Gadgets Blog » Laptops

While the project is still a ways off from hitting the market, Google Android head Andy Rubin gave members of the public and the press at the Dive Into Mobile conference a sneak peek at a buttonless tablet computer running on the Android operating system.

The pad looks comparable in size to Apple’s iPad, but it has no buttons. This is a departure from previous Android hardware, which included four buttons, and Rubin said this change was intentional. The pad orients itself regardless of which end is up. A button would make this confusing, so they went without it.

The tablet runs on a new version of the Android operating system and may include video conferencing and chat abilities, simplified menus and a three-dimensional version of Google Maps. Android and Motorola are developing this iPad killer.

This is the first time Google has given the public a glimpse of this much-anticipated piece of hardware, and it was just enough to whet their appetites for more. No date has been set for release, other than to say “sometime next year.”

Apple’s had quite the year, to put things simply. The release of the iPad, iPhone 4G, and now this? The company hasovertaken Microsoft in terms of total market worth, and they’ve done it all despite being one of the most polarizing businesses in the market. When Steve Jobs makes an announcement, people listen, regardless of their opinions. Apple’s latest and greatest device is certainly no exception. Straddling the line between netbook and laptop, the Macbook Air is perhaps the sleekest looking device ever brought to market.

The Macbook Air is designed for portability, and its apparent both inside and outside of the sleek aluminum casing. The device itself is vaguely wedge-shaped, a slight .68 inches at the “large end” and a staggering .19 inches at the base of the keyboard. This is impossibly small, and a number of changes needed to be made for the computer to even function. There’s no optical drive, meaning ripping music could be a chore. Apple’s answer to this is allowing the Air to “borrow” the drive of a nearby Mac computer via a WiFi network. There’s also only 1 USB drive, which could be a detriment to users who have more hardware-intensive needs.

These things aside, the Air represents the apex of portable computers. It’s lightweight design makes it easy to pack around anywhere. Instead of a standard hard drive, the Air boasts 128 – 256 GB of flash memory, making accessing files quick and easy. There’s been a fantastic secondary feature of moving to flash as well: the Air has next to no boot-up time. Simply awaking the device from its stand-by status is nearly instantaneous. It’s a great idea for a device that’s supposed to be used on the move, as downtime in the booting process could take away the few minutes you’ve got to surf the Internet.

As prevalent as computers have become in our daily lives, one of the most important features in an electronicdevice remains one of the oldest. BIOS, which stands for basic input/output system, has remained a part of electronics since it was created over 25 years ago. The simple computing processes provide the vital start-up systems for computers of all shapes and sizes. The technology which debuted in 1979 was never intended to last as long as it has. Yet the fact that it remains a part of modern computers explains why devices have such lengthy starting times.

That’s where new technology designed by a cooperative of computer scientists comes into play. UEFI, or United Extensible Firmware Interface, has been designed to perform the same function as BIOS with the modern computer in mind. Old computer functions under BIOS have had difficulty adapting to the numerous elements of modern computer, especially USB peripheral devices and external harddrives. UEFI takes these relatively new advancements into consideration, which is good news for developers: developments that remain just on the horizon such as touchscreens and “natural-gesture” interfaces will be able to work smoothly.

As the excitement over Apple’s iPad tablet computer continues to build, many gadget afficionados are faced with a tough decision: buy it just when it comes out? Or hold out until upgrades in technology and drops in price occur. Essentially, the iPad is a netbook with some nifty touch-screen technology. Of course, seeing as it comes bearing Apple’s logo, there’s other given pros and cons that are likely to occur as well. If you remain on the fence about picking up the iPad right away, or if you prefer Windows to Mac OS, then today’s Cool Item on a Budget is worth checking out.

The Asus Eee PC T91 represents a combination of netbook and touch-screen technology, and it comes running Windows XP Home, meaning that it’s free from many of the bugs that have plagued Vista. At just 9 inches, the screen is slightly smaller than what has become the norm for other PC netbooks, but this turns out to be an asset for this Asus. The smaller design makes the computer light and portable. The screen itself boasts some solid touch-screen technology, meaning you can operate the computer both with a traditional mouse and keyboard as well as your finger.

If you are suspicious that Windows XP would be difficult to operate on a small touch-screen, you’d be correct. Luckily, the folks at Asus created their own interface, called Touch Gate. This application allows you to swivel the screen on top of the keyboard, creating your own little tablet computer, and then operate a series of applications with some easy finger swipes. The included applications have some neat tricks, especially the Internet Explorer app, although it would have been nice to have similar functionality with other web browsers. With finger swipes and slides, you can easily navigate within the app and to other applications as well.

