Sunday, January 08, 2012

drag2share: Acer's Aspire S5 Ultrabook Is the Ultra-Thinnest—For Now [Acer]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5874100/acers-aspire-s5-ultrabook-comes-in-as-the-ultra+thinnest

Acer's Aspire S5 Ultrabook Is the Ultra-Thinnest—For NowAcer's first Ultrabook, the Aspire S5, also happens to be one of the first of what will certainly be a tidal wave of Ultrabooks announced at CES this year. It's just 15mm thick at its largest point, and weighs in at less than 3 pounds. But it's probably only going to hold that "world's thinnest" title for a few hours until the Ultrabook floodgates open. Tick tock.

One of the ways it manages to stay so thin is with what Acer is calling a "Magical I/O port panel" which drops down just below the hinge, exposing an HDMI, USB 3.0 and 20Gbps Thunderbolt-which will probably be a recurring theme this year.

An Intel Core processor (likey an Ivy Bridge given the Thunderbolt port) and an SSD provides power saving benefits, while the Acer Green Instant ON feature promises almost instant resumes from sleep. And by instant, they of course don't mean instant, but a respectable 1.5 seconds.

It's also got Acer's Always Connect functionality, which ties into their new AcerCloud service. It takes a three prong approach to syncing media and files across devices, including features called clear.fi Photo, clear.Fi Media, and AcerCloud Docs. The company says that Microsoft will provide this for windows and Google will do the same for Android (and Apple obviously already does as well), but that Acer will "take care of the in-between." Whoever that is.

The Aspire S5 will be available sometime in the second quarter of this year, with pricing to be announced. And Acer also confirmed-not surprisingly-that they'll be following up with Windows 8 ultrabooks in the second half of the year. [Acer]

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Posted by Augustine at 9:23 PM

drag2share: Acer Aspire S5 Hands On: Ultrabooks Are About to Get Really Good [Ultrabooks]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5874122/acer-aspire-s5-ultrabooks-are-about-to-get-really-good

Acer Aspire S5 Hands On: Ultrabooks Are About to Get Really GoodThe first generation of Ultrabooks was rushed out. Everything felt unfinished. Not the Aspire S5. Even though Acer's last Ultrabook attempt, the S3, was very middle-of-the-pack, the S5 looks like it's going to be good. It feels absolutely nothing like the S3. Where the S3 was plasticy, and overall cheap-feeling, the S5 is heavy duty and complete.

The aluminum body is a little heavier than we're accustomed to in an Ultrabook, but that's a little bit because it's coming in at a larger size. The 13" screen seems to handle color better than the S3, which had the same resolution (1366x768)—though that might be a function of the super-dim room the hands-on models were in.

The keyboard and trackpad are also much improved. The S3 was very, very functional, but felt cheap. The S5 retains that functionality, but now feels polished. We'd have to use it on an everyday basis, but this might be the best feeling non-Apple trackpad.

The power-open, magical IO-port-housing bay in the back of the S5 is very cool, but you can't help but wonder about durability. Also, it's a little like power-operated doors or curtains or anything: yeah, great, luxurious, but when I'm in a rush, I'm probably not going to want to wait for it to open to get at those ports.

The S5 looks and feels and should perform great. But the takeaway is that even the middle of the pack competitors from last generation are bringing the heat this year. Cheap-ass, netbook-wannabee Ultrabooks should be a thing of the past very soon, giving us—finally—a broad selection of top-tier of ultraportables.

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Posted by Augustine at 9:23 PM

drag2share: Acer Iconia Tab Hands On: One Tasty Ice Cream Sandwich [Tablets]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5874128/acer-iconia-tab-hands-on-you-might-actually-start-wanting-an-android-tablet-soon

Acer Iconia Tab Hands On: One Tasty Ice Cream SandwichOK, Acer got our attention with this one: a 1080p screen and quad-core chip behind the scenes. If this is the future of Android tablets, well, giddy up!

The Iconia feels lighter than the Transformer Prime, and its rubberized body gives it a more durable feel too—like you can set it on a rough table and not worry about it. There's minimal lag to the ICS interface, and Acer's select-wheel addition to Android isn't overly intrusive either. We loaded up a bunch of games and tested again, and the 1GB of RAM kept everything running smoothly.

Then there's the screen. It looks great (we saw Transformers and a few games looking gorgeous), but not sooo much more than what you'll on the Transformer Prime or the iPad 2—especially considering that most of the content you're streaming onto a tablet these days isn't going to be 1080p.

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Posted by Augustine at 9:22 PM

drag2share: Thermador's Freedom Stove Is the Biggest Ever Way to Cook with Magnets [Cooking]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5874139/thermadors-freedom-stove-is-the-biggest-ever-way-to-cook-with-magnets

Thermador's Freedom Stove Is the Biggest Ever Way to Cook with MagnetsInduction cooking is pretty freaking great—your food is extremely precisely heated using magnets instead of say, fire. Now, if you've got some serious cash, Thermador has a giant magnetic stove that'll powerboost your kitchen.

tThe Freedom—$4,950 and arriving in July—has plenty of space for an array of pots, pans, and trays. Thermador will sell a spectrum of ferromagnet-coated cookware, which can be arranged however you please, because there aren't any preset burners like your lame old traditional stove. The Freedom also sports a touchscreen control for heat intensity and timing, which ironically operates more smoothly than most tablets. [Thermador]

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Posted by Augustine at 9:22 PM

drag2share: Hands-On the Lenovo X1 Hybrid Laptop That Quasi-Runs Quasi-Android [Laptops]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5874143/hands+on-the-lenovo-x1-hybrid-that-quasi+runs-quasi+android

Hands-On the Lenovo X1 Hybrid Laptop That Quasi-Runs Quasi-AndroidI just got some mitts-on time with Lenovo's new notebook, the X1 Hybrid. What's interesting about it is that it can boot into a battery-doubling low-power mode that runs off of a snapdragon processor and custom software based on a certain kernel we all know.

They're calling it Instant Media Mode (IMM). They won't say it's running Android, because it's not officially Android. But don't kid a kidder, kid, I know Android when I see it. It's based off of the Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) kernel. It'll never have Android Market or official Gmail apps or anything, but if you're the crafty type I'm sure you can find a way to download Android apps from the interwebs.

Does this thing make any sense? A laptop that turns into an out-dated Android tablet? Uhh, not really. I guess one could argue that if you wanted your battery to last forever so you could just watch movies on a flight around the world maaaaybe. But I'm not buying it, and I'm betting you won't either unless you've always wanted to run crippled Gingerbread on a ThinkPad for some reason. It'll be available Q2 starting at $1,600.

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Posted by Augustine at 9:20 PM

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