are one to wait until technology proves itself, you can feel comfortable basing your buying decision on either lower price or touch functionality.  Lower price will probably show up around back-to-school season.  Currently, ultrabooks start at around $800, but could possibly drop to $600 or less by August or September, making them around the price of or lower than laptops.  If you want to wait for touch functionality, start keeping track of Windows 8.  Once Windows 8 goes to market and is able to support touch, many providers will develop ultrabooks with touch functionalities based on the Windows 8 operating system.

So are you convinced that you need to transfer over to an ultrabook?
 

 

This New HP Envy 14 Spectre is Made of Glass

This New HP Envy 14 Spectre is Made of Glass

CloudTags: HP , Envy 14 Spectre , Glass , CES , Hp batteries uk , Hp 510 laptop battery , Hp probook 4310s batteries

HP have got a new ultrabook coming out, which is literally made of glass.

hp spectre 600x434 This New HP Envy 14 Spectre is Made of Glass

It’s no surprise that HP is unveiling new laptops at CES. What is surprising is their choice of materials. Normally, you’d expect to read that a laptop was clad in plastic, aluminum, magnesium, or perhaps even carbon fibre. That’s not the case with the new Envy 14 Spectre: it’s wrapped in glass.

Apparently, around 50 ultrabooks will be announced at this year’s CES, so get used to this kind of news. HP’s most recent offering in this new(ish) market is the Envy 14 Spectre, a pretty stonking-looking 14 inch laptop that sports innovative design and the popular Beats Audio technology.

One of the most interesting things about this laptop is the fact that it’s got a layer of black, scratch-proof glass on the outside of the lid. On the inside, it resembles a MacBook Pro with its matte silver tones and black, isolated keys. The bezel has been kept as thin as possible, so that the rest of the body remains similarly slight in weight and size.

The keyboard is backlit and comes with a neat little twist: there are individual LEDs for every key, and there is a sensor that lets each key light up when you come near them. It will have the latest Intel Core processors and SSD hard drive storage, as well as the renowned Beats Audio technology with powerful speakers and an analog volume control. Users will apparently be able to use their Envy 14 Spectre as a streaming device for all kinds of audio, wirelessly hooking it up to external speakers. The HP Envy Spectre weighs 1.8kg and 20mm thin, according to HP.

According to HP, that makes the Spectre more durable than other laptops in its class, not less.  The Spectre’s display, top cover, and palmrest (include the trackpad are all clad with Corning’s abuse-resistant Gorilla Glass, which should help keep it looking shiny and new for a long time to come. It also doesn’t add much additional bulk, with the 14-inch Spectre weighing in at roughly 3.8 pounds — that’s just under a pound more than a MacBook Air and almost two pounds lighter than a 15-inch MacBook Pro. It’s also just two centimetres thick.

Like some other recently-released laptops, HP has slimmed down the bezels around that 14″ screen, fitting it into a body that would normally house a 13.3″. They also resurrected the much-loved 1600×900 pixel Radiance display, which some thought would never make their way back to the Envy line-up. In addition to the crisp, clear visuals, the Spectre also packs an NFC sensor inside the palmrest so that you can transfer URLs (and likely media an payment information some day soon) with a tap of your smartphone.

The Spectre won’t come cheap. The base configuration will hit store shelves at a price of $1,399 when it launches in February, but you’re getting plenty more than a stylish looking laptop for your hard-earned cash. On top of the previous goodies, the Spectre brings an Intel Core i5 2467M processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB SSD, a USB 3.0 port, Beats Audio (with a jog dial control), and Intel Wi-Di support built-in. The Spectre’s battery  is rated for about nine hours of unplugged use, the backlit keyboard aids those late-night gaming and chat sessions, and HP throws in two years of Norton Internet Security protection and Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Elements.

7 things I learned at CES 2012 by batteryfast.co.uk

7 things I learned at CES 2012 by batteryfast.co.uk

CloudTags: CES , 2012 , OLED , TV , Dell inspiron 1545 batteries , Hp probook 4310s battery life , Lenovo thinkpad t61 battery pack

At many major tech conferences, one big story–a product, technology, or trend–dominates the entire show.

CES 2012 was not one of those events. Intel’s Ultrabook was closest thing there was to a show-dominating topic, but in the end, what I was struck by was the diversity of stuff on display at the Las Vegas Convention Center and surrounding venues. And in some cases, the no-shows were as interesting as the products that were there.

