Surface Pro review – Microsoft tablet offers true power computing on the move

I really want to like the Surface Pro. A full Windows 8 Pro device in tablet form has the potential to shake up the mobile computing world, offering genuine computing power in a truly portable package. To be *that* device the Surface Pro doesn’t need to match the iPad or Nexus 10 in terms of thinness and lightness, or even battery life – after all, it offers functionality more akin to that of a laptop than a Windows tablet. But it does need to come close.

The Surface Pro launches in the UK on 23 May 2013. It will cost £719 for the model with 64GB of onboard storage, and the larger 128GB model will cost £799. So now the Surface Pro is available in the UK, should you rush out and buy one?

The good news is that the Surface Pro offers Ultrabook performance in a chassis only marginally thicker than the Surface RT. The bad news is that it is hot and heavy and the battery life isn’t what we’d hoped for. It’s a B+ product. A four-star device that is almost, but not quite, the one device for all. Here’s why…

Surface Pro: Design and build

It’s difficult to know how to judge the Surface Pro’s design. It’s a hybrid device, designed to replace your Ultrabook or Macbook Air and to do away with your need to travel with an iPad or Nexus 7. I’m writing this on a business trip on which I have brought a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch touchscreen Ultrabook and a Nexus 7 tablet. Compared with the former the Surface Pro is a true lightweight. It is unmistakably thicker than the 9.4mm Surface RT – and for that matter the iPad – but next to the 22mm X1 Carbon Touch its 13.5mm thickness means it’s a baby. Use the kick stand and Touch or Type keyboard and you will feel like you have a tiny laptop on the go. But try to use the Surface Pro and you will realise what a chunk of tech this is.

Make no mistake: the Surface Pro is one hot and heavy device. The fact that it weighs around 900g doesn’t tell the whole story. In our tests it ran really hot – as might be expected of such a small Core i5 device – and holding it in one hand for any period of time is a trial. There are two near-silent fans working to dissipate heat, but they do a far from perfect job. It also looks and feels almost fatally chunky. This is a subjective thing, but unlike the svelte Surface RT the Pro has a certain Fisher Price asthetic. It just doesn’t look like something I’d want to show off to my friends.

The Surface Pro does retain the design plus points of the Surface RT. That 22-degree kickstand is a neat solution, albeit one with no gradient so you have your screen angled at 22 degrees or not at all. And the way the Type keyboard clicks in is a joyous thing. But the gap between the back and the top of the chassis remains. It’s presumably there to allow for air flow, but we can’t say it adds to the way the Surface Pro makes us feel.

The Surface Pro has a better display than did the RT. It is a 1920-by-1080-pixel, 10.6-inch screen. That makes for 208 pixels per inch – somewhat behind the iPad or Nexus 10, but not so as you can really notice. It’s a decent screen for a tablet, but on size alone it can’t match up to that of a decent laptop. Viewing angles are pretty good though, at least side to side. It’s a pretty reflective screen, however. We found it all but useless outside.

Surface Pro: storage

The 128GB Surface Pro we tested offers only 83GB of usable storage capacity. The Surface Pro supports USB 3.0 so you can expand your storage using an external drive. There’s also a MicroSDXC card slot in case you want to add onboard flash memory.

Surface Pro: performance, connectivity, battery

Here we meet only good news. With an average PCMark7 benchmark score of 4751 the Surface Pro is a Windows 8 PC offering the performance of a high-end Ultrabook. Consider the specs. Like the previously mentioned ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch (and the Dell XPS Duo 12, Lenovo Yoga 13, et al) the Surface Pro is supplied with a 1.7GHz Core i5 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 64GB or 128GB SSD, and integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000. It’s a power laptop in tablet form, and it performs as such. It’s truly zippy in use – there are compromises being made here, but not in the general performance of the Surface Pro.

The connectivity options are good, too. You get a Mini DisplayPort which can drive HDMI and VGA displays – get a full-spec keyboard and a decent display and the Surface Pro could be your primary PC when not in tablet use. My PCWorld.com colleague Jon Phillips tested the Surface Pro driving a 24in Dell monitor with a 1920×1080 resolution with no problems at all. (He also used the Surface Pro for Photoshop work which worked well.)

The Surface Pro has integrated graphics, which means it’s not much of a gaming rig. In PCWorld.com’s Civilization V and Dirt Showdown gaming tests frame rates were described as ‘unplayably poor’, with numbers in the mid-teens at best. We did, however, see a playable 34 frames per second in Dirt Showdown after reducing in-game resolution to 1366 by 768 and setting visual quality to low.

Battery life is good, but perhaps not good enough for the new category of device that the Surface Pro represents. With a 42-watt-hour battery the Surface Pro has Intel Ultrabook battery life, rather than that of an Arm-based tablet PC. In PC World’s video rundown test, the Pro lasted only 5 hours, 8 minutes. This compares poorly in comparison with hybrid tablet/Ultrabooks such as the W700 (6 hours, 7 minutes), and the Yoga 13 (5 hours, 37). Perfectly useful, but nothing compared to the Surface RT or the iPad, both of which offer more than 9 hours of in use battery life.

