Sexy Gadgets, Cool Gadgets and Concept Gadgets

Tablets are the rage today, rapidly eating into the netbook market. While they are convenient, it is often annoying to have to type out long documents on the onscreen keyboard. Asus has cleverly added a keyboard dock to its 10.1-inch Honeycomb tablet powered by a 1 GHz dual core processor that enhances its overall utility.

Named the EEE Transformer, the tablet has been designed in two parts. The 10.1-inch tab measures 12.9 mm thick with a textured panel at the back. Good enough for stand-alone use, it supports a capacitive touch display and has almost all controls on the side panel including the SIM slot, micro SD slot, volume controls, mini HDMI connector and 3.5mm jack. Only the charging port is covered when connected to the dock, though the dock itself has a charging port. In addition, the dock has two USB ports and a well-spaced QWERTY keypad with shortcuts for Wi-Fi, brightness, browser, search, etc. While it weighs 640 gm, the keyboard adds around 750 gm to the total weight, which would be about what a netbook weighs. The Transformer runs on Android and not the regular Windows, so users might take time getting used to it. It managed to give us 12 hours of battery backup when connected to the dock and seven hours otherwise.

Beetel has added a new feather in its tab-cap. With the launch of an upgraded tab, the Magiq Glide, the company is trying to compete against the likes of the Reliance Tab.

Where the new 7-incher looks exactly like its predecessor is the user interface. Running on Android 2.2, the custom Ul has application tabs at the bottom—home, web, entertainment, communication and favorite. There are some shortcuts on the top right with the last icon for task manager and notifications. The kick stand at the back makes it easy to type or watch videos.

The biggest drawback of the Magiq was its resistive touch display. Rectifying past mistakes, Beetel has given the Glide a capacitive screen which makes scrolling through the main menu and even typing simpler and smoother.

The Beetel Magiq Glide has a 1GHz processor with 512 MB RAM. The overall performance was decent, but the 2MP camera and battery were average. Read the rest of this entry »

Audio is another weak point, Even with the supplied Dolby Home Theater activated, stereo imaging was vague and seemed to wander from one side to the other, Bass was utterly Lacking, and volume Levels were so Low that I kept checking the controls to make sure they were maxed out,

On the rear are two USB 2.0 ports and an HDMI connector. A lone audio jack is on the left, and an SD Card slot sits on the right. The unit has no USB 3.0 ports. Admittedly that array is only slightly worse than what you’d get with a MacBook Air, but the Air has a high-speed Thunderbolt port than can serve as both an I/O and a digital monitor connection. Like the Air, the S3-951 lacks an Ethernet jack; the only connectivity is through 802,11n Wi-Fi. Unlike the Air and most other Ultrabooks, though, Acer’s model omits Bluetooth support. Read the rest of this entry »

The HP Pavilion dv6 is one of the latest notebooks equipped with the new second-generation Core i7-2630QM that features both integrated as well as discrete graphics hardware. In accordance with HP’s new design direction, some attention has also been paid to the way it looks. Dressed in a “dark umber metal finish”, the HP dv6 looks more expensive than it really is, with the finishing on both the lid and palm rest.

As far as connectivity goes, the HP dv6 isn’t lacking in any way, with the usual ports taking up residence on the left and right of the notebook. Notable inclusions are the two USB3.0 ports, and an extra audio jack –which is provided to consumers under the “Beats” brand, one of the key selling points of the multimedia machine. Sound from the quartet of built-in speakers sounded clear and sharp, and especially potent when earphones are plugged in. Read the rest of this entry »

At a glance, it’s easy to mistake Samsung’s RV520 for a much more expensive laptop. The textured lid almost looks like a pressed sheet of metal, and the two-tone silver and black design looks classier than its price might suggest. At only £430 inc VAT, however, it’s the second cheapest full-sized laptop in the group this month.

Get up close and there’s no mistaking the budget construction ֊ that faux-metal finish is actually just sturdy-feeling plastic. But don’t let that put you off, as the 2.41kg Samsung is actually very well built. There’s precious little flex in the lid; no matter how hard we pressed on it, we simply couldn’t make it show through to the LCD panel. Read the rest of this entry »

Another quality gaming machine, the Qosmio F730 is the first laptop to offer glasses-free 3D. Toshiba achieves this by tracking the eye movements of the person sitting in front of the screen. A pair of web cameras follows your gaze and adjusts the output for each eye.

