Still unconvinced we’re headed towards a
post-PC future? We can at least conclusively say we’ve entered a post-netbook present, as Q2 2011 marks the first time their numbers have been eclipsed by tablets, according to
ABI Research. 13.6 million
slates were shipped in the quarter, besting the 7.3 million the
diminutive laptops were able to clock in. When compared to the prior quarter, that works out to 112 percent or 7.2 million increase (!) for the former, and a 1.1 million decline for the latter. Cost apparently isn’t a driving factor, as the firm notes that tablets pack an average price of $600 — nearly double that of their trackpad-toting brethren. Oh, and in case you were wondering, 68 percent of tablets shipped were of Cupertino’s flavor. More cold hard facts await you in the PR after the break.
Continue reading Netbooks slip under tablet shipments, achieve has-bEeen status
Netbooks slip under tablet shipments, achieve has-bEeen status originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 02:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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“Great looking books.” That’s what
Amazon is promising to deliver with Kindle Format 8 (KF8) — a new, HTML5-based file format for
Kindle books. According to the company, KF8 will allow publishers to produce picture books, comics and graphic novels with greater ease, thanks to the platform’s rich formatting capabilities and design elements. In fact, this format brings more than 150 new formatting tools to the table, including fixed layouts, nested tables, sidebars and Scalable Vector Graphics, among others. It should be noted, however, that audio and video are not included on the list of supported HTML tags and CSS elements. At first, content creators will only be able to use KF8 for the
Kindle Fire tablet, though Amazon says it’ll gradually expand to its entire lineup of devices and apps “in the coming months.” No word yet on when KF8 will become available as an update to Amazon’s Kindle Publisher Tools suite, but you can find more details at the source link, below.
Amazon’s new e-book format brings HTML5 support to your Kindle library originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Oct 2011 08:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Google made a big splash when it revealed plans to offer Chromebooks to enterprise and education customers under a subscription model. What’s not clear is how much of a splash it actually made in those markets. While the notion of paying a monthly fee for three years, instead of buying a machine up front sounds like a game changer, some people just like the comfort of the familiar. To that end Google is now offering those same customers the option to purchase a Chromebook (with a year of support included) in one lump sum — $449 for the WiFi model or $519 for the 3G to educational customers, while business are looking at $559 and $639 respectively. After that first year is through, customers have the option to sign up for a monthly support contract, at $5 a month for education and $13 a month for enterprise.
Chromebooks now available to enterprise and education customers with a pay-once option originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 23 Oct 2011 18:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It was just last week that we got to take home the Acer Aspire S3, the first Ultrabook to go on sale here in the States. Unfortunately, it doesn’t live up to the pillars laid out by Intel: its performance trails similar machines, its battery craps out early and the design, while portable, is too chintzy to make it a bellwether for skinny Windows laptops. Our verdict, in a sentence, was that you’d be better off getting a MacBook Air, or at least considering other Ultrabooks — namely, ASUS’ line of Zenbooks.
As it turns out, one showed up on our doorstep just a few days later. In many ways, the UX31 is everything the S3 is not: it has a gorgeous all-metal design and comes standard with an SSD and 1600 x 900 display (not to mention, a case and two bundled adapters). And with a starting price of $1,099, it undercuts the entry-level (and similarly configured) MacBook Air by two hundred bucks. So is this the Ultrabook we’ve all been waiting for? We suggest pouring yourself a large beverage, settling into a comfy chair and meeting us past the break. We’ve got a lot to say on the subject.
Continue reading ASUS Zenbook UX31 review
ASUS Zenbook UX31 review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It was exactly seven years ago today that Warty Warthog, the very first release of Ubuntu (despite its 4.10 version number), hit the Internet and became and almost instant success. In those years Canonical has built the world’s most popular desktop Linux distribution and a powerful presence in the server industry thanks to its LTS (Long Term Support) releases. With Oneiric Ocelot in the books, it’s time for the team to set its sights on yet another enterprise-friendly and super stable release, 12.04 LTS — Precise Pangolin. Don’t expect any big new features or drastic UI changes, the LTS releases are all about fine tuning what’s already there. Hit up the source for a few more details on Pangolin and the more coverage link for the original Ubuntu announcement.
Ubuntu turns 7, Canonical gets to work on Precise Pangolin originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We just witnessed quite the interview between ASUS chairman Jonney Shih and Walt Mossberg at AsiaD, and outside of revealing the Transformer Prime (and affirming that the impending Padfone would ship with Android 4.0), he also dropped a few other nuggets worth mention to the audience here in Hong Kong. For starters, he finally caved to Walt’s pestering about who his main competition was, specifically related to the new Zenbook. “The Mac[Book] Air,” he stated, chuckling slyly afterwards, but quickly continuing on to plug his own machine based on its own merits. Not surprisingly, he also expressed his confidence that Android tablets still had a lot of life left in the market, and he stated that ASUS is still on track to move its target — around two million — Android tablets this year. Moving onto the topic of netbooks, Shih noted that rather than being buried, netbooks are simply “evolving.” More importantly, however, was his subtle confirmation that a new ASUS netbook is en route: “You’ll see on our new netbook, it’ll be very thin.” In fact, he even suggested that the design may follow that of the Zenbook, but just… smaller.
