The traditional PC market is continuing to shrink as devices like smartphones and tablets eat into the marketshare. There are certainly some critics who feel that Windows 8 is a big part of that blame, and with that in mind we present today’s newest rumor.

Intel is allegedly preparing to push new Haswell-based convertible notebooks running Android. Think devices like the Asus Transformer Prime, though manufacturers involved supposedly include Asus, Acer, HP, Toshiba and Lenovo.

The rumor further asserts that Lenovo will lead the way with this new Android “notebook” push by introducing an Android-powered variant of the Yoga this May.

So how much would an Intel Android convertible cost? The rumored price point would be sub-$500. At this price, they would be a considerably cheaper alternative to Ultrabooks and Macbooks. These convertibles would also represent a spiritual successor to the netbook, which has since largely faded into obscurity in the last few years.

By providing a device that was small, cheap and good for typing while also fully capable of seperating from the keyboard, Intel and its partners could find a way to bring out the best of netbooks and tablets all in one form.

Such a move from Intel doesn’t sound totally insane, but I would still be more than a little cautious about believing this latest rumor due to its source. Digitimes is known for generating tons of rumors, with a mixed reputation on actually getting them right.

Still, Android would work just fine as a basic notebook alternative. Android has plenty of apps and its productivity offerings such as Office Suite Pro aren’t half bad. What do you think, for a price around $375-$475 would you consider purchasing a convertible Android device as a replacement for a traditional Mac, Windows or Linux laptop?

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The post Rumor: Intel and Partners Working on Android Convertible Push appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

It seems that HP has begun a hiring spree, looking for 50 new employees to help it expand its WebOS team. Wait– what? Isn’t WebOS supposed to be dead now? Not exactly. When HP decided it was time to cut its loses and back away from WebOS, they opened the platform up as an open-source project.

Instead of cutting it loose completely though, HP promised they would continue to be an active participant and investor. This move shows that they plan to keep their word. Does it mean that they are working on new tablets or smartphones? Not at all. This is merely a move to see where they can take open WebOS from here. It also helps with PR that they are keeping their commitment.

Alot remains uncertain for HP. They have pretty much confirmed that they have no smartphones on the docket for 2013, and their own CEO says 2013 is going to be difficult year. While I personally liked WebOS, it might not be wise for the company to be expending extra resources on something that clearly hasn’t been profitable for them.

Even if HP is hiring for WebOS, don’t expect much from them. If anything big happens with the project, I’d imagine it would come from independent developers out there messing around with the source code. One of the more unique webOS projects to surface so far includes open WebOS running on a Asus Transformer Prime.

What do you think? Are you excited about the (limited) future of open WebOS, or is it time to finally move on from it for good?

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The post HP Begins Hiring Spree to Bring in New Employees to Work on WebOS appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

You’ve seen just about everything there is to see when it comes to RC cars, right? What about one that transforms instantly before your eyes to a dancing robot that has a pretty strong resemblance to one Optimus Prime? This little guy was made by Kenji Ishida, and features 22 servos that allow the robot to function, it also makes a reasonably decent RC car, as well. This is the fourth version of the robot, so far, and the creator is expecting to continue to expand his efforts to make an even better transformer.

This is pretty cool, though honestly it transforms a little slower than the ones in Transformers, but hey, it’s still extraordinarily impressive, to say the least. It’s amazing to see walking robots like this becoming more and more common. Makes you wonder just how much out of Sci-Fi movies and TV shows are really going to happen in the next few decades.

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The post Unique Home-Made RC Car Can Fully Transform Into A Robot appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

It’s always fun when a giveaway is announced and it’s even better when what will be available for free is a popular Android tablet. Our friends at Ubergizmo have announced that they have partnered with NVIDIA for giving away two Asus Transformer Prime tablets (for two winners) and you just have to post a comment to participate.

You have to place a comment here (valid email address or Facebook profile is needed) and if you are lucky, your name will be selected in the draw and you will win a $499.99 NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core Asus Transformer Prime and a $149 keyboard dock accessory. You can comment about anything, but it will be great if you talk about why you are interested in the tablet. Just to let you know, there are already 968 comments over there and more will keep on coming, but there’s certainly nothing to lose by typing a few words and imagining about playing with the device in the future.

