Hardware > Earlier Tablets
Review: Dell XPS 10 Windows RT tablet and dock
Windows RT: unholy fondleslab abomination or clever integration of a grown-up desktop and touch-friendly tablet UI? Opinions veer wildly and violently between one and the other extreme.
The newest and first non-Nvidia Tegra 3 receptacle for Microsoft’s alleged problem child is Dell’s Asus Transformer-esque XPS 10. On paper, and …
Review: Living with Microsoft's new Surface Pro
While the Surface RT was aimed at Apple's iDevices, its posh Pro cousin is Microsoft's Windows 8 showcase in the PC space, and on midnight on February 9 the first units will go on sale. But we got one early, lived with it for a week, and have, ahem, surfaced to tell of our experience.
Microsoft is adamant that the Surface Pro is …
Apple still top for slab-fondlers despite FLOOD of Xmas tablets
Apple is still riding clear at the top of the global tablet market, though it has lost 8 per cent of its share of sales since the same time last year. Its tablet rivals, meanwhile, experienced triple-digit growth compared to the final quarter of 2011.
This is according to the latest stats from IDC, which showed Samsung and ASUS …
Is your Surface Pro a bit full? Slot in an SD card, it's not from Apple
Comment There's massive internet coverage today of a major "issue" with the forthcoming Microsoft Surface Pro slab, the latest attempt by Redmond to unseat Apple's iPad line from its global tablet throne. It's being widely reported that the Surface Pro arrives with a lot of its onboard storage already full up: but this is a foolish …
Tablets BEAT DOWN laptops in 4-to-1 Xmas bloodbath - analyst
Bow down before the might of the tablet. If you were unsure who is the master now, look no further than numbers from the UK wing of GfK, a market watcher which tracks over-the-counter sales.
According to its data, more tablets were sold in December 2012 - no doubt as Christmas prezzies - than notebooks purchased in October, …
What ereader decline? Kobo pumps up the volumes despite grim forecasts
A chirpy Kobo has claimed it now has more than 12 million registered users, four million of them creating ebook buyer accounts with the company during 2012.
It lauded its device sales too - well, its e-ink kit, not its Android-based tablet offerings - insisting it had captured 20 per cent of the world ereader market in 2012. …
Report: Tablets to outsell ALL PCs by 2016
It was claimed by one market watcher this week that tablets will outsell notebook computers during 2013. By 2016, says another, slates’ share of the PC market will have surpassed all other devices combined.
The research firm in question is Canalys, and it reckons Wintel’s share of the PC market will drop from 72 per cent in 2012 …
Review: HP ENVY x2 Windows 8 convertible
The flourishing market for tablet computers has left people wanting more. Those using tablets at work invariably end up buying a keyboard and regularly curse the limitations of a mobile operating system. Those using a Windows laptop at work often wish they could occasionally dispense with the keyboard for convenient touchscreen …
Silly Rabbit! Like Trix, color e-readers are for kids
CES 2013 If you're expecting rich, vibrant colors on your next ebook reader, you're going to be disappointed – the laws of physics are against you.
"Somebody like the National Geographic is still not going to be happy with our product," Sriram Peruvemba, chief marketing officer of E Ink, the company that creates the e-paper displays for …
Panasonic pitches Ultra HD 4K x 2K monster tablet
CES 2013 Asus has an 18.4-inch tablet-cum-all-in-one-desktop-PC on display this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), but Panasonic has it beat: the Japanese giant is showing off a Windows 8 slate that not only packs a 20-inch display but sports an Ultra HD resolution.
Yes, Panasonic’s mammoth fondleslab contains 9.8 million pixels …
Razer uncages Core i7, GeForce megaslab for hardcore gamers
CES 2013 Games peripherals specialist Razer is finally bringing to market the concept gaming tablet it introduced at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
A year after unveiling "Project Fiona" at CES 2012, Razer used CES 2013 to unveil the Edge - geddit?! - a 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-based 10.1in, 1366 x 768 pixel megaslab. It's …
Review: Vodafone Smart Tab II 7 budget 3G tablet
Tablets with 3G connectivity continue to command what I think is an unreasonable premium over their Wi-Fi only siblings. Granted, the 3G Google Nexus 7 is only 40 quid more than the equivalent Wi-Fi model but you can’t have 3G at all with the cheaper, 16GB tablet. The 3G iPad Mini, meanwhile, carries a £100 mark-up.
Vodafone …
Intel bets the farm on touch-enabled 'convertible and detachable' Ultrabooks
CES 2013 To hear Intel tell it, the days of the good ol' laptop are numbered, and the future belongs to touch-enabled convertibles – laptops that lead a double life as both clamshells and tablets.
"We fundamentally believe that there's a convergence happening between what traditionally have been notebook computing and tablet computing, …
Microsoft burgled, only the APPLE iPADS stolen - cops confirm
A savvy sneak slipped into a Microsoft campus, stole five iPads and left all the Microsoft products untouched, according to cops.