Herewith, a few of the lessons I took home with me after four jam-packed days in Vegas:

ces 7 things I learned at CES 2012 by batteryfast.co.uk

Giant OLED TVs aren’t inherently amazing.It’s a long-standing CES tradition for TV makers to try and out-do each other with demos of high-end big screens that won’t wind up in many living rooms anytime soon. This year, the makers in question were LG and Samsung, which had 55-inch OLED TVs at their booths. I checked out both sets–and didn’t come away lusting after either one. The LG, at least when I saw it, was displaying gimmicky 3D videos, which made it hard to judge how good it would be for anything else. And the video clips I saw on the Samsung were way over-saturated, giving everything an artificial, candy-colored effect that reminded me of some OLED smartphones.

Windows Phone was the mobile platform of the year. At CES 2011, Android devices such as Motorola’s Xoom tablet and Atrix phone generated a huge amount of buzz. This year, however, I heard more chatter about Windows Phone–especially Nokia’s promising Lumia 900. For awhile now, folks who have tried Windows Phone have been impressed by it; now even industry types who haven’t used it seem to have a favorable impression. It’ll be fascinating to see if Microsoft can translate all that goodwill into the one thing Windows Phone doesn’t have: meaningful market share.

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich still isn’t the current version of Android. At least if “current” means that you can safely assume it will come preinstalled on brand-new devices. Upcoming phones such as Droid Razr Maxx will ship with 2010′s Android 2.3 Gingerbread, with the promise of an Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade at a future date.

Once again, it isn’t the year of the tablet. At CES 2011, Motorola’s Xoom and RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook got so much attention that it would have been rational to expect that non-iPad tablets were about to chip away meaningfully at Apple’s head start. A year later, though, the market has changed surprisingly little. And while there were plenty of new tablets at CES 2012, most of them didn’t make much of a splash. The most newsworthy one was probably Samsung’s Galaxy Note–a pocket-size device that’s either a tablet-esque phone or a phone-like tablet.

3D TV is no longer cool. I’m not saying that it’s a failure, but for the most part, TV companies weren’t pushing it as the future of home entertainment. (LG’s extremely 3D-centric booth was an exception.) As Samsung’s press conference, for instance, Boo-Keun Yoon, president of the company’s consumer electronics division, said that Samsung is “continuing to invest heavily” in 3D TV. But the press conference emphasized Internet connectivity, not 3D.

Thunderbolt is making progress. The connectivity standard, invented by Intel, is pretty darn neat. Until now, however, it’s only shown up on new Macs and a handful of peripherals. That’s why I was happy to see it figure in several announcements at CES. Acer’s Aspire S5 Ultrabook, for instance, is one of the first Windows computers with a Thunderbolt port. Seagate showed offadapters, due in January, that turn its external drives into Thunderbolt drives. And Western Digital gave a sneak peek of Thunderbolt disks it plans to ship by mid-2012.

Gesture and voice input could be CES 2013′s biggest story. Using body motion and voice to control consumer-electronics devices was a mini-trend at this year’s show, thanks to debutantes such as Microsoft’s Kinect for Windows and Samsung’s TV with gesture and voice control. I’m betting that both types of input will get lots more attention at next year’s conference–especially if the conventional wisdom that Apple is working on a TV with Siri voice control turns out to be true.

I came back from CES 2012 feeling smarter about the consumer-electronics industry, and better prepared for the year to come. That’s all you can ask of an event like this. It’s more than enough to keep the show valuable even in an era when giant trade shows are an endangered species.

 

CES 2012: Top 5 Best Cameras and Camcorders

CES 2012: Top 5 Best Cameras and Camcorders 

CloudTags: CES , 2012 , Cameras , Camcorders , canon BP-512 batteries , JVC BN-VF707 camcorder batteries , olympus LI-42B camera batteries

ces 300x227 CES 2012: Top 5 Best Cameras and Camcorders Hard to believe that CES, that behemoth of a tradeshow is over. We’re bidding the Las Vegas Convention Center a fond farewell by counting down the top five trends and announcements we saw at the show.