But, as always, there are rules. The following are the main ones:

The draw is open to legal residents of US (50 states) and Canada (excluding Quebec), 18 and older. (If you are from some other country, you might have international friends who can participate.)

The deadline to place your comment is Wednesday March 28 2012, at 23:59pm PT. (But we know that you have already placed your comment.)

Head here to check out all the rules.

And good luck!

The post Asus Transformer Primes Giveaway By Our Uber Friends appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

When it comes to mobile display resolutions, particularly in tablets, 2012 seems to be a year of major change. It wasn’t long ago that 1024 × 768 was a commonplace resolution and even 640×480 wasn’t that unheard of. Now we have the new iPad with its 2048×1536 Retina display, and at MWC 2012 Asus unveiled an updated version of the Transformer Prime that will feature a 1920×1200 resolution.

It is clear that the future lies with high-resolution mobile displays, something that Microsoft talked about recently in a new Building Windows 8 blog post.

In the blog post Microsoft’s David Washington detailed how Windows 8, which is on its way later this year, will handle a multitude of different equipment and display setups, including the way that Metro will scale itself with different resolutions. At the standard 1366×768, no scaling will be needed but at other resolutions this is going to change in order to make the UI look and work as best as possible. With a 1920×1080 resolution there will be 140% scaling applied and for 2560×1440 resolutions there would even be 180% scaling.

So what does this mean exactly? In laymen’s terms, you pretty much get the same amount of information onscreen regardless of the resolution you are in. This gives the Metro UI a consistent look, that hopefully translates over to an easier design optimization experience for app developers.

Washington’s blog post even included a picture that showed the most common resolutions and screen sizes, showing off that Windows 8 will indeed support higher resolutions. Will this result in as attractive or useable experience as the new iPad? That’s hard to say, but there are many who don’t think it will. One such fellow is the Windows guru, Paul Thurrott.

In his own words:

“Windows is just never going to be as simple and elegant as the iPad, and that’s particularly true in this (high-density display) area. Windows’ diversity of devices, as always, remains both a blessing (choice) and a curse (inconsistency).”

Either way it is great to see the Microsoft is forward-thinking about concepts like higher resolution displays, scaling, and how to give the most consistent and useable UI experience it can with Metro. Will any of it make a difference as Microsoft attempts to enter into the tablet space against Apple and the Android tablets? I have my own theory on that, but I’d love to hear what you have to think about it as well.

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The post Windows 8 Will Support High-End Retina-Style Displays appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

That’s exactly what Laptop Mag wanted to find out, so they pit the new iPad against the Tegra 3-powered Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime. First, they ran GLBenchmark 2.1. This revealed that the A5X on the iPad 3 was able to render twice as many frames per second on the Egypt test and it was able to handle more than four times as many texels (texture pixels). So, for pure graphical prowess, the A5X seems like the winner.

However, when they had a look at integer and floating point performance, the Tegra 3 blew the A5X out of the water. It also outclassed Apple’s chip for memory performance, with the exception of memory bandwidth.

But what about the real world? They played Shadowgun and Riptide GP on both tablets and, well, it’s a mixed bag. The Retina display on the iPad provided crisper text and better colors, but the Asus had some visual effects not present in the Apple-friendly version of the games. Check out the video below.

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The post Benchmarked and Compared: NVIDIA Tegra 3 vs. Apple A5X appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The new iPad, as you know, has arrived with impressive specs, but all those features have resulted in the device becoming fatter and heavier. That’s certainly not a big problem, but those of you who are dying to see a super-thin tablet should check out the Android-running Archos G10 XS, which is the latest in a series of G tablets from the company.

Yes, that’s yet another Android tablet. But while all the other manufacturers focus on design and specs to set their Android tablets apart from other Android slates, Archos is concentrating on another aspect: material. The tablets in the G10 series will boast a chassis that is made of “paper-thin” steel, rather than aluminum.

The new material might have helped the company to design the G10 XS with a thickness of only 7.6mm. In comparison, the new iPad measures in at 9.39mm. But an incredibly thin tablet is not actually a big thing. It won’t be effecting user experience that much. Hopefully the device, which will be running Ice Cream Sandwich, will arrive with attractive specs.

And the slate also has a keyboard dock (which doesn’t appear to be adding that much to the thickness), which might make it a rival to the Asus Transformer Prime. No hints on when the device will be released, but we are expecting it to arrive sometime later this year. It will have a price tag between €200 and €400 (around $250-500).

