Samsung Ativ Smart PC Pro – Design, Keyboard base and Connectivity

You might remember the Samsung ATIV Smart PC we looked at a little while ago. That’s the ‘budget’ X86 convertible tablet/laptop in Samsung’s Windows 8 range. The next model up is the 11.6-inch Samsung Ativ Smart PC Pro (or 700T1C in model-numer-speak), which replaces the Atom processor with a full-blown Core i5 or i7, and swaps the 1,366 x 768 screen resolution for a lovely Full HD PLS panel. It’s essentially the sequel to the Samsung Series 7 Slate 700T.

Read the full Windows 8 review here

In case this is the first time you’ve come across the ATIV Smart PC range, it’s Samsung’s full Windows 8 version of the Asus Transformer form factor which combines a tablet with a keyboard base to make a laptop. All the ATIV Smart PCs support touch and Wacom stylus goodness.


Where the Atom-based Smart PC is comparable to the Vivo Tab, the Smart PC Pro takes on the Asus Taichi and Microsoft Surface Pro, amongst others.

Wondering which Windows 8 device to get? Have a read of our Best Windows 8 Laptops Tablets Convertibles and PCs roundup

Samsung Ativ Smart PC Pro Design and Build

Though the Smart PC Pro is definitely at the premium end of the market, the tablet itself is constructed using plastic, albeit with a nice brushed metal-effect finish. This is to keep its weight down, as because of the power it packs in the tab alone weighs 884g, considerably heavier than inevitable comparisons to the iPad.

Samsung Ativ Smart PC Pro Keyboard Base and Cover

However, the keyboard base is made of metal. This lends it a very premium feel at odds with the tablet part, yet again there’s logic behind the difference: this was done to increase the keyboard base’s weight (bringing the entire package to 1.6kg), so that it balances the tablet part and avoids the falling-over-backwards flaw that plagued the Asus Transformer.

Mind you, the dock does not contain an extra battery as does the more budget-oriented Samsung Smart PC’s one, though it does give you extra connectivity. This is a real shame, as the powerful Pro tablet inevitably already offers shorter battery life than its Atom sibling.

The tablet itself is a very svelte 12mm thick, and with keyboard attached matches many Ultrabooks at 22mm. However, if you’d rather have a thinner tablet without losing the physical keyboard, there will be a Microsoft Surface-like keyboard cover that’s a mere 4mm thin.

Samsung Ativ Smart PC Pro Connectivity

The Smart PC Pro tablet is well-endowed in the connectivity department. The tablet itself sports a headphone jack, full-size USB 3.0 port and microSD card slot for expanding its storage along its top, plus a microHDMI for video output along with the volume rocker on its left.

A physical rotation lock is a welcome touch too. Wireless is particularly comprehensive thanks to Wi-Fi N, Bluetooth 4.0 and 3G/4G wireless broadband with accompanying SIM slot.

The keyboard dock adds a further two USB 2.0 ports (the data interconnect between tablet and keyboard can’t cope with USB 3.0) to the equation, though alas no full-size SD card reader. This is annoying for photographers, and we can only hope Samsung will bring out another dock down the line with a battery and full SD card slot built in.

[ Technology ] Smart and Hello

The iPhone 5S rumor roundup

iPhone 5S: Will it look the same as the iPhone 5?

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

iPhone rumors are like flies at a summer picnic: they're nearly unstoppable. Collected in one batch are all the iPhone 5S/6 rumors CNET has reported so far, with some commentary on where these rumors came from.
We always have long wish lists for newer features and further redesigns, but the bottom line is this: nobody knows exactly what we'll get until Tim Cook reveals it on stage later this year.
That said, we've got plenty of educated guesses. With that caveat firmly in place:
Likely:
Odds are strong that the immediate successor to the iPhone 5 will debut in the summer to autumn time frame (June to October). The release will all but certainly coincide with the availability of iOS 7. Moreover, if it follows Apple's previous history, the new iPhone will have the same design but with tweaked innards, in the spirit of the iPhone 4S and 3GS.
Beyond those obvious notes, the areas that seem most ripe for updating on the "iPhone 5S" would be the resolution of the cameras. And now that there's a 128GB iPad, maybe there will finally be a 128GB iPhone option, too.