Surface Pro: pen

The Surface Pro comes with a pen that offers a drawing and writing input for the tablet. It’s a passive device that doesn’t draw power and attaches magnetically to the side of the device. According to Microsoft the Surface Pro’s pen offers 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity and it’s true that it is a very sensitive tablt pen. In use it can be laggy however, and it feels flimsy and plastic – if you’re spending this much money on a tablet you want premium quality, and the Surface Pro’s pen doesn’t feel like that at all.

The pen does offers a certain amount of useful functionality, however. In essence it’s useful when you need a drawing pad, and pointless at all other times. And sitting on the side of your Surface Pro it can feel a little in the way.

Surface Pro: software

For the full low-down on Windows 8 read our Windows 8 review. For the Surface Pro suffice to say that it offers the full no-holds-barred Windows 8 Pro experience. So you can run any software that you have installed on any other Windows device, as well as Windows apps. That means you can run Office on your tablet, making the Surface Pro a more than useful travelling companion for business people.

Surface Pro: keyboards

The two Surface keyboards are compromise devices. The Touch and Type Covers are brilliant keyboard/covers, but you have to consider what the Pro is good at, and then wonder if a combination case and keyboard is good enough. I started typing this review on the Type Cover… and gave up. It’s perfectly useable, but with a full laptop keyboard within reach it just seemed a compromise too far to have to wrestle with what is a mobile keyboard. The keys are small, don’t have much travel, and suffer from a perceptable lag. Both covers are as good as it gets in tablet cover keyboards, but that isn’t as good as a proper keyboard or even that of an Ultrabook. 745TDBanty 130627

From:http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/tablets/3419932/surface-pro-review/

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 specs and preview: minor update to the 7-inch Galaxy Tab

Samsung recently unveiled the Galaxy Tab 3 7.0, an update to the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 that was released last year. It’s a low-cost device with predictable specifications but it hardly seems like much of an upgrade over the previous model.

Samsung’s tablet range has historically been one of the most overwhelming on the market. The company started off with a 7in Android tablet, then released a 10.1in, then revised that 10.1in to be thinner and lighter than the first, then brought out an 8.9inmodel, and then a slightly bigger 7.7in device.

That’s not even including the Galaxy Note range, which consists of5.3 and 5.5in smartphones, along with the more recent 10.1in and8in tablets. Confused? We don’t blame you. 

The Galaxy Tab brand now seems to be associated with lower end devices. The third generation of this device has a 7in screen but it’s a regular LCD with a resolution of 1024×600, the same as the previous model.

The Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 has a thinner bezel than the previous model and the look has been changed. It predictably falls in line with Samsung’s latest devices like the Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy Note 8.0 — the familiar glossy plastic finish and rounded corners.

Looks aside, the Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 hardly seems like much of an upgrade over the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. The tablet PC is powered by a 1.2GHz dual core processor compared to the previous 1GHz processor and has the same 1GB of RAM. It even includes the same 3-megapixel rear camera, though the front-facing camera has been upgraded from VGA to a slightly more respectable 1.3-megapixels.

The Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 comes with either 8GB of 16GB of internal storage depending on the model you choose. There’s also a microSD card slot that allows you to expand the memory up to 64GB.

The Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 comes with the 4.1 Jelly Bean version of Android and once again runs Samsung’s TouchWiz overlay on top. The usual array of Samsung apps and services are all included.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 Specs

• Screen size: 600 x 1024 pixels, 7.0 inches
• Display PPI: 170
• Internal storage: 8/16 GB storage,
• RAM: 1 GB
• Primary camera: 3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
• Secondary camera: 1.3 MP
• OS: Android OS, v4.1 (Jelly Bean)
• CPU: Dual-core 1.2 GHz
• Dimensions: 188 x 111.1 x 9.9 mm
• Weight: 306g
• Available in Wi-Fi only and cellular models

Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx review: an 11.6 inch Windows 8 tablet

Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx review: screen

The Lynx certainly makes a good first impression, with the 11.6-inch tablet measuring just 9.5mm thick and weighing 640g – about 20g lighter than the latest 9.7-inch iPad.

It doesn’t have the ultra-high definition display of the Retina iPad, but the IPS panel provides a very bright and colourful image with its native 1366×768 resolution – so bright, in fact, that we were able to turn the brightness down to about 40 percent and still get a good, clear image while watching streaming video during our battery tests.

Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx review: build quality

However, closer inspection does reveal a few small weaknesses. The back panel appears to be made from quite lightweight plastic, and the buttons and port covers arranged around the edge of the device feel a bit flimsy, so the Lynx could isn’t what we’d call sturdy. The speakers also sound rather thin and tinny, although there are both headphone and micro-HDMI connectors available if you want to hook it up to speakers or a larger screen.

Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx review: performance

The Lynx is powered by a dual-core Intel Atom processor running at 1.8GHz.  That’s a netbook-class processor, so the fact that it scored only 1415 when running the PCMark 7 benchmark is hardly surprising.

However, that’s in line with similar Atom-based devices such as HP’s Envy X2 tablet, and it’s perfectly adequate for basic tasks such as web browsing and a spot of work in Word or Excel.

The Lynx also feels smooth and responsive when using its touch screen controls, but the main disadvantage of the Atom processor is that it supports a maximum of 2GB of memory.

The Lynx might struggle with more demanding tasks, due to the processor and RAM, so it isn’t quite a replacement for a conventional laptop for serious work. Don’t expect to edit and render HD video in record time, for example.

It’s a little light on storage too – almost 27GB of the 64GB solid-state storage is taken up by Windows itself, which only leaves you about 37GB for your own files. Fortunately, there’s a micro-SD slot that will allow you to add another 32GB storage if you need to.

The Atom processor also relies on the old Intel GMA integrated graphics, which means that your gaming activity will probably be restricted to casual games such as Angry Birds.

However, the modest processor does mean that battery life is very good – we got a full eight hours of streaming video out of the Lynx, so it should certainly see you through a long train or plane journey.

Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx review: keyboard dock

Like the HP Envy X2, the Lynx can also be used with a keyboard dock that includes a pair of USB 2.0 ports as well as a second battery that will double the eight-hour battery life. The keyboard is fairly sturdy and comfortable to use, with a full-size set of keys that have a decent amount of travel. However, the trackpad is very small – just 75x40mm – and the hinge mechanism that allows you to attach the Lynx to the keyboard is surprisingly stiff and inelegant.

Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx review: value

We were disappointed to see that Lenovo’s website lists the Lynx tablet on its own for a hefty £800, and we confirmed with Lenovo that the optional keyboard dock will set you back a further £120.

We’ve seen the Lynx for sale online with the keyboard bundled in for around £600, though, so it’s worth shopping around to make sure you get the android tablet and dock together.

HP’s Envy X2 has a very similar design and specification, but is better built. It has just dropped in price to £699 including the keyboard dock, but if your budget won’t stretch that far, the Lynx – with its keyboard bundled – for £600 is a good deal.

From:http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/tablets/3449406/lenovo-ideatab-lynx-review/       745TDBanty 130626

Asus Fonepad review: inexpensive tablet is also a smartphone

If you’ve never heard of a phablet then meet the Asus Fonepad. Read our Asus Fonepad review to find out what the cheesy name is all about.

Do you desperately want to own a smartphone and a tablet but just don’t have the money to afford both? Well the Fonepad might just be the thing for you.

First off, do not confuse the Fonepad with the Asus Padfone. Asus’ Padfone was a smartphone that slotted into a tablet docking station; the Fonepad is a tablet with a SIM card slot and the ability to make phone calls. It wants to compete with the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0.

You’d be forgiven for mistaking the Fonepad for the Google Nexus 7 – they look extremely similar in appearance. Both are 7in tablets, using the same screen in the same shape. One subtle difference on the front is the ear-piece so you can hear the person on the other end of the phone.

Whether you feel comfortable holding a 7in device up to your face to make a phone call is the key question here. Many people laughed at us when we introduced our new phone to them. You can, of course, use speakerphone but this isn’t ideal for many situations. So Asus UK supplied our review unit with a Plantronics Voyager Legend UC Bluetooth earpiece, which says quite a lot about whether you’re really supposed to hold it like a regular phone.

The Fonepad is pretty thin and light at 10.9mm and 317g, making it easy to hold in one hand like the Nexus 7. It felt less unwieldy than the larger Galaxy Note 8.0. However, at 7in the Fonepad is a small tablet but a huge phone. It’s not really pocket-sized (only for men’s trousers and even then it’s very awkward) which means you’ll need to carry it around in bag. In turn, this makes it difficult to know when you’re being called or have received a text message or similar notification.

What it does do is solve the problem of having to spend much money to be able to own a smartphone and tablet. At £179 we can see this as a viable option for those wanting a value hybrid offering. The Galaxy Note 8.0 is likely to be a much more expensive option.

The backside of the Fonepad looks quite different to the dotted rubber of the Nexus 7 though. It has a metal rear cover which comes in two colours – Titanium Gray and Champagne Gold. The metal finish gives the device a more premium feel than the Nexus 7.

Build quality is good for the price despite a couple of minor downsides. The Fonepad is quite flexible and the metal rear cover doesn’t sit flush with the plastic edging all the way around.

Asus Fonepad: Hardware and performance

Component specifications are a little different to the Nexus 7. In its favour, it’s rocking the same spec 7in IPS display with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, but internal components are altered.

The Asus Fonepad is powered by an Intel Atom Z2420, a dual-core PC processor clocked at 1.2GHz, backed with 1GB of memory. The tablet – sorry, phablet – runs Google Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) reasonably well but there is lag present occasionally.

