On Thursday, Samsung Electronics Co. will start selling the Galaxy Note 10.1 in the U.S. in its latest effort to compete with Apple's dominant iPad. The Note will have a digital pen and a faster processor at the same price tag as the iPad.
Apple
had extended its dominance in tablet computers in the second quarter,
shipping nearly seven out of every 10 tablets, according to research
firm IHS iSuppli.
A new model came out a few weeks before the April-June quarter began.
Google's challenger, the Nexus 7, didn't start shipping until the third
quarter. Sales of the Note will also be reflected in the third quarter.
Apple's
69.6 percent share in the April-June quarter is up from about 58
percent in the first quarter. It's the highest since the first quarter
of last year, when Apple had 70 percent in a market with fewer
competitors then.
Here are the top five manufacturers of tablets in the second quarter, as released by IHS iSuppli on Tuesday:
Apple Inc., maker of the iPad, 17 million shipped worldwide, 69.6 percent share
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung Electronics Co. is taking another shot at the dominance of Apple's iPad with a tablet equipped with a digital pen and a faster processor at the same price tag.
The Wi-Fi only version of the Galaxy Note 10.1 will go on sale in the
U.S. on Thursday. The price starts at $499 for the basic model with 16
gigabytes of storage and $549 for the 32-gigabyte model, expandable with
an external memory card.
Apple's latest iPad starts at the same price but the Note 10.1 offers
some features that the iPad doesn't have, while its screen resolution
is lower than the iPad's. It is Samsung's first Android tablet equipped
with a digital pen and can run two applications side-by-side on a screen
divided in half.
The split screen, made possible
by the quad-core processor and 2 gigabytes of RAM, can be useful when
taking notes while watching a video or surfing the Internet.
Analysts said this capability of the Note tablet is intended to
attract business and education customers, a strategy that could be more
effective than going all out against the iPad, which already dominates
nearly 70 percent of the worldwide tablet market.
Samsung released about a half
dozen Android tablets in the last two years under the Galaxy Tab series
but none of them has been as popular as the iPad. Analysts say Android
tablets are less successful because of a dearth of applications and
higher prices.
But with the Note 10.1, the South
Korean company believes it has a product that will find favor with
corporations and schools despite the iPad's rich pool of applications
and sharper screen.
While Apple makes one new model
for the iPhone and iPad every year to meet demand from all around the
world, Samsung releases multiple mobile products with variations in
prices, screen sizes, hardware and operating systems.
This strategy helped Samsung edge
pass Apple in smartphone sales but hasn't paid off in the tablet area,
probably because Samsung's previous tablets were not differentiated
enough from the iPad. Samsung's second-quarter market share in the
global tablet market fell to 9 percent, while nearly seven out of 10
tablets in the market were emblazoned with Apple logo, according to IHS
iSuppli.
Analysts say they see how
multitasking, the note-taking feature and other tasks that can be done
with the digital pen can help differentiate the Galaxy Note 10.1 from
the iPad, something that may grab the attention of professional artists,
educators and businesses if these features are executed smoothly.
"I think the video on the left
and note-taking on the right half of the screen can be widely used for
educational purposes," said Lee Sei-cheol, a technology analyst at
Meritz Securities.
Samsung has improved the
pressure-sensitive pen to make it feel more natural and accurate since
the "S Pen" digital pen was first introduced with the Galaxy Note last
year. The unexpected success of the 5.3-inch hybrid of a smartphone and a
tablet emboldened Samsung to further explore the digital pen features.
There are also some 30
applications for sketching and note taking as well as Adobe Photoshop
Touch and games where S Pen comes in handier than touching the screen.
Samsung plans to expand the list of applications that support
multitasking, which is currently limited to six, an official said.
Other features indicate that Samsung developed the products with the
education and corporate markets in sight. The updated S Note app can
recognize handwritten math formula, geometric shapes, English alphabets
and Chinese characters, allowing the digital pen to function as an input
device in the absence of a physical keyboard.
"The S Pen offers both active
content creation as well as passive content consumption," President of
Samsung Electronics America Tim Baxter said in a statement.
In South Korea, Samsung has
already started going after enterprise clients and schools with the
Galaxy Note 10.1 and the company has not released the product for
consumers.
Samsung Life Insurance and its
affiliated insurance company Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance began
handing out the Note 10.1 for sales people who are ditching large stacks
of paper for the tablet.
Samsung also said it will donate
nearly 600 Note tablets to eight South Korean schools for educational
use. South Korea is rolling out a $2 billion project to replace paper
books with digital texts.
The good:Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion's
new iCloud integration and syncing features give you the same
experience on all your devices. Upgrades to several core apps bring new
and useful features for sharing and social connectivity.
The bad: Game
Center, while finally available for Mac, still only has basic features.
Dictation sends your voice to be translated at Apple servers, so you
can't use it while offline. Gatekeeper keeps you from downloading unsafe
programs, but it seems mostly unnecessary.
The bottom line:Though
it's not a complete system or interface overhaul, Mountain Lion's
improved core apps and new features make it well worth the $19.99 price.
In
the tale of two operating systems, Apple's Mountain Lion is a less
ambitious endeavor. Rather than completely rewriting the book as
Microsoft is attempting with Windows 8, Apple's latest operating system
simply cleans house, clearing clutter, while bringing more cloud and
sharing features into the fold -- specifically to make the desktop play
nice with iOS devices. Some of the new features come directly from iOS,
and many are welcome, but some seem unnecessary. Ultimately, what you
get is the familiar layout of Apple's operating system and much less of a
learning curve than with what we've seen so far of Windows 8's
completely new touch-screen-focused interface.
The Mountain Lion
release marks the second time Apple has offered an incremental upgrade,
rather than releasing a new cat entirely (previously Leopard upgraded to
Snow Leopard, for example). But don't let the modest feature or name
upgrades deter you from seriously considering Mountain Lion: Apple
doesn't change the game with the update, but improves everything from
Safari to Messaging and adds new iCloud and sharing capabilities that
make moving between devices easier.
Where Windows 8 dives head
first into the touch-screen tablet market with a completely revamped
user interface, Apple has improved upon what was already available, and
-- in my opinion, based on using both Mountain Lion and early versions
of Windows 8 -- Apple has made the wiser decision. By keeping the mobile
and desktop operating systems separate, Apple can still deliver the
best experience on each of its devices.
Installation for Mac OS X Mountain Lion requires a couple of steps.
Start by running Software Update and check for Mac App Store updates --
this is always a good practice before a major upgrade, to make sure you
have the latest versions of Apple's core apps.
From there, simply
navigate to the Mac App Store, purchase the upgrade, and begin
downloading. You'll need to have an account with Apple via the Mac or
iTunes Store in order to purchase Mountain Lion. The OS is about 4GB
(approximately the size of a full-length film download), so depending on
your connection, you may want to start the download before going to bed
or leaving for work. When the download is finished, the Mountain Lion
installer appears in the Dock and launches automatically.