iPhone 6: 9 most-wanted features (pictures)

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Unknown:
Everything else is pretty much a crapshoot. A bigger screen? CEO Tim Cook says no -- but saying one thing and doing the opposite would hardly be a first for Apple. Beyond a screen size change, though, Apple could also go with a different technology -- say, Igzo or OLED.
There are plenty of other unknowns, too. Will there be another iPhone that debuts before a fall model? Could the iPhone product line split into several differently sized models? Will an affordable "new" budget-line iPhone emerge? Will Apple finally add NFC to the iPhone, as part of a new mobile payments scheme? Anything could happen. Or not.
As more rumors emerge, they'll be added here.
The rumors thus far:
January 29, 2013
Low-cost iPhone will be like a plastic iPhone 5, claims site
The much-rumored budget iPhone will borrow many elements from the current model but use a plastic design, says iLounge. The site claims the budget phone will be something like a fusion of the iPhone 5 and fifth-gen iPod Touch.
January 27, 2013
Images of alleged next-gen iPhone components surface
A French blog posts images of what it says are speaker components for the next round of Apple smartphones, what it calls an iPhone 5S and iPhone 6. Blurry, close-up shots of speaker components don't tell much of a story, though.
January 25, 2013
iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini rumors afoot: Upgraded iPhone rear camera
According to another iLounge report, the iPhone 5S will feature a 13-megapixel rear camera from Sony.

(Credit: Apple Digger RU)

January 22, 2013
Renderings tease what a 4.8-inch iPhone would look like
Continuing along the rumor that Apple is preparing an even larger-screened iPhone for 2014 (see below), Russian Apple news site Apple Digger created renderings of what such a device would look like. This is speculation on top of rumor.
January 22, 2013
Bigger iPhone still coming -- just not this year, report says
If you're holding out for a 5-inch iPhone, you might have to wait until 2014, a new report from DigiTimes (which must be taken with a whole shaker of salt) claims.
January 22, 2013
Rumor: 4.8-inch iPhone to debut in June
A Google translation from the Chinese language Commercial Times points to a larger-screened iPhone in time for the Worldewide Developers Conference. While it's a sketchy rumor, it seems reasonable that Apple will get serious about taking on smartphones like Samsung's 4.8-inch Galaxy S3.

Nak Design's concept art for the iPhone 6.

Apple to stop Mac Pro sales in much of Europe on March 1

Apple today told retailers and distributors in most European countries that it will stop selling the Mac Pro on March 1 because the desktop system doesn't meet electrical regulations.
The Mac Pro's ports and fans don't comply with a new amendment -- which goes into effect at the beginning of March -- addressing safety and electrical standards for electronics, according to Macworld. An Apple spokesman confirmed the decision to CNET. The regulation affects the 27 countries of the European Union, which includes the U.K., Germany and France, and the four countries in the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) -- Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. Although Apple itself will stop its sales of the Mac Pro, Apple resellers will be able to sell any remaining inventory after March 1.

Apple releases new iPad with 128 GB of storage

Apple added a new member to its iPad line on Tuesday, offering a 9.7-inch Retina iPad with 128 gigabytes of storage -- doubling the tablet's previous max capacity.

Everything else about Apple's tablet is the same, including the dual-core A6X processor, 2 gigabtyes of RAM, and 10 hours of battery life.

To account for the added storage space, the 128 GB Wi-Fi model will now cost $799, while the LTE model will cost $929.
To offer some differentiation from its other iPads -- which start at $329 for the iPad mini -- Apple is targeting the new model primarily at professional users, including those in the architectural and medical fields who handle large files. Gamers, movie fans and avid magazine readers are also likely to appreciate the extra storage space.
The abrupt release marks a shift in how Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) is updating the iPad. Instead of rolling out new iPads once a year or so, as it does with iPhones and iPods, Apple is now treating the iPad more like its Mac line, releasing incremental updates to existing models. (Tech blogs began publishing leaked reports about the new iPad two days ago.)
In late 2012, Apple released a fourth-gen iPad with new processor a mere six months after the release of the third-generation Retina iPad. Much like in this most recent update, all other specs remained the same.
Apple has not explicitly announced this strategy shift, so it's an open question whether or not we'll see a more significant iPad update this year.

