I used to be a fan of netbooks back when they were a thing. However when you travel for work, you often have downtime and I like to keep work and private life as separate as possible. So I went looking for a small laptop that could also do some video editing, and the Surface Pro 6 fits the bill nicely.
We’ve been covering Speck since pretty much the beginning. They began with just a few iPhone cases, and they have built a company with many excellent smartphone and tablet accessory options. CES 2017 sees them making a series of moves worthy of their devoted following.
Years back, I got caught up in the UMPC — UltraMobilePC- fad. (I blame James Kendrick and his JKontheRun blog.) None of those devices lived up to their promise of a full PC in a small, touchscreen device. Fast forward, and that promise has been realized in the Microsoft Surface line of computers. microsoft, via CDW sent one to Judie; I “borrowed” it. 🙂
Obviously we’ve all been discussing the iPad Pro announcement yesterday, and I posed the following question to the Gear Diary team: You have $1,000, and you must spend it on either an iPad Pro or a Microsoft Surface. Which do you choose, and why?
Microsoft is a lot like the Little Engine That Could. Like the Little Engine, it keeps scaling big mountains that no one expected it to climb. Maybe this analogy doesn’t make any sense, but what does make sense is the new Surface 3, a full Windows machine in tablet form. RT is dead, but the Surface lives on!
In an unsurprising announcement, IDC revealed their latest smartphone sales research indication that iOS and Android accounted for more than 96% of smartphones sold worldwide for both the fourth quarter and for the full year of 2014. Everyone else? Once again they were left scrambling for table scraps – not just in sales but in profits as well!
When the Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook was announced at CES, it definitely piqued my interest. This laptop puts a 13.3″ screen in the body of an 11″; it is available with a 5th Generation Intel Core i5 Processor, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, and a touchscreen. It also has an SD slot, something I’ve sorely missed on my 11″ MacBook Air.
Last week we learned iPad sales declined … again. It was another sign of a shift in the tablet market different from the smartphone market. Now we hear from the IDC that the broader tablet market shrank with both Apple and Samsung along with ASUS and Amazon taking large hits and only Lenovo and ‘others’ gaining share. We asked ‘why’?
Last year’s Nexus 7 is a great device, but it does have some limitations. Namely, the 16:9 screen is not optimized for work as it’s really short when in landscape mode. The Nexus 9 no longer has this issue, as it has a 4:3 formatted screen just like the iPad.
Recently Hewlett-Packard invited a group of bloggers into their Houston testing labs. Why do that? That was my question going on the tour – but it was quickly apparent that HP has a lot to be proud of in an area that adds tremendous value to their computers. Let’s take a look with HP at the Science of PC!
Somewhere between Apple’s and Samsung’s last quarterly earnings reports, Dan’s review of the Galaxy S5, Dan & Judie’s Sony Xperia X2s, the Ultra, discussions with friends about a variety of tablets we’ve all used, along with the statement by the Best Buy CEO that ‘tablet sales are crashing’ something occurred to me – we’ve been here before — with Windows CE.
Here is super exciting news for lovers of the presumed defunct Chumby. If you’re not a Chumby chaser – it is a consumer electronics product formerly made by Chumby Industries, Inc. It is an embedded computer which provides Internet and LAN access via a Wi-Fi connection. Through this connection, the Chumby runs various software widgets.
The HTC One M8 is the best smartphone I’ve ever used. That may seem like hyperbole, but I’ve counted, and I have personally owned 10 smartphones in the last 8 years, so the One had some serious competition for the title. How did it rise above the rest? Read on to find out!
Microsoft has today announced the launch of Office on iPad and Android tablets. Not only have they embraced a “mobile-first cloud-first” world, Microsoft has pushed tablet specific versions of their bread and butter Office apps to iPad and Android before their own Surface platform.
Thorstein Heins is the recently ousted CEO picked from the internal ranks of executives in January 2012 to succeed BlackBerry company founders Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis as president and CEO of BlackBerry. Heins’ tenure might be considered a failure because he followed the business plan of the failed prior executives.
If you were searching for a Microsoft Surface 2 online around holiday time there’s a good chance you had trouble finding one – at least in stock at the Microsoft store. After writing down almost $1 Billion of the original Surface models Microsoft was understandably cautious about estimating demand for the follow-up Surface 2 and Surface Pro.
I have a Surface RT, and I recently snapped up a Touch Cover for it when I saw a great deal. It arrived last night, and I was all excited… except that it didn’t work. Well, mouse and volume were responsive but nothing else. I was all set to do a return, until a post at WPCentral solved my problem!
I owe Microsoft Windows 8 an apology. See, when I first tested it, I thought it was dreadful. But I’ve become more comfortable with the Metro interface between my trusty Lumia 928 and using a Surface RT, and it is starting to grow on me. What really changed my mind, though, is the Samsung Ultrabook I have been testing for review!
I was really hoping to be blown away by the Xbox One’s “next-gen ness”, and although it has its flaws, the Xbox One is a fantastic gaming console. While the Xbox One may not amaze you right away, Microsoft’s new gaming and home entertainment console will prove that it’s an impressive step forward from the Xbox 360.
As much as I like using touchscreen tablets, there are times when a keyboard simply makes life easier. And as much as I enjoy using mobile operating systems optimised for speed and convenient apps, there are times when they fall short. Is it possible to have it all — portability, a touchscreen, speed, apps, a keyboard, and a full OS?
Saying Microsoft’s Surface failed to penetrate the market barely scratches the surface – the software giant took a $900 write-down on crappy sales. Now Microsoft has announced the second generation of Surface tablets, largely focused on improving the specs of the tablets with similar pricing as previous units. But the big surprise was the music-centric Surface Music Kit. Let’s take a look at the Surface Music Kit before quickly discussing…