Canon G1 X: Some of us thought we’d see a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera at this year’s CES. Instead, we got the G1X – a souped up G12 with a large 1.5-inch sensor and a fixed 4x optical zoom lens. We’re not saying that like it’s a bad thing. The G12 is a proven class leader and the G1 X has some serious potential with its not-quite-APS-C sized sensor and highly capable DIGIC 5 processor. Will all of that be enough to help potential buyers overlook a steep $800 price tag? We’ll see.

canon g1 x CES 2012: Top 5 Best Cameras and Camcorders

Fujifilm X-Pro1: The Fuji X-Pro1 made its official debut at a frenzied press conference the day before the show kicked off. What details we gleaned from the launch were enticing enough – a new APS-C CMOS sensor with a re-tooled pixel array, second-generation hybrid viewfinder and three new XF lenses, for starters. And who can resist all of that retro charm – the dials, the finish, the chrome accents? Not us, that’s for sure.

fujifilm x pro 1 camera 01 CES 2012: Top 5 Best Cameras and Camcorders

CES 2012 the Best Wins: LG’s 55-inch 55EM9600 OLED TV

CES 2012 the Best Wins: LG’s 55-inch 55EM9600 OLED TV  

CloudTags: LG , 55EM9600 , OLED , TV , CES , 2012 , Samsung nc10 , Dell latitude d630 batteries

lg oled CES 2012 the Best Wins: LGs 55 inch 55EM9600 OLED TV

OLED: Potentially better picture than LCD and plasma, definitely thinner and more expensive.

Our team of crack technology editors argued long into the Vegas afternoon yesterday, painstakingly honing hundreds of cumulative man- and woman-hours of CES 2012 coverage into 10 category winners and, finally, one product sharp enough to earn Best in Show: the LG 55EM9600.

It’s a TV. And its organic light-emitting diode display technology is the future of flat-panel tech. OLED promises better picture quality than either plasma or LCD/LED–thanks to effectively infinite contrast (for realzies this time!), wide viewing angles and lightning-fast response times–combined with an unbelievable form factor. The winning LG measures just 4mm in depth, “three credit cards thick” as LG’s Tim Alessi cooed accepting the award, and boasts a bezel around the screen just 1mm wide. It’s basically all gorgeous picture.

Plenty of other non-TVs vied for our editors’ votes. The cool Simple.TV over-the-air DVR and price-busting Asus Memo 370T tablet each garnered votes, while the amazing Makerbot Replicator 3D printer grabbed the second-most number of supporters after the LG OLED. Meanwhile the people’s voice winner was Razer’s crazy Project Fiona concept gaming tablet. 

LG wasn’t the only TV maker to release a 55-inch OLED TV at the show. Samsung followed suit, touting the superiority of its version of OLED in a closed-door session with myself and Ty Pendlebury. Both companies will release their OLED sets this year, for undisclosed but, I’m sure, astronomical prices.

image CES 2012 the Best Wins: LGs 55 inch 55EM9600 OLED TV

So why did you guys pick the LG over the Samsung?%

CES 2012: The Second-Generation Samsung Series 9 Review

CES 2012: The Second-Generation Samsung Series 9 Review

CloudTags: CES , 2012 , Samsung , Series 9 , samsung batteries , laptop battery AU , laptop batteries UK , Samsung nc10

227067 116052751812605 100002236414848 145766 1996210 n 300x205 CES 2012: The Second Generation Samsung Series 9 ReviewThin and light laptops are dish of the day at the CES trade show in Las Vegas, but Samsung has a leg-up on the competition, because it unveiled its slender Series 9 PC a year ago – like a hipster tech giant crafting MacBook Air-bothering laptops before it was cool.

The second-generation Series 9 adds some new tech, comes in both 13 and 15-inch sizes and brings a refined design. We’ve had a go with it ahead of its official launch (we think it’ll go on sale in the next few months), and we’re about to bombard you with first impressions. 

Design

Although Samsung hasn’t called the Series 9 an ultrabook, there are few who would judge you unfavourably if you used that term to describe it. Extremely thin and very light, the Series 9 looks just like the ultrabook machines revealed by LG, Asus and others.

Samsung clocks the Series 9 as 12.9mm thick for the 13-inch model, and 14.9mm in the 15-inch version. Like the first one it sports a wedge-shaped chassis, where the hinge is a bit thicker than the front edge. The 13-inch laptop weighs 1.16kg, which is light indeed, and makes the Series 9 perfectly suited to jaunts about town. The 15-inch version is a heavier (but still very light) 1.59kg.