It’s perhaps the greatest battle of them all: Mac vs. PC. With so many people weighing in on each side, I hardly doubt my opinion will change anyone’s mind, but this week’s Gadget of the Week allows me to give my own personal testimonial, demonstrating both the positives and negatives of a PC-to-Mac transfer. This week, we’ll take a closer look at the Macbook Pro, one of the most prevalent gadgets in the world of electronics, and hopefully you’ll come to understand whether or not it’s for you.

As a dedicated PC user, it took a while to get used to the Mac interface, so let me first describe the experience that Snow Leopard offers the user. Instead of a start menu, arranged in the lower right like with all Windows machines, the Mac operates out of the “dock” system, which provides a toolbar at the base of the computer screen. Built-into this toolbar are a host of Mac programs, including heavily used programs like iTunes to the relatively less involved Time Machine. The Mac pre-installed programs offer a host of features intended to give you an intuitive user experience. Some, however, are better than others. It took a downloadable update to prevent iTunes from having brief skips during song playback, and the arrangement of photos in iPhoto doesn’t translate into an intuitive filing system for other use, but the features that come on such programs will be exciting and fun to play around with.

Seeing as I used my PC version of Microsoft Office quite heavily, I decided to see how the Mac version of these Microsoft programs translated into a PC-dominated computer world. The results took some getting used to, but for the most part, both versions of Office are workable and the files can easily be shared, so long as you remember to save in the correct format. The major annoyance comes in the lack of similar toolbar structure between versions. While editing a cell in Excel for the Mac, for example, the formula does not appear at the top of the screen, making it sometimes difficult to know exactly what edits are being made to the numbers. While this takes some getting used to, the program functions much the same, although some features in the PC version, such as statistical analysis, are not available in their Mac counterparts.

There are some great benefits to switching over, however. The battery life in a normal charging of the Mac far exceeds my PC counterpart. Whereas I often felt that my PC laptop was bound to my desk, my Macbook Pro is capable of following me for a shift at work followed by a trip to class, all in one charge. This creates for an addicting relationship between my computer and myself, a relationship that expands to other parts of the device. The intuitive mouse pad on the Macbook Pro makes it all-but-impossible to switch back to a normal PC mouse system, making for great usage of the control scheme.

Apple may be garnering much media attention lately for its much-touted tablet computer, the iPad, but the idea of tablet computing has been around far longer. Touchscreen technology has found its way into a variety of computers, and if you really crave a tablet computer, but are looking for something with a little more computing power than the iPad (or a unit that operates Windows), there are several great devices on the market that combine this touchscreen technology with a laptop, allowing for some great versatility and functionality as well.

A great example of the benefits of this technology comes in the Fujitsu Lifebook P1630, a tablet PC running Windows Vista. There are some immediate differences between this tablet computer and what many people may think a tablet should look like, especially after the unveiling of the iPad. First and foremost, the Lifebook looks a lot like a traditional laptop computer, as opposed to a large iPod Touch. It has a fully-functioning keyboard, and an 8.9 inch swiveling display that is touch-activated, meaning you can flip the screen over the keyboard, making it single tablet, or you can twist the screen around so it’s oriented like a traditional laptop screen. This enables the unit to be proficient in both word processing and touch-screen capabilities.

This version of the Lifebook runs Windows Vista Business, which is indicative of Fujitsu’s target audience here. The screen is smaller than on a traditional laptop, making the unit portable. A stylus comes along with the device for writing on the touchscreen, and some great results were achieved in this way, with the ability to save the writing in a variety of programs in several different formats, such as .jpeg, Word documents, or even in PDFs. The utility here is obviously aimed towards note-taking upon existing documents, likely in the context of an important business meeting.

The best part about the Fujitsu Lifebook series is that they offer the same flexibility as other PC laptops. One of the biggest drawbacks about the Apple iPad is that it will be subject to the same restrictions as the iPhone and the iPod touch. Namely, there won’t be much flexibility with the programs and applications one is able to download and run. With the Fujitsu computer, this problem is avoided, and those who are already familiar with Vista will enjoy virtually no learning curve on the new model. The downside is the price tag, which at around $1800 makes this one of the higher-end Lifebook models, but if the concept interests you, be sure to shop around for other tablet PCs similar to this one!

Check out lower-cost alternatives to the Apple iPad, and compare tablet computers at Smarter.