The screen is a generous 15.6in (1366×768-pixel) panel and is optimally viewed from a distance of around 60cm. A Blu-ray XL drive (which can record up to 100GB of data on a single platter), an nVidia GeForce GT 540M graphics chip with 2GB of video RAM, a 640GB hard drive, and Harman Kardon speakers all feature on this 2.9kg gaming laptop.

We’re torn between the Xperia Play and the Sony Tablet P split-screen gaming tablet. The latter will be on sale from mid-November and allows you to play PlayStation Portable games on its dual 5.5in touchscreens. The lower half of the tablet acts as a gaming controller.

As well as standard Android apps there’s DLNA tech for bouncing content from tablet to large-screen TV support for the Sony Reader Store, plus access to the Sony Unlimited Music library.

When we first saw the Asus Zen-book UX31, we knew it would take a top spot in the new laptop ultrabook category, thanks to its well-crafted all-metal construction, superb Bang & Olufsen audio, and a keyboard that rivals the trend-setting Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (Thunderbolt) for comfort. And in our Labs we learned that beyond just looks and feel, it has a lot of power to boot.

The Zenbook UX31 is roughly the same size as the Apple MacBook Air and the Acer Aspire S3. Its 13.3-inch widescreen displays in 1,600-by-900 resolution-higher than the 1,366-by-768 display on the Acer S3 and the 1,440-by-900 display on the MacBook Air. Read the rest of this entry »

The Acer Travelmate 8481T-6440 laptop is very similar to the crop of luxuriously thin ultraportable that has surfaced of late, except it targets small businesses. You can say it’s similar to an ultrabook, with its thin metal-clad frame, low-voltage Core i5 processor, and 11 hours of battery life. Ultrabook or not, the 8481T-6440 is great all-around, and it unseats the Dell Vostro 3350 as our new Editors’ Choice for small-busi-ness laptops.

Like the Dell Vostro V131 and Lenovo ThinkPad XI, this Travelmate measures less than an inch thick. Its 3.9-pound frame might seem heavy compared with the competition, but its huge 87WH battery and 14-inch widescreen are worth the added weight. Read the rest of this entry »

Along with the Acer Iconia, this is one of the smallest tablets on test, but this seven-incher doesn’t lack powerful tech.

You get the same 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core processor found on larger tablets and a standard 8GB of storage plus microSD slot, but at 390g the ViewPad is light enough to be used one-handed. That makes it effortlessly easy to enjoy the slick performance and lag-free films on the go.

The seven-inch screen is impressively vibrant and viewing angles are strong unless you tilt the tablet downwards, which immediately darkens the image. Photos and films look razor-sharp thanks to the 1024×600 resolution – not HD, but more than crisp enough for a seven-inch screen. Read the rest of this entry »

THE Asus Zenbook UX31 is the first laptop from the Taiwanese manufacturer to conform to Intel’s ‘ultrabook’ specifications and stands toe-to-toe with Apple’s MacBook Air in the fight for the title of best luxury ultraportable.

The Zenbook is fantastic to look at. When closed, the wedge-shaped laptop measures 17mm at its thickest point and a mere 3mm at its thinnest. The aluminum silver lid boasts a distinctive concentric circle design that catches and reflects the surrounding light. Befitting the name, the Zenbook’s simple, sleek finish gives it a premium look that keeps getting better as soon as you lift the lid.

The isolation-style keyboard is front and center inside the Zenbook with no additional clutter from the likes of hotkeys, volume controls, numeric keypads or even separate mouse buttons. As the chassis is so thin, there’s very little depth to each key. At first, this can be of-putting, especially if you’re used to hammering out your emails – but before long typing on the Zenbook becomes second nature. Read the rest of this entry »

ACER has announced their slim, light and powerful Acer Aspire S3 laptop. This kick starts a slew of Ultrabooks that are about to take the market by storm. We got our hands on an early pre-production model to find out how this early flagship portable is shaping up.

‘Ultrabook’ is a term coined by Intel, which has tried to invigorate the laptop market. It’s effectively a loose standard, of design and specification that aims to deliver powerful, but portable and lightweight laptops.

The beautifully styled, 13.1-inch Aspire S3 is a guaranteed head-turner. It attracted interested comments and questions wherever we took it, as friends and strangers looked jealously at the clean thin lines, and classy aluminum body. Read the rest of this entry »

Tablets demand processors and interfaces designed for the job, but that hasn’t stopped Fujitsu from resurrecting the winter tablet.