Mac OS X
Mountain Lion installs in place, so you won't need to create a separate
disk or run the installation off an external drive. All of your photos,
documents, applications, and other saved files will be there when
you're finished with the upgrade. Once the installation is complete,
your Mac will automatically restart and you'll be ready to start
exploring.
iCloud integration makes getting started easy
As the first major operating system release since iCloud, Mountain Lion
was built with several new cloud features integrated into many of the
apps.
One great new feature for those with a brand-new Mac is the
ability to sign in through the Setup Assistant with your Apple ID and
sync all your settings along with your apps. Your e-mail, contacts,
calendars, Facebook and Twitter accounts, and more will automatically be
synced up with other devices and made ready for use on your Mac by
entering your Apple ID. This will be a welcome feature for iOS users
setting up a new Mac for the first time because right off the bat you'll
immediately be able to take advantage of all the new sharing features
in Mountain Lion. One important thing to note, however, is that Apple says that Facebook integration will come in a later free update this fall.
With Apple's latest version of Mac OS X, upon
launch of any app that lets you create documents, you'll now have all of
your cloud-synced projects available whether you created them on your
Mac or on an iOS device.
(Credit:
Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)
Documents in the Cloud should make it easier for those who
work on multiple Macs and iOS devices. Now, when you launch a program
that produces documents (such as Pages, for example), you'll be
presented with what Apple calls the Open Panel. Here you'll see that
specific app's iCloud Document Library with all of the documents you
have saved to iCloud with the most recent at the top. Using a button at
the top, you can also choose to launch documents currently on your Mac.
The window supports document folders, letting you drag one document on
top of another to create a folder, just as you would arrange apps into
folders on an iOS device. As I talk about more of the new features in
Mountain Lion, you'll see many that are clearly ideas brought over from
iOS devices.
As I mentioned, Documents in the Cloud will work
with any Apple app that produces documents currently (like TextEdit and
Preview) along with all three iWork apps. Apple is also making it
available as an API for third-party developers, so expect other apps
that produce documents to come out with an update soon after Mountain
Lion is released.
Messages on the Mac
Those with iPhones or iPads running iOS 5 or later will appreciate the
update for Messages (and iMessage) in Mountain Lion. Now, whether on a
Mac or iOS device, you'll be able to take advantage of Apple's no-cost
texting features with iMessage, and the ability to send a text to an
iPhone from your Mac is certainly convenient. Messages (as opposed to
iMessage) will also let you communicate with the same services you did
with iChat, including AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk, and Jabber. The way Apple
differentiates between the services is by making iMessage chats blue
and chats with other services green (similar to iOS devices).
The Messages app lets you chat with both Mac
users and people with iOS devices. You can add a picture by dragging and
dropping one in, but I wish there were a button for uploading an image.
(Credit:
Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)
The Messages window is set up with all your recent
conversations on the left and the actual conversation window on the
right. Just like iOS, you'll get typing indicators to show your friend
is responding and delivery receipts that show your message has been
delivered to the device. But in Mountain Lion, you'll also be notified
when the recipient has read the message (only if the iOS user has
allowed for it in settings) -- a feature that will be added to Apple's
mobile devices in iOS 6.
Just like the iOS version of Messages,
you'll be able to start a group chat simply by adding more names at the
top. When you send your message it will be seen by all recipients and
their replies will be shown to everyone as well. In the Mountain Lion
version, you'll also have the ability to quickly switch to FaceTime
video chats using a button in the upper right of the chat window.
One
issue I noticed in the preview that remains in Mountain Lion is the
absence of a camera button to quickly add a picture to a message
(something that comes standard in iOS messages). Messages in Mountain
Lion lets you drag and drop an image, but in the case when you don't
have the image handy, it requires a few steps to go find one and drag it
into the interface. This is a feature where we prefer the iOS method,
so hopefully it will be added in a future update.
Safari
Apple's Web browser isn't the fastest Web browser overall, but
improvements in Mountain Lion have added more reasons to stick with it
on the Mac. With the Smart Search Field, Apple is taking a page from
other popular Web browsers like Google Chrome, making the address bar
serve double duty as your place to enter addresses and search the Web.
When you enter a search term, Safari displays Top Hits right below the
field based on your browsing history.
Across all the core apps, you now can click the
Sharing Button to send items through e-mail, via Messages, to social
sites, and other options based on the current app and content you are
sharing.
(Credit:
Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)
iCloud integration in Safari also adds more features,
including a couple of new interface additions. With iCloud Tabs, Safari
now has a new cloud-shaped button next to the forward and back buttons
in the upper left. Once you sign in during initial setup with your Apple
ID, you'll now be able to view open tabs on all your Apple devices,
making it possible to pick up where you left off on another device
without missing a beat. Apple has added a sharing button to Safari as
well, where you'll find the options to add a page to your Reading List
or create a bookmark, but it also lists out ways to share a site via
e-mail, Message, Twitter, or Facebook. If you pick Message, Twitter, or
Facebook, Mountain Lion brings up a Share Sheet without ever leaving the
Web page you're currently on; sending via e-mail populates the e-mail
body with an image you're sharing, for example, and lets you fill in the
rest.
One major new interface enhancement for Safari is a joy to
use when running Mountain Lion with a trackpad. When you have a lot of
browser tabs open, the new Tab View lets you use a pinch gesture, then
use a two-finger swipe to browse your open tabs. A reverse-pinch returns
you to normal browsing. While mostly a cosmetic upgrade, once I got
used to pinching and swiping to browse tabs, it became second nature. In
my years reviewing Apple products, this is yet another example of how
Apple can make a small tweak to the interface that vastly improves the
experience. It may not be totally necessary (you could easily click to
look at each tab), but it's intuitive and saves time.
To round
out the updates to Safari, a few added features will make your surfing
smoother. Apple says it tested Safari (admittedly in-house) using the
SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, and says that it's faster than Internet
Explorer 9, Firefox 13, and Chrome 20 (in that order). Check back for our official benchmark testing later this week.
Safari also uses your GPU for improved hardware acceleration for
noticeably smoother scrolling and faster loading of pages. A new Offline
Reading List lets you save Web pages for offline viewing -- great for
when you're going to be on a plane or in a no-service area. The browser
also supports Do Not Track (think of Google Chrome's Incognito mode) and
Password AutoFill for sites you return to frequently.
Safari is
arguably the most important software on your computer as your window to
the Internet, and in Mountain Lion, Apple has succeeded in bringing it
up to speed with competing browsers, and offers a few extras (like Tab
View, Sharing, and Cloud Tabs) that make common tasks much easier.
Game Center now on Mac, but it's not perfect
Mountain Lion leans a lot on the up-to-the-instant, multidevice syncing
capabilities of iCloud across several of the core apps, but you wouldn't
know it from the Mac OS X debut of Game Center. The perennially
underpowered social gaming hub of iOS has always been disappointing for
iOS gamers, and its arrival on Mac desktops won't do much to change
that.
How did one Google intern spend his summer? Cooking up a new feature for YouTube users.
