tablets

Smartphone use may make you wussy, says Harvard study

Your reputation as a tough, hard-nosed business go-getter may take a hit if you spend a lot of time using your little smartphone. A study conducted by researchers at Harvard Business School suggests that using devices with small screens can cause people to behave less assertively than those using larger screens.

"Grounded in research showing that adopting expansive body postures increases psychological power, we hypothesized that working on larger devices, which forces people to physically expand, causes users to behave more assertively," reads the abstract of the paper, titled "iPosture: The Size of Electronic Consumer Devices Affects Our Behavior."… Read more

Three Galaxy Tab 3 tablets coming in early July

On July 7, Samsung will release no less than three new Galaxy Tab 3 tablets in 7-, 8-, and 10.1-inch screen sizes.

The 7-incher ships with a $199 price tag and 8GB of internal storage. While both the 8-inch and 10.1-inch versions include 16GB of storage with prices at $299 and $399, respectively.

Each tablet includes a (now expected) Samsung IR blaster, microSD storage slot, 50GB of free Dropbox storage for two years, and three free months of Hulu Plus.

Look for full reviews at around the time of release and check out our first takes (dutifully linked … Read more

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 ships in July for $199 with a low-res screen and a paltry 8GB of storage

Based strictly on its pricing and specs, there's very little about the 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 to get excited about.

The 7-inch tablet will debut on July 7 for $199. Preorders start June 25. While $199 is the going acceptable rate for 7-inch tablets these days, from particularly a specs perspective, this one fails to match key 7-inch tablets from last year.

With the Galaxy Tab 3, $199 nets you a paltry 8GB of storage and a tablet screen with an unfortunately low 1,024x600-pixel resolution. That's a few hundred thousand pixels behind the Nexus 7 and … Read more

Lenovo Yoga 11S convertible laptop now available

Consumers eyeing Lenovo's Yoga 11S hybrid laptop/tablet now no longer have to wait to get one.

Lenovo kicked off preorders for the new Yoga on May 16, promising that the convertible would be available for shipping and on store shelves starting June 23. Buyers can now pick one up directly at Lenovo's online store, which estimates a June 27 ship date based on an order date of June 24.

The 11S is also available through Best Buy, both online and at the company's retail outlets.

At this point, the new convertible is available in the U.… Read more

Tablet shipments to jump 68%, PCs to slip 10%, says Gartner

Global shipments of PCs, tablets, and mobile phones will rise by 5.9 percent this year, reaching 2.35 billion, research firm Gartner predicted on Monday.

Though PC shipments continue to nosedive, the technology industry is getting a shot in the arm from tablets and smartphones.

Worldwide PC shipments, which include desktops and notebooks, are expected to drop by 10.6 percent this year to 305 million, Gartner said. Tablet shipments are pegged to jump by 67.9 percent, hitting 202 million. And shipments of mobile phones are forecast to grow by 4.3 percent to more than 1.8 … Read more

Top 5 must-have Android tablet apps

Even the most die-hard Android fan has to admit that it has taken Android quite a while to catch up to Apple when it comes to quality tablet-optimized apps. You can't blame Google entirely, though. With the dramatic launch of their tablet-only Honeycomb OS, Google tried hard to rally Android developers around building great tablet apps. Why it took developers another year to answer that call for tablet apps is another whole story.

The good news is, Android tablet owners now have a fantastic assortment of apps to choose from. Apps that don't merely scale up the Android … Read more

3 apps for mobile language learning (roundup)

There's a lot of language Web sites out there. Some are definitely more well-known than others, but what if you want something that works really well on your device? That's when it's time to use an Android app instead of just a Web site. Here are three of the top language-learning apps on Android.

Babbel mobile for Android

Most of Babbel's language packs feature 3,000 vocabulary words (though you'll need to download more data to complete the language pack). The vocabulary is divided into categories, so if you need to learn words related to … Read more

Turn your Kindle Fire into an Android 4.2 tablet

For a long time I've been a fan of N2A Cards, which sells a simple plug-and-play way to turn Barnes & Noble's Nook tablets into full-blown Android tablets. After all, if you've got good hardware, why not unlock its maximum potential?

Now Kindle owners can get in on the action. N2A's new N2Aos service will install Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) on your first- or second-generation Kindle Fire, replacing Amazon's heavily customized -- and, some would say, limited -- operating system with the real deal.

There are, of course, a few important considerations.… Read more

The lowdown on Samsung's new products (roundup)

Tablets, cameras, and smartphones, oh my. At a London press conference today, Samsung let loose a number of new products that ranged from a handful of Galaxy smartphones, to several Windows 8 Ativ tablets. In addition, it announced the Galaxy NX, a compact camera that can connect photographers on the go to an LTE data connection. To make sense of all these devices, CNET compiled a list of the new goodies. But what do you guys think? Are you looking forward to any of these devices or are they a pass?

Samsung Galaxy NX Running a 1.6GHz quad-core processor, … Read more

Nook HD vs. Kindle Fire HD

It's a Prizefight punch-out! The 7-inch tablet has established itself as the sweet spot for size and price, so we're facing off the recently updated Barnes & Noble Nook HD and the Amazon Kindle Fire HD!

The Nook HD gets a major software update and brings the entire Google Play ecosystem and Chrome as its primary browser.

Amazon has built a powerhouse ecosystem for content and Amazon Prime members get even more with the Kindle Fire, but will its more closed ecosystem hurt it?

Which is your pick to be the Prizefight King of the Ring? Barnes & … Read more