We’ve been told that the Series 9 is now completely crafted from aluminium, and we reckon this was a wise move. The construction felt very solid, and considerably less flexible than its more plasticky predecessor.

We think that makes all the difference. We’re not sure the Series 9 feels quite as polished as the painfully stylish MacBook Air, but our first impressions are certainly that it’s a classier machine than most ultrabook PCs out there.

6672127887 03c8c12077 b 300x226 CES 2012: The Second Generation Samsung Series 9 ReviewSamsung says it has sand-blasted the Series 9, to make it less vulnerable to fingerprints. That’s certainly a relief, because the first model picked up more prints than a forensic scientist.

The hinge has been given a makeover too, making it more robust. We gave it a little test-drive, and it certainly felt sturdy. It’s worth noting that there’s no Ethernet port or optical drive, though a network adaptor cable is included and fits into a tiny port on the left of the Series 9, and you can plug an Ethernet cable into that. 

Display

We were impressed with the display on show, which looked bright and colourful, pumping out good-looking images. Best of all there’s a matte finish applied to the screen, which makes the Series 9 a decent bet if you need to use it outside or in a bright room, as you won’t get as many annoying screen reflections as you would on a glossy display.

The display is what Samsung has snappily dubbed ‘HD+ SuperBright Plus’, and supposedly it boasts a very wide viewing angle. We’ll be checking this out in more detail in our full review, but at a glance the Series 9 viewing angle did indeed look impressive. 

Hardware

The Series 9 comes with an array of components that are built for speed. Intel’s Core i5 and i7 processors will be powering Windows, which should make these laptops more than capable of handling tasks like web browsing and HD video playback.

SSD drives are in place in either 128 or 256GB flavours. While more expensive than traditional hard drives, these solid state wonders are less likely to break if you drop them, and they’re faster too. Indeed Samsung reckons the Series 9 can wake up in 1.4 seconds.

The 15-inch model has a touted batteries life of 10 hours, though we’ll wait until we can run our punishing battery benchmarks before making any claims about this laptop’s ability to survive away from the mains. 

Outlook

The Series 9 looks like a classy little laptop, and we like the new design features that Samsung’s seen fit to slap on. The last model was expensive though, so we’ll be expecting seriously good build quality and performance. Stay tuned for the full review.

 

 

CES 2012: Acer Unveils World’s Thinnest Ultrabook Laptop, Aspire S5

CES 2012: Acer Unveils World’s Thinnest Ultrabook Laptop, Aspire S5

CloudTags: CES , 2012 , Acer , Thinnest , Ultrabook , Laptop , Aspire S5 , Acer Batteries , Acer as07b41

acer aspire s5 ultrabook laptop CES 2012: Acer Unveils Worlds Thinnest Ultrabook Laptop, Aspire S5

Acer has wasted no time kicking off CES 2012 with some laptop announcements, including a brand-new Ultrabook and an update Aspire Timeline series.The company calls the Aspire S5 (pictured) the world’s thinnest Ultrabook at just 15mm at its thickest point, and the 13.3-inch notebook weighs just under 3 pounds. It will come with an yet-unnamed Intel Core processor, solid state drive, and HDMI, USB 3.0, and Thunderbolt ports. To my knowledge, this is the first Ultrabook to include a Thunderbolt port, though by the end of the week, it probably won’t be the last.

The S5 will be available sometime in the second quarter, though pricing was not revealed.Acer also announced 14-inch and 15-inch models of its Aspire Timeline Ultra notebooks with eight hours of battery life, dual core Intel processors, around 20mm thick, dedicated graphics for 3D gaming, and a slim DVD optical drive.

The new Aspire Timeline Ultra series are designed to provide more a traditional laptop experience in the Ultrabook form factor, complete with two-spindle design. As with previous Timelines, Acer promises 8 hours of battery life, and they will come with discrete graphics cards, DVD burners, and the “latest” Intel Core i series CPUs. Like the S5, they also include Acer Green Instant On technology that lets the computer wake up in 1.5 seconds from a battery-saving sleep mode.

We’re not provided with pricing for the new Timelines, either, but you may find out sooner than with the S5 since they are expected in Q1. And check back with us all week, as there will be plenty of more Ultrabook announcements still to come.

125149 acer inspire one CES 2012: Acer Unveils Worlds Thinnest Ultrabook Laptop, Aspire S5

The Acer S5 Ultrabook looks less like the MacBook Air than other Ultrabooks so far.

