Hardware

Find computer hardware news, reviews and buying advice concerning everything from desktop computers, laptops, and tablets to solid-state drives (SSD) and processors.

Review

Touch Cover vs. Type Cover: Empirical test data doesn't lie!

Posted October 27, 2012 - 7:55 am

If you're going to throw down some cash for Microsoft's new Surface RT tablet, you absolutely must get either the Touch Cover or the Type Cover along with it. Without one of these keyboard accessories, the tablet's greater productivity package isn't complete. But which keyboard cover offers the better value for the money? Which one actually performs better under the scrutiny of empirical testing?
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Review

How Apple's iPad mini compares with Android tablets

Posted October 27, 2012 - 7:45 am

Now that Apple has unveiled its long-awaited iPad mini, we can see where it fits within the broader small-tablet market based on facts, not rumors.
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The new iPads: What you need to know

Posted October 27, 2012 - 7:43 am

Between Apple’s presentation at its Tuesday press event, the press releases and spec sheets that followed, and our all-too-brief hands-on session, we’ve been able to get a pretty good first impression of the new iPad mini and, to a lesser extent, the fourth-generation iPad. So while we wait for our review units to arrive, here’s what we know so far.
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Design fail! Our top 10 PC product peeves

Posted October 27, 2012 - 7:35 am

Bad industrial design can single-handedly ruin an otherwise solid product experience. Whether it results from the cardinal sins of sloth or greed, sheer disregard for users, or simple stupidity, it can drive me into a Hulk-smash rage.
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Top 10 technologies of the past 45 years

Posted October 27, 2012 - 7:35 am

A look at some of the products that have helped push rapid change in the IT industry over the past few decades.
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Review

Asus Vivo Tab RT has thoughtful design, but brings a mixed tablet experience

Posted October 27, 2012 - 7:35 am

Asus comes to the Windows tablet party with a strong tablet pedigree, which is just one of many reasons I looked forward to seeing the Vivo Tab RT. The company already has shown a talent for innovative design with its Transformer Pad series of Android tablets. The Vivo Tab RT ($599 for a 32GB unit bundled with a keyboard dock; $699 for a 64GB model, also with a dock) handles many tasks well. But as a tablet—one of the first running Windows RT to reach my desk—it falls short of its Apple iPad and Google Android competition.
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Can a $329 Apple iPad Mini compete in the bargain tablet market?

Posted October 27, 2012 - 7:35 am

It's real. Finally.
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Review

iPad Mini vs. Nexus 7: A head-to-head tablet comparison

Posted October 27, 2012 - 7:25 am

Apple made a point of doing a side-by-side comparison of its new iPad Mini with Google's Nexus 7 at the launch event Tuesday in San Jose, highlighting the mini tablet's thinness, larger viewable screen area and custom app compatibility.
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Apple iPad Mini: All the iPad at (nearly) half the cost

Posted October 27, 2012 - 7:25 am

Is the Apple iPad Mini the right tablet for business? Perhaps. It depends on whether you're in the market for a tablet in general, or if you're really only in the market for an iPad.
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Tim Cook: Apple by the numbers

Posted October 27, 2012 - 7:20 am

Apple CEO Tim Cook came to Tuesday's media event armed with numbers--a lot of them--to demonstrate his company's continued dominance. The biggest number? In the month since its release, iOS 6 has been downloaded to more than 200 million devices.
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Review

Mac Gems: QuickRes helps you get the most out of Retina displays

Posted October 27, 2012 - 7:20 am

Apple’s 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro has a problem: OS X doesn’t allow users to easily take full advantage of the Retina display. Specifically, OS X doesn't provide a simple, quick way to switch between the many supported screen resolutions; in addition, the Retina display supports higher resolutions than OS X provides access to. Fortunately, several developers offer software tools to fix this problem, and the one I’ve come to favor is Inertiactive’s QuickRes.
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Apple vs. Amazon: Has the iPad mini kindled new competition?

Posted October 27, 2012 - 7:05 am

Amazon's Kindle line of tablets is more reminiscent of Apple's iPad lineup than other Android devices - with everything from the hardware to the app store controlled by a single company.
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Six of the rarest Macs

Posted October 27, 2012 - 7:03 am

If you’re a longtime fan of the Macintosh platform, chances are you are a bit of a collector and a historian. Aside from their being endearing machines that earned user loyalty, Macs retained their usefulness far longer than most PCs, encouraging people to hang on to them. Who among you doesn’t have an old Mac in your closet?
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Watch Hurricane Sandy from NASA's orbiting satellites

Posted October 26, 2012 - 2:12 pm

NASA's web site offers the latest videos and pictures of Hurricane Sandy taken from orbiting satellites and the International Space Station.
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Microsoft Surface goes on sale to cheering crowds

Posted October 26, 2012 - 1:45 pm

About 100 people waited outside Boston's Microsoft Store Friday to buy the company's new Surface tablet, which runs a new version of Windows.
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Casio shows new $2,500 Android scanner-tablet for businesses

Posted October 26, 2012 - 7:12 am

Japan's Casio is preparing to launch a new Android tablet for businesses that acts as a personal scanner.
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Review

A second look: The mighty Surface RT tablet

Posted October 25, 2012 - 9:38 pm

The Surface RT tablet goes on sale starting at $499 for 32 GB on Friday, and it seems to be a rough-and-tumble device.
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AMD likely to announce ARM-based server on Monday

Posted October 25, 2012 - 7:46 pm

AMD has called a press conference in San Francisco on Monday where it's likely to announce plans for a SeaMicro server based on an upcoming 64-bit processor design from ARM.
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Apple sells 27 million iPhones but misses profit forecast

Posted October 25, 2012 - 5:22 pm

Apple sold 27 million iPhones and 14 million iPads in the last quarter of 2012, swelling its revenue by 27 percent, but its profits fell short of what analysts had been expecting.
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In search of the sub-$300 Windows RT tablet

Posted October 25, 2012 - 5:03 pm

Where are the sub-$300 Windows RT tablets? It's a question that might not be answered until Friday, when tablet makers finally put them on sale.
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Men better multitaskers than women, concludes Swedish study

Posted October 25, 2012 - 4:48 pm

A Swedish study concludes that men are better multitaskers than women, but you can put a big asterisk on the results.
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Microsoft's Surface tablet attracts crowd of first customers in Beijing

Posted October 25, 2012 - 4:34 pm

Microsoft's newly launched Surface tablet attracted hundreds of buyers at a Beijing electronics store at midnight Friday morning, with customers stating they had high hopes the device could offer an innovative user experience over rival tablets including Apple's iPad.
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System76 debuts a sleek, all-in-one desktop PC featuring Ubuntu Linux

Posted October 25, 2012 - 12:07 pm

There's no doubt the PC market is in the midst of a rush of hardware introductions featuring Microsoft's new Windows 8, but fortunately for buyers, those aren't the only choices out there.
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Review

Surface RT, Microsoft's bid for a 'thing' of its own

Posted October 25, 2012 - 11:55 am

Microsoft desperately needs a "thing"—a big thing that transcends the nerdy world of consumer electronics and achieves hero status among mobile-hardware wonks and civilians alike.
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To wash your keyboard or not to wash your keyboard, that is the question

Posted October 25, 2012 - 11:45 am

Ever have the urge to put your keyboard in the dishwasher? Turns out that’s not such a nutty idea
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