The company is also planning some budget and mid-range models, head here if you want to take a peek at some promotional materials.

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The post Archos G10 XS Ultra-Thin Tablet Teased (Video) appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

As expected, HTC has just introduced their Quad-core Tegra 3 handset and the flagship phone appears to be one of the most impressive Android devices ever designed. The One X, which will be part of the company’s new “One” series, comes with awesome specs.

HTC’s One series is basically what the Galaxy series is to Samsung. And HTC has come out with their latest line after listening to feedback and taking a decision to change their strategy completely. And they appear to have delivered.

The HTC One X boasts a beautiful 720p 4.7-inch Super LCD2 display which provides vibrant and bright colors. The screen performed well in bright sunlight and the viewing angles are good as well. The 312ppi screen is no iPhone 4S display, but it surely is very pretty.

Gizmodo says the handset feels very comfortable in the hands as it features a curved back and is light (but strong) since its body is made out of a machined polycarbonate. The device is one of the fastest they have ever played with all thanks to its 1.5GHz quad-core Tegra 3 processor. The applications were launching and running smoothly, and multi-tasking is impressive. As you might know, this is the same Tegra 3 seen in the Transformer Prime, and therefore it’s expected to do well. But we will be taking a closer look at its performance later on.

The phone also boasts Beats by Dre audio, 1GB of RAM and 32GB of storage (and 25GB of free Dropbox storage for two years), NFC, a front-facing 1.3MP shooter (supports 720p video chat), a 1800mAh battery, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with Sense 4.0 UI, and comes with 4G LTE.

Many of you out there might not be too excited about Sense, but the new version appears to be quite interesting, although we will have to do a thorough inspection before the final verdict. The device’s rear 8MP camera has “the best optics and sensor (they’ve) ever used“. We will be checking out that later but we do know that it will do well in low light conditions with f2.0. And HTC’s new ImageChip (a secondary processor exclusively for image processing) will make sure that you shoot 1080p video while simultaneously take full resolution stills.

And if you are interested in watching a movie or playing a game on your TV using the phone, the HTC MediaLink, an HDMI dongle, will be  what does it.

HTC is promising that the ONE X will arrive within the next 60 days. It will be available in white or black exclusively from AT&T. No hints on the price, but we are expecting $200-$300 on contract.

The post MWC 2012: HTC One X appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Ever since the recent launch of the Transformer Prime Android tablet, Asus has been busy with the slate’s issues. But that does not stop Asus from adding new devices to their tablet line-up. We already know that the company is set to introduce a budget 7-inch slate later in the second quarter. But now, it appears like there is yet another tablet.

The leaked pictures of what is being called the ASUS TF300T are flying around the web at the moment. According to the Taiwanese website NCCC, the mysterious device could be the followup to the Transformer Prime.

The “TF300T” code name of the 10.1-inch slate is numerically higher when compared to its predecessors. As you might know, the original Transformer is known as the TF101, while the Prime goes by the moniker TF201.

Unfortunately, no details are available regarding the specs of the device. Looking at the pictures, it appears to have a textured back which is similar to that of the original Transformer.

The rear could also be ABS plastic (different from the Prime’s which is aluminum), which suggests that the above device could possibly be the first 3G/4G equipped tablet from Asus, although it does have a metallic look to it, so it could be either.  Asus may be planning to show this one off at the upcoming Mobile World Congress later this month.

The post Asus TF300T Could Be The Next Transformer Prime Android Tablet appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Sure, no one was pleased when they realized that their Prime arrived with a locked bootloader. Asus shipped the device that way because of “content providers’ requirement for DRM client devices to be as secure as possible”.  As you might know, rooted devices will not play DRM content since there is a risk of piracy. However, they announced that a bootloader unlocking tool was coming. But when?

Now, an official tweet has revealed that it is indeed coming and it will arrive in February.  Unfortunately, there have been no hints regarding an exact date of release, and unlocking it will lead to a warranty void and also there won’t be any Google video rentals. We are quite sure that most folks looking to root it are not too worried about that.  Unlocking the bootloader bring good things, like allowing for a community released GPS fix.

The post Asus Transformer Prime Bootloader Unlock Tool Coming February appeared first on Mobile Magazine.