We see you in comments, chiming in on every EV post about how worthless they are in the cold. Charles Lane from The Washington Post recently did the same, saying things like “A change of ten degrees can sap 50% of a battery’s output” and speculating that the EV industry is “just one well-publicized malfunction away from disaster.” Not so, says Tom Moloughney, and he should know. He’s spent the last 49,500 miles of his commuting life in an all-electric Mini E, an average of 2,500 miles per month. Now, this car is a prototype and a fairly early example of the modern electric vehicle, meaning it has no preconditioning tech to let you warm up the battery packs before you go. Despite that, Tom has logged every trip he’s made in the car and indicates he rarely sees more than a loss of about five percent from the vehicle’s usual range. More importantly, he’s made his way through many a cold commute without getting stranded — or freezing to death.

NJ EV owner with 50,000 miles logged dispels myth of cold weather battery woes originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Feb 2011 09:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When Dell first demoed the Inspiron Duo and its vertically rotating screen on stage at IDF in September, our mouths nearly hit the floor. It looked like a plain old netbook until its 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen did a magical backflip and folded down over its keyboard to morph into a tablet. It was like nothing we’d ever seen before. And we actually figured it would be the sort of system that would stay locked up in Dell’s labs, but when its specs were revealed — a dual-core Atom N550 processor, 2GB of RAM, and Broadcom Crystal HD accelerator — it became evident that the netbook / tablet hybrid was the real deal. Running Windows 7 Home Premium and Dell’s new Stage interface, the $550 netvertible has the potential to successfully straddle both the netbook and tablet world. It also has a real shot at being the perfect device for those wavering between buying a netbook and a tablet. Indeed, the Duo is filled to the brim with potential, but what’s the thing really like to use? We’ve spent the last few days with the Duo (and its Duo Audio Station) to find out, so hit the break for the official Engadget review!

Editor’s note: The review unit Dell sent us was a hardware production unit, but we were told the software was about 95 percent done. We will update this review with our impressions of the final unit when we receive it.

Continue reading Dell Inspiron Duo review

Dell Inspiron Duo review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 15:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When Dell told us of its plans to revive its tried and true XPS laptop line we were pretty darn excited. With so much brand dilution in the past few years — there’s been the Adamo XPS and the Studio XPS — the products have noticeably strayed from providing the rock solid gaming and multimedia experience they were once known for. There’s a reason XPS stands for Xtreme Performance System, right?! The new line, which includes 14-, 15-, 17-inch systems, has all the ingredients to set it back on track — including Core i5 / i7 processors, NVIDIA GeForce 400M graphics with Optimus, JBL speakers, a backlit keyboard, an HD webcam and a solid aluminum lid – but has Dell succeeded in creating a well-rounded multimedia machine? And does it rival our oh-so-adored HP Envy line? We’ve spent the last week using the more mobile $899 XPS 14, so read on to find out in our full review!

Continue reading Dell XPS 14 review

Dell XPS 14 review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Nov 2010 14:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Of all the Atom-powered, Windows 7 tablets we’ve seen over the last year and a half (and boy have there been a lot!), the 11.6-inch ExoPC has been the one we’ve been waiting on. Sure, its specs are similar to the recently reviewed Tega v2 and CTL 2goPad — it’s also got a capacitive touchscreen, accelerometer, Atom Pinetrail processor and 2GB of RAM — but unlike the others the company has put some serious love into its Windows 7 software layer, which we’ve dubbed the Connect Four UI. ExoPC’s also preloaded the tablet with touch apps, built out its own app store and included a Broadcom Crystal HD accelerator to handle full 1080p video. You can clearly see why we’ve had high hopes for the ExoPC ever since we got to check it out at Computex, but does it live up to the promise and provide the more enhanced and finger-friendly Windows experience we’ve been looking for? And is the software stable and robust enough for the average consumer? We’ve spent the last week with the $599 tablet so read on to find out in our full review.

Continue reading ExoPC Slate review

ExoPC Slate review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 10:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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