When asked about his thoughts on people replacing laptops less frequently, and perhaps shifting disposable income to smartphones and tablets, Jonney maintained that all of those markets were key to ASUS’ success, and that none were taking a backseat. “We believe that this a very critical time, transitioning from the personal computing era to the ubiquitous cloud computing era.” Sounds a bit like another mantra we heard, truth be told, but ASUS has been riding the cloud bandwagon long before most other consumer companies even knew what it was. The original spate of Eee PCs had next to no internal storage; rather, they relied on accessing the web in order to deliver the bulk of their functionality. Jonney also noted that ASUS is attempting to tackle an interesting problem with its products, which is that few people can truly separate work and entertainment — in other words, you need products that adequately handle both worlds. We’re guessing a Padfone + Transformer Prime + Zenbook is his preferred trifecta to do just that.
ASUS’ Jonney Shih: Android 4.0 hitting tablets by year’s end, ultrathin netbook is coming originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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How to best view the Google Books collections? Why, a digital bookcase, of course. But this isn’t just any bookcase, it’s a giant spinning 3D helix of a bookcase, collecting more than 10,000 titles in 28 subjects. Users can navigate the WebGL Bookcase by spinning it around or swiping it up and down. Sure, it’s not the quickest way to locate a title amongst tens of thousands of books, but perhaps it’ll offer up some small consolation for those who miss browsing real-life bookstores. You can check out the experiment in the source link below — be forewarned, however, that it’s a bit of a resource hog.
Continue reading Google thinks your digital books belong on a digital bookcase, digitally (video)
Google thinks your digital books belong on a digital bookcase, digitally (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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IDC and
Gartner have come out with their latest Q3 rankings of the world’s PC manufacturers, which means it’s time for us to do some dissecting. Not much changed at the top of the heap, where, according to IDC, HP
still rules the roost with about 18 percent market share (despite that
whole PC thing). But the most dramatic shift came from Lenovo, which scurried past Dell for second place, with 13.7 percent market share (13.5, according to Gartner) — a 36.1 percent jump from the the third quarter of 2010 (25.2 percent, says Gartner). Dell’s pie slice, on the other hand, shrunk slightly to 12 percent this quarter, down from 12.6 percent last year. On the global scale, meanwhile, PC sales increased by about 3.6 percent compared to Q3 2010 (3.2 percent, in Gartner’s books), though both research firms acknowledged that this figure was well below their respective projections. Why? IDC points to several economic factors, including the threat of a double-dip recession, while Gartner blames the rise of “non-PC devices,” including tablets.
Surprise!
Continue reading IDC and Gartner: Lenovo leaps past Dell for second place, still trails HP for the gold
IDC and Gartner: Lenovo leaps past Dell for second place, still trails HP for the gold originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 07:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Back in May, when we first got hands-on with ASUS’
UX21 and
UX31 laptops, it was to be one of our first encounters with the kind of ultrathin PC that Intel’s now marketing as Ultrabooks. Since then, a lot’s happened — we’ve seen a handful of
similarly skinny notebooks, with
Acer’s Aspire S3 beating them all to market. Now, more or less on schedule, ASUS is ready to follow suit. The company just announced that its line of Ultrabooks — make that Zenbooks! — will go on sale in the US tomorrow, October 12, starting at $999 for the 11.6-inch UX21 and $1,099 for the 13.3-inch UX31. If you’ll recall, they weigh in at 2.4 pounds and 2.9 pounds, respectively, and thanks to those aluminum alloy bodies, glass trackpads and all-metal keyboards, they just happen to be two of the finest-looking Ultrabooks we’ve seen to date. Other specs include USB 3.0, Bluetooth 4.0, a SATA III SSD, ultra low voltage Core i5 and i7 processors and two-second resume time — the same claim Acer’s making with its Aspire S3. While the 11.6-incher has 1366 x 768 resolution, the 13-inch model’s panel steps up to 1600 x 900. And when it comes to battery life, the UX21′s rated for five hours of runtime (or seven days’ standby), while the UX31 lasts a longer seven hours (or ten days).You heard the company — these are landing tomorrow — but until then feel free to revisit our
hands-on for your requisite close-up shots and video.
Developing…
ASUS Zenbook UX21 and UX31 headed to the US October 12, starting at $999 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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And the Ultrabooks have arrived! We just got word that the Acer Aspire S3 will go on sale in the US and Canada this week for $899 — making it the first pinch-thin, MacBook Air competitor to hit the market, landing ahead of competing models from Toshiba, Lenovo and ASUS. To recap, this 2.98-pound aluminum beaut has a 13.3-inch (1366 x 768) panel, is rated for six hours (or 50 standby days!) of battery life and promises to wake from sleep in a mere two seconds. For the money, you’ll get an ultra low voltage Core i5 CPU, 4GB of RAM and 20GB of solid-state storage combined with a 320GB HDD. No word yet on how many additional configs will be available, though Acer did confirm that this $899 version will be followed by models with Core i3 and i7 processors and beefier storage capacity. Intrigued? Have a gander at our hands-on preview if you missed it the first time around, and find some fancy press shots below.
Continue reading Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook hits the US and Canada this week, rings in at $899
Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook hits the US and Canada this week, rings in at $899 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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