In a "Diary of a Summer Intern"
blog posted yesterday, Rio Akasaka described the feature for editing
video captions. Instead of creating a brand new caption for your YouTube
videos, you can now simply change the existing caption online.
As an intern, Akasaka had help from a mentor, but he apparently
played a leading role in designing the new feature. And as an associate
product manager, he was responsible in large part for the project's
outcome.
"My project required me to work with user experience designers to
craft an intuitive workflow, coordinate efforts to ensure that
engineering goes smoothly, and test the end features to make sure they
work for users," explained Akasaka, who worked in Google's Tokyo
offices. "To me, it felt like trying to be a concert conductor in a
noisy field."
And with the summer not yet over, the work continues. Akasaka said
that he still has to monitor feedback from users and check logs to make
sure people are using the new caption-editing feature.
"A week ago, I traveled to YouTube's San Bruno headquarters to meet
with the team -- including those who work on YouTube player and the
folks that help video creators manage their library," he added. "When
you handle 72 hours of video uploaded every minute and 4 billion hours
of video watched by users per month, there's a significant impact that a
single improvement can have, and lots of priorities to juggle."
In a June 28 blog post, Akasaka described how he was already diving into the YouTube caption feature just three weeks into his assignment.
The intern also participated in the company's GoogleServe,
an initiative that allows Google workers to take time off for volunteer
work. Akasaka said he traveled to northern Japan to help people still
struggling to recover from last year's devastating earthquake and
tsunami.
t's that time of year again when the rumors are flying about a new Apple
iPhone.
Eager iPhone fans are already plotting their upgrade to the new
iPhone, which is expected to be announced and launched in September.
Many people who already own iPhones sell them in order to get cash to
buy their next iPhones. But as the rumor mill heats up, prices typically
drop. So when is the best time for an iPhone fanboy or fangirl to sell
their used iPhone? I offer some advice.
Also in this Ask Maggie, I empathize with a reader who is frustrated
and confused by the data plans offered by wireless operators for
different devices.
The best time to sell your old iPhone is now Dear Maggie, I have and
iPhone 4S, but I really want the
iPhone 5
when it comes out next month. The only problem is that I am not yet
ready for an upgrade on AT&T. Anyway, I was hoping to resell my
existing iPhone 4S to help pay for the full price of the iPhone 5.
Because
I am using the money to pay for the new iPhone 5, I need to get top
dollar for my iPhone 4S. I know the value will likely go down after the
new iPhone is announced. But do you have any idea when the best time
would be to sell my old iPhone? And how much value do you think I'll
lose on my phone if I wait until it's announced?
Thanks,] TJ Dear TJ,
You are wise to start thinking about this now. I talked to Jeff
Trachsel, chief marketing officer for Nextworth, a site where people can
trade in their used smartphones. And he said that as the rumor mill
starts churning prior to the launch of a new iPhone trade-in prices
start declining. He said it's best to sell your old iPhone as soon as
you can.
I checked Nextworth today and the price for a used
iPhone 4S 16GB on AT&T in good condition is $263. Of course the
problem is that if you trade in your phone now, you'll be without a
phone until September 21, when the new iPhone is expected to go on sale.
If
you have an old phone that you can use in the meantime, it could fill
the void until you can get the new iPhone. If that's not an option,
Nextworth offers a 21-day price guarantee. So you could lock-in a price
starting on August 31, and then send your old iPhone to Nextworth when
you get the new phone.
But keep in mind that the September 12
launch date and the September 21 sale date for the new iPhone are just
rumors. Apple hasn't officially announced anything yet, so it's unclear
if the new iPhone will really be announced on the first date and
available September 21.
average selling price for iphone
Nextworth looked at reseller data for previous
iPhone launches and found the sooner you sell your old iPhone, the more
money you'll get for it.
(Credit:
Nextworth)
"If you can, the best scenario is to trade in your old iPhone
sooner rather than later," Trachsel said. "But if you don't have a
back-up phone you can use, then lock-in a price as close to the 21-days
before the new one comes out."
Trachsel said that prices on older
iPhones have already started to fall, but he said that there hasn't
been a steep decline yet.
Nextworth put together a chart
tracking trade-in pricing from eBay during the last iPhone launch. And
what the company discovered is that in the two months leading up to the
launch, as the rumor mill spun nearly out of control, the previous
generations of iPhones lost about 25 percent of their value.
The
iPhone 4S was launched in October 2011, and the eBay data suggests
prices started declining significantly starting in August.
The
same trend is likely playing out now. But Trachsel said he hasn't yet
seen a big dip in pricing. Still, he said he expects that from now until
the new iPhone goes on sale, there will likely be a 3 to 4 percent drop
in trade-in value each week. That means there's likely to be about a 12
percent drop per month until the launch, which will result in a similar
25 percent decline in value over just a couple of months before the new
iPhone is released.
Even though the prices are dropping and they
will continue to drop for the next few weeks, the good news is that
iPhones still hold their value better than any other smartphone on the
market. Even an older iPhone 3GS in the 8GB configuration will still
fetch you $80 today.
Trachsel also says to keep in mind that some
retail stores will let you trade-in your old devices in person and you
get paid on the spot. Nextworth powers Target's trade-in program. In
fact, starting Sunday August 12, 2012 until Saturday August 18, 2012 you
can bring your old iPhone to a Target and automatically get $150 for
any iPhone 4, $100 for any 3GS, $50 for any 3G device. The guaranteed
price on the buy-back is available only in the stores.
While it's
true that you might be able to get a better price via the website,
Trachsel said the benefit of the in-store trade in is that you get your
cash right away. You also will get exactly the price you've been quoted.
He said that sometimes when people send in phones to the Website, the
prices may be revised down when it is evaluated by a Nextworth employee.
"Sometimes
there is a discrepancy in the condition of the phone and what someone
thinks it's worth, and what we think it's worth once we see it," he
said.
I hope this advice was helpful. And good luck! More data plan confusion Dear Maggie, My question is a simple one. I have been shopping
for a mobile broadband plan, so I can access the cellular network from
my laptop. Why is it that a plan for a tablet is offered at a fraction
of the cost of a laptop plan?
Thanks, Chedrcheez Dear Chedrcheez,
I wouldn't say that the tablet plans are priced much less than the
other data plans on a carrier such as Verizon Wireless. In fact, you
often get less data for a tablet than you do for a laptop. But when I
looked up the pricing, what I noticed was just how confusing and
inconsistent the prices are.
If you are looking for a data plan
for just a single device without a smartphone sharing the data on the
account, the price per gigabyte depends on which device you plan on
using with your service. Verizon seems to price data for USB modems for
laptops, Wi-Fi hotspots that allow multiple devices to share one
cellular data connection via Wi-Fi, and tablets differently for each
product.
When
you compare the different plans for the different products, it's quite
confusing. And honestly, I don't think it makes a lot of sense. For
example, tablet owners aren't even offered blocks of data in the same
configuration as people using mobile hotspots and laptop computers.