CORRECTED-UPDATE 2-Toyota to recall 1 mln vehicles for airbag, wiper glitches

Jan 30 (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp will recall nearly 1.3 million cars globally for two separate defects, including 752,000 Corolla and Corolla Matrix vehicles in the United States to fix airbags that could be deployed inadvertently, the automaker said on Wednesday.
It is the third Toyota recall since October to involve more than a million cars, and it comes as the company tries to recover from a damaged reputation following a series of recalls between 2009 and 2011 that were related to unintended acceleration problems.
An IC chip in the airbag control unit can malfunction when it receives electrical interference from other parts in the car, causing the airbags to deploy when it is not necessary, Toyota spokesman Naoto Fuse said.
Toyota is also recalling certain Corolla and Corolla Matrix vehicles in Japan, Canada, and Mexico.
The problem has caused minor injuries such as abrasions in 18 cases that have been reported, he said. Two accidents have been reported by customers outside Japan, although Toyota has not been able to confirm them, he said.
Toyota will add an electrical signal filter to the airbag control module to the recalled vehicles -- repairs expected to take an hour to hour-and-a-half, he said.
The spokesman declined to disclose the costs involved.
LIMITED FINANCIAL IMPACT
TRW Automotive Holding Corp has manufactured the airbag control unit in the vehicles, although the problematic chip is supplied by another company, an employee at TRW's Toyota office told Reuters.
He declined to say where TRW buys the chips from.
The financial impact from the airbag recall is likely to be limited, possibly costing Toyota about 5 billion yen ($55 million), said Koichi Sugimoto, a senior analyst at BNP Paribas in Tokyo.
Toyota may ask suppliers to compensate, he added.
"While this cannot be ignored, this amount is not going to dent Toyota's operations and share prices are unlikely to be impacted much," he said.
Separately, Toyota will also recall 385,000 Lexus IS and its series, including 270,000 Lexus IS vehicles in the United States over wiper problems, Toyota spokesman Fuse said.
The wiper arm nut of the front wiper in these vehicles may not be tight enough and the wiper may not work under certain weather occasions, including in snow.
Toyota will exchange the nut in repairs that will take about 30 minutes, Fuse said.
Toyota has been showing signs of recovery from the recall crisis and won back the crown as the world's top selling automaker in 2012 from General Motors.
In an effort to move past its safety crisis, Toyota proposed last month and got approval from a judge to spend $1.1 billion to settle one of the biggest U.S. auto class-action lawsuits over claims that millions of its vehicles accelerated unintentionally.
Toyota has not admitted fault in proposing the settlement.
As automakers including Toyota increasingly use shared parts for various models, the number of recalled vehicles have tended to balloon.
In October, the automaker also recalled 7.4 million vehicles globally to fix malfunctioning power window switches, and in November it recalled 2.8 million vehicles for a steering glitch.
Toyota is set to announce its October-December earnings results on Feb. 5. ($1 = 90.6500 Japanese yen) (Additional reporting by Norihiko Shirouzu; Editing by Daniel Magnowski and Ken Wills)

