touch

LAS VEGAS--Sensing a trend at this year’s CES? While touchscreens may have been an option for rarified Windows 8 products back in October, it looks like there will hardly be a Windows PC product around in mid-2012 without touch in some configuration or another.

The Dell Inspiron laptops of 2012 were largely forgettable: big, ridiculously thick and pre-Windows 8, they felt like a downturn from the previous year. The 2013 Inspiron and Inspiron Rs, codenamed “Oak,” seem like a return to form: slimmed-down bodies, improved specs all around, and--of course--optional touch.

The new 14, 15 and 17-inch Inspiron and … Read more

LAS VEGAS--ViewSonic announced its new series of Windows 8-certified touch displays. The TD40 series consists of the 23-inch TD2340, the 27-inch TD2740, and the 32-inch TD3240 monitors. The IPS panel displays have a 1,920x1,080 HD resolution and were announced at CES 2013, along with ViewSonic's 24-inch VSD240 smart display.

The TD40 series monitors are designed to maximize and enhance the use of Windows 8 on the touch displays. In addition to the professional grade IPS panels and full HD resolution, the monitors use 10-point projected capacitive touch technology that is designed to make the touch-screen interaction … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Your next laptop may be touch whether you like it or not.

"To be an ultrabook with 4th generation core [processors], it will be required to have touch," said Kirk Skaugen, vice president of Intel's PC client group at the keynote today, referring to laptops based on Intel's upcoming "Haswell" chip.

That means all ultrabooks coming later this year -- likely in the summer timeframe -- will have touch, not as a feature, but as standard.

This will be a way for suppliers of Windows 8 ultrabooks to demonstrate that they have something … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Go big, add touch. Sony's subdued CES formula in a nutshell.

Sony's latest Vaio T Series 15 is a new, larger ultrabook with 1080p, sporting a 10-finger multitouch display. It joins the fray of a seemingly endless run of touch-enabled laptops at this year's CES that continue to be announced with knee-jerk predictability. Sony's also adding a touch-screen option to the Vaio T 14 that's already on sale.

Yes, having touch on a Windows 8 laptop is better than not having touch, but it's hard to get excited at all about its presence … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Similar to its cousin, the Alcatel One Touch Scribe HD, the Scribe X has a large, 5-inch screen with a full 1080p HD display (that's 1,920x1,080 pixels.)

The juiced-up model also features a 1.4GHz MediaTek quad-core processor, and a 12-megapixel camera with a 720p HD front-facing camera. It runs on stock Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, a refreshing change from manufacturer's heavily customized OS layers.

Stay tuned for hands-on impressions of the One Touch Scribe X from CES.

LAS VEGAS--Alcatel isn't a brand that grabs a lot of U.S. headlines, but with the One Touch Scribe HD, it's keeping up with the Joneses all the same.

The Scribe HD comes with a 5-inch HD screen, stock Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and a quad-core processor. In fact, it's the first announced smartphone to use MediaTek's 1.2GHz quad-core chipset (MT6589).

For background, the Taiwan-based MediaTek just announced its MT6589 quad-core chipset in December, making it the newest entrant into the ever-growing smartphone core war.

The Scribe HD will also feature an 8-megapixel camera … Read more

LAS VEGAS--With the four smartphones in Alcatel's One Touch Pop series, the handset-maker is going after the entry level smartphone market in the Asia-Pacific regions and the Middle East and Africa. One of the phones, the M'Pop, is headed to the U.S.

Launched at CES, Alcatel's Pop quarter starts off with the One Touch M'Pop, which is expected to reach the U.S. with an undisclosed carrier. This Android 4.1 smartphone has a 4-inch WVGA screen, a 5-megapixel camera, and a VGA front-facing camera. Like (almost) all the Pop phones, the M'Pop houses … Read more

LAS VEGAS--I'll try not to cut myself on the Alcatel One Touch Idol Ultra, which Alcatel claims is the thinnest smartphone yet.

In truth, I've seen none slimmer; the Idol Ultra measures a razor-thin 0.25-inch thick. For perspective, Samsung's slim Galaxy S3 measures 0.34-inch deep.

The Android smartphone features a 4.7-inch HD AMOLED display and comes with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor. An 8-megapixel camera with 720p HD video capture rounds out the feature set, along with a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera.

The Idol Ultra is bound for China this month.

Just to confuse … Read more

LAS VEGAS--With the success of tablets like the Nexus 7 and the iPad Mini, all signs point to going small for a successful tablet debut. That at least seems to be the thinking behind Alcatel's unveiling of three new, small tablets for the U.S. market.

First is the One Touch Evo7 HD, a 7-inch tablet that comes in Wi-Fi, 3G, and 4G configurations. The 3G and 4G versions each come with a removable SIM card module allowing users to easily upgrade from Wi-Fi-only to cellular, or from 3G to 4G.

The tablet also features a 1,280x800-pixel IPS … Read more