2013

Meet Acer's newest phablet, the Liquid S1. Just announced at Computex 2013, an annual tech conference in Taipei, the handset features a quad-core 1.5GHz processor, 1GB RAM, and a large 5.7-inch HD display (1,280 x 720 pixels).

Upside The success of the Galaxy Note seems to have prompted more smartphone makers to introduce larger screens for their mobile devices. The Galaxy S3's 4.8-inch display, for example, got bumped up to 5 inches with the Galaxy S4.

Recently, Samsung launched the 5.8- and 6.3-inch Galaxy Mega devices for Asia. So if you like … Read more

Attention, everyone in my family (immediate and extended): Father's Day is Sunday, June 16. You have less than two weeks left to shop. That is all.

Oh, I mean, just being a dad is gift enough. Heh. Heh. (Seriously, though, where's my cake?)

Never one to let a holiday go by undiscounted, Amazon is offering $20 off any Kindle Fire HD tablet when you apply coupon code DADSFIRE at checkout.

That means you can get the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD (16GB) for $179 shipped, the Fire HD 8.9 (32GB) for $279 shipped, the Fire HD 8.9 … Read more

TAIPEI -- The Asus Zenbook Infinity, the company's latest design-focused ultrabook, is encased in Corning's Gorilla Glass 3.

Asus is not the first company to cover a notebook in Gorilla Glass. Its keen competitor, Acer, has also done so with the Aspire S7, though that's Gorilla Glass 2. The latest version of Corning's material is supposed to be lighter, tougher and resistant to scratches and scuffs.

With a maximum thickness of just 15.5mm, the Zenbook Infinity is extremely slim.

Other technical details of the product are scant, though based on what can be seen, it … Read more

TAIPEI -- Asus has refreshed its lineup of Android devices. While not the most powerful, the Asus MeMo Pad HD 7 should end up being the most popular thanks to its attractive starting price of US$129 for the 8GB model. The 16GB version will go for US$149. The tablet will go on sale starting in July.

Specs-wise, the HD 7 sports a 1,280x800 7-inch IPS display and is quite light at just 302g. It will be available in pink, green, blue and white, and is powered by a quad-core ARM Cortex A7 processor.

The MeMo Pad FHD 10 (above) is the 10-inch version with a 1,920 x 1,200-pixel IPS screen. It runs on the Intel Atom Z2560 processor and features wireless options such as Wi-Fi, GPS and GLONASS for navigation and Miracast for wireless display. The FHD will come in 16GB and 32GB versions, and supports memory expansion via a microSD card slot.… Read more

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Asus has announced the Transformer Book Trio, a notebook that can be separated and used as an Android tablet and desktop PC simultaneously.

In its notebook form, the 11.6-inch Transformer Book Trio can switch between Windows 8 and Android. Separated, the 1,920x1,080-pixel screen portion acts as an Android tablet, running off its 2.0GHz Intel Atom Z2580 processor.

The keyboard part, rather than just being a dumb accessory, is actually a full-fledged Windows 8 PC complete with an Intel fourth-generation Core i7 processor. It needs to be hooked up to an external monitor for … Read more

Well, that didn't take long. Less than two months after I posted this review of the Memo ME172V, Asus has revealed its younger, more powerful sibling: the Memo Pad HD 7 -- formally known internally as the sequentially appropriate ME173.

The newer 7-inch tablet will ship with Android 4.2, and will feature a 1.2GHz quad-core MediaTek MT8125 CPU and a PowerVR SGX 544 graphics processor. While I'm not familiar with that particular version of MediaTek silicon, the SGX 544 is nothing to sneeze at when its comes to graphics processing; however, whether the tablet's graphics … Read more

TAIPEI--At Computex 2013, Seagate announced its latest 5mm hard drive for laptops and tablets, the Laptop Ultrathin HDD. The 2.5-inch drive was first talked about last year, and will now start shipping to Seagate's OEM partners.

The Laptop Ultrathin HDD will come in 320GB and 500GB capacities and is wrapped in a steel, rather than aluminum, case for toughness. Standard laptop hard drives are typically 7mm or 9.5mm in thickness.

According to Seagate's Banseng Teh, senior VP and MD for Asia Pacific and Japan, there is a "demand for storage in tablets, but people don'… Read more

ARM, the designer of most of the world's smartphone processors, announced new silicon that will likely find its way to future mobile devices.

Mali-V500: This video encode/decode chip is designed to prevent piracy of 1080p class video. Using TrustZone technology, the V500 was developed after consultation with Hollywood studios, according to a report in the Financial Times. Hollywood movie studios and content distributors like Netflix "are demanding [that]...their highest value content...be protected not just by digital rights management but by the hardware, all the way from download through to display," the Times wrote, citing … Read more