s5

The broad mainstream future of Thunderbolt is in question, but there's no doubt it's already useful for people with heavy computing demands.

With hundreds of gigabytes of high-resolution digital photographs and a smaller but still bulky collection of video, I'm one of them.

To supply fast external storage for my Dell laptop, for a few years now I've relied on eSATA -- an external version of the SATA standard used to connect hard drives inside computer chassis. It's functional but prickly: the external drive must be powered on before the computer, sleep and wake can … Read more

Intel believes Thunderbolt will remake mobile computing by endowing laptops with a high-speed, versatile port.

To match Intel's mainstream ambitions for Thunderbolt, though, Intel will have to prove to hardware designers and to consumers that it's got compelling advantages over the alternatives. Today, those are chiefly USB (Universal Serial Bus) and HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface. Tomorrow, another challenger could arrive in the form of PCI Express Cable, and it's got a strong ally in PC giant Hewlett-Packard.

Getting new input-output technologies to catch on is particularly hard because I/O standards only succeed with support from both … Read more

To some, Thunderbolt is just a port on the side of a MacBook, a mere check-box on a feature list.

But to Intel, the high-speed communication technology is an ambitious attempt to do something that only happens every decade or so in the computing industry: rewrite the rules of how people plug stuff into their computers.

Thunderbolt arrived in 2011 with the potential to bring the flexibility of a tower computer to something as compact as an ultrabook. And it's got a bright future in premium and professional products, as events this week show.

First, Apple's new Retina display-equipped MacBook Pro … Read more

Think the new $399 iPad 2 is just a cheaper knockoff of the original? Think again. There's some premium silicon inside.

The $399 Wi-Fi iPad 2 -- the only new iPad 2 that Apple now sells -- uses a more advanced version of the dual-core Apple A5 series chip, according to chip review site Anandtech.

That more advanced A5 chip is built on a cutting-edge Samsung manufacturing process, Anandtech says. Hardly a trivial difference.

As a chip's geometries shrink -- going from 45-nanometer to 32-nanometer, for example -- a lot of things can happen. All of them good. … Read more

We're more than a quarter of the way through 2012 (believe it or not), so it's time to ask: where are those hot laptops we saw back at CES?

The good news is, looking back at the products we saw back then, is that a surprising number of them weren't vaporware. Even better, a great number of them have already made their debut and have been reviewed on CNET. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Well, it can only get better from here, right?

Acer informally kicked off the Consumer Electronics Show's wave of press conferences today with the unveiling of the Timeline Ultra and Aspire S5, along with a look at its cloud services.

Missing were any concrete details of its tablet, as well as any information on its planned Windows 8 products.

With its laptop announcements, Acer is doubling down on the ultrabook segment. The products underscore the company's need to find a hot new category to spark revenue, particularly with its key Netbook business cratering. The trouble is, the … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Acer unveiled the Aspire S5, which it boasts is the world's thinnest Ultrabook.

The Aspire S5 is the second ultrabook that Acer announced today at its press conference ahead of the official start of the Consumer Electronics Show. With ultrabooks looking very similar in size and shape to each other, thinness has been on the key differentiators. Acer boasts that the device is only 15 millimeters at its maximum point.

Like the Acer Timeline Ultra, it offers an instant-on connection, allowing it to turn on within 1.5 seconds. The device will also get the same access to … Read more

Back in early June we reported that Sonos was in the process of prepping a smaller networked speaker, the Play: 3. Well, now that product has become official, along with its $299 price tag.

As part of the new release, Sonos is also undergoing a brand makeover, with a slightly different logo, a new naming system for its products, and a new tagline: "The wireless HiFi system." Moving beyond the smaller Play: 3, which comes in black and white versions, Sonos is now calling the larger S5 networked speaker the Play:5. It remains priced at $399, while the company's wireless Bridge drops to $50 from $100.

In recent years, as Sonos has added free iOS and Android apps to control its multiroom wireless audio system from people's existing smartphones and tablets like the iPad, the company has been growing rapidly. The introduction of the S5 (Play:5), which integrated a speaker with the wireless networking component, made setting up a multiroom system easier and has led to a big leap in sales.… Read more

Ever since Sonos released its S5 networked speaker, we've been asking company reps to put out a smaller, less-expensive version that's designed for spots like bathrooms, kitchens, or a bedroom nightstand. Well, it appears we may soon get our wish.

Dave Zatz of Zatznotfunny.com spotted the upcoming Sonos product on the FCC Web site, where it's referred to in branding material as the Play:3. In his post Zatz notes that the "3" may refer to the number of drivers in the speaker. The $399 S5 has five while the smaller Play:3 could … Read more