hands-on

Huawei showed off its flagship tablet, the MediaPad, at a press event today. We spent a few minutes with the product here at CommunicAsia 2011 in Singapore and here are our first impressions.

From a hardware perspective, the MediaPad feels solidly built. The chassis appears to be made from a single piece of metal, not unlike the unibody design found in HTC phones such as the Desire HD. The similarity extends to the fact that there are plastic cutouts on the top and bottom sections.

At almost half an inch thick and weighing a little less than a pound, the MediaPad is quite slim and light. It has a micro-USB port alongside an HDMI-out at the base. Slightly unusual is the addition of a dedicated power connector--most tablets just make use of one port for charging and syncing. On the top is its 3.5mm audio output, together with a pair of speaker grills. … Read more

Formally unveiled at the company's E3 2011 press conference, the PlayStation Vita aims to provide the most comprehensive portable gaming experience around. We've had some time with Vita, so here's a preview of what gamers can expect before the end of 2011.

Overview Available in two models, the PS Vita will go for $250 or $300, a Wi-Fi-only and Wi-Fi/3G version, respectively.

Armed with a dazzling 5-inch OLED capacitive touch screen, the Vita also allows players to interact with games through a rear touch panel. Under the hood the Vita packs an ARM Cortex-A9 core (4 core) CPU and a SGX543MP4+ GPU.

Its 16:9 screen sports a 960x544-pixel resolution, which is flanked by a front-facing camera that can take 640x480-pixel photos. An identical lens is placed on the back to bring "augmented reality to a new level." Like the 3DS, iPad, and iPod Touch, the Vita will make use of motion control. This is accomplished via a three-axis gyroscope and three-axis accelerometer.… Read more

Color matters in consumer electronics, or so we keep hearing. White iPod, black iPod. Black iPhone, white iPhone. Some people buy pink or purple laptops that have been discontinued, just because they're not available hues in this year's lineup. For some, color might even be more important than brand.

If you subscribe to this theory, then Dell's new swappable-lid Inspiron R laptops are a work of genius. All 2011 Dell Inspiron 14R and 15R laptops--which come with updated second-gen Core i-series CPUs--come with a staid back lid, but much like Nokia phones of the late '90s, a … Read more

It's been about two weeks now since Google and Sprint threw open the doors of a partnership they jointly announced at CTIA, a quick and easy way to integrate Google Voice's extensive calling extras on almost all Sprint phones. These extras include visual-voice mail that you can read on the phone or online, personalized greetings, and cheaper international calls. We've spent some time using the conjoined service, and integrating, disabling, and reintegrating it. So far our in-house experience has been pretty good.

Setup Assuming you've got a Google Voice account already, there are two paths for … Read more

Some of us with a bunch of photos on an iPad would rather add keywords and captions than slap on yet another sepia-tone art filter. Enter C Squared Enterprises' Photosmith.

This $17.99 app, released today, is a companion to Adobe Systems' Lightroom software for editing and cataloging photos. I've been trying beta versions, and I think the app could be a useful addition for some photographers--especially if the software and the iPad's abilities continue to grow beyond today's limitations.

Photosmith can't match what Lightroom proper can do, of course--the iPad's memory, keyboard, and processor … Read more

While some technologies, such as smartphones and laptops, change by the month, others evolve at a far more glacial pace. Bathroom tech isn't an area where one expects great strides from year to year, but I couldn't ignore an invite to test Kohler's new Numi toilet. It's not every day I get asked to test-drive a commode.

The Numi is U.S. bathroom furnishing manufacturer Kohler's first big stride into a top-to-bottom high-tech toilet. While Kohler had previously introduced an attachable seat with several functions built in, the Numi is more of a complete toilet overhaul.

High-tech toilets are very popular overseas, particularly in Japan; in fact, I first used a high-tech toilet while on my honeymoon in Tokyo. Toilets with seat warmers and automatically adjusting bidets are strangely luxurious, but many times the toilets that employ them end up looking like astronaut equipment.

Comparatively, the Numi is shockingly minimal. At first glance it looks more like a piece of high-end kitchen equipment. Compact, squared-off, and glowing, it has barely any visible buttons at all on its smooth facade. Instead, the toilet's functions are controlled with a full-color touch-screen device that magnetically docks with a wall-mounted panel. … Read more

Just days after receiving his original iPad last April, designer and creative director Todd Andrews realized he needed a better way to hold his iPad for long periods of time. The result was an ergonomic iPad holder and stand that he calls PropUp.

Andrews started his design process by carving Nerf footballs and testing shapes for his idea. He switched to lovely green floral foam and eventually to a hand-carved version for his own personal use, all the while shaping the concept for PropUp.… Read more

While my iPad has become a second screen in many ways--as an e-reader, social-networking pane, video viewer, and more--a new series of apps from Disney is ready to take that into a whole new direction. Disney's Second Screen is a series of apps that take over your iPad and offer up a second screen of information during movie viewings, acting as a disembodied set of bonus features.

Second Screen is a feature that's currently offered on Disney's "Tron" and "Bambi" Blu-ray discs. Each movie has its own app in Apple's App Store. These apps are free, and hefty, too--the "Tron: Legacy" app clocked in at over 800MB, the "Bambi" app comes in at 498MB. However, you can't do anything with the app without activating a "Magic Code" found inside the Blu-ray disc's box. I made the mistake of downloading the app and leaving the Blu-ray box in the office, taking home the disc in a plastic sleeve. Unfortunately, the disc itself can't unlock the app, so I had to wait till the next day to Second Screen my home "Tron: Legacy"-viewing experience. Bottom line: don't lose that code.

The cleverest part of the whole Second Screen idea isn't its content: it's the app's ability to synchronize with the movie and play its related content alongside a time code of sorts that counts down in the upper part of the screen.… Read more

After a three-week IE9 immersion, I've concluded that Microsoft once again has a competitive Web browser.

And even though Internet Explorer remains the most-used browser on the Net today, convincing me that Internet Explorer 9 is a real browser was quite an accomplishment. Here's why.

IE6, now a decade old, is loathed by Web developers the world over for its lack of standards support, and it's the focus of a Microsoft effort that's trying to get the companies and people using the browser to modernize. After a five-year hiatus, IE7 emerged with some handy features, such … Read more