pcs

UTStarcom didn't have much of a presence at this year's CTIA, but it did sneak in an announcement of the AWS-enabled CDM-7126 handset for both Cricket and MetroPCS. The Cricket version is dubbed the CDM-7126C and the MetroPCS version is dubbed the CDM-7126M. They're both about the same, save for the look of the front surface. As for the phone itself, it's a pretty standard device, made for the entry-level market though it does have Bluetooth as well. The front surface is pretty unique in that there are LED indicators for incoming calls and text messages, … Read more

Best Buy reported its fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday and the results were surprisingly good.

The largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S. posted earnings of $737 million, which comes out to $1.71 per share. Analysts were expecting $1.65 per share. Fourth-quarter earnings per share were also significantly better than the $1.55 posted the same quarter a year ago.

For the fiscal year, revenue was also up 11 percent over a year earlier to reach $40 billion, which Best Buy said was aided by the opening of 137 new retail outlets worldwide.

Wednesday's results sent Best Buy … Read more

After Monday's forecast in which he foretold Apple moving 45 million iPhones during 2009, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is back with another aggressive estimate.

On Tuesday, Munster released a research note in which he estimates that Apple's U.S. consumer market share for Macs stands at 21 percent, while its worldwide share is about 10 percent. He comes to this conclusion by using numbers released by market research firm IDC, which found that Apple's worldwide share of the PC market grew from 2.4 percent to 2.9 percent between 2006 and 2007. He notes that … Read more

MetroPCS may not have a booth at CTIA but the carrier has arrived in Las Vegas. On Friday, MetroPCS announced it would begin providing wireless service to the Las Vegas area. The carrier also said it would open four company-owned stores by July. MetroPCS already serves markets in Georgia, Florida, Texas, Michigan, and California, and Las Vegas will be its first market in Nevada. MetroPCS does not require contracts, and it offers unlimited minutes as a feature of all its calling plans. It offers mostly Motorola phones but it also carries select models from Nokia, Samsung, UTStarcom and Kyocera.

Desktops are so not cool anymore. So Hewlett-Packard is trying to make theirs a bit hipper.

Though the new Pavilion Elite m9200t doesn't have zebra stripes or come in anything other than the standard tower form factor, it's looking to impress with its features, like the Easy Backup Button for quickly backing up files, the 1TB hard drive, and a Blu-ray Disc burner, as well as photo-editing software, and a digital TV tuner and the ability to record TV shows.

It starts at $799, but HP's Web site prices the "recommended configuration" at $1,429 … Read more

As far as living room PCs go, this is pretty unobtrusive--with an emphasis on the "pretty."

The Merium Home Entertainment PC is designed by Norwegian company Mesiro and has to be one of the loveliest depositories for your digital media you want to access from your living room TV.

With Windows Vista Home Premium, 250GB of storage space, a Core 2 Duo processor, Wi-Fi, and an included remote and wireless keyboard, the Merium is a more than decent PC, but what makes it stand out is its interchangeable faceplates. You can get piano black, sleek white, and other … Read more

Consumer electronics makers looking to find their way into consumers' living rooms could learn a thing or two from Japanese custom PC manufacturer Universal Roaming.

Sony in particular has gone out of its way to make PCs and gadgets that blend nicely into the living room decor without being too gadgety. The result has been, well, mixed. See the Vaio TP25E (that weird round one) and the sleek Vaio LT29U all-in-one.

Universal Roaming takes a different approach, creating the Ryou PC series of small and lovely desktop PCs that appear more akin to decorative art than computers. They're not … Read more

Typhoon Touch is working its way down the tablet PC food chain.

After suing Dell and Motion Computing for allegedly infringing on two of its patents for portable computers with touch-screen technology, Typhoon, and licensing partner and co-plaintiff Nova Mobility Systems, said Tuesday they are targeting three more potential infringers: Xplore Technologies, Electrovaya, and Sand Dune Ventures, which makes tablet PCs under the brand TabletKiosk.

Typhoon specifically cites Xplore's iX104C series of tablet PCs, Electrovaya's Scribbler SC4000 tablet, and four of TabletKiosk's ruggedized tablets. Typhoon, a Seattle-based firm that creates and acquires patents, has only licensed its … Read more

Worldwide PC shipments will hit 293 million units in 2008, up 10.9 percent from 2007, due in part to sales in emerging markets, Gartner said Tuesday.

And although price cuts will occur, revenue will grow around 6 percent for the year, George Shiffler, research director at the firm, said in a phone interview.

That's a good sign. In recent years, revenue has stayed flat from year to year despite unit shipment increases. In 2003, for instance, a then-record 152.6 million PCs were shipped, but they carried an estimated value of $175 billion, or about the same as … Read more