Toshiba announced yesterday that the super-skinny AT200 tablet would be headed to the US mid-Q1 as the Excite X10, and we wasted no time in grabbing some more play with the 0.3-inch slate. First shown at IFA 2011 a few months back, the Excite X10 is just as appealing today: crisp edges, lashings of brushed aluminum and a great 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 IPS display add up to a tablet that feels as good in the hand as the on-screen graphics look.
The Aspire S5 isn't the only thing Acer unveiled today, but you'd be forgiven for thinking so. In addition to a bevvy of cloud services that were unfortunately uninspiring, the latest revisions of the Aspire Timeline series were show off in 14 and 15-inch varieties. These laptops aren't quite as flashy as their smaller sibling, but they combine a god set of features with solid (rated) battery life, and the magnesium build is worth a look from any fan of good design.
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Acer showed off its incredibly thin take on the ultrabook at CES today, and we were there to get a first look at the new hardware. The Acer Aspire S5 is the newest model in the line, and if initial impressions are anything to go by, it’ll definitely be commanding some attention when it releases.
Earlier today we showed off the other piece of this double announcement in the HP Omni 27 all-in-one PC, and now it’s time for the monster – the HP Pavilion HPE h9 Phoenix performance PC. This strangely endearing looking tower has your choice of Intel X79 or AMD 8-core processors and contains some rather lovely red lights under its black and silver exterior. Its innards are revealed to you through the side and gaming prowess throughout. This look like something you’re willing to plop down the side of your desk for $1,149.99, a cool price coming on January 8th?
With everybody an their brother hoping on the latest trend in ultraportable computing, HP is due for a svelte laptop of its own to give a hyperbolic adjective. Enter the new Folio series, inappropriate with the Folio 13, a rather standard laptop wrapped in a thin and gorgeous frame. HP sent us one to try out during CES next week, so expect a road-tested review afterwards. In the meantime, here are our initial impressions.
We had a look at the brand new HP Omni 27 all-in-one PC at the tail end of 2011, ladies and gentlemen, and it’s time to take a quick look at it now that the team at HP has dropped cover on it and its release partner, the Pavilion HPE h9 Phoenix. What we’re looking at here is a 27-inch 1080p LED-backlit computer with a 2.5GHz Sandy Bridge Core i5-2400S processor and, of course, Beats Audio integration. Have a peek at a few close-up photos of this $1,199.99 beast in the gallery below.
The ENVY series of laptops has defined HP’s high end for the last few years, and the trend continues with the newly remodeled ENVY 15. The high-powered series has become popular in the PC crowd thanks to lower and lower prices for some very respectable hardware. The last time we took a look at the ENVY series was the ENVY 17 3D nearly a year ago, and it left us quite impressed. HP sent over the ENVY 15 for us to check out, and initial observations are promising.
This month we bore witness to Motorola’s newest wave of Android tablets, that being both the DROID XYBOARD 10.1 and the DROID XYBOARD 8.2, both of them great candidates for replacing your now-aging XOOM tablet if you bought in to the Android tablet game earlier this year, and fabulous places for those new to Android to jump in on this game for a high quality experience – now have a look at all of our hands-on videos here in one post, as well as our final judgement on whether or not you should pick one up. We’ve got hands-on videos of both models of what’s also known as the XOOM 2 here as well as glances at the accessories you can pick up from Verizon as well. Let them be judged!
Here in the LTE version of the newest Google hero phone, the Verizon Galaxy Nexus (also known as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus or Galaxy Nexus 4G LTE) has not only the unique claim to running Google’s newest mobile operating system Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich first, it’s also connected to the fastest network in the states, and best of all: you can go to your corner Verizon store and purchase one, unlike the international edition. All that said, you’ve really got the same device only ever so slightly modified for this particular carrier: Google’s vanilla hero phone remains nearly as pure as its first release internationally. What you’re going to get here is another perspective on the Galaxy Nexus in general, how ICS handles our day to day, and what it means to own the LTE version of this device here in the USA.
There are a couple of games out there right now that show off the graphics finesse of whatever platform you play them on quite well, and in quite an easily comparable sense when it comes down to it, those being Riptide GP, a jet-ski racing game, and ShadowGun, a 3rd person shooter – today we’ve got these games being demonstrated on Verizon’s LTE version of the Galaxy Nexus. This device is the first to work natively with Google’s mobile OS by the name of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and runs a Texas Instruments OMAP4 1.2GHz dual-core processor. Is it enough to compete with such gaming titans as the ultra-powerful NIVIDA Tegra 3 quad-core processor toting ASUS Transformer Prime, or perhaps the iPad 2 for good measure?
Color us surprised when we received a box full of Android-oriented Motorola accessories made for the DROID XYBOARD just days after the release of said device and our review of the 10.1-inch version of it – but don’t color us dismissive – while we’re already basically decided on the fate of both versions of these tablets for now, their accessories are another story. Everything from a leathery encapsulating case and keyboard to the most versatile HD dock Motorola has ever released for smart devices, this is the box of Verizon-carried official bits you can also purchase when you pick up one or both of the tablets. Have a peek at not only our judgement but hands-on videos galore as well.
Inside the Galaxy Nexus you’ll find Google’s newest mobile OS: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and with it in combination with the advanced lens setup on this devices’ 5-megapixel camera, you’ll find a set of abilities that no Android has had before. This plus the Movie Studio app introduced first for Android 3.0 Honeycomb, you’ve now got the ability to make the video you’re about to see, filmed and produced with the Galaxy Nexus controlled by none other than your humble narrator. You’ll see facial recognition gone wild and a set of effects that, though basic, make for a video editing environment thats perfectly powerful for a smartphone.
