CES - Computers and hardware

Update: Acer informs us that the Aspire Z5763 will appear in various international markets, but it does not have "imminent" plans to bring it to the U.S. Too bad, because this concept makes a ton of sense.

We don't have this information directly from Acer yet, but according to a release sent out by Nvidia, Acer will be debuting a new all-in-one desktop with built in 3D Vision support at CES.

According to Nvidia's announcement, the Aspire Z5763 all-in-one will feature a 23-inch display, Nvidia GeForce GT440 or GT445M graphics chips, and a Blu-ray drive. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Toshiba makes good Netbooks, but they were never on the affordable side. The Mini NB305 is one of our favorite Atom Netbooks around, but its price hovers higher than perfectly suitable entry-level alternatives from Acer and Asus.

While some manufacturers, such as Asus, seem to be shifting focus away from Netbooks completely, Toshiba appears to be giving it another go with the NB505, a more affordable Netbook that matches its stiffest competition at $299.

Its specs are baseline: Windows 7 Starter OS, 10.1-inch display, 250GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM, and an unspecified Atom processor that we assume … Read more

Tablets are a hot commodity, or so the PC makers churning them out would have you believe. Though none of these devices, save for Apple's iPad, has really made a splash, we're still seeing plenty of Android and Windows tablets and slates being announced. And unlike CES 2010, a few of the models appearing at CES 2011 may actually make it to market in a timely manner.

One of the Windows tablets on display is from MSI, a company known for churning out a range of mostly decent laptops, with a few unheralded gems thrown into the mix. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--If you're looking for a hard drive that can withstand fire, water submersion, being crushed by a 35,000-pound excavator, and so on, there are none better than IoSafe devices such as the IoSafe SoloPRO, which is based on a regular hard drive, or the Solo SSD, which is based on a solid-state drive.

They all have one problem, however: their physical size. The drives are generally huge and weigh tens of pounds thanks to layers of protection. This means they're not even in the vicinity of portability, which is something most of us want these days.

Well, that's now changed. The company announced today its very first portable drive that offers similar levels of mishap-resistance as the rest of its products, the IoSafe Rugged Portable external hard drive. By the way, this is the product IoSafe has been being mysterious about in the weeks leading up to CES 2011.

The Rugged Portable comes in three flavors, including aluminum HDD, aluminum SSD, and titanium SSD. The HDD version is available in capacities between 250GB and 1TB, while the SSD versions are available in capacities of either 256GB or 512GB. All versions are based on a standard 2.5-inch drive and support USB 3.0 with backward-compatibility to USB 2.0. IoSafe says the drive will support Firewire connectivity by March.

IoSafe claims that the Rugged Portable provides physical security features including:… Read more

LAS VEGAS--You might not remember it, but the Zip drive was arguably the most popular external storage solution during the second half of the '90s. With the initial storage capacity of 100MB (which later increased to up to 750MB), it was a perfect replacement for the floppy drive.

The Zip drive is similar to a floppy drive, with the slot just slightly larger to accommodate the thicker Zip disks.

With the rapid increase of internal hard drives' capacity, though, the Zip drive couldn't keep up, and its popularity started to wane at the turn of the century. By 2005 … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Admittedly, Vizio's Android tablet is one I didn't see coming. After spending some time with it this afternoon, I'm declaring it a happy surprise. Granted, there's no pricing, and no firm ship date, but my vaporware detectors weren't ringing on this one.

Even in its fragile state as a hand-tooled engineering sample, it's clear that this 8-inch tablet has been approached thoughtfully. The capacitive touch screen is very responsive, and the custom UI running over an unidentified version of Android behaved fluidly. Unlike most Android tablets I've tested, Vizio's tablet dispenses … Read more

They may not be shocking, but they're certainly sleek. Lenovo's new 10- and 11-inch IdeaPads feel like a side-by-side comparison of where ultraportable laptops are heading in 2011. 11.6 inch is the new 10, and we'd better get used to it.

Announced today, the IdeaPad S205 is yet another 11.6-inch laptop using AMD's Fusion CPU series. The design looks a bit like a ThinkPad, with a 98 percent full-size "Accu Type" keyboard that's new to Lenovo this year. An AMD dual-core E-350 CPU comes with integrated graphics and promises more of … Read more

Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba are the latest PC makers to endorse Advanced Micro Devices' new "Fusion" laptop processors that are expected to make inroads into small, Netbook-class designs.

AMD's new chips appear to be a certifiable hit. They are not only populating slick, featherweight 11.6-inch ultraportable laptops from Lenovo and HP but are also debuting in a larger 15-inch class laptop from Toshiba--the Satellite C655D starting at about $400.

The "Brazos" series of Fusion processors are targeted at small, power-efficient laptop designs and include the dual-core 1.6GHz E-350 and the more power-efficient dual-core 1GHz … Read more

A year ago, Lenovo's bold concept device, the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid, astonished us not only for its neat transforming design and its detachable tablet, but for anticipating the year in tablets to come. Indeed, we're still wondering how laptops and tablets can play well together.

Back then, the U1 had a tablet running a Linux-based Skylight OS developed by Lenovo, while the base laptop it attached to had undefined specs. Now, the U1's specs are clear: Windows 7 Home Premium and a 1.2 GHz Intel CULV Core i5-540UM CPU, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 320GB … Read more