Posts tagged laptops
Ultra books live up to the hype at CES 2012; tablets Excite
Jan 12th
Are the highly-hyped “ultrabooks” worth it? That was the question swirling many minds heading into the desert surrounding the Consumer Electronics Show. After viewing several models, this technology will be among the top five newsmakers of this year’s CES.
Are netbooks dead?
Jun 16th
By Nestor E. Arellano
Are netbooks dead? Does any one even care?
Cramped design, underpowered and lacking the tablet’s appeal it’s easy to understand why many pundits would be quick to write off what only two years ago was a blockbuster seller that shook the PC world.
Nestor Arellano
Deloitte LLP’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications Predictions speculate that businesses will buy more than 10 million tablet devices throughout 2011. The same report also anticipates production of some 50 million tablets and 375 million smartphones compared to just 390 million computers, laptops and netbooks. Read the rest of this entry »
Are tablets practical or impractical?
Mar 1st
By Kye Husbands
We have our big screen televisions, we’ve got our laptops, we have our smartphones and now we’ve got tablet PCs. The reason for this blog is based on my personal experience and the big question is, how practical are tablets really?
As much as I inquire with people that own tablets, as to what they do with them, I invariably get a few answers. One of which is to present things such as books or photos to people. When I ask them have you ever done a presentation on your tablet? The answer is – No.
Given my own personal experience, I started asking myself, are tablet PCs really just a want versus a need? Is it just Apple creating this desire to own a tablet altogether?
Samsung Sliding PC 7 Windows tablet preview
Feb 1st
At CES this year, Samsung introduced a unique Windows tablet, a hybrid tablet and laptop. The screen slides down above the keyboard and acts just like the iPad but if you need to type on a keyboard you can slide the screen out revealing the keyboard beneath. Quite a nifty trick and amazing.
So while Windows on Tablets isn’t new, this tablet certainly is. The Sliding PC 7 is expected to be available in March this year at a sticker price of $699 US. My expectation is that it will also be available in Canada at the same price in March as well. It seems that Samsung now is playing the field with regards to operating systems, it has the Galaxy Tab by Android and now the Sliding PC 7 which runs with Windows 7.
What’s so cool about the Sliding PC 7?
By far the coolest feature is the mult-touch LCD display AND the slide out keyboard combination but this tablet comes with a host of other nice features including:
- Samsung’s Fast Start feature with its sold state hard drive which can boot the device in 15 seconds, not bad for Windows
- Comes with multi-tasking in both Windows and touch mode
- Acts as a connective hub with other devices
- Includes HDMI, USB 2.0 and comes with a 4-in 1 memory card reader
- Comes with optional 3G connectivity
- Amazing enhanced resolution, 1366 x 768 HD
Here is a detailed list of this tablet’s specifications:
Key Specs:
- CPU: Intel® ATOMTM Oak Trail Z670 @ 1.66GHz
- Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium
- Samsung Touch Launcher
- Memory: 2GB DDR2
- Hard Drive (max): 32GB or 64GB (mSATA SSD)
- Screen: 10.1-inch touchscreen HD LCD display (340 nit)
- Resolution: 1366 x 768
- Audio Technology: Integrated speaker (0.8W x 2)
- I/O: USB 2.0, 4-in-1 memory card reader, HMDI out
- Webcam: 1.3MP
- Battery: Lithium Polymer; up to 9 hours
- Wireless: 802.11b/g/n; WiMax; 3G
- Dimensions: 10.47 x 6.88 x 0.78 inches (W x D x H)
- Weight: Starting at 2.18 lbs
Take a look at the Samsung Sliding PC 7 in action.
Samsung CES 2011: Sliding PC 7 Series
Any drawbacks?
I guess you can say that because of the keyboard the Sliding PC 7 tablet is heavier than its competitors, with the iPad at 1.5 lbs, the Playbook at 0.9 lbs, and the Xoom expected to be at 1.6lbs. Unlike its predecessors no dual core processor but it does come with 2 GB of RAM, which does not necessarily speak to the speed of the device given Windows’ past hunger for memory.
I’m now starting to get very excited about this category. With the options available, I have to ask myself do I still need a PC or Mac? What do you think, is this the end of the personal computer?
iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, Android now in HP-Palm’s sights
Apr 30th
I guess it’s innemitable. With recent announcement of Hewlett-Packards purchase of Palm Inc. the idea of a “iPhone killer” will eventually surface.
Of course, why would HP bother to snap up the ailing mobile device pioneer if it doesn’t have Apple’s top selling smart phone in its sights?
Actually, HP is gunning for more — the iPhone, BlackBerry, Android phones and Ipad’s market share.