Acer media conference, held two days ahead of the official CES show, sets the scene for tough competition in 2012 between manufacturers readying to pump out Ultrabooks, which are small, thin yet powerful notebook computers with form factors similar to Apple’s MacBook Air.

Unlike regular notebooks, Ultrabooks have special Intel dual core processors coupled with inbuilt graphics, capable of performing many of the functions of high-end computers such as video editing and gaming.

It has a black magnesium-aluminum alloy cover and looks less like the MacBook Air than other Ultrabooks so far. The Aspire is due to ship in the second quarter.

Acer today did not reveal the price of its Ultrabook, however general pricing of less than $1000 will be crucial if the Ultrabook is to be successful, given that powerful notebooks weighing a little more that are not technically Ultrabooks can be bought for about $500.

Analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies told AFP the S5 was “quite significant”.

“It looks like the thinnest and lightest, and it sets the bar for the rest of the ultrabook vendors,” Mr Bajarin said.

Intel’s Ultrabook form factor also faces competition from high-end tablet computers and a new line of “Ultrathin” notebooks — rival AMD’s version of the Ultrabook that are due for release in Australia early this year.

Acer also will roll out a cloud service — AcerCloud, which will allow users to retrieve multimedia and data files on any Acer mobile device. Acer said it would include AcerCloud on all new Acer consumer PCs without additional cost.

 

CES News – Laptops of 2012: What to Expect by Batteryfast.co.uk

CES News – Laptops of 2012: What to Expect by Batteryfast.co.uk

CloudTags: CES , Laptops , 2012 , Expect , Dell xps m1530 batteries , Motorola CP040 two way radios battery , Quality Toshiba pa3534u-1brs battery

All the pieces are in place for a surge in laptop sales next year–from new Intel chips to the planned launch of the Windows 8 operating system to sleeker designs.

MacBook Air and Thunderbolt Display 640x393 CES News Laptops of 2012: What to Expect by Batteryfast.co.ukTablets and smartphones are in, but don’t count laptops out. Impressive new laptops planned for 2012 promise to be thinner, lighter, and faster, as well as to carry longer-lasting batteries.

All the pieces are in place for a surge in laptop sales next year, from new Intel chips to the planned launch of Windows 8 to sleeker designs.

You may be in the market for a new laptop this holiday season–or you might find that sticking with what you have and upgrading next year makes more sense, considering the hot models that are sure to be announced at the annual CES trade show in January, as well as the new technology on the horizon.

Here’s what to expect in the coming year.

Ubiquitous Ultrabooks

asus ux21 ux31 2 575px 300x232 CES News Laptops of 2012: What to Expect by Batteryfast.co.ukThin and lightweight Ultrabooks are the watchword, thanks to Intel, which has trademarked the name for a new category of ultraportable laptops.

By some predictions, as many as 30 to 50 Ultrabook models will be announced at CES. For a laptop to qualify for the label, it must be less than 21mm (0.83 inch) thick, resume from hibernate to keyboard input in less than 7 seconds, get at least 5 hours of battery life, and support certain specific Intel security features in the BIOS.

We have already reviewed four Ultrabooks: the Acer Aspire S3, Asus Zenbook UX31E, Lenovo IdeaPad U300s, and Toshiba Portege Z835. A fifth, the HP Folio 13, will soon be released. You’ll notice some major brands missing from that list, such as Dell, Samsung, and Sony; you can probably expect to see Ultrabooks from those manufacturers in the first few months of 2012.

The category will kick into high gear when Intel’s next-generation CPUs, code-named Ivy Bridge, hit the market. Ivy Bridge’s power utilization and performance, together with steadily falling prices on solid-state drives, should make these superthin laptops more affordable and appealing.

By the end of the year, we may even see Ultrabooks with screens that rotate and fold down to transform into a tablet. The emphasis on touch interfaces in Windows 8, together with the thinner and lighter design of Ultrabooks, could make this new generation of convertible laptops more desirable than the convertibles of the past few years.

Better Graphics, Longer Battery Life With Ivy Bridge

Intel Ivy Bridge logo 300x280 CES News Laptops of 2012: What to Expect by Batteryfast.co.ukThe second-generation Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs in today’s laptops went by the code name Sandy Bridge. That platform’s successor is due next year. Ivy Bridge takes the Sandy Bridge architecture (with a few minor tweaks) and shrinks it down from a 32nm manufacturing process to Intel’s new22nm tri-gate process. It also dumps the Sandy Bridge graphics core in favor of a whole new graphics architecture that runs more quickly, provides better video acceleration, and supports Microsoft’s DirectX 11.