I can't really explain why Verizon prices its plans this way. But my
guess is that the company thinks that people use these devices in
different ways and therefore the company justifies offering tablet
owners with cellular connectivity built into their devices, 2GB less of
data per month than it charges people, who could use a less-expensive
Wi-Fi only tablet to connect to a Verizon Mi-Fi over the same 4G LTE
network.
The tablet service with 2GB of data is $30 a month. And the Wi-Fi hotspot/Mi-Fi data plan is $30 for 4GB of data.
My
guess is that over time, we will see these prices normalize and align. I
don't expect that it will mean that prices will go down. That's
unlikely in my opinion. I think Verizon at least sees its share plans as
a step in this direction. With those plans you pay for a bucket of data
each month and then you pay extra to connect certain devices.
But I still think these plans are too confusing. For example, you pay
$40 extra to use a smartphone, $20 to include a USB modem for a laptop,
and $10 to attach a cellular enabled tablet to the single data plan.
Meanwhile, if your tablet and laptop have Wi-Fi, you can attach each of
these devices via the mobile hotspot feature on a smartphone without
paying any additional connectivity fee.
At the end of the day, I
think even the share plans are too confusing. I can't give you a good
justification for why Verizon has designed them this way. But I am
pretty certain that if Verizon wants subscribers using more tablets,
laptops and other Internet-enabled devices on its network, it has a lot
more work to do in simplifying its data plans.
Sorry I couldn't
be of more help. But hopefully, Verizon and others will revise their
data plans so they make more sense to people.
Apple's
iPad is proving extremely difficult to catch.
According to data released today by research firm IHS iSuppli, Apple nabbed 69.6 percent of the tablet market in the second quarter on 17 million shipments worldwide. Samsung, its arch-nemesis, came in second place with 9.2 percent share on 2.3 million
tablet shipments. Amazon and Asus took the third and fourth spots with 4.2 percent and 2.8 percent share, respectively.
"Apple is making all the right moves to rebuild its dominant position
in the tablet space," Rhoda Alexander, director for tablet and monitor
research for IHS, said today in a statement. "The company is pushing
visual performance boundaries with the new iPad, while providing value
customers with a lower-priced alternative, the iPad 2. With the expected
entrance of the 7-inch version of the iPad in September, Apple is
sending a clear message that it plans to dominate this market over the
long term."
iSuppli's figures don't include the latest major tablet launch,
Google's Nexus 7. After its recent launch, the Nexus 7 took off in a big
way. The 16GB option, which costs just $249, quickly sold out on
Google's Play Store. The device is now back in stock.
Despite its early success, Alexander doesn't necessarily believe that
the Nexus 7 could hurt the iPad. He also indicated in a statement today
that Microsoft's Surface tablet, which is slated to hit store shelves
this fall, is another device that, while promising, won't be able to
keep up.
"Apple's major media tablet rivals, Google and Microsoft, hope to
challenge Apple in the second half of the year, but will be facing
formidable headwinds with no sign that the market leader is backing off
of its aggressive strategy in the market," Alexander says.
IHS iSuppli isn't alone in thinking that the iPad will continue to
dominate the tablet market. Back in June, in fact, research firm IDC
revealed that it believes Apple will own 62.5 percent of the tablet market by the end of this year, up from 58.2 percent last year.
"The addition of the Retina Display and 4G capabilities to the
third-generation products clearly enticed many current owners to
upgrade," Tom Mainelli, an IDC analyst, said in June. "And Apple's
decision to keep two iPad 2s in the market at lower prices--moving the
entry-level price down to $399--seems to be paying off as well."
Overall, the tablet market had a strong second quarter, with 24.4
million units shipping worldwide during the period. In the first quarter
of 2012, 20.3 million tablets shipped worldwide.
The quadcore processor-powered
Samsung Galaxy S3 is big on screen and innovative features, but is it
enough to beat Apple's iPhone 4S into submission?
Samsung Galaxy S3 review
Love
Great screen
Decent battery life
Chock-full of features
Hate
It’s just so big
Gloss plastic looks low-end
Some extras seem gimmicky
Update: Our Samsung Galaxy S3 review has grown to accomodate several new videos, which you can watch below. The Samsung Galaxy S3 follows on from the runaway success that was the Samsung Galaxy S2,
which won great praise and sold in huge numbers, helping Samsung snag
the crown of the biggest mobile phone manufacturer in the world. So the
new Galaxy had a lot to live up to. It had to be fast, powerful and
feature-packed. Oh, and it had to look classy. So, how does it fare?
The S3 has gone big on innovation, with lots of new features the
speculation hadn’t dreamed of. But the first thing you notice is the
size. Samsung has shown it can make a success of big screens with the
5.3in display on the Samsung Galaxy Note.
But that’s not a phone, it’s a new breed of device somewhere between a
phone and a tablet. Rivals like HTC had been stretching our mitts with
4.7in display blowers such as the HTC One X. Can the S3 take on HTC's flagship model and is it better than than the Sony Xperia S? And will it have iPhone 4S fans defecting to Android? Here's what we thought...
Samsung Galaxy S3: Build
The S3 has a 4.8in display and it's certainly big. It’s a slim phone
from front to back so it’s more manageable than you might think, but
even so. Actually, what helps more in terms of comfort is the gloss
finish. It’s like a smooth, flat worry stone that you can roll
seamlessly through your fingers. A matte finish wouldn’t have felt as
good.
Though some will feel that the glossy coat looks a bit, well, plasticky.
But it feels appealingly shiny and reassuringly solid despite a
removable battery. Where rivals like the Nokia Lumia 900
and HTC One X have maximised battery life by sealing it inside, and
thus created a flex-free handset, the S3 is pleasingly non-creaky, no
matter how you hold it.
Sometimes a new phone is only a gentle upgrade over the last model, but
the S3 is streets ahead of the S2. It’s not quite as slim, though at
8.6mm it’s just a tenth of a millimetre fatter and it lacks the earlier
phone’s bulge.
And it’s still thinner than the HTC One X, Motorola RAZR Maxx, iPhone 4S and many others. In terms of other important stats - it's 70.6mm across, 136.6mm long and weighs 133g
Samsung Galaxy S3: Screen
Back to the size. If your hands can, er, handle it, the positive
consequence is a superbly viewable screen. Video playback on a mobile is
always a questionable priority – if you can’t watch on a TV, a tablet
makes much more sense – but with 4.8ins of high-resolution Super AMOLED
screen with its vivid colours and contrasty blacks, this makes it more
of a possibility than before.
The screen resolution is identical to the HTC One X, so the pixels per
inch aren’t quite as high on this slightly bigger screen, but both
displays look lush and inviting, with this one winning in terms of
bright, rich colours.
Samsung Galaxy S3: Ice Cream Sandwich
The Galaxy S III uses the very latest version of Android, 4.0.3,
codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich. This is far and away the best version of
Google’s operating system, with a cleaner look than before.
Ice Cream Sandwich lets you put these buttons as virtual icons onscreen,
like on the Galaxy Nexus. Here there’s a physical home button, an
elongated strip in the centre of the phone’s face at the bottom. Either
side are two virtual capacitive buttons. Samsung has rejected the Recent
Apps button in favour of Back and Menu options. Much better. And if you
need it, a long press on the home button brings up the Recent Apps
screen.