This is a 10.1in՝screen model running Windows 7 Pro powered by Intel’s Atom processor. For storage it takes a 62GB solid-state disk (SSD) with only 27GB of usable space.

On the bottom is a docking port; along the sides, USB 2.0 and HDMI, plus an SD Card slot. Buttons on the right let you flip the screen orientation and switch off the Wi-Fi. Read the rest of this entry »

Acer’s Aspire Ethos multimedia laptops arc built to deliver cutting-edge style and power at affordable prices. The 5943G-5464G50Bnss packs powerhouse graphics, high-def compatibility and bags of features, making it a great media center for the whole family.

Its sharp lines, elegant silver and black color scheme, and faux-chrome highlights create a high-quality look. While the silver plastic hides smudges and scuffs, the black plastic palm rest is not so effective, with fingerprints showing clearly. Read the rest of this entry »

The iPad 2 is the successor to a product that’s single-handedly driven an entire market. Its fantastic capacitive touchscreen means that browsing through the OS and interacting with the apps and your content has yet to be bettered. The screen also features multi-touch features that enable you to manipulate content by finger gestures. Pinch your fingers together on the content to zoom in, for example, and then do the opposite to pan out again.

The 9.7-inch display features a 1,024 x 768-pixel resolution and is bright, crisp and clear without being exceptional. Standard-definition (SD) films and TV look good, but we were a little disappointed by the quality of high-definition (HD) video downloaded from the iTunes store. Read the rest of this entry »

Unlike the iPad and Samsung-dominated 10-inch universe, the 7-inch market is still anyone’s game. The ViewPad 7x comes loaded with Android Honeycomb and there are little design tricks that give it more of a personality than many 7-inch rivals. The embossed casing at first looks black, but catching the light reveals it to be a deep red. Coupled with the red band that outlines the tablet, the overall effect is more attractive than the average black slate. Read the rest of this entry »

New tablets have to do a lot to stand out in today’s increasingly Android-saturated marketplace. We had high hopes for the first tablet from smartphone maestro, HTC, but the Flyer’s steep price and outdated operating system (OS) make it hard to recommend.

The major problem is that the Flyer runs Android 2.3, which has now been replaced by Android 3.0 (dubbed ‘Honeycomb’). The latter offers great features and a slick interface designed specifically for tablets, and returning to 2.3 feels like taking a step back in time. Read the rest of this entry »

It has taken Sony close to two years to enter the tablet market. In an excellent bid to stand out in the crowd, Sony has given its tablet a refreshing and aesthetic design. Described as an “ergonomic innovation”, the design consists of an unusual curve-wedge shape, rather like a single sheet of black plastic bent to make the ends meet. The gorgeous looks give the impression that the Tablet S is a heavy device. But at 598 gm, it is more than comfortable to lug around. The controls, including on/off, volume, 3.5mm jack, memory card slot and a mini USB port, are on the side while the charging jack lies at the bottom. Read the rest of this entry »

Asus’ U36JC is the only laptop here to rely on a pre-Sandy Bridge processor. While the Core i5-460M runs at a seemingly pacey 2.53GHz, it’s missing the generational speed boost and efficiency enhancements that every other machine here benefits from.

With older versions of Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost, to name but two, performance isn’t as it should the these days. The U36JC scored a mere 0.49 in our benchmarks, which is this month’s lowest score by some distance.

The cash saved by choosing a last-gen chip has at least left room for discrete graphics. Nvidia’s GeForce 310M averaged 36fps in our Low quality Crysis test, slightly higher than laptops with Intel’s integrated graphics. It isn’t this month’s best gaming option – the Dell XPS 15г easily wins that honor – but it’s an improvement on many. Read the rest of this entry »

We talk about long-life laptops throughout this Libs, but Panasonic’s Toughbooks meet that criterion lit more ways than one. Put simply, the semi-ruggedized CF-53 is the laptop equivalent of an army all-terrain vehicle: a 54mm magnesium-thickened chassis weighing 2.6kg; rubber seals over all interfaces; and a hard disk mounted in shock-absorbing polymers. You can drop it from up to 76cm and splash water over the keyboard, safe in the knowledge the Toughbook won’t even blink. Read the rest of this entry »