The shortfall in performance was reflected in our benchmarks tests too. The Fonepad could only manage a score of 557 points in Geekbench 2, where in general we’re used to scores well above 1000 points.

It also failed to impress on the graphics side with a framerate of just 12 fps in GLBenchmark. This is only a couple of fps short of the Nexus 7 and isn’t too bad for a budget tablet. But it does mean some games won’t run as smoothly as you’ll see on the premium devices.

The Fonepad did a bit better in the SunSpider JavaScript test of web-browsing performance, with a time of 1472 ms, about 200 ms faster than the Nexus 7.

The Fonepad is available in 8 GB or 16 GB capacities; the £179 price is for the larger of the two options. Unlike the Nexus 7, there’s a microSDHC card slot for expansion (up to 32GB cards). Also included is 5GB of Asus WebStorage, free for life.

There’s little else remarkable about hardware apart from the typical single-band 11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0 and GPS. It’s worth noting that the Fonepad doesn’t support 4G LTE networks.

Asus Fonepad: Camera

Unlike the model we saw back at MWC in 2012, the UK model of the Fonepad that finally appeared doesn’t include a rear-facing camera. It only has a 1.3Mp front-facing camera for videos calls. This camera is reasonably good, although nothing to get excited about.

The lack of a rear camera may prove a big omission, considering most smartphone users rely on their phone’s camera for day-to-day snaps. You’ll have to be prepared for the sacrifice in this area if the Fonepad is really going to replace your smartphone and tablet.

Asus Fonepad: Software

Asus has loaded the Fonepad with Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), which is almost the latest version. However, it’s not quite vanilla Android as we saw on the Nexus 7. The interface is closer to that of Asus’ Transformer Pad range of tablets – and quite good looking for it.

Everything is where we would expect it to be. And there’s an extra button alongside the usual back, home and menu.

This extra button is for Floating Apps, which is a bit like having separate windows on your PC desktop.

Apps must be coded to work this way but there’s a fairly wide choice of what you can have floating around the Android OS, such as Sticky Memos, Dictionary, Calculator and Browser. You can also switch many of them into full screen if you wish.

Asus adds some of its own apps alongside the usual Google services and third-party apps like Zinio and Amazon Kindle.

Asus Studio and Asus Story are both nice additions letting you edit photos and collate them into a digital book respectively.

Editing is a bit slow due to the mediocre performance of the device, though. And we’re not so keen on BuddyBuzz which is yet another social-network aggregator – combining feeds from numerous social networks just doesn’t make sense to us anyway.

Something more unusual is Asus Splendid which allows you to adjust the screen settings like saturation, temperature and hue.

We didn’t find ourselves needing to make any changes but it’s a nice feature if you want to customise the look of the screen.

Asus Fonepad: Battery life

Inside the Fonepad is 16Wh lithium-polymer battery. Like most tablets, it’s non-removable. The battery did seem to hold its charge well – over the course of 6 hours of medium usage with power-saving set to ‘optimised’ we lost around 20 percent of the battery.

If you’re only going to use the Fonepad occasionally then you could well get two days out of it. However, if you’re going to use the device for the kinds of tasks you would use a smartphone and a tablet combined, you’re unlikely to get more than a day’s use out of it. 745TDBanty 130625

From:http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/tablets/3428632/asus-fonepad-review/

Toshiba Excite Pro hands-on review: Nexus 10 tablet rival

Toshiba has announced a trio of new Android tablets including the Excite Pro. Check out our Toshiba Excite Pro hands-on review.

Starting at £349, the Toshiba Excite Pro is a rival to Google’s Nexus 10 and Apple’s iPad 4. It’s a 10.1in tablet running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

There’s nothing overly special about the Excite Pro in terms of design, looking similar to previous tablets from Toshiba. There’s a reasonably large bezel and a plastic textured rear cover which is nothing to get excited about. The materials do keep the cost down, though.

The Excite Pro’s ‘PixelPure’ screen matches the Nexus 10 with an impressive resolution of 2560×1600, beating even the iPad 4’s Retina display. The display looks great; however, the extremely glossy finish means enjoying it in its full spender is difficult.

During our time with the Excite Pro, performance seems to be decent. The tablet is among the first to employ Nvidia’s Tegra 4 processor, a quad-core chip with an extra battery saving core. This combined with 2GB of RAM provided us with some smooth gaming in Dead Trigger 2.

There’s a standard 16GB of internal storage with a microSD card slot for expansion using up to 64GB cards. Toshiba goes further than most when it comes to connectivity with microUSB, Micro-HDMI, 11.ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and optional 3G/4G/LTE network support. The only major thing missing is NFC. An over the air update in the fourth quarter will add Miracast as a wireless feature, according to Toshiba.