The latest OS doesn’t just offer yet another tempting-sounding treat to
get our mouths watering. It’s a whole new interface which is redesigned
throughout in contrast to previous iterations which have felt like layer
after layer glued on top of the previous code. It includes nifty
features like face unlock which matches you to a previously taken photo
to launch the phone from idle.
ICS brought Recent Apps front and centre – though the S3 has
de-emphasised it again. Samsung adds its own refinements, like the
capability to take a screen shot by wiping your hand across the screen.
Samsung Galaxy S3: Features
It's the new features on the Galaxy S3 which really stand out.
There’s S Voice, which is a voice recognition service after Siri’s
heart, designed by Vlingo (a company which is now being bought by
Nuance, who contributed to Apple products and, presumably, Siri).
Although it’s competent, it lacks Siri’s wit and whimsy, so you’re best
sticking to straightforward commands. Like Siri, it’s not invariably
accurate and it is server-driven so won’t work at all without a decent
data connection. Even so, it’s good fun and there’s something slightly
magical about it.
The tablet wars are no longer a two-horse race between Apple and Google.
Four
days after Microsoft invited the press to Los Angeles (and after four
days of Web-wide speculation as to why), on Monday, June 19, 2012, the
company finally unveiled Surface.
Surface is a line of tablet
devices running the company's next-generation Windows operating system
and marks Microsoft's first foray into the ever-expanding tablet market.
Yes, you read that correctly: Microsoft will be building and branding
its own tablets, effectively competing with its own hardware partners
such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo.
Family Surface
The Surface tablets will be available in two distinct versions. The first, running Windows RT
-- effectively the "light" version of Windows 8 -- will launch in the
fall, around the same time as Windows 8 does, and run on an
as-yet-unnamed ARM CPU. While it won't have the full desktop version of
Windows 8, running only the Metro apps available through the Windows app
store, it will include a version of Microsoft Office at no additional
charge.
Approximately three months later, a Windows 8 Pro version
of the tablet will follow. The Pro will offer the full Windows 8 OS
running on an Intel Ivy Bridge CPU (the same chips found in ultrabooks
and other laptops). The Pro version will also be slightly thicker, offer
a more robust battery, and boast better peripheral support (USB 3.0
versus 2.0, DisplayPort, and an SDXC expansion slot) and twice the
storage capacity of the RT version.
Surface tablets will be available in Windows RT and Windows 8 versions.
(Credit:
Josh Lowensohn/CNET)
The surface of Surface
Surface uses a 10.6-inch optically bonded ClearType display. The
screen's 16:9 aspect ratio (AR) is identical to that of an HDTV, so many
of your favorite movies and all newer TV shows will run in full-screen
on the tablet, with no stretching or letterboxing. The vast majority of
Android tablets feature a 16:10 aspect ratio, while the iPad uses the
same squarish 4:3 aspect ratio you may remember from pre-HD TVs.
Microsoft
hasn't yet confirmed the resolution of the Surface tablets, except to
say that the RT version is "HD" and the Pro version runs at a "full HD"
resolution. Reading between the lines, that seems to indicate that the
RT tablet will run at least 1,280x720 pixels (720p HD), while the
Surface Pro will boast at least 1,920x1,080 pixels (1080p).
Surface
for Windows 8 Pro will support digital inking, and during a demo at the
conference the company demoed this by writing on the screen using a
stylus and then zooming in on the writing, which still looks smooth
without any of the "jaggies" you'd expect. According to Microsoft, this
is thanks to the 600dpi sampling rate the screen records your writing
at. Ostensibly, this allows digital inking to be much more precise.
Thanks to the optical bonding process, there are no layers between the
Gorilla Glass 2.0 and the display. Microsoft demonstrated that when you
use the Stylus, it feels like you're writing directly on the page, not
the glass on top of it and it touts optical bonding as the reason behind
this level of pen-to-page intimacy. According to Microsoft, there's
only a 0.7-millimeter distance between the Stylus and where you see the
ink.
Optical bonding allows the screen to sit very close to the Gorilla Glass 2.0 cover.
(Credit:
Josh Lowensohn/CNET)
Surface will also make use of Windows' support for something it's
calling palm block tech. Windows uses two digitizers: one for touch and
another for digital ink. As long as the Stylus is in close proximity to
the tablet screen, Windows will shut off the touch sensor, so that your
hand doesn't accidentally swipe the screen while you're trying to write
or draw. Once you're done, the Stylus can then adhere to the side of the
tablet, magnetically.
During our brief hands-on, the screen
didn't feel as responsive as we expected. We swiped the screen briefly
to rotate around a panoramic picture Microsoft had on the device, but
the feedback of the animation felt rough and didn't seem to respond as
quickly to our swipes as we would have liked. That said, this was early
preproduction hardware, so we'll have to see how the final version
behaves when it's released commercially.
(Microsoft's) The stand
During the conference the Microsoft reps were keen to continually
mention the VaporMg (pronounced "Vapor Mag") process it used to build
Surface. According to the company, the process allows Microsoft to melt
metal and then mold it down to a 0.65mm thickness for any given part.
The layering of components is apparently so efficient that even sticking
a piece of tape in between them would cause the tablet to bulge.
The
full magnesium case is both scratch- and wear-resistant and weighs
about 1.5 pounds. We only got to hold the tablet briefly, but it felt
substantial -- fairly light but not airy.
Microsoft also credits VaporMg as the reason it was able to seamlessly include the Surface's built-in kickstand. We've seen kickstands on tablets before and being able to easily prop up your tablet is something we definitely appreciate.
The integrated kickstand makes for easy media viewing.
(Credit:
Josh Lowensohn/CNET)
The bottom rear third of the tablet is all kickstand, but it's
not something you'd quickly notice without being told it was there.
There's an inch-long groove that allows you to easily pull out the
kickstand and prop the tablet up. When combined with the cover, the
combination gives the tablet a laptop look and, ostensibly, feel.
However,
Microsoft may want to point out the stand mechanism a bit more
obviously. There were a few journalists during demos (us included) that
couldn't figure out how to enable the kickstand without being shown.
Still, the kickstand feels very well-integrated into the design and is
actually useful, so thumbs-up here.
Two tablets, two covers
If you took the keyboard attachment used by the Asus Transformer
family of tablets and melded it with Apple's Smart Cover, you'd get the
basic idea behind Microsoft's cover implementation for Surface.
There
will be two types of cover and keyboard attachments: Touch Cover and
Type Cover. Like Apple's Smart Cover, the covers are magnetically
attached to the edge of the tablet. Both types of cover can act as
either a cover for the screen or as a full keyboard, with a two-button
touch pad and buttons for navigating Windows' Metro UI. When flipped
back, the keyboard automatically shuts off.
Let's face it: no one
likes typing on a tablet screen for long periods of time, and Microsoft
certainly made it clear that typing on its cover-keyboards was just as
accurate and enjoyable (and in the case of Type Cover, possible more
enjoyable) as typing on a normal keyboard. At least according to the
Microsoft reps.