More than $3,000 in Apple kit was nicked from the research and development complex in Mountain View, California, over Christmas. There was no sign of a forced entry at Building 5 on La Avenida Street …
Review: Dell XPS 12 Windows 8 tablet-cum-Ultrabook
Making a laptop with a screen that spins within its bezel isn’t a new idea. Early in 2011, Dell tried the trick with its Inspiron Duo netbook, but sadly that proved to be a woefully poor device. Now Dell is trying again, this with Ultrabook hardware and Windows 8 as the basic ingredients.
It helps that, unlike the Duo, the new …
The LINUX TABLET IS THE FUTURE - and it always will be
The year of the Linux tablet is, like the year of the Linux desktop, destined never to arrive.
That doesn't mean we won't see Linux on a tablet, but you'll see Linux on a tablet the way you see it on the desktop - clinging to a tiny percentage of the market.
There is of course Android, which does use a Linux kernel somewhere …
Cheaper, slimmer Google Nexus 7 rumored for Q1 2013
Google may be readying a revamped model of the middle sibling in its Nexus line of Android devices for as early as the first quarter of 2013, if the supply-chain snoops at Taiwanese tech news site DigiTimes are correct.
Sources in the tech manufacturing sector are whispering that the Chocolate Factory and its manufacturing …
University of Western Sydney hands out 11k iPads
Every new student at Australia’s University of Western Sydney (UWS) will be given an iPad next year.
Founded in 1989, UWS has six campuses spread across Western Sydney, a sprawling region characterised as the working-class heart of the city, as opposed to the more affluent coastal suburbs. The university is probably not many new …
It's official: Mac users are morally superior to Windows users
The online donation–management company Qgiv has analyzed the charitable-giving patterns of 165,000 people and found that Mac users are far more benevolent than Windows users.
Qgiv analyzed 320,000 donations given through their donation platform from November 2011 through November 2012, and discovered that the average donation …
iPad mini to outsell iPad, get Retina Display? iPad to slenderize?
It was close. We Apple fanbois nearly had to endure an entire week without an iPad rumor, but as the week drew to a close those intrepid rumor-mongers at DigiTimes gifted us with two – in the same brief article, no less – and NPD Display Search added a third.
Rumor #1: According to the ocasionally accurate Taiwanese market …
Analyst offers cut-price fondleslab recipe
SSA Digital is a little-known Chinese company that is very good at two things.
One is getting spam through the filters here at Vulture South, which is the only reason we know about the second thing at which it excels: making seven inch tablet computers so cheaply it is prepared to sell them for just $US40 apiece in lots of 10, …
Review: Apple Mac Mini 2012
Update On 10 December 2012, Apple posted the called for Mac Mini HDMI-centric firmware update, after this review was written and published. We will be testing the machine with the new code, and will report back here shortly.
I should say right up front that, much as I quite like the Mac Mini’s form-factor, looks and, more particularly …
The best tablets for Christmas
Thank God for Microsoft. Without it and its new Surface tablet this article would be nothing more than me running around having an Android versus iOS argument with myself. Thankfully, as with smartphones, the arrival of Windows 8, here in its RT incarnation, has saved mankind from a bipolar tablet OS nightmare.
More importantly …
Slash A THIRD off Surface RT price or it's toast, Microsoft told
Microsoft needs to hack a third off Surface RT prices and widen distribution to give the fondleslab a fighting chance to compete, said equities analyst Detwiler Fenton Group (DFG).
The ARM-powered device isn't winning many friends apart from the software giant's rank and file. Only last week the firm was reported to have halved …
The Times offers subsidised Nexus 7s to get subscribers
One day on from the announced closure of The Daily - which was Rupert Murdoch's first attempt at a fondleslab-only newspaper - his British broadsheet the Times is flogging cheap Nexus 7 tablets to those who subscribe to the paper.
The Google tablet normally retails at around £199, but Times and Sunday Times readers who sign-up …
Android seven-inchers swipe rug from under Apple
The question is, does Apple’s tablet market share - or Android’s for that matter - actually matter? Apple is certainly selling more of the darn things, but after a brief year’s relief, sales of Android alternatives are rising even more quickly.
According to ABI Research, a market watcher, Apple’s share of the world tablet market …
Datawind insists $42 tab isn't Chinese
British tech firm Datawind has been forced to deny reports from India at the weekend that its low-cost Aakash 2 device, marketed as an innovative locally-made product, was actually bought off-the-shelf from China.
The Hindustan Times, citing an unnamed source, claimed that DataWind had no role in the design or manufacturing of …
Convert your iPad into a foosball table and relive the dot-com days
Sometimes an idea is so effing brilliant that we face-palm our foreheads and wail, "Why didn't we think of that?"
Behold "Classic Match Foosball, The Ultimate Mutliplayer [sic] Experience for your iPad," created by New Potato Technologies and brought to our attention by Technology Tell.