Cameras are fairly good quality at 8Mp at the rear and 1.2Mp to the front. The Excite Pro has stereo Harman Kardon speakers but these are disappointingly positioned on the rear of the tablet. The Tegra 4 chip allows the tablet to offer an HDR shooting mode.

We haven’t been able to test battery life yet but Toshiba touts an impressive 10 hours of battery life from all the Excite tablets.

The Excite Pro and other tablet in the range will launch in the third quarter exclusively at PC World and Currys. We’ll be bringing you a full review as soon as we can so stay tuned. 745TDBanty 130624

From:http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/tablets/3450630/toshiba-excite-pro-hands-on-review/

Samsung to go Intel with the next Galaxy Tab release

Despite their many attempts, Intel has yet to make any significant progress in entering the Android world. A new partnership with Samsung, who appears to be prepping a Galaxy Tab 3 with Intel, could change that.

It’s been a long and hazardous road for Intel in their attempts to jump into the mobile scene. Whether its Google TV or phones running Android x86, the chip manufacturer has yet to find success. First there were platform issues with thousands of popular apps not playing well with the architecture, followed immediately by power consumption rates being far too high when compared to comparable ARM processors. Their new Clover Trail chips seem to be just the thing to get them in the game, and a rumored partnership with Samsung for the next Galaxy Tab will help carry them the rest of the way.

We’ve seen some leaked benchmarks of a Samsung tablet PC running Intel’s new 1.6GHz Clover Trail chip, and now it looks like that tablet is the upcoming Galaxy Tab 3. With performance levels that dramatically exceed the current generation of tablets, Samsung will be able to boast performance superiority alongside their growing list of TouchWiz only features. An Intel tablet capable of multitasking in windowed format like the previous Galaxy Tab and the feature set of the new Galaxy S4 phone would be an impressive device to unveil during the Computex conference. Priced correctly, a tablet that offered the ability to multitask without performance loss would be something new and exciting in the mobile ecosystem.

Intel successfully entering the mobile ecosystem opens a number of doors for Android devices. Intel would be able to offer WiDi on tablets and phones as opposed to Miracast or DLNA, which would allow for better screen sharing and more interactive experiences across mobile and PC markets. It would also put Intel in front of a range of sensors not currently found in laptops and desktops, which would allow the company a greater range of devices to test out their perceptual computing on. 745TDBanty 130621

Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab 3 8-inch and 10-inch tablets are very mid-range

 

Samsung’s first two Galaxy Tab 3 models have been officially announced. Both an 8-inch and a 10.1-inch tablet will be launching globally next month, and you won’t find a quad-core chip or 1080p display in either one.

No, the new Galaxy Tab models have shifted towards the mid-range as their Note cousins take over the top end of Samsung’s line-up. Both tablets will feature a relatively modest 1280 x 800 display, which translates to 189ppi on the 8-incher and 149ppi on the 10.1.

As for that rumored Atom processor, it’s apparently going to power the larger model. The Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 will run a dual-core Intel chip clocked at 1.6GHz, and the fact that Samsung has opted for 1GB of RAM confirms that this tablet isn’t meant to blow away power users with its raw power. Speaking of power, the 6800mAh battery should provide plenty of run-time.

The smaller Tab dials back to 1.5GHz, and it’s a dual core chip. Whether it’s ARM or x86 remains a mystery for now. It has also got 1GB of RAM, and Samsung  has fitted it with a 4450mAh battery — roughly ten per cent better than its 7-inch predecessor.

Samsung will offer the usual variants — both Wi-Fi and 3/4G enabled — with 16 or 32GB of internal storage. Both support microSD expansion, of course. They’ll also ship with Android 4.2 out of the box and the requisite Samsung bloat value-added software like ChatOn, S Voice, and S Travel.

It’s pretty clear from these new releases that the Galaxy Tab is no longer offered as a direct competitor to the iPad. The Galaxy brand is successful enough that Samsung can justify creating two tiers for prospective shoppers to choose from: the mid-range Tab and the high-end Note.

Ultimately, the Galaxy Tab 3 will probably be hot sellers — assuming Samsung prices them smartly. 745TDBanty 130620

Apple’s WWDC 2013 keynote: OS X Mavericks, new Mac Pro, iOS 7

Kicking off this week of weeks is Microsoft’s big E3 press conference, but right after that is what main geeks consider to be the week’s main event: Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) 2013 opening keynote. This is the big reveal, where Tim Cook and company will show off the Apple-y goodness that we’ve been waiting for all year.

So far we only have rumors to go on, but this during the WWDC keynote it’s likely that we’ll get a full rundown of iOS 7, complete with its new design. We’ll, in all likelihood meet the Haswell-powered iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and even Mac Pro, see the next version of OS X (10.9), and learn if “iRadio” is actually a real thing. It should be a very interesting keynote, but don’t expect to see a new iPhone or iPad — all rumors have pointed towards those being revealed this fall.

via @pcmaglive

The event starts at 1 PM Eastern time (10 AM Pacific), which is when this article will start updating (just refresh the page!). If you’d rather watch the video live, Apple is streaming the event, just keep in mind that you’ll need Safari on a Mac or an iOS device to watch it. Alternatively you’ll be able to view the stream in the “Apple Events” channel of an Apple TV, if you have one of those handy…

It’s 1pm and things are just kicking off! First up?  A rather slick commerical… it’s black and white, super clean, just what you’d expect from Apple. The general tone was that Apple releases nothing until it’s perfect.