The Touch Cover is one of 2 magnetically attachable keyboard covers that will be available.
(Credit:
Josh Lowensohn/CNET)
Unfortunately, we didn't actually get to use the Touch Cover keyboard while
it was attached to the tablet. Since there's almost no tactile feedback
and no button depression, typing on the keyboard felt weird. However,
Microsoft says that the audible "clicking" sound from the tablet's
speaker when typing adds enough feedback.
Still, without
personally having that experience, it's difficult to say how successful
Microsoft has been with the design until we actually use it with the
tablet. It's definitely the thinnest (3mm) physical keyboard we've ever
used, though.
As the conference went on, we started to notice how
much thought and detail Microsoft has added to the experience it wants
you to have with Surface. One of the coolest little details was that
depending on which color Touch Cover (five colors were shown) is
connected to the tablet, the color of the screen background in the Metro
UI would change to reflect it.
We didn't get to play with the thicker and much more traditional Type
Cover keyboard, but Microsoft gave a pretty detailed demo of it in
action. Unlike the stationary buttons on the Touch Cover, Type Cover
keys have a 1.5mm travel, while still being packed into what seemed to
be a relatively thin (5mm) enclosure.
Also, the keys sense the grams of pressure you're applying to them.
Unlike a touch screen, this allows you to place your fingers on your
home keys without them interpreting that placement as keystrokes. Other specs
Aside from confirming that the Surface boasts front and rear "HD"
cameras, Microsoft was mum on imaging details. That implies at least
720p image capture capability (which is merely 0.9 megapixels), but
we're hoping for something at least closer to the multimegapixel
resolution you find on middle-of-the-road tablets and smartphones these
days.
Here's a rundown of the official specs as we know them: Surface (Windows RT) tablet key specs
Windows RT operating system
Nvidia ARM CPU
9.3mm thick
676 grams/23.85 ounces
10.6-inch ClearType HD Display
31.5 watt hour battery
Ports: microSD, USB 2.0, Micro-HD video, 2x2 MIMO antennas
Storage options: 32GB and 64GB for Windows RT
Front- and rear-facing "HD" cameras
Surface (Windows Pro) tablet key specs
Windows 8 operating system
Intel third-generation Core i CPU
13.5mm thick
903 grams/31.85 ounces
10.6-inch ClearType "Full HD" Display
42 watt hour battery
Ports: microSDXC, USB 3.0, Mini DisplayPort video
Storage options: 64GB and 128GB
Front- and rear-facing "HD" cameras
What impressed us most was not the specs, but the sheer
attention to detail that went into building this product and the obvious
effort put into integrating its features. It seems to be a truly
impressive design and engineering feat. However, there are just too many
important, unanswered questions.
(And speaking of) Unanswered questions
Overall, we like what we've seen so far, we just felt we were left
hanging in terms of information. Of course, that was probably
Microsoft's goal with this early announcement: to intrigue people and
leave them wanting more.
We were also left wanting from a
software perspective. A tablet is useless without apps and we were
disappointed we didn't get more information on types of apps to expect
and how (or if) apps would be handled differently from iOS or Android
apps.
And, of course, we were left without the biggest detail of
all: price. Saying Surface will be "competitively priced" is basically
telling me, "Expect to pay about $500 for this thing." And that's the RT
version, of course; expect the Windows 8 tablet to be priced more like a
full-on laptop.
Luckily, Surface doesn't go on sale today. If it
did, we would not be in line to buy one (or even purchasing one
online). That's not to say we aren't intrigued, nor that we won't
buy one in the future; it's just too early to tell. We need more
information on apps, Xbox integration (there was no SmartGlass mention
at all), pricing, and the expected battery life in order to make a clear
decision. That said, we can't help but walk away looking forward to
seeing more.
With over 3.1 million pixels, it’s the best display ever on a mobile
device. And the A5X chip with quad-core graphics makes it fast and
fluid.
Ultrafast wireless
iPad connects to fast data networks around the world, including HSPA,
HSPA+, and DC-HSDPA.1 So wherever you go, you can download videos,
music, and email quickly.1
iLife and iWork for iPad
iMovie, GarageBand and the new iPhoto are powerful, fun and easy to
use. iWork reinvents documents, presentations and spreadsheets.
(Available on the App Store.) 3
iSight camera
The new iPad features a 5-megapixel camera with advanced optics. And now you can shoot stunning 1080p HD video.
Over 200,000 apps made just for iPad
Browse the App Store for great apps in nearly every category:
business, games, education, social networking, cooking, news and more.2
iOS 5 and iCloud
iOS, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, is the
foundation of iPad. iCloud stores your content and wirelessly pushes it
to all your devices.4
We take a look at the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity to see whether a better display takes it beyond previous tablets
Asus Transformer Pad Infinity T700
Published on Jul 26, 2012
Asus may have dropped the Eee part of its range name,
but we've yet another Transformer Pad to feast our eyes on. This time,
it's the Infinity - and what a visual treat the device is.
Encased in the champagne silver, the Transformer Pad Infinity looks
like an expensive gadget. And it is, at £600. But price aside, the metal
backplate with its spherical brushed-metal effect looks absolutely
stunning. Pictures just don't do it justice.
The accompanying keyboard dock is also nicely crafted, and also comes
in the same attractive colour. When locked together, it looks like a
very swanky laptop, and in that moment we forget it's made by a
competent, but not usually that cool manufacturer.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is the operating system, which means it's not on Jelly Bean
just yet. But ICS is still a much nicer experience than Honeycomb,
thanks to interface refinements, usability tweaks and Asus' own
enhancements to make use of the keyboard. For instance, you can bring
the device out of sleep mode with a touch on the touchpad, or go
directly to home with the home key.
An 8-megapixel camera on the back caters for all your photo needs,
and there's a front-facing snapper for video calls and vanity purposes.
It's a fairly standard setup but the quality seems to be good and the
interface is easy to get to grips with.
Typing on the keyboard feels comfortable and although it's not a very
wide Qwerty variant, it's not so thin that you end up pressing all the
wrong keys. Typing out emails took around the same time as when using
our desktop computer.
We've yet to fire up any HD quality films but the display instantly
looks the part. It's beautifully crisp, relatively bright and Dead
Trigger, the latest graphical wonder from Shadowgun developer Madfinger Games, looks like a top-end console game. Those seriously impressive visuals look a treat on that 1920x1200 pixel screen.
To keep things running along nicely, a quad core Nvidia Tegra 3
processor has been implemented. The result is silky-smooth transitions,
fast app loading and few hiccups as you try to do too more than one
thing at once.
Without benchmarking the Transformer Pad Infinity, it's impossible to
say whether it's the fastest Asus tablet yet, but it definitely feels
at least as good as its predecessors.
Minus the dock and the tablet still feels nice in the hand, but it's
quite bulky. In fact, without the slightly plastic-feeling keys, you
could argue it's better, especially as its top-heavy design when docked
means it can fall over quite easily.
