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Ultrabooks with hybrid drives could start at $600

Lower-end ultrabooks equipped with hybrid disk drives could hit price points as low as $600, according to an Asia-based report.

Because hybrid HDDs--which combine a small-capacity solid-state drive with a standard hard disk drive--cost about 50 percent less than solid-state-only drives, PC makers will opt for hybrid drives in lower-end models, according to a report Wednesday in DigiTimes. This will send prices below $700.

Ultrabooks--skinny Windows 7 laptops that mimic the portability of tablets--currently bottom out at about $800. That includes the Toshiba Portege Z835, now priced as low as $799.99 at retail. The Z835 uses a 128GB SSD, … Read more

Ultrabooks are underpricing Apple at retail--and they'd better

Ultrabooks from Toshiba, Acer, and Samsung remain at relatively low prices at major retailers like Best Buy compared to analogous offerings from Apple.

Prices for the 13-inch Toshiba Portege (Z835-P330) and 13-inch Acer Aspire S3 (S3-951-6646) have stayed at $799 for many weeks since they were announced last fall. Currently, both are listed at Best Buy for $799.99.

Comparable 13-inch MacBook Air laptops from Apple are typically priced a few hundred dollars more.

Apple is an important benchmark because the ultrabook category was created, in part, to compete with the increasingly popular MacBook Air. And an analyst said this week … Read more

How to use the Chromebook photo editor

The Chromebook photo editor is not a Chrome app, as you might think. It's integrated into the file manager. To use it, launch the file manager by hitting Ctrl+M, then navigate to where your photo is located.

Once you click on the photo you want to edit, two options will appear in the lower right-hand corner--View and Edit and Delete. Click on View and Edit to launch the photo editor.

You can allow Chrome OS to autofix the image or crop it.

You can also change the brightness and contrast, or change the orientation of the image.

That'… Read more

Acer Iconia Tab A200 review: The 'Toll Road' of Android tablets

As I said last week in my First Take, there's really nothing special about the Acer Iconia Tab A200. Not that it does anything wrong, but what it does do just isn't especially noteworthy.

It really is the Toll Road of Android tablets. It gets the job done, but not much else. What's a "Toll Road," you ask? Actually, he's an "Expendables" character you likely don't even remember being in the movie.

An admittedly flawed movie, "The Expendables" is filled with a team of colorful and memorable characters. At … Read more

Is the Acer A200's utter dullness justified by its $330 price? (First Take)

Editors' note: The Acer Iconia Tab A200 ships with Honeycomb, but, according to Acer, will receive an over-the-air update to Ice Cream Sandwich within the next few days. We'll post a full review of the tablet after Ice Cream Sandwich hits, but in the meantime, check out this exhaustive first take.

There's really nothing special about the Acer Iconia Tab A200. Sure, it's ICS-upgradable, but both the Motorola Xoom and Asus Transformer Prime have already beat it to the punch.

Also, while it features the bare minimum capabilities of all other post-Honeycomb Android tablets, it actually loses two features many Android tablet owners take for granted: a rear camera and an HDMI port.

Still, it can be yours for only $330 (for 8GB; $350 for 16GB), making it the cheapest non-contract buy-in to Honeycomb/ICS yet.… Read more

Acer CloudMobile Ice Cream Sandwich phone ready for MWC

Well, well, well. Acer has already won an award for a phone that few in the mobile industry knew existed.

The electronics maker issued a press release today sharing its iF design award for the Acer CloudMobile, an Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone that the company plans to launch later this month at Mobile World Congress.

Although it'll pack Android's newest operating system, Acer isn't positioning the CloudMobile device as just another Android phone. Instead, expect to hear a pitch about securely grabbing personal information through AcerCloud, an online home for photos, music, and documents … Read more

PCs take the lead at CES 2012: Laptops, desktops, and hardware

LAS VEGAS--It's a rare CES for which most of the digital ink spilled is about computers and hardware, rather than giant televisions. But 2012 was just such a year, thanks to the never-ending drumbeat of Intel's ultrabook platform.

Yes, ultrabooks again It seems like you couldn't walk more than a hundred steps across the velvety carpet of the CES show floor without running into a giant ULTRABOOK or WINDOWS 8 sign. The first official ultrabook-designated laptops (it's an Intel marketing term) arrived during the 2011 holiday season, but CES 2012 was a coming-out party for a host of new designs from nearly all manufacturers.

The laptops ranged from the diminutive (the Acer Aspire S5) to the large and bold (the HP Envy 14 Spectre), and to the copycat (the MacBook-Air-alike Dell XPS 13). And 14- and 15-inch models, some with optical drives, dedicated graphics, and hybrid solid-state/hard drives, have begun to blur a category only in its nascency, leading us to ask if the category will suffer from unnecessary mission creep.

Will that mean that consumers will have a hard time identifying what an ultrabook is, or even feel the category has become overhyped and overexposed by the end of this year? Ultrabooks may be the industry's next great hope, judging by Intel's ultrabook-obsessed keynote presentation, but that doesn't mean consumers are never going to want anything different.

But not just ultrabooks Only a handful of other, non-ultrabook laptops really stood out.… Read more

MacBook Air sales rise as ultrabook market heats up

Apple may have sold as many as 1.2 million MacBook Airs last quarter as its competition tries to pounce on the burgeoning ultrabook market.

The estimated 1.2 million in unit sales was a small leap from the 1 million sold in the third quarter. But Apple was the only vendor that didn't see a drop in overall notebook sales between the two quarters, according to a report from DigiTimes.

Hit by the sluggish economy and a shortage of hard drives, fourth-quarter notebook shipments around the world dropped by 8.7 percent to 48.59 million in the … Read more

Lenovo's cloud vision could use a tailwind

The Consumer Electronics Show has barely kicked off and the outlook is decidedly cloudy.

First Acer outlined its cloud plan, which revolves around basically copying other services. Sync your documents and pictures across devices—as long as they’re Acer. Sound familiar? You bet. Acer cribbed everything that Apple, Amazon, Google, and others do.

Right after Acer’s move, Lenovo launched its “personal cloud” vision. Lenovo’s pitch: Bridge four screens including TVs, smartphones, tablets, and PCs. Of course, your mileage will vary. For instance, Lenovo’s smartphone footprint is limited to China.

In Lenovo’s statement, the company pretty … Read more