The bottom line: At the same level of performance, Ivy Bridge chips will utilize significantly less power than their Sandy Bridge counterparts do. That translates into noticeably longer battery life in thin-and-light laptops. And the chips will be faster while consuming the same amount of power, which means that high-power laptops will be even speedier.

The new integrated graphics are a bit of a mystery, but a good guess is that you can expect around 50 percent better performance in 3D games. That still isn’t enough power to provide great results in many core games, but a lot of titles that were previously unplayable on an integrated-graphics setup will suddenly become bearable. Better yet, those games that barely ran in an acceptable way, such as Minecraft, should run a lot better.

Intel has issued no release date for Ivy Bridge just yet. We expect the company to fully unveil the lineup of Ivy Bridge CPU models at CES, together with announcements of support from lots of laptop manufacturers. Actual products will probably start to hit the market at the end of the first quarter or in the second quarter of 2012.

What about AMD, you ask?

AMD’s next Fusion processor, dubbed Trinity, is due around the middle of next year. It takes a modified version of the company’s new Bulldozer architecture and marries that to a big heap of integrated-graphics power. After the very disappointing launch of its desktop Bulldozer processors, AMD has its work cut out for it.

Windows 8 Launch Could Be Big

Windows 8 changes Windows more profoundly than any release since Windows 95.

windows 8 tablet pc 300x192 CES News Laptops of 2012: What to Expect by Batteryfast.co.ukThe new Start screen and Metro-style interface will be contentious, sparking a backlash among some longtime Windows users. Other users will love the fresh new look and feel. Most important, the operating system will undoubtedly inspire a major surge in PC purchases, and an enormous marketing push from Microsoft and its partners.

When a new consumer release of Windows hits the market, the whole industry responds. Schedules shift. Deadlines move. New brands launch, and old brands retire. From what we’ve seen so far, Windows 8 looks to be a much bigger launch than the last few Windows releases, so you can expect a glut of new laptops, desktops, and all-in-ones set to debut together with Microsoft’s new operating system.

We don’t have a release date right now, but given that Windows 8 hasn’t yet had a public beta test and Microsoft’s OSs generally take about nine months to go from the first beta to store shelves, you can expect a late-summer or fall release.

Windows 8 puts a large emphasis on providing a first-class touch interface, without sacrificing good old-fashioned keyboard and mouse use. That means a better user experience on touchscreen-equipped laptops, so expect to see more of those machines on the market.

It will also support ARM-based processors for the first time, so we may even see hybrid laptops that run on a full-power Intel or AMD chip most of the time, but offer a detachable tabletlike display with an ARM processor for those occasions when you need longer battery life and greater portability instead of a keyboard and touchpad.

We might even see ultralight laptops powered solely by ARM-based CPUs, though that raises some questions about expectations of software support.


Top 7 Trends to Watch, CES 2012

Top 7 Trends to Watch, CES 2012

CloudTags: CES , 2012 , technology , Acer aspire 5920 battery life , Toshiba pa3536u-1brs batteries , Gateway squ-412 laptop battery

cesPREVIEW 1mf1 Top 7 Trends to Watch, CES 2012

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is like the Super Bowl of tech, and this year it will attract 140,000 attendees looking for the next big thing. What makes the show fun for us, though, is that there isn’t just one next big thing. There are several trends we’re keeping an eye on, from Microsoft’s next OS and Ultrabooks to Android Ice Cream Sandwich and the next generation of car tech.

What’s in store for CES 2012? Here are our top 7 trends to watch.

Windows 8: Hurry Up and Wait

Given that Steve Ballmer will once again kick off CES with an opening keynote, it shouldn’t be any surprise that he will trumpet the benefits of Windows 8 and the progress being made on the platform. We’ve already test-driven the sleek software using the Developer Preview on both a tablet and a laptop. And most recently, Microsoft showed off the new Windows Store, where Windows 8 users will be able to download apps.