Knowing Asus will be upgrading its Transformer Pad range to Android
Jelly Bean in the ‘coming months', you shouldn't worry about being left
behind. And although the Nexus 7 is substantially cheaper, the larger,
higher resolution display, 64GB of storage, a keyboard and that
eye-pleasing design provide strong enough reasons to at least entertain
owning one - if you have the extra pennies.
Based on first impressions, Asus is really refining its Transformer
range and the Infinity is one premium bit of kit. Whether it's that much
better than the Nexus 7, though, the cheaper Transformer Pad 300, or even the new iPad, remains to be seen.
Expect our full review in the near future.
Undoubtedly tired of watching OEMs make little headway in their uphill struggle against Apple's iPad,
Google executives took the stage at this year's Google I/O developer
conference to announce a branded seven-inch tablet of their own: the
Google Nexus 7 by Asus.
Like other Nexus-branded devices, the
Nexus 7 tablet isn't actually hardware manufactured by Google (as you
may have noticed thanks to the suffix). As Mountain View has done with
Samsung, HTC and Motorola in the past, the company paired with Asus to
design and manufacture its slender tablet. It's
a smart move: among Android tablets, Asus makes some of the best
around, but matching the rock-bottom $199 (£130) price of Amazon's
Kindle Fire while exceeding its meager specs would be a challenge for
any manufacturer. And make no mistake: The Nexus 7 by Asus is
more of an effort to stomp out Amazon's unwelcome (and forked) version
of Android more than it's attempt to dethrone Apple's reigning champ. The
good news is that very little has been sacrificed along the way, unlike
with Amazon's initial offering. According to Android boss Andy Rubin,
Google's profit margin bears the brunt of any sacrifices made, both from
selling hardware at cost but also from tossing in generous perks such
as a $25 (or £15) Google Play credit for every Nexus 7 owner.
But enough about why and how Google and Asus have released the Nexus 7: Is it worth even $199 / £159 of your hard-earned cash?
hardware
On paper, the specs
for the Nexus 7 are quite impressive. Powered by a quad-core Tegra 3
processor with 1GB RAM and either 8GB ($199 / £159) or 16GB ($249 /
£199) of onboard storage, this tablet runs circles around the Kindle
Fire, rivaling many competing Android tablets at twice the price (or
more). The
seven-inch 1200 x 800 HD backlit IPS display packs a respectable 216
pixels per inch onto the screen. Sure, it's not quite as impressive as a
third-generation Retina Display iPad at 264ppi, but given the price,
users will have little to complain about from the display.
The
front of the Google Nexus 7 by Asus is devoid of hardware-based buttons,
but a 1.2MP front-facing camera rests at the top of the tablet front,
which is covered entirely by Corning glass (we're assuming Gorilla
Glass, but Google isn't confirming). Curiously,
Google seems to buck the landscape trend made popular with most Android
tablets. While the Nexus 7 will indeed rotate for landscape use with
apps, the home screen itself is fixed into portrait mode, as if Google
wants to encourage users to hold it this way when not watching content
designed for landscape, such as movies or TV shows. (Portrait mode even
works when viewed with polarized sunglasses, while landscape mode goes
black.) Unlike
the Kindle Fire with its one lone button, Google has wisely opted for
three basic hardware controls. On the right side is a power/sleep button
with a two-stage volume rocker just below; the rest is done using
Android's on-screen software buttons for back, home and recent
navigation, including rotation lock, which can be accessed via the
notifications menu.
At the bottom of the unit is a micro-USB port
and 3.5mm headphone jack, while a thin speaker port is the only feature
of note on the otherwise rubberized back aside from Nexus and Asus
branding. The top of the unit is devoid of ports entirely, although a
small pinhole can be found here for the included microphone.
While
the Nexus 7 is primarily plastic and glass, it certainly doesn't feel
cheap. To the contrary, it feels almost as "premium" as one of Apple's
tablets, with litte flex or other clues that Asus might have cut some
corners in manufacturing - although we did notice some creakiness in our
tablet sample between the bezel and the plastic cover.
Inside,
the Nexus 7 packs the usual assortment of features, including an
accelerometer, magnetometer and yes, even a gyroscope and GPS chip,
nicely timed to take advantage of Google Maps' new offline mode for
navigating when Wi-Fi isn't available. It's
almost hard to comprehend how small the Nexus 7 is until you hold its
diminutive box in your hand. At a mere 198.5 x 120 x 10.45mm and
weighing 340 grams, once out of the box, you can almost stack two Nexus 7
tablets side-by-side on one iPad, which is just one millimeter thinner.
Despite
being so petite, Google and Asus managed to find space for a nice bezel
around the screen itself (roughly 20mm top and bottom, 14mm on each
side), making it plenty comfortable to hold without your fingers or
thumbs getting in the way. The
pockmarked back recalls the same vibe as slipping on a pair of premium
driving gloves, and this look and feel makes it quite nice to hold.
While our review unit arrived with a white back (similar to the ones
gifted to developers at I/O this year), Google is only offering the
black model to consumers.
Speaking of which, the Nexus 7 is
available direct from the Google Play store with preorders shipping in
mid-July, but the company has ambitions to roll the tablet out at retail
as well.
display and interface
While Google and Asus have checked all the right boxes on the Nexus
7′s HD IPS display and it is indeed bright and rich in color, we were
disappointed to discover the overall contrast was somewhat muted on our
review unit. (It's particularly noticeable on the home screens). Maybe
the iPad or even Asus' own Transformer has spoiled us, but the Nexus 7
seems to lack the kind of deep, rich black levels you might find on
something like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus (which admittedly uses a more
saturated, contrast-rich Super AMOLED display instead).
This
quibble aside, viewing photos or other content on the Nexus 7 is quite
enjoyable, with overall contrast faring much better while displaying
such media. Without a second unit to compare it against, we're left to
wonder if the brand-new Android 4.1 might be to blame for the lower
contrast levels.
Which brings us to the other star of the show:
Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean," Google's latest version of its mobile
operating system, which makes its debut on the Nexus 7. We'll have a
full review of Jelly Bean coming shortly, but suffice it to say that
Google has finally sanded down the rough spots in all the right places
this time around.
Despite the modest point version increase,
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean introduces under-the-hood improvements like
"Project Butter," the company's new initiative to streamline the lag and
general unresponsiveness Android has been notorious for in the past.
While the Android 4.1 soft keyboard is one of the best around, we were
also able to install our second favorite, SwiftKey 3 Tablet, which
mostly worked aside from being able to type our Facebook username and
password while setting up personalized predictions.
The main star
of the Jelly Bean show is Google Now, a card-based information service
that uses GPS in an effort to become one step ahead of the user. While
the feature may be limited by Wi-Fi only connectivity on the Nexus 7,
we'll be taking a deeper look at Now in our upcoming Android 4.1 review.