And it’s Tim Cook! Cook noted that Apple has over 1000 engineers on site, and developers from over 60 countries in attendance. This is a big deal for Apple developers — remember, the event sold out in under a minute.

First updates will cover Apple’s retail business, where over 1M people a day attended. The hottest new Apple store is the one in Berlin, which is built next to a theater. Apple made a special video of the opening, which it’s showing off now.

Retail store are great, but what about the App Store? 50 billion apps have been downloaded so far. That’s a lot. There are 900,000 apps in the store, with 90% of them downloaded each month. The iPad has 375,000 apps. There are 575 million accounts, most of which have credit cards on them — this is more than any other store on the internet.

As of today, Apple has paid developers $10 billion, half of that was in the last year. That’s 3x more than all other platforms combined, noted Cook.

One new company we’ll meet today is Anki, and AI and robotics company that uses iOS. Their CEO is up on stage now, showing off their robotics. Their first product is AnkiDrive, a sort of car game that uses low energy Bluetooth. The cars drive using an AI engine (which lives on the iPhone) that updates 500 times a second to determine its position and speed. The cars can navigate around one another and seemingly come to life — there is no planning of choreography, just AI.

AnkiDrive will be available today if you’d like to investigate.

Next up, the Mac… The install based is up to 72M. The new iMac, is the number one desktop in the US. The MacBook is the number one notebook in the US. The Mac is way outpacing the PC in terms of growth, says Apple.

Craig Federighi is up to talk about OS X. Apple is, unfortunately running out of big cats, so what now? Apple is moving to places in California that really inspire us, the first CA-themed release is… OS X Mavericks. Mavericks will improve battery life and the user interface.

What’s new with Mavericks? First up is Finder Tabs — you know, tabs for the Finder tool. Next, tagging is coming to the Mac. Users will be able to tag files — these will be universal, on your Mac, iCloud, etc. Third, OS X will focus on multiple displays. The update this time is menus across multiple displays, and full-screen windows on one display, will not affect the other display. Panning from one display to another, it will only affect the display you are on! (These were popular power-user complaints with OS X.)

The demo is going on now — the tools seem slick, but this is very much an offering for power users who are doing serious multitasking and who are really trying to get the most out of their operating system.

So there are some new tools, but what about battery life? How will Mavericks extend the life of the MacBook Pro and Air?

The first big thing is Timer Coalescence. Mavericks intelligently aligns CPU power states in order toe reduce transitions and optimize performance. Sounds complex…

Next, Memory Compression. With compressed memory, OS X compresses inactive memory and makes room for the active stuff. The result? Wake from standby should be 1.5x faster.

And now, Safari (Craig shifted into overdrive here) — there will be shared links, accelerated scrolling, Nitro tiered JIT, Nitro Fast Start, and a number of other changes that will make Safari much faster. Safari will also use less memory now and use way less energy than Chrome or Firefox which is “kinda sad”.

With App Nav, OS X will drive power to what you actually are using. When you aren’t using Safari, the power that goes to it will drop down. It’s still running and still available to use, but the power usage to inactive programs is able to scale way down.

Safari is also getting “Top Sites”. This sidebar tool will feature the sites you like as well as shared links from social sites. You can retweet or 1-click bookmark to your reading list. When you scroll to the bottom of one bookmarked page, you’ll go right to the next article in your list. Reader was redesign as well.

And now, iCloud keychain… Safari will autosuggest a secure password, remember it, and sync it across all your systems from them on. It’ll also remember your credit cards (but not the security code) just like OS X does with your address.

Notifications on Mac was also improved. Now you can reply right from the notification if it’s a FaceTime, message, or email. iOS Push notifications can be sent to your Mac now as well — whether Safari is running or not. When you wake your machine, apps will update in the background and all your notifications will be on your lock screen when you wake the system.

And now… calendar. There is a new interface without the leather calendar design.

Maps was redesigned as well. There is totally improved data with an all-new app. Coolest part: When you setup a route on your Mac it’ll go right to your iPhone, so you don’t need to run through it again.

Finally – iBooks is coming to the Mac (finally). It’ll include note-taking, highlighting, study cards, font choice, night-mode reading, and everything else you’d expect.

Craig F is running through the demo now. The new Maps app looks quite slick — Apple is clearly battling with Google here — and he even poked fun at Apple’s former skeuomorphic calendar design (“the calendar stays in place without the stitching!”)

“And that’s Mavericks — it’s about letting your digital life follow you from device to device.” The preview goes out to developers today. Everyone else will get it this Fall.

