With the introduction of the Dell XPS 13, Dell manages to come up with an impressive, extremely compact 13” laptop that is just slightly bigger than the Macbook Air 11. Sold at around the same price than the latter, it clearly outperforms its Apple counterpart in terms of specification and would-be “switchers” may want to look twice at the value proposition of this laptop.For those who are worried that such a compact laptop isn’t powerful enough, take a good look at the benchmarks, and the Core i7 option that Dell offers. That said, the XPS 13 faces tough competition as Netbooks from many other vendors are hitting the market, and the competition is just becoming intense. In this review, we will go over the strengths and weaknesses of the Dell XPS 13 to show you how it feels to use one in the real world.

HTC One X Review (Quad-Core)

With the introduction of the HTC One Series in February, HTC has vowed to come back to the top by focusing on less designs, and better user experience. The HTC One X is right there at the top of the line-up and the international (unlocked) version that we have reviewed comes equipped with a quad-core Tegra 3 chip from NVIDIA.

HTC considers the Camera, Sound and Design to be the most important features of this phone, and although sound is always tricky to review, we’ll go over the camera, performance and overall use experience of this phone that may very well shape the (financial) near-future of HTC. But for know, you probably only want to know one thing: what does it feel to use it in the real world? Well, here’s my best shot at answering this burning question.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 review

One thing Samsung did tweak this time around was the speaker placement: here, you'll find them on the front side, flanking the display. Now that they're not tucked on the underside, you won't have to suffer through muffled noise when you lay the tablet flat, or set it down in bed next to you. Indeed, the volume gets respectably loud, though we wouldn't recommend cranking it all the way up: the sound quality is constrained at best, and gets increasingly distorted as you raise the decibels. At some point during testing, this reviewer went on an early '90s REM kick, and though Michael Stipe's voice sounds soothing enough, his voice and certain lower-pitched instruments like the piano get lost amid the shrill violins. To unlock poor, lovelorn Michael and his trapped vocals, you'll probably want to plug in headphones.

Last thing we want to point out on the front face: a 2-megapixel camera, identical to the one planted on the OG 10.1. Flip the tablet over and you'll see the same 3-megapixel shooter, except this time it's been robbed of its LED flash. Finishing our tour around the device, there's the same ol' proprietary charging connector on the bottom landscape edge, while the two portrait sides are both devoid of ports and buttons. Up top is where you'll find the power / lock button, volume rocker, microSD slot, 3.5mm headphone jack and an IR blaster, which was missing from the first-gen 10.1.

HP ENVY 14 Spectre – The Ultimate Glass Ultrabook

                            

[CES 2012] 2012 is the year of the ultrabook, with Intel and HP leading the way. With tablets competing against mobile computer and offering sleek bodies with enough power to get by the day without recharging, the PC manufacturers have to put more effort in the industrial design than ever.

I am very happy to discover several awesomely designed devices at CES this year, such as the Toshiba Excite X10 and more to come.

HP is delivering a state-of-the-art ultrabook, a.k.a the HP ENVY 14 Spectre, which is 20 mm thin (inch) and weighs 1.8 kg. The beautifully crafted sleek and compact body features a scratch resistant glass finish on the black lid, the frameless 14-inch display and the palm rest.

Sony Crystal LED Display Prototype

[CES 2012] Sony has shows its Crystal LED display prototype to the world for the first time. The 55-inch display has a native 1080p resolution, but what makes it so extraordinary is that it uses a combined 6 million of tiny individual LED lights. Why 6 million? A 1080p display has about 2M pixels (2,073,600 to be exact), and each pixel is composed of three sub-pixels (Red, Green and Blue). To build this Crystal LED display, Sony had to manufacture, place and wire those 6M LED lights – that in itself is impressive.The advantage of such a technique is extremely high contrast because there is no notion of backlight here. Crystal LED is a self-emitting display technology, so a black pixel won’t be grey because there is light bleeding out from the backlight. The pixels can also be mounted closer to the display glass, which makes the view angle much better. Finally, because the light doesn’t go through color filters, the color reproduction should be much better than what an LCD would provide for example.

HP ENVY Ultrabook and Sleekbook

HP is launching the latest additions to its ENVY lineup in the thin category, namely the HP ENVY Ultrabook and the HP ENVY Sleekbook .

Both series offer very similar configurations, and since the Ultrabooks have to be powered only by Intel processors and are required to meet Intel’s specifications, HP had to categorize the rest of its ultra-thin offering under another brand name: Sleekbook.

The ENVY Sleekbook 14”  is powered by 2nd generation or 3rd generation Intel Core processors but does not offer a 32GB (cache) mSATA with its 500GB HDD hard drive, and the ENVY Sleekbook 15.6” features AMD’s second generation Mainstream APU and does not offer 32GB (cache) mSATA with its 320 GB hard drive. Additionally, the Ultrabooks come with the following Intel technologies: Rapid Start, Identity Protection Technology, Smart Response and Smart Connect Technologies.

All units (14” and 15.6”) are as thin as 19.8 mm, weight less than 4 pounds, come in silver or in black with a red accent on the edges (see picture) and are priced between $600 and $800 (starting price), which is a great pricing when compared to the MacBook Air (17.7 mm – o.68″ thin). In my opinion, the ENVY elegant form factor is now on par with the Apple design.

HP Pavilion dm1-4175nr by Alexandre Herchcovitch

Since its HP Mini Vivienne Tam edition, HP has a tradition of releasing a designer notebook every year. The 2012 edition features designer Alexandre Hercovitch who revamped the HP Pavilion dm1 with a beautiful gold lace pattern. This subtle and intricate design has been inspired by Hercovitch’s amazing golden dresses (see picture in the complete article).

There is no word on the pricing yet, since the configuration is entry level, we hope that HP will not ask us to break the bank.

On the feature side, the HP Pavilion dm1-4175nr offers AMD Dual-Core E-450 processor, 11.6″ diagonal HD x BrightView LED-backlit display (1366 x 768), a 500GB 5400RPM hard drive, Beats Audioand up to 9 hours and 30 minutes of battery life.