HP launches the Slate 21 at the Beijing World Tour event-- a 21.5-inch All-in-One (AIO) Android 4.2.2 PC customers can use as either a desktop or an oversized tablet.

The device features an IPS touchscreen, DTS sound technology, 8GB storage, x3 USB ports and a kickstand allowing multiple standing modes. Powering all is an Nvidia Tegra 4 quad-core processor.

HP promises the AIO will also include entertainment and productivity Android apps, together with keyboard and mouse support.

The Slate Continue reading...

Supposedly leaked roadmap presentation slides reveal the next Intel Haswell product, code-named Haswell-E-- an update on the company's high-end desktop (HEDT) platform complete with more physical cores among other improvements.

According to VR-Zone Haswell-E does away with 4-core CPUs in favour of 6- and 8-core chips with up to 20MB of L3 cache built using the 22nm process.

Hyper Threading gives the CPU a maximum of 16 logical cores, while maximum TDP ranges from 130W to 140W.

The desktop platform is supposed to rely on the "Wellsburg" motherboard chipset, with the LGA2011-3 socket handling quad-channel DDR4 RAM (2133MHz maximum clock speed, up to one DIMM per channel).

Intel opens Computex 2013 with the expected reveal of the Haswell CPU lineup, processors Big Blue describes as the "first system-on-a-chip for PCs" designed for "new form factors and 2-in-1 designs."

The launch was something of a repeat of what was seen seen last year... only instead of Ivy Bridge, Windows 8 and crazy transforming PCs there were Windows 8.1 and crazy 2-in-1 PCs joining the 4th generation of Intel Core processor.

“Two years ago we talked about reinventing [notebooks] with the ultrabook and today we’re talking about 2-in-1. It’s PC performance and tablet-like mobility in one,” Intel EVP Tom Kilroy says in his Computex keynote. “We’re on the verge of ushering in an exciting new era. We believe the 2-in-1 era is the new norm.”

Around 50 2-in-1 designs are already in the pipeline, ranging from the "ferris wheel" Dell XPS 12 and detachable Asus Transformer Book Trio to various "slider," "swivel" and raised hinge offerings from OEMs such as Asus, Acer and Quanta.

HP announces the Envy Rove20, an All-in-One (AIO) PC the company claims “frees the desktop PC from the desk and allows families and friends to enjoy a shared entertainment experience."

Right! In other words, customers can use the 20-inch device as either a touch-enabled PC (complete with kick-stand, keyboard and mouse) or an oversized Windows 8 tablet.

Being battery-powered, the Rove20 can be carried around-- even if it does weigh 5.4kg. It also switches from upright to horizontal standing modes, with pre-installed multiplayer games (including Monopoly, Fingertapps and JgsWar Puzzle) turning it into a futuristic games board of sorts.

Nvidia releases an upgrade on last year's GeForce GTX 680 with the GTX 770-- a graphics card aiming at the somewhat lower end of the gaming market behind the high-end GTX 780 and GTX Titan cards.

The GTX 770 promises a 5% leap in performance over the GTX 680, but only through slight hops in memory speed (7GB/s vs 6GB/s) and clock speed (1046 vs 1006GHz) paired with an equal amount of CUDA cores (1536).

It includes the usual array of Nvidia gaming technologies-- PhysX physics, TXAA anti-aliasing, Continue reading...

AMD announces the Radeon HD 8900M notebook graphics card series with the 8970M-- reportedly the fastest GPU for desktop-replacement laptops yet, featuring an adaptation of AMD's Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture.

For those in the know, big tech spec numbers include 1280 stream processors, 80 TMUs, 128 Z/Stencil ROPs and 32 Colour ROPs. The GPU clocks at 850MHz (with a boost speed of 900MHz) while the card packs 2GB GDDR5 RAM running at 4.8GHz over a 256-bit interface.

AMD claims the card' Continue reading...

Consumer preference shifts to mobile devices and constrained commercial spending lead to further contraction in the EMEA PC market, IDC reports-- Q1 2013 shipments drop by -20.2% Y-o-Y to 21.8 million units.

Portable PC shipments total 13.6m units (with a -20.6% Y-o-Y decline) and desktops drop by -19.6% to 8.3m.

Such results cement earlier IDC and Gartner reports on the currently dismal outlook for the global PC market-- which the analysts attribute at least partly to Windows 8 making PCs "a less attractive alternative to dedicated tablets and other competitive devices."

IDC says "while the PC market continues to suffer from a shift to other devices, the current market expansion to a larger product portfolio and higher number of devices per person continues to support an increase in overall spending on total client devices, which grew by 15% in 2012 and will remain at double-digit in Q1 2013."

Is Minority Report-style gesture-based control key to a brighter future for the PC market? HP certainly hopes so as it teams up with 3D motion control developer Leap Motion.

The partnership sees HP bundling the Leap controller (and Airspace, the Leap Motion app store) with a selection of upcoming PC models before embedding the technology in yet announced future consumer products.

“Leap Motion’s groundbreaking 3D motion control combined with HP technology and amazing developer apps will create incredible user experiences,” HP says.

HP is not the first company to sign a deal with Leap-- Asus has a similar partnership with the startup.