So what’s left? Ballmer will hopefully provide more details about the launch of the public beta of the OS—planned for late February—as well as show off some exciting hardware. The challenge: keeping the excitement going all the way to the end of the year—and convincing us that the software makes just as much sense for notebooks as it does slates. This will also be Microsoft’s last hurrah at CES, as the company announced plans to pull out of the show starting in 2013.

Ultrabooks Get Bigger… and Cheaper

Rumors are swirling that Apple is readying a 15-inch MacBook Air, so you can bet that Windows notebook makers will make a pre-emptive strike at CES. We expect to see ultra-thin laptops that meet Intel’s definition of Ultrabook—less than 0.8 inches thick, fast boot and resume times—but that also stretch screen sizes beyond 13 inches. At the same time, vendors will look to undercut Apple by making their wares more affordable.

By back-to-school time, starting prices will likely sink to $699. The Ultrabook trend isn’t just for consumers, either. We expect to see at least one model tailored for the business crowd, joining the HP Folio. Also look for Intel to provide more info on its Ivy Bridge processors, which should supercharge Ultrabooks later in the year.

Ice Cream Sandwich Tablets Galore

Android Ice Cream Sandwich 300x218 Top 7 Trends to Watch, CES 2012Now that smartphone shoppers have gotten a taste of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, it’s time for tablets to get in on the action. The software certainly looks more polished and should make multitasking easier, but it’s not clear to us yet what advantages the new OS will have for larger-screen devices. Thus far, the only hot-selling Android tablet is the Kindle Fire, which runs an older flavor of Google’s software and uses a completely different interface, so Google and its partners certainly have their work cut out.

In fact, Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt recently told an Italian newspaper, “In the next six months we plan to market a tablet of the highest quality.” So what does that make the stuff coming out at CES? Crap?

Nokia + Windows Phone = Relevance?

With market share at a measly 2 percent (according to NPD), Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.5 platform isn’t exactly setting the world on fire. But Nokia hopes to turn things around with a big push in the U.S starting in 2012. The company has scheduled a press conference for January 9th, at which many expect Nokia to unveil a variant of the Lumia 800 with 4G LTE capability. AT&T is expected to be the carrier, but it’s certainly possible that Verizon could be in the mix.

We generally liked the latest OS in our Windows Phone 7.5 review, and Microsoft’s marketplace stocks plenty of quality apps. But the hardware hasn’t really excited us. For Nokia and Microsoft, it’s put up or shut up time.

Wearable Tech Gets Smarter

According to reports, Apple is working on a bendable iPod and other wearable devices that would communicate with an iPhone. And Google has a pair of smart glasses in the pipeline that would display information on a built-in screen.In the meantime, plenty of companies are hoping to make wearable tech sexy, including the Italy-based i’m Watch. The device looks awfully similar to the iPod nano but runs Android and comes with a watchband.

WIMM is yet another company marking an Android-powered timepiece. The WIMM One has a less-sexy design, but lets you read RSS feeds on your wrist and comes with “micro apps.” The wearable tech trend also extends to fitness gadgets such as the MotoActv and Jawbone Up, so we fully anticipate similar devices to debut at CES.

Car Apps Take Over

You know it’s going to be a big show for car tech when the head of Mercedes Benz and the president of Ford are both giving keynotes at CES 2012. After all, shoppers are more psyched about apps inside their vehicles than the number of cup holders. Dr. Dieter Zetsche of Mercedez Benz will outline his “vision on the interplay between automotive innovation and the digital realm.” The brand will look to catch up in the app race and is expected to show off integration with Google’s Street View in its new vehicles, among other services.

Ford pioneered in-car tech with its Sync system, and the company’s AppLink technology lets users leverage select smartphone apps. We can’t wait to see what comes next. In fact, we’ll have two people from LAPTOP dedicated to this category alone at CES.

Smartphones Jump to Quad Core

First came the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime tablet, but the next frontier for Nvidia’s quad-core Tegra 3 chip is smartphones. Nvidia is hosting a press conference on January 9th, where we expect the company to show off what its chip can do inside handsets. Some expect HTC to be among the first to put Tegra 3 inside a handset, but we just don’t know yet who will be among the first partners.

So what’s the big deal about quad core? Mostly graphics performance, but Nvidia says its CPU is more efficient and uses less power. We didn’t observe any battery life gains on ASUS’ new tablet, but we have higher hopes for the first batch of superphones. And Nvidia is not alone. We’ll be meeting with Qualcomm to see a demo of its new Snapdragon S4 chip.