intel wireless display

Intel Wireless Display: One year later

At last year's CES, Intel Wireless Display was one of our Best of CES nominees, standing out for its potential to bring streaming Internet video to an HDTV from a laptop over its own dedicated wireless channel, including audio. In fact, it was your pick as Best in Show, winning the People's Voice Award (as determined by a user poll).

Let's go back to early 2010: back then, connecting a laptop to a TV with a wired connection was still the best way to get Internet video content such as Hulu and Netflix without an additional set-top box. Despite having a slight delay in the video/audio signal, and requiring a $99 Push2TV box from Netgear plugged into an HDTV or non-HD television to receive the signal, the benefits seemed clear, and for those looking to make a laptop into a home entertainment solution, there was no better choice.

Times have changed, indeed, although Intel Wireless Display really hasn't. The debut of Apple's iPad, and its support of Netflix, Hulu Plus, and other streaming services, has changed the equation a bit, even if the iPad doesn't support Flash. Video game consoles now have Netflix across the board, and even (on the PS3, at least) Hulu Plus and Vudu. TV sets are including an ever-increasing number of Internet apps for accessing digital content, and set-top boxes such as the Boxee Box, the next-gen Roku box, and Apple TV offer a variety of solutions.

When it comes to methods of getting Internet or computer-stored video content on your TV, your options come to this: … Read more

New Dell XPS laptops ready to take on HP Envy

Amid a week featuring the debut of a fashionably small laptop, Dell has announced a line of products that move firmly in the opposite direction. The new XPS line of laptops are a high-end-targeted set of media-featured notebooks aimed squarely at the HP Envy and MacBook Pro crowds. The design, from a backlit keyboard to lots of anodized and brushed aluminum, feels like an upscale fusion of the Studio and Adamo lines. They aren't flashy, but they seem quite sleek, and Dell offers its arsenal of Design Studio tweaks for anyone looking to pop these XPS models up a … Read more

Back-to-school media-friendly laptops: Blu-ray, Intel Wireless Display

Blu-ray, Intel Wireless Display, HDMI--there are a lot of ways laptops can make themselves killer TV-friendly media machines. In fact, for a reasonable price, there are a lot of options out there. Between Blu-ray playback and wireless streaming of online video, it's easier than ever to get your laptop to effortlessly play nicely with a big-screen HDTV. The trick is knowing which machines have these features. While Blu-ray laptops are often heavily plastered with stickers, Intel's Wireless Display technology is often invisible, and sometimes not even mentioned as a feature at all.

For your convenience, we've rounded up notable media laptops from our back-to-school 2010 retail laptop guide, focusing on the features in each. We've also noted whether these laptops have discrete graphics for gaming (it's not always a given). Whether or not they're gaming friendly, they're all well suited for video. Our roundup came up with several laptops from Sony and Toshiba, including a Sony Vaio EA24FM/W that offers an affordable Blu-ray/Wi-Di one-two punch for $799.

Note: we've seen some other compelling Blu-ray and Wi-Di laptops recently, including the Gateway NV5933u, but our list below focuses on retail configurations from our recent guide.

Editors' note: See our roundup of retail laptops in all price ranges.

Check out details of each system below:… Read more

How to connect your laptop to a TV

Laptops once used to be the domain of word-processing programs, file databases, and light gaming, but more often than not most people currently use their laptops as makeshift do-it-all interactive televisions. With the abundance of streaming video sites and TV/movie content available, they're often the most versatile entertainment products on the market, pound for pound.

Unfortunately, you're locked in to a screen that often has limited viewing angles and a resolution that's often less than 1080p. There's good news, though: connecting to an HDTV is a lot easier than most people think--provided you have an … Read more

Sony Vaio E series expands, adds Intel Wireless Display

Remember the Sony Vaio E? When we reviewed it earlier this year, we were quite excited about Sony's more budget-priced multimedia Vaio, both because it had a Core i3 processor and optional Blu-ray. We'll admit it. We were also a little intrigued by the Vaio E's optional neon colors and funky neon keyboard skins.

The only problem? The E was limited to a 15-inch screen size. That's been remedied with new Vaio EA and EC models, in 14 and 17.3 inches, respectively.

The Vaio EA starts at $769 with a Core i3-350M CPU and built-in … Read more

New Intel processors: More powerful Netbooks, what else?

It's always a bit hard to tell just from gazing at CPU specs what exactly we'll see in coming laptops, but Intel's leaked road map of upcoming laptop processors, which provides information on products through 2011, does provide a few hints and interesting notes.

Intel's various geographic code names and ultra-detailed spec charts can get a little sleep-inducing for the average consumer. To boil it down, here are the points that seem most eye-opening, and that could truly pave the way for some cooler laptops down the road.

Things to be excited about in 2010:

Dual-core … Read more

Netgear debuts first Wi-Fi Direct device

UPDATED on January 11 at 12:30 PST: Though based on the final Wi-Fi Direct specification, the Push2TV is not yet certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance group, which is the owner of the Wi-Fi Direct designation and plans to start the certification program for Wi-Fi Direct later this year.

LAS VEGAS--Remember the time you needed to hook up your laptop to an external screen, be it a monitor or a TV, and had to fumble around with cables, ports, and the laptop's keyboard? Now, you won't have to do that anymore.

Netgear, in collaboration with Intel, unveiled Thursday … Read more

Toshiba Satellite E205 has Core i5 and wireless video output, exclusive to Best Buy

While most Toshiba Satellites have similar design consistencies across the board, a lone and notable exception was the Best Buy-exclusive E105, reviewed in previous retail round-ups at CNET. Many of the design decisions in the E105 were ones we actually preferred over standard Satellites, so the announcement of the E205 was immediately exciting on these terms alone. But the addition of new wireless display technology that can easily stream video to an HDTV without any physical link makes the E205 technologically unique as well.

The Satellite E205, with a Core i5-430M processor and Intel Wireless Display technology, has one of … Read more