Time for Phil Schiller and the Mac!

The MacBook Air is first. There is a new line of MacBook Air with all day battery life. It’ll use Intel’s Haswell processor, as we expected. It’ll have 40% better graphics performance compared to the previous generation. This means crazy stuff, like 30 days of standby power.

The 11-inch MBA will now have 9 hours of battery life. The 13-inch will go from 7 to 13 hours of battery life. You can watch up to 10 hours of video on the 13-incher.

There is also 802.11 ac WiFi on the MBA. To go along this, there is also a new AirPort Extreme and Airport Time Capsule. These will have beam forming to enhance performance and other cool features.

The 11-inch starts at $999 with 128GB, the 13-inch starts at $1099.

And a new Mac Pro! How to make this product last another 10 years? Check this out:

“Can’t innovate any more my ass” said Schiller.  There is a new unified thermal core, Intel’s latest Xeon, double the CPU performance of the last gen, ECC DDR3 with 4 channel controller. Super fast flash storage based on PCIe. 2.5x faster than any previous Mac Pro hard drive. Using Thunderbolt 2 for external storage. This will support up to three 4K displays.

And the size? This system has 1/8 the volume of the previous generation. Four USB, 6 FireWire, gig Ethernet, motion sensor to show you where the I/O is.

This was designed in California and assembled in the USA. It’s coming this year.

And that’s it from Phil S., Tim Cook is back on stage. He’s talking about iCloud, and how it ties together all Apple’s services and how iCloud will work with the next version of iWork. [This part is very boring, it’s just a demo of Pages, Keynote, and Numbers happening in the browser instead of an app.]

Cook is back. Apple has sold more than 600M iOS devices. iPhone users use the iPhone 50% more than Android users use their phone, says an Experian report. Mobile web share for iOS is 2.5x that of Android. iPad has about 4x the tablet usage of all other tablets. Cook is focusing on iOS’ success in customer satifaction right now.

Over 90% of iOS users are using the latest version. This is a bleak story says Cook:

Yes… he’s talking about fragmentation.

And now, iOS 7. It’s the biggest change to iOS since its introduction in 2007. It’s time for the iOS 7 demo video. The new OS will have all new typography, new icons, new apps designs… it basically looks way different. It’ll take advantage of transparency and parallax — the design will recede to elevate your content.

This demo video, featuring Jony Ive, is very, very good. We’re seeing all sorts of highlights from the new UI, with some big changes. One notable update is the multitasking tool, which features WebOS-like cards, where the apps can be swiped away.

Craig F. is back to walk us through iOS 7 (big day for Craig!). And, wow, there’s iOS 7. New fonts, new icons, new motion tracking on the homepage, so you can see behind the icons. Messages, calendar, email, Gamecenter (no more green felt), are all updated. Even Compass, Weather, and Stocks, were updated. The lockscreen is new as well.

We’re being walked through iOS 7 now. Basically, it’s gorgeous and you should check out the video.

One cool feature – folders can have multiple pages, so no more “Games” and “Games 2″. Mission Control was added, with a built in flashlight!

And now, the multitasking update. With iOS 7, all apps get multitasking. iOS will give apps background updates when they need them, it will adapt to network conditions, use advanced adaptive app scheduling, do lots when the radio is powered up (and not power it up for no reason), and use push notifications as a time to do all the necessary updates.

Safari for iOS 7 was updated as well. Gestures, like swipe back, will work in Safari. There will be one-tap access to favorites and Google search suggestions. Bookmarking was updated, shared links are accessible, and bookmarking was redesigned.

Big Safari news — no more 8 tab limit! Also, look way different, check this out:

And here’s the new Control Center, complete with flashlight!

iOS 7 gets Air Drop for local sharing. Your friends around you will just show up and you’ll be able to send them data. You can share with multiple people — no need for bumping! [zing!]

The camera was updated as well — it’s 4 cameras in one (square, pano, normal, and video). There are also built in photo filters.

iOS 7′s new photo app will be able to organize photos, it doesn’t have to be an endless stream of images! There will be organization by “moments” and “collections” and “years”. The navigation will include places you’ve been, there will be scrubbing to you can look at thumbnails directly, and then built-in photo sharing tools. There will also be shared photostreams, so other people can share into your stream.

[Wow, that was a lot…]

Time for Eddy Cue and Siri! Siri has a new voice, and a male voice option. Siri is also smarter — it now works with Wikipedia, Twitter, and Bing web search results.

Siri is a big part of iOS in the car. Basically, it’s a car mode for iOS with Siri-based navigation, so you can get the apps you need without touch.

Next, the App Store will update your apps automatically. Finally!

iTunes is updating too. You’ll get a new layout, with a new view of your content. The music app will be updated, but there will be something else new… yes, it’s iTunes Radio. It’s built into the Music app. You can preview, buy, and listen to music. It will work with any iOS device as well as iTunes on your Mac or PC, and as Apple TV too.

iTunes Radio is free with ads, and it’s free if you are a iTunes Match subscriber.

