ultrabook

MIA laptops at CES 2012: Alienware, Vaio, and others have little to show

LAS VEGAS--The biggest surprise of CES 2012 is not what we've seen here at the show, but what we haven't. In a radical departure from previous years, several major laptop makers are missing in action, while others are showing off only a single major new product, if anything.

Instead of hosting its usual giant press conference and hotel suites full of products to demo, Dell instead introduced a single laptop, the XPS 13 ultrabook. If it was going to highlight just one laptop, Dell certainly picked the most relevant one, but last year's CES saw several systems across different categories.

Dell's sister brand, Alienware, had nothing new to show, despite scoring big at past CES events with systems such as the M11X.

HP likewise stuck to a single major new laptop, the Envy 14 Spectre. It's an innovative system with a cool design (and our Best of CES winner in the computers and hardware category), but HP's other new laptops, the revamped Envy 15 and Envy 17, and the Folio 13 ultrabook, had already been released last month.

Toshiba typically has new models spilling from its various Satellite, Qosmio, and Portege laptop lines. But at CES 2012, it only had a single product to show off, an unnamed 14-inch ultrabook prototype. … Read more

Beats to Monster: We're just not that into you

LAS VEGAS--The Beats and Monster brands are so synonymous that it's hard to believe the relationship is over. After a five-year lovefest that spawned dozens of headphones including the eponymous Beats by Dr. Dre and Lady Gaga's own Heartbeats, Beats is cutting ties and refusing to renew the partnership contract.

According to a report from Businessweek, two anonymous sources confirmed that Noel Lee's Monster Brand and Jimmy Iovine's Beats label severed ties after an irreconcilable dispute over who should get more credit for last year's 53 percent headphone marketshare.

Dre and Iovine remain adamant about their aim to educate young listeners on the value of accurate sound reproduction seemingly lost in this era of awful-sounding Apple ibuds, and they even brought names like Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, and Miles Davis into the fold to help drive sales with cameos in music videos and live DJ sets.… Read more

PCs take the lead at CES 2012: Laptops, desktops, and hardware

LAS VEGAS--It's a rare CES for which most of the digital ink spilled is about computers and hardware, rather than giant televisions. But 2012 was just such a year, thanks to the never-ending drumbeat of Intel's ultrabook platform.

Yes, ultrabooks again It seems like you couldn't walk more than a hundred steps across the velvety carpet of the CES show floor without running into a giant ULTRABOOK or WINDOWS 8 sign. The first official ultrabook-designated laptops (it's an Intel marketing term) arrived during the 2011 holiday season, but CES 2012 was a coming-out party for a host of new designs from nearly all manufacturers.

The laptops ranged from the diminutive (the Acer Aspire S5) to the large and bold (the HP Envy 14 Spectre), and to the copycat (the MacBook-Air-alike Dell XPS 13). And 14- and 15-inch models, some with optical drives, dedicated graphics, and hybrid solid-state/hard drives, have begun to blur a category only in its nascency, leading us to ask if the category will suffer from unnecessary mission creep.

Will that mean that consumers will have a hard time identifying what an ultrabook is, or even feel the category has become overhyped and overexposed by the end of this year? Ultrabooks may be the industry's next great hope, judging by Intel's ultrabook-obsessed keynote presentation, but that doesn't mean consumers are never going to want anything different.

But not just ultrabooks Only a handful of other, non-ultrabook laptops really stood out.… Read more

The hidden Samsung laptops of CES 2012

LAS VEGAS--No matter how much you prepare for a trade show like CES, what you see on the floor never quite matches what news you get beforehand.

In the case of Samsung, we had a chance to look at the new Samsung Series 9 and Series 5 Ultra ultrabook, but were surprised by quite a few intriguing laptops at Samsung's booth, which we should expect to see later this year.… Read more

Ultrabooks: The next, cheaper phase

Toshiba is already pushing toward the next phase of ultrabooks--which can be summed up as making the skinny laptops more affordable.

Upcoming ultrabooks from Toshiba will break below the $700 mark, according to Carrie Cowan, a product manager in Toshiba's Digital Products Division. She spoke to CNET on Wednesday on the CES show floor (see video below).

To date, Toshiba's sole ultrabook offering has been the Portege Z830. Though it has been priced on occasion as low as $699 at Best Buy, it is usually listed at $799 or higher.

And Portege laptops are typically listed at even higher prices, as the brand represents Toshiba's upscale offerings.

But this spring Toshiba plans to bring ultrabooks into its most affordable Satellite line. That means prices at $699 and possibly even lower, Cowan said. … Read more

Asus rocks the tablet boat

Intel is making a big push into smartphones and tablets, Polaroid has the first Android phone, and Asus hands out four cores for the price of two with the game-changing Asus Memo 370T.

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded, from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas:

Four cores for the price of two? Intel goes inside smartphones Polaroid's Android camera Box-less DVR with DirecTV and Samsung Buzzing about the Dell XPS 13 and the Inhon. Subscribe: iTunes (MP3) | iTunes (320x180) | iTunes (HD) | RSS (MP3) | RSS (320x180) | RSS HD

Intel plays smartphone, tablet catch-up at CES 2012

LAS VEGAS--Intel made the case tonight that it didn't miss a step in the smartphone and tablet game, instead offering that computing has become device-agnostic.

Nonetheless, Intel spent the majority of its focus on smartphones and tablets, announcing deals that should spur more Atom-powered mobile devices in the near future.

On the smartphone front, that amounts to a reference design for a phone with a 4.03-inch LCD, two cameras (including one at 8 megapixels), and one of Intel's low-power Z2460 processors. The company hopes it will cut down the time and money it takes OEMs to get … Read more

Lenovo unveils first smartphone, powered by Intel (live blog)

LAS VEGAS--Lenovo will launch its first smartphone--one powered by Intel chips--in China in the second quarter, CEO Liu Jun said during Intel CEO Paul Otellini's CES keynote.

The Lenovo announcement was followed by news of a new Intel-Motorola partnership, a look at Intel's upcoming Ivy Bridge processor, and a cameo appearance by an overly scripted will.i.am.

The Lenovo phone is 10 millimeters thick and will run on China Unicom's network. It has a 4.5-inch screen, an 8-megapixel camera and offers 8 hours of 3G talk time, with 14 hours of standby. Otellini said the … Read more

Dell shows off its aluminum, carbon fiber XPS 13 ultrabook

LAS VEGAS--Dell's got a new ultrabook on the way, and it's making use of aluminum and carbon fiber to get the job done.

During Intel's keynote here tonight, the vice chairman of Dell, Jeff Clarke, brought out the freshly-announced XPS 13, the new 13-inch model in Dell's XPS line that falls into the ultrabook category.

The sub-three-pound notebook is 6mm at its thinnest point and made out of machined aluminum. The base of the machine is made out of carbon fiber.

The machine, which the company will begin taking orders for in February, supports Intel's … Read more

So, what's an ultrabook, again?

LAS VEGAS--Ask Intel, ask any laptop manufacturer at this year's CES what's going on, and ultrabook is going to come up. It's all anyone can talk about, it seems. Intel's entire 2012 CES press conference was about them. Acer, Samsung, Toshiba, HP, Lenovo--go down the list, and it's what they're showing at the convention.

So, what are ultrabooks, exactly?

That's the kick, and the rub, and the problem I see for ultrabooks at the moment: just when we're beginning to figure them out, the line defining them is completely blurring. How the … Read more