ultrabooks

The story of last year's CES was all ultrabooks; this year, the PC story is all about Windows 8 and touch. Samsung's latest laptop fuses both into a touch-screen computer that's hardly a surprise but meets what feels like a new expectation threshold in upper-tier Windows ultrabooks.

The 13.3-inch Series 7 is a new ultrabook for Samsung, as opposed to last year's top-end Series 9 and budget-targeted Series 5. The all-aluminum laptop is more "multimedia-targeted" than the Series 9 ever was, with a 1,920x1,080 resolution, discrete AMD HD8570M graphics, and JBL … Read more

Happy Free Shipping Day, fellow cheapskates. Nearly 1,700 online merchants are offering "free delivery by Christmas Eve," so today might be the ideal day to finish up your holiday shopping.

That said, lots of stores offer free shipping every day, and I have no doubt we'll see lots of other "free shipping in time for Christmas" offers in the days to come, so don't fret too much if you miss FSD.

Today I couldn't decide on a single deal, so instead I rounded up a bunch of good stuff -- a little … Read more

Dell began selling its sleekest ultrabook today with a version of Ubuntu Linux.

The XPS 13 ultrabook comes with Ubuntu 12.04 preloaded and is the fruits of a project at Dell to create an Ubuntu-based developer laptop.

"Our first project officially launches today for customers in the United States...We loaded a super sleek Dell machine with Ubuntu to give developers the essentials they want," Dell said in a statement.

And, at $1,549, it is loaded indeed with lots of fast silicon including an Intel Core i7-3517U Ivy Bridge processor, 8GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz, and a 256GB solid state drive. It also sports a 1,366x768 13.3-inch display. … Read more

Intel's ultrabook spec is getting some promotion on the company's Facebook page today.

Intel has taken it upon itself to promote what it believes are the top Cyber Monday deals for ultrabooks. The company's listing includes a host of products from major vendors, including Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, and Dell.

The chipmaker offered up "top picks" for its followers to check out. The first option comes from HP, which is offering a $50 discount on its Envy TouchSmart Ultrabook and a free Barnes & Noble Nook with the purchase of the computer, which starts at $749.99. … Read more

Windows 8 is neither a completely foreign experience, as some have said, nor is it a smooth continuation of the Windows you've known for the past 11 years, since the start of the modern XP era.

From a hardware point of view, using Windows 8 and its not-Metro interface is eventually navigable after some trial and error, and memorizing a few new commands and gestures -- at least if you have one of the many new touch-screen laptops or all-in-one desktops.

Having tried it on a couple of new Windows 8 laptops that do not have touch screens (and … Read more

Most of these Asus laptops, tablets, and desktops have been seen or mentioned before, but the company brought several upcoming new systems to New York for a press event this week (unfortunately timed for the same day as Apple's iPad Mini unveiling).

Some, such as the dual-screen Taichi or the Windows RT VivoTab, have already generated significant buzz. Others are not quite as high-profile, or else revamps of existing products. A quick rundown is below, along with price and release dates where available.

Asus Taichi Clearly the most interesting new Asus system, this dual-screen laptop has a panel on … Read more

Before taking the plunge into Windows 8, there are a few questions you should ask yourself. We've summarized some of most useful ones here, and by going down this checklist, you'll end up with a much better idea about the right path for upgrading existing hardware versus buying a new machine, and figuring out all the new styles of tablets and touch-screen hybrids hitting store shelves alongside Windows 8.

Do you want to stick with Windows at all, or would another OS work better for you? Microsoft has two new operating systems, Windows 8 and Windows RT. For … Read more

Here's what I've learned recently: My 11.6-inch HP Pavilion dm1z is too small. My 18.4-inch Acer Aspire is too big. I need a laptop that's right in the middle, one that's slim and light enough to be portable, but large and powerful enough to handle my daily workload.

I think I've found it. For a limited time, you can get the Lenovo IdeaPad U410 ultrabook in sapphire blue for $649 shipped (plus sales tax where applicable). That's after applying coupon code USPU42F1011 at checkout. It normally sells for $969.

Why the steep … Read more

When Samsung debuted the Galaxy Note last year at CES, the phone met with, well, a mountain of mockery.

It was inexplicably huge, it came with a stylus, hallmark of the hopelessly unhip, and worse, pundits took to calling it a "phablet" -- half phone, half tablet. It appeared to be a product in search of a market it could never, ever hope to find.

We were wrong. The Note found a following, and Samsung reportedly sold 20 million of the funny little things. That's pretty good for a tweener device with no known purpose.

And here … Read more