tablet

If the current crop of Windows 8 tablets, at least the majority that run Intel's low-power Atom tablet, were put edge to edge in a police lineup, you'd have a hard time telling them apart. Nearly all are virtually identical slabs of glass over black metal and plastic bodies.

Upon closer inspection, some have more ports and connections built into their outer edges, but this stylistic similarity indicates a larger issue: they all run essentially the same components inside, namely an Intel Atom Z-series processor, 2GB of RAM, a 10- or 11-inch 1,366x768-pixel touch screen, and either … Read more

About a year ago, the Toshiba Excite 10 LE debuted to somewhat lukewarm reviews. Priced at a whopping $530 for the 16GB model, it was praised for its thin, lightweight design, but dinged for its so-so screen and proprietary charger.

With today's deal, let's see if our perspective changes at all. Today only, and while supplies last, 1SaleADay has the refurbished Toshiba Excite 10 LE Android tablet for $199.99 shipped. That's one of the lowest prices I've seen on a 10.1-inch tablet, especially one with this design.

Quick note before I proceed: 1SaleADay continues … Read more

There they go again. Seems being the CEO at a technology company invariably involves hitting the stump and doing what George H.W. Bush (father, not the son) once famously called "the vision thing." So it was that earlier today Blackberry CEO Thorstein Heins made headlines when he predicted that the clock is ticking on tablet computers.

"In five years I don't think there'll be a reason to have a tablet anymore," he told Bloomberg.

Bold words, especially given the big, bold expectations for tablets sounded by the research houses. For example, Gartner said … Read more

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins is not a fan of tablets.

Heins questioned the need for the mobile devices in an interview with Bloomberg on Monday.

"In five years I don't think there'll be a reason to have a tablet anymore," he said to Bloomberg.

Those are bold words for BlackBerry, which, of course, has had a checkered history with its sole attempt at a tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook. The PlayBook, which was a massive flop when it debuted without core BlackBerry e-mail and messaging apps, is now considered more of a bargain-bin item.

Still, there are … Read more

Verizon Wireless is getting into the cloud business in a big way.

In the coming weeks, Verizon said Tuesday, it will deliver cloud-based storage for smartphones and tablets. The company's customers will receive 500MB of storage at no charge, but can get up to 125GB of storage. Verizon is offering four storage plans to customers:

"The secure storage app gives customers a place to back up and access their information," Verizon public relations manager David Samberg said Tuesday in a … Read more

Samsung may introduce a Nexus 11 tablet later in the year, according to tech site SamMobile.

Details surfacing this past weekend indicate that Samsung could introduce no fewer than four more tablets in 2013, one of them a Nexus device.

The so-called Nexus 11 will reportedly feature an 11-inch Super PLS TFT display, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, and microSD expansion. This high-end unit will be the first tablet to feature Samsung's octa-core processor, alleges the blog. It is unclear at this point which version of Android will run the operation.

Given the recent whispers that … Read more

Sony's Xperia Tablet Z is now available for preorder through Sony's Web site. The tablet is expected to ship on May 24 and prices for the 16GB and 32GB models are $499 and $599, respectively.

The 10.1-inch Xperia Tablet Z's physical dimensions make it one of the thinnest and lightest tablets on the market and, according to Sony, its waterproof and dustproof build makes it highly durable.

Not to be outshone by its good looks, the Xperia Tablet Z ships with the Android 4.1.2 operating system, houses a 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon processor and … Read more

Smartphones with touch screens? Great! Tablets with touch screens? Duh. But PCs with touch screens? Meh.

Recently I purchased a Lenovo IdeaPad U310 ultrabook, my first-ever touch-screen-equipped computer. I didn't necessarily want the feature, but figured I might as well give Windows 8 the benefit of the doubt. It was, after all, designed to be touched -- which explains why using it with a mere mouse and keyboard is such a dreadful experience. Plus, it was priced only about 50 bucks higher than its non-touch-screen sibling.

Having worked with the system for a couple weeks now, I'm ready … Read more

We've all seen them: smartphones with shattered screens, the unfortunate victims of sudden outbursts of gravity. Your heart sinks a bit, watching your friends, loved ones, even total strangers slide their fingers over that sad, spidered glass, thinking, "There but for the grace of..."

Knowing full well the costs and hassles of replacing a busted screen, I pressed a BodyGuardz ScreenGuardz Pure onto my daughter's hand-me-down iPhone 4. At 13, well, she's been known to drop stuff.

And just the other day, she did. I'd been planning to write about the ScreenGuardz Pure already, just hopefully without any drop-test data. So much for that.… Read more