Coupled
with the Tegra 3 processor and additional headroom afforded by 1GB of
RAM, the Nexus 7 makes a great initial showcase for Jelly Bean. Swiping
through screens is fast and responsive – even on apps which haven't yet
been updated for 4.1 – while flipping through one of the visually rich
magazines now available from Google Play doesn't miss a beat. Ridiculous
name aside, Project Butter delivers the goods.
As many had speculated,
Microsoft announced a new tablet PC at an event today in Los Angeles.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was on hand to unveil yet another Microsoft
foray into the hardware world, but this time is producing an actual PC
for the first time in its history.
After a brief review of
the software giant's history in hardware development, Ballmer announced
a new Microsoft tablet called the "Surface." Microsoft says the Surface is designed to fully exploit the capabilities of its new Windows 8 operating system.
"With
Windows 8 we don't want to leave any seam uncovered; we wanted to give
it its own hardware innovation," Ballmer said. "It's something new,
something different, a whole new family of computing devices from
Microsoft."
Microsoft is actually releasing two versions of the
device: A thinner and lighter (9.3 mm thick, 1.5-pound) consumer version
that runs the Windows RT operating system (a version of Windows 8 that runs on ARM processors), and larger version (13.5 mm thick, 1.9 pounds) running the Windows 8 Pro OS, which is aimed at business users.
The
Pro version, which uses an Intel Core i5 Ivy Bridge processor, and runs
all the standard Windows desktop software like Word and Excel, as well
as the Metro apps. It can even run Photoshop, and supports USB 3.0.
The
RT version, on the other hand, doesn't support standard Microsoft
Office desktop apps; instead, it runs a limited functionality version of
Office called "Office Home & Student" as well as Windows Explorer.
The RT version supports USB 2.0.
Windows RT Version Specs
676 grams
9.3 millimeters thick
10.6-inch ClearType HD Display
31.5 watt-hour battery
microSD, USB 2.0, Micro HD Video, 2x2 MIMO antennae
Office Home & Student 2013 RT, Touch Cover, Type Cover
VaporMg Case & Stand
Configurable for 32 GB, 64 GB
Windows 8 Pro Specs
903 grams
13.5 millimeters thick
10.6-inch ClearType Full HD Display
42 watt-hour battery
microSDXC, USB 3.0, Mini DisplayPort Video, 2x2 MIMO antennae
Touch Cover, Type Cover, Pen with Palm Block
VaporMg Case & Stand
Configurable for 64 GB, 128 GB
Microsoft said during the announcement
today that it tried to design the Surface to feel like a book. And the
cover of this book is one of the Surface's most distinguishing features.
It is similar to the Smart Cover that protects the iPad,
but Microsoft goes Apple one better by installing a physical,
multitouch keyboard on the back of its cover. The cover is connected to
the tablet itself, and folds over to protect the Surface's screen.
The
Surface's optically bonded 10.6-inch display is also notable. Microsoft
describes it as "permanent scratch and wear resistant," and says that
it minimizes glare, which makes it perfect for reading. The Surfaces
video chops include HD 1080p screen resolution, and a DisplayPort to output full high-res video to a TV.
Microsoft says the Surface is the "first PC with a vapor-deposited (PVD) magnesium shell." The Surface stands upright on a kickstand that's connected on hinges to the back of the tablet.
Microsoft announced no pricing for the new tablet, and no availability date.
Microsoft has just released photos of the Surface (above) and a promotional video:
In producing its own tablet computer called Surface, Microsoft Corp.
is entering a market dominated by Apple Inc. Six out of every 10 tablets
shipped are iPads, according to research firm IHSiSuppli.
Here are the top five manufacturers of tablets last year:
Apple Inc., maker of the iPad, 40.5 million shipped worldwide, 62 per cent share
Samsung Electronics Co., maker of Galaxy line, 6.1 million, 9 per cent.
Amazon.com Inc., maker of Kindle Fire, 3.9 million, 6 per cent
Apple allowed WWDC attendees to take a closer look at the new 15-inch MacBook Pro,
which features a 2880x1800 Retina display among other new features. The
new design measures just 0.71 inches thick and weighs in at 4.46
pounds, shaving nearly a quarter inch and a full pound off the standard
15-inch unibody MacBook Pro. Check out our live gallery for close-up images of the new device.
The
new model also brings USB 3.0 ports, a new MagSafe power connector,
HDMI output, dual Thunderbolt ports, and an SD card slot. Internal
hardware keeps up with its larger counterpart, paring Nvidia Kepler HT
650M graphics with a quad-core 2.7GHz Core i7 processor in the top configuration.
The Retina MacBook Pro starts at $2,199 and ships in seven to 10 days.
But with the Note 10.1, the South
Korean company believes it has a product that will find favor with
corporations and schools despite the iPad's rich pool of applications
and sharper screen.
Eager iPhone fans are already plotting their upgrade to the new
iPhone, which is expected to be announced and launched in September.
Many people who already own iPhones sell them in order to get cash to
buy their next iPhones. But as the rumor mill heats up, prices typically
drop. So when is the best time for an iPhone fanboy or fangirl to sell
their used iPhone? I offer some advice.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 follows on from the runaway success that was the Samsung Galaxy S2,
which won great praise and sold in huge numbers, helping Samsung snag
the crown of the biggest mobile phone manufacturer in the world. So the
new Galaxy had a lot to live up to. It had to be fast, powerful and
feature-packed. Oh, and it had to look classy. So, how does it fare?
Back to the size. If your hands can, er, handle it, the positive
consequence is a superbly viewable screen. Video playback on a mobile is
always a questionable priority – if you can’t watch on a TV, a tablet
makes much more sense – but with 4.8ins of high-resolution Super AMOLED
screen with its vivid colours and contrasty blacks, this makes it more
of a possibility than before.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 follows on from the runaway success that was the Samsung Galaxy S2,
which won great praise and sold in huge numbers, helping Samsung snag
the crown of the biggest mobile phone manufacturer in the world. So the
new Galaxy had a lot to live up to. It had to be fast, powerful and
feature-packed. Oh, and it had to look classy. So, how does it fare?
Back to the size. If your hands can, er, handle it, the positive
consequence is a superbly viewable screen. Video playback on a mobile is
always a questionable priority – if you can’t watch on a TV, a tablet
makes much more sense – but with 4.8ins of high-resolution Super AMOLED
screen with its vivid colours and contrasty blacks, this makes it more
of a possibility than before.
Asus may have dropped the Eee part of its range name,
but we've yet another Transformer Pad to feast our eyes on. This time,
it's the Infinity - and what a visual treat the device is.
While
the Nexus 7 is primarily plastic and glass, it certainly doesn't feel
cheap. To the contrary, it feels almost as "premium" as one of Apple's
tablets, with litte flex or other clues that Asus might have cut some
corners in manufacturing - although we did notice some creakiness in our
tablet sample between the bezel and the plastic cover.
While
the Nexus 7 is primarily plastic and glass, it certainly doesn't feel
cheap. To the contrary, it feels almost as "premium" as one of Apple's
tablets, with litte flex or other clues that Asus might have cut some
corners in manufacturing - although we did notice some creakiness in our
tablet sample between the bezel and the plastic cover.
