Review It may not match the sleek, silvery elegance of Apple’s iMac, but lenovo’s ThinkCentre Edge 91z is a far more affordable option for people who want a compact all-in-one Desktop computer.
lenovo’s ThinkCentre Edge 91z: available with Intel Core-i3, i5 and i7 CPU options
The black plastic design of the ThinkCentre is fairly nondescript, but lenovo does have a more stylish range of IdeaCentre all-in-ones that are designed for home use. The ThinkCentre range is primarily aimed at business folk who just want a tidy PC for running basic office apps. Read the rest of this entry »
Product Round-up Tablets, eh? A nice idea but a shame about the price. From the iPad to the Xoom, the PlayBook to the TouchPad prices starting at or near £400 are a little on the steep side for many folk. Well, the TouchPad maybe an exception these days but only very recently.
You’ll pay a premium to buy into fondleslabs from Apple, HP or RIM, but Android users have another option, a cheap tablet. These can be picked up for anything between £100 and £230 and sometimes less if you are in the right place at the right time.
Across the board cheap Android tablets are nowhere near as ghastly as they were just a year ago. Of course, there are sacrifices. You are not going to get Honeycomb or a glass screen or a true multi-day battery life. Increasingly, what you will get is a capacitive rather than resistive screen, Android in it’s 2.2 or 2.3 incarnation – rather than antediluvian 1.6 version – and even access to the Android Market and Google mobile apps.
Buying a cheap tablet today may be false economy because what you can get for your money is changing at a dizzying rate. For instance, it won’t be long before you can buy the recently announced Archos 1.5GHz Gen9 8in Honeycomb fondleslabs for around £200. But for the moment here is a quick trawl through some tablets for the impecunious. Read the rest of this entry »
Review A slap across the face is what I need. It’s the only language I understand. My problem is that I have played with too many Apple MacBooks over the past 18 months. They were starting to look similar, a little standard perhaps, maybe even ordinary.
So I took another peek at the colourful new HP Pavilion notebook I’d bought as my daughter’s going-to-uni present. Bendy plastic case, standard WXGA screen, power supply transformer weighs a ton – now THAT’S a standard notebook. Read the rest of this entry »
Accessory of the Week If you had thought that Motorola’s Android offerings might have ended up as the also-rans in the mêlée of Googlephone handsets, then recent events in the mobile marketplace would suggest it could well be the standard bearer. The Chocolate Factory’s bid for Motorola’s Mobility division – the handset and tablet line – certainly seems to suggest that buying into Motorola kit might not be a bad idea. It’s not like there haven’t been a few temptations either.
Motorola’s Atrix Lapdock: handset not included
The Motorola Atrix Android handset has a suite of accessories that go beyond the typical docking options to transform it from a dual core Android smartphone into an multimedia hub or even a netbook. With the latter, the Atrix slots into the back of a very slimline looking notebook and phone‘s CPU runs the show. Read the rest of this entry »
IBM announced its new machine, the 5150, on 12 August 1981. It was no ordinary launch: the 5150 wasn’t the ‘big iron’ typical of Big Blue – it was a personal computer.
IBM’s Personal Computer: the 5150
Source: IBM
IBM came late to the party. Through the 1960s and 1970s, it had focused on corporate computing: expensive mainframe and, later, mini computers. But by the end of the 1970s, it had seen the likes of Tandy’s TRS-80, Commodore’s Pet and Apple‘s Apple II win support from smaller businesses, individuals and even in some of the big companies IBM traditionally targetted. Read the rest of this entry »