Craig F. is back, he is telling us how there was a lot more than didn’t get covered… FaceTime audio, Notification sync, phone/FaceTime blocking, and a new theft deterrent — wiped phones will not be able to be recommissioned.

iOS 7 is available for developers on beta today. It’s in this fall for everyone. It’s for iPhone 4 and later, iPad 2 and later, 5th gen iPod touch, and the iPad mini.

And Tim Cook’s back… he seems to be wrapping up. (But no mention of the MacBook Pro?) Yup, Tim is closing down the keynote. Time for an ad about Apple’s pursuit of perfection… 745TDBanty 130619

And that’s it, the show’s over! For more info:www.eachmall.com

Surface RT’s now-free keyboard nicely sums up Microsoft’s tablet failure

 

In their latest bid to get anybody to buy a Windows RT tablet, Microsoft has turned in desperation to the worst option imaginable: it will sell a complete product without gouging its customers for a hundred (or so) extra dollars. For a “limited time” (likely ending whenever their internal threat level has decreased from red to orange) customers in the US and Canada can pick up a Surface RT tablet with a Touch or Type keyboard cover for no additional cost. Since the cover is one of Surface’s defining features, and one of the few that’s received near-universal praise, this move proves that corporate desperation really is the best thing for consumers.

When the Surface RT was first unveiled, it seemed like Microsoft was finally learning. The company had designed a sleek product with some truly impressive capabilities — and so what if it was expensive? Fans were convinced that this would be to the iPad as the PC was to the Mac: a powerful and open-ended alternative to Apple’s polished, closed systems. Many fantasized about running a near-full-fledged, ARM-based version of Windows on a tablet PC, which was also the world’s most convenient laptop once the keyboard was attached.

Many factors have contributed to the poor sales of Surface RT, but Microsoft’s tenacity in pushing the poorly Windows RT has certainly contributed to its near-total rejection by the very crowd that has historically been its most dedicated consumer vanguard.

The keyboard covers, arguably the only real innovation in Microsoft’s line of tablets, have been almost universally praised as responsive, well-made devices that simply work the way you’d want a tablet keyboard to work. Microsoft found a way to make this virtue into a disadvantage, of course, taking an already expensive product and asking customers to pay another $100-$140 for its most defining feature. At the outset, if you wanted a full-fledged Windows experience on Surface Pro, with the all-but-necessary keyboard add-on, you could look forward to a price tag in excess of $1200.

This latest promotion applies only to the Windows RT versions of Surface, it should be noted. Giving away a high-quality keyboard for “free” is only worthwhile to Microsoft if they can use it to funnel you into an environment they control completely, and one that likely hasn’t reached any of its modest sales goals. This is both an attempt to increase sales of the Surface line, and to salvage the RT-first strategy.

If the Surface RT can fulfill your tablet needs, then it might finally be the time to pick one up. With dramatic drops in price in the last few months, this deal finally gives consumers a reason to pick a Surface over an iPad or an Android tablet.

The question now is, if even this doesn’t make Surface RT into a real contender in the tablet space, what will Microsoft do?

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Asus Transformer Book Trio: Windows 8 PC with an Android tablet for a screen

Can’t decide between a new Android tablet and a Windows 8 hybrid? Asus doesn’t think you should have to, so they’re offering up the Transformer Book Trio.

It looks like an ordinary tablet-notebook hybrid, but there’s a big difference. The Asus PC dock — the keyboard unit — isn’t just keys, a touchpad, and a spare battery. It’s actually got its own mainboard, a Haswell Core i7 processor, a 33Whr battery, and up to 1TB of built-in storage. The PC dock runs Windows 8 — or more likely Windows 8.1 by the time it hits store shelves.

All that’s missing is the display, but it’s got all the ports you need to hook up a standard desktop monitor (like that amazing 31.5-inch 4K model Asus just unveiled). You can also drop in the 11.6-inch removable panel, which acts as a mere laptop display when it’s seated in the dock.

Pull it out, however, and you’ve got a fully-functional Android tablet. It’s also powered by an Intel chip — albeit a much more humble 2GHz Clover Trail+ Atom. Visuals should look nice and sharp on the 11.6-inch 1080p screen, and a 19.5Whr battery will provide a decent amount of use between charges. It’s running Android 4.2.

It might actually be more appropriate to call this thing the Quatro, because you can still use Android when it’s docked. There’s a dedicated key that lets you flip back and forth between operating systems.

Asus hasn’t announced pricing for the Transformer Book Trio yet, but you can bet it’s going to command a premium. This is, after all, a device that can function as an Android tablet, Android notebook, Windows 8 notebook, and a Windows 8 desktop. Theoretically Asus could sell the two separately, but a Core i7 keyboard computer would probably sell a whole lot better with some kind of display to fill out its clamshell chassis. 745TDBanty 130617