During HP’s media briefing on Wednesday, Todd Bradley, executive vice-president of the personal systems group at HP, assured Pre and Pixi users are safe for now as he expressed support for Palm’s, critically acclaimed WebOS.
Bradley also revealed what the public could expect in the very near future from the HP-Palm union. Read the rest of this entry »
New Brunswick teachers receive new laptops
Apr 26th
New Brunswick’s Department of Education is serious about building a 21st Century model of learning. On April 16, 2010 the Department announced that every teacher in our system will receive a new notebook computer. The multi-million dollar investment involves over 8,000 teachers. The New Brunswick Teachers Association applauded the investment and all agreed that a 1:1 teacher-computer model is essential in today’s 21st Century learning environment.
The Department of Education first offered a personal notebook computer to teachers in 2006. At that time teachers were offered a computer to support their daily teaching activities, including the delivery of provincial curricula, programs and services and accessing online information and resources. A high percentage of teachers accepted the offer in 2006. The more recent announcement to refresh all the notebook computers will keep New Brunswick teachers at the leading edge of using technology and their profession.
The New Brunswick teaching force is now among the highest trained in the world on using ICT applications for teaching and learning. They depend on their computers for creating, storing and sharing lesson plans, report cards and formative assessment information. A growing number are using email, twitter, Facebook and other web based applications to communicate with students, parents, and their local communities. They are collaborating electronically with other teachers in their own school or elsewhere in the New Brunswick system, accessing information on the internet, and increasingly partnering with schools in other parts of the world. With the growing number of interactive whiteboards in New Brunswick’s classrooms teachers now have the capacity to link their notebooks with the whiteboards and create engaging lessons for students. Having their own notebook also allows them to access the department’s on-line portal that offers a host of information, ranging from curricula to on-line resources and best practices. The 1:1 teacher-computer model also facilitates the development of our electronic special education plans for children with disabilities and special needs. Read the rest of this entry »
1:1 computer model for students gains international approval
Mar 5th
“The world is finally accepting the inevitability of the 1:1 computer model in the classroom.”
Bruce Dixon, a globally renowned learning visionary, made this pronouncement at a conference in Vienna, Austria on February 23, 2010. The conference, hosted by the Austrian Ministry of Education, was sponsored by the OECD, the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank (www.bildung.at/nml-conference2010). Dixon’s declaration was heard by 120 delegates representing 42 countries, including many developing nations. What delegates had in common was their effort to introduce one computer per child models into their public education systems to meet the needs of New Millennium Learners. 
Read the rest of this entry »
One laptop per student : A pre-requisite to a 21st Century public education
Feb 1st
In earlier articles we noted that ICT would “enable” New Brunswick’s NB3-21C public education agenda. A key reason we are well positioned to implement a 21st Century learning model is our 1:1 Dedicated Student Notebook Research Project.
In May 2004 New Brunswick Education issued a call for proposals to school districts to evaluate the learning and teaching benefits of a 1:1 student notebook model, at the grade 7-9 level. Six schools (nine classes) were selected representing rural and urban schools of varying sizes. In August 2004 Hewlett Packard (Canada) Co. provided 620 wireless notebooks over a two year period. Schools in New Brunswick were already connected with high speed bandwidth and the six research schools were equipped with a wireless network based on Cisco Systems equipment. Mount Allison University and St. Francis Xavier University were retained to evaluate the project and Microsoft Canada donated $100,000 toward the cost of the research. Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co. independently contracted the Canadian Education Association to assess the project. Read the rest of this entry »
iPad will revolutionize publishing – someday
Jan 29th
v1.0 shows platform still a work in progress
By now, even my disconnected mother sitting on a beach in Florida has heard about the iPad. And while geeks debate the name, whine about its lack of a memory card slot and USB port and slice Apple a new one for once again handing AT&T a golden egg, I find myself thinking about my mom, and whether her world changed a bit yesterday.
See, she reads books. Lots of them. She’s also a technophobe who views her laptop with a curious mixture of fear and indifference. 
Publishers tend to appreciate folks like my mom because she drives demand for their wares. Unfortunately, printing books is a complex, expensive and often messy business. As the record industry discovered in the 1990s, the Internet is changing the way we consume this content, and the industry would like – indeed needs – to transition my mom and everyone like her into an electronically distributed reality.
But in the absence of a realistically usable device or form factor – no, she’ll never read a book on her Byzantine-for-her laptop – that simply wasn’t going to happen. Amazon’s Kindle showed us the possibilities, but despite its pioneering success in defining the e-book reader market, it’s failed to break out beyond a niche product for cash-flush book lovers. It isn’t, and probably will never be, the reader for the rest of us. Read the rest of this entry »
