News

• Analysis: Are netbooks dead? The prognosis is grim

  By Loyd Case | 22 February, 2012 01:57

  Remember netbooks? Those inexpensive, highly portable, long-battery-life laptops made primarily for lightweight tasks like Web browsing? Netbook sales have declined. In the United States, sales have dropped precipitously since 2010, and the trend in the rest of the world is starting to follow.

• Will ultrabooks slow the tablet revolution?

  By Tony Bradley | 25 January, 2012 10:15

  A new report from analyst firm, Juniper Research, forecasts that shipments of ultrabooks will grow three times the rate of tablets over the next five years. The initial reception and anticipation of the cadre of ultrabooks announced at CES is impressive, but if we look closer at the stats the tablet really isn't in any danger of being relegated to irrelevance by the new class of laptops any time soon.

• Ultrabooks: 7 ways they're revolutionising mobile computing

  By Tony Bradley | 12 January, 2012 05:02

  At CES 2012, the ultrabook is the new tablet. Of course, there are plenty of new tablets being offered up as well, but 2012 is shaping up to be the year of the ultrabook.

• Confessions of a Chromebook addict

  By Howard Wen | 27 December, 2011 00:25

  Last December, Google started shipping the Cr-48 -- a lightweight notebook running Chrome OS -- to select people across the U.S. This pilot program was meant to test the experimental "Chromebook" platform under real-world use, helping Google work out any kinks. About 60,000 Cr-48's were given away by the company. Acer and Samsung released their own Chromebook models for sale to the public on June 15.

• NEWS FOCUS: Why PCs will thank the iPad

  By Ross Catanzariti | 26 August, 2011 16:32

  The rise of tablets has often led to claims that the PC market is on its last legs. But is the traditional personal computer dead? Not yet. In fact, the tablet market may just help shape the future of PCs.

• Opinion: Chromebooks are doomed to fail

  By Tony Bradley | 16 May, 2011 00:32

  A month from today, the Chromebooks from Samsung and Acer will hit the street. Google hopes to revolutionize mobile computing and free us from the shackles of the traditional PC experience, but the Chromebook is going to fizzle.

• Chromebooks to ship with offline versions of Google Apps

  By Brennon Slattery | 13 May, 2011 02:47

  One of the problems with the marketability of the Chromebook -- that it only functions when connected to the Internet -- is also a misunderstanding. Google's Chrome OS doesn't have any locally installed apps like a word processor or spreadsheet manager, so many believe that Chromebooks are dependent on and useless without Wi-Fi or cellular data connectivity. But when Chromebooks ship on June 15, they'll come packaged with offline versions of Gmail, Docs, and Google Calendar.

• Will the Google Chromebook replace your laptop?

  By Tony Bradley | 12 May, 2011 07:58

  Google spent much of the second day of the Google I/O event focused on the Chrome OS and the unveiling the upcoming Chromebook computers. The Web-centric netbooks are an ambitious attempt to fundamentally change the way people compute, and could possibly replace your traditional laptop...if you let it.

• Tablets replacing laptops and eReaders

  By Tony Bradley | 10 May, 2011 00:40

  New survey results from Nielsen show that users are ditching their laptops, abandoning their ereaders, and leaving their MP3 players behind. For a large, and growing segment of the population, the tablet is the new primary computing and entertainment device.

• Linux and ARM power new 10-inch netbooks

  By Katherine Noyes | 01 April, 2011 06:01

  Hardware maker Hercules this week gave Linux fans a nice boost by unveiling two new additions to its eCAFÉ netbook line that use ARM processors and run the open source operating system.

• Choosing the Right Mobile Tool For the Job

  By Tony Bradley | 28 March, 2011 09:12

  If you were going on a vacation and you could only take one gadget, what would it be? How about if it's a business trip? Which is a better mobile computing device--a notebook? A netbook? A tablet? The thing is, not only is the choice for "best" a matter of subjective opinion, but the reality is that each mobile gadget fills a role and you have to select the tool that best fills the role you need it to in that scenario.

• Acer Aspire One 522 Netbook

  By Yardena Arar | 23 March, 2011 08:17

  The Acer Aspire One 522 (model BZ897) delivers a good, classic netbook for a very reasonable price ($330 as of March 18, 2011). Petite and slim with a handsome 10.1-inch widescreen LED-backlit display, a 250GB hard drive, an integrated 1.3-megapixel webcam, and a multitouch touchpad, this portable does a solid job with multimedia and boasts pretty good battery life: nearly 7 hours in our tests using the provided 6-cell battery.

• HP Mini 1103 netbook: Solid, old-school

  By Jon L. Jacobi | 01 March, 2011 09:07

  The business-oriented HP Mini 1103 netbook is good-looking and solidly designed, and it has great battery life. Two years ago it would've earned high praise. Today it reminds us how inadequate Atom-based netbooks are for all but the most basic computing tasks. If the basics are all you need to cover, however, at $299 (as of February 28, 2011) this machine is a good deal with nice ergonomics.

• Did Acer accidentally invent the Cloud workstation?

  By Keir Thomas | 23 February, 2011 06:44

  An intriguing report on German news site Heise.de on Monday unveiled a cheap monitor that includes built-in PC functionality. The Acer DX241H is an otherwise standard 1920x1080 pixel HDMI monitor, but it also features an operating system running on top of an ARM Cortex-A8 chip -- the same processor commonly found in cell phones and tablets. All this comes in at around just $400, although that price would likely be significantly lower if the product reaches the United States.

• Google Chrome netbook: What to expect

  By Tony Bradley | 07 December, 2010 01:46

  Google has issued invitations for a media event on Tuesday, and all signs point to some sort of official unveiling of Google-branded netbooks built on the Chrome OS. Just in case you haven't been keeping up on the Chrome OS news, here is a little background and some idea of what you can expect from a Google netbook.