ZTE bringing 5.7-inch Grand Memo and a Firefox OS phone to MWC 2013

What will China’s ZTE be bringing to Mobile World Congress 2013? So far the company has teased the 5.7-inch Grand Memo and an unnamed device running Mozilla’s Firefox OS. In the case of the Grand Memo, ZTE is so excited about the upcoming launch that it couldn’t even wait for the Barcelona expo to show it off to members of the tech press.
The Grand Memo (that’s it above next to the Grand S) is part of a new push for ZTE. With a solid presence already established in lower-end devices, the company now wants to move in on the high-end device market. The Grand Memo looks like a good way to kickstart the effort. It’s got a 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor to go along with that 5.7-inch display. There’s also a 13 megapixel rear-facing camera, and ZTE has included a micro SD expansion slot.
Full specs won’t be revealed until MWC, but there are two more details worth knowing. First, that mammoth display is a 720p number. ZTE has decided not to match its competitors with a 1080p panel, and it’s likely a cost-cutting decision. Shaving a few bucks by going with a lower-resolution display will allow ZTE to price its high-end phablet aggressively, and that won’t go unnoticed by consumers. And since you won’t have to hold the 5.7-inch screen right up next to your face to see things, chances are the drop in PPI won’t make a huge difference.
Second, the Grand Memo measures just 8mm thick. That’s hard enough to do with a device this size when you don’t offer any expandability, and ZTE has still managed to squeeze in that micro SD slot.
As for its first phone running Firefox OS, everything’s a mystery at this point. ZTE has been working with Mozilla for quite some time, and it’s had a couple codenamed devices circulating among the Foundation’s developers. The only thing that’s certain so far is that this device will sit at the opposite end of the price spectrum when it launches. Firefox OS phones — at least the initial round — are headed for emerging markets and will sport entry-level price tags.

[ Technology-News] FacebookFacebook Now Has More Than 1.06 Billion Monthly Active Users, 618 Million Daily, 680 Million On Mobile

Facebook Now Has More Than 1.06 Billion Monthly Active Users, 618 Million Daily, 680 Million On Mobile Facebook has today shared its financial stats for the fourth quarter of last year, and in doing so, has dropped yet another installment of its ever-impressive user statistics. As has been the case consistently over the past few years, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook has exceeded quite a few milestones, and the world’s most popular social network of all time has has now passed the 1.06 billion monthly active user (MAU) mark.
The social company had long been expected to pass the monumental billion mark before eventually doing so in October of last year, but the growth since then – some 60 million active users – is pretty startling in itself. As well as that, the number of daily active users (DAUs) averaged at more than 618 million through December 2012, with the number of monthly active mobile users hitting more than two-thirds of a billion, at 680 million.

Signups on a social network like Facebook are one thing, but keeping a user base interested enough to remain active month-in, month-out is something Zuck and his development team seem to have mastered down to a fine art. The 1.06 billion MAUs as of December 31st, 2012, was an increase of 25% year-on-year, while the number of DAUs equated to a 28% year-on-year surge.
But the real juice arrives in the progress of mobile. It is certainly a field Facebook had initial teething issues with, but since releasing version 5 for both iOS and Android, things have continued to progress. The number of daily active users on mobile devices such as the Nexus 7, iPad, iPhone and Galaxy S III exceeded the number of web daily active users for the first time in Q4 2012, and given the way the market is continuing to lean on mobile devices – particularly with social apps and services – the swing is certain to stay in favor of mobile indefinitely from here on in.

The portion of Facebook users logging in on mobile devices stood at around 40 per cent in 2011, and passed the 50 percent mark in 2012. Some commentators suspect that figure could rise to as much as 70 per cent by the end of this year, as users look to their smartphones and tablets for their fix of the world’s most populous social hunt.
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Acer officially unveils the stylish Liquid E1 mid-ranger

Today Acer announced a new member of its lineup of mid-range
Android smartphones. The smartphone is called Liquid E1 and is basically a trimmed down version of the CloudMobile S500.

Powered by a 1GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage, the Acer Liquid E1 runs with Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean out of box. It's sporting a 4.5-inch display of qHD resolution (960 x 540 pixels) and boasts an 5MP auto-focus primary camera with LED flash at the back and a 0.3MP video-chat camera at the front.

The Liquid E1 dimensions are spot on for a midranger at 132 x 68.5 x 9.9 mm with a weight of 130 grams. Popping the stylishly designed back cover open reveals a somewhat underwhelming battery with a capacity of 1760mAh. Acer says that it should be good for up to 8 hours of talk time and around 400 hours of waiting patiently in standby.
The Liquid E1 also features an FM receiver, microSD card slot and the usual array of sensors. Judging from those official shots, we really like the Liquid E1 design, particularly on the dark grey version with red accents.

Annoyingly, pricing and availability are still only known to Acer.