Classic Match Foosball, The Ultimate …
Samsung Google Nexus 10 tablet review
Why would you buy a tablet other than an iPad? Obviously, some don’t care for Apple’s locked-in system and others like the way users can dig more deeply into the workings of Android. Good enough reasons, sure, but the truth is that until the day dawns when a tablet is of comparable specification, but substantially cheaper than …
Kobo Glo illuminated e-reader review
Kobo’s Glo is yet another of the current wave of e-readers with what amounts to a backlit screen.
Yes, the light isn’t situated behind the screen, but let’s not split hairs. The system works by shining LED light through the screen and bouncing it back off a reflective layer toward the reader, but the effect is much the same. …
ViewSonic VSD220 22in Android mega tablet
Depending on how you might want to look at it, the ViewSonic VSD220 is either an expensive 22in monitor or an inexpensive tethered Android tablet. But then you'd be missing the point: it's actually both and neither. It's an unusual mashup for which ViewSonic deserves credit simply by giving it a go.
ViewSonic VSD220 Android AIO …
Kobo Mini 5in compact e-reader review
If you think the Kindles and Nooks of this world are too large, Kobo has an alternative: the Mini, a pocket-sized e-ink e-reader with a 5in screen.
Kobo Mini Kobo's Mini: pocket friendly for your e-paperbacks
Most e-readers out there have 6in panels, but the Mini’s is no less readable for the reduction in size. Kobo’s own 6in …
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite review
Kindle came first, of course, but is it the best ebook reader still? After all, there is a wide range of alternatives from multi-talented colour-screen machines like the Google Nexus 7, Kindle’s own Fire and Fire HD models and now the iPad mini. Those are designed to offer greater versatility with apps galore. But they lack the …
Google to refund some pre-price drop Nexus 7 buyers
Google, like Asus, will compensate folk who purchased a Nexus 7 just before it reduced the tablet's price, on 29 October.
Nexus 7
Unfortunately, the price protection promise only applies to owners who splashed out on or after 14 October, as Google's offer only covers the 15 days before a price cut.
Only the 16GB version is …
Surface sales 'modest' so far, Ballmer modestly admits
Updated Sales of Microsoft’s Windows RT-based Surface tablet are off to a “modest” start according to chief executive Steve Ballmer.
Ballmer is reported to have given the update to French news site Le Parisien.
Microsoft’s chief executive also used the occasion to boost January’s release of the Intel-based tablets.
Ballmer described …
Asus offers compensation to pre-price drop Nexus 7 buyers
Asus customers who forked out for a Nexus 7 before the price drop on 29 October have been offered a £25 gift voucher in consolation.
The coupon is limited to those who bought their device directly from Asus or Google, and not only must the slate be registered with Asus, but customers will have to provide proof of purchase too. …
Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7in Android tablet review
Carl Jung once wrote that a beautiful woman is a terrible disappointment. And so it is with Amazon's long awaited (it's been a year) British release of its Kindle Fire 7in tablets. Having pre-ordered the top-end 32GB Fire HD model, I was thrilled when I found it waiting for me at home and excited as I tore open the box, but grew …
Apple iPad 4 Wi-Fi only tablet review
I didn’t get the iPad at first. When the tablet was first announced, I was interested but couldn’t see the value to me. I had an e-book reader, I had a phone on which I could watch films while travelling and listen to music, and I had a laptop for everything else. Why, I wondered, did I need a tablet too?
I was happy to take …
Microsoft mulls 'Xbox Surface' slate for games
Microsoft wants to release a 7in gaming tablet, with hardware planning for an "Xbox Surface" already in the works, sources claim.
Details of the device - which was first mooted in June when speculation pointed towards an E3 games show reveal - indicate the use of custom ARM chippery and high-bandwidth memory geared specifically …
Surface more profitable than iPad
Microsoft's Windows RT-based Surface tablet - designed to compete with the full sized Apple iPad - has a larger profit margin than its rival, a teardown analysis has revealed.
The Surface, with its minimum 32GB of Flash storage and optional Touch Cover, has a bill of materials (BoM) that totals $271. Chuck in an additional $13 …
Ten... Apple iPad Mini alternatives
Product Round-up Before you rush out and buy a device that the late Steve Jobs said wouldn’t, couldn’t and shouldn’t exist - well, kind of - you may care to consider some of the alternatives on offer, assuming that is you can’t quite make the nut and afford a full-size iPad.
Until Windows RT fondleslabs percolate down to those of us empty of …
Apple iPad Mini 8in tablet review
Hitting the Apple Store shelves a whole week after Amazon's new Kindle Fire HD tablets began arriving in the post, and two months after Google launched the Asus-made Nexus 7, the iPad Mini deserves to suffer in comparison. Even Google managed to slip a new 32GB version of its Nexus 7 under the radar at the beginning of the week …
