With all this talk of smartphones and tablets, sometimes we forget that we still need, you know, actual computers. The trouble is that typical desktop computers can suck up quite a bit of power compared to their portable counterparts. Not so with the Trim-Slice from CompuLab.

The Israel-based company has produced what they believe to be its smallest and most energy-efficient model to date. The Trim Slice has a paltry average operational draw of just three watts. It’s like it’s barely there. This lower power consumption is achieved via the NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, even though it is providing a full PC experience.

Remember, this is not a netbook or a notebook. There’s no keyboard or display here; it’s just the PC itself. Even so, the fanless computer rocks a 64GB SSD, 1GB DDR2 RAM, wireless-N, expansion slots, USB ports, HDMI-out, and dual head DVI. They’ve even included S/PDIF for 5.1 surround sound.

Given its small stature and low power consumption, the CompuLab Trim-Slice could be a good candidate for those all-in-one PCs (a la iMac). It would even be easy to mount up in your car. CompuLab is marketing it for “power infotainment systems, digital signage and IPTV, or as a gaming device or desktop PC replacement.”

They haven’t indicated a price, but it should be “lower than a tablet.” Look for the Trim-Slice this April.

[GizMag via CompuLab, Fit-PC]

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Surprising no one with a technology pulse, tablets are big at this year’s CES. So with damn near everyone and their grandmother showing off what they’ve been working on over the last year, it’s advisable that your product better be among the sleekest if you want to get noticed.

ASUS appears to be starting off the jockeying pretty well with their four new products. The Eee Pad MeMO has a 7” capactive screen and will ship with the new Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). ASUS is a little shy on the power details beyond a note that it comes equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon mobile processor, if it’s the most-recent, third generation that should ring in as a 1.2Ghz processor. Oh and it comes with a stylus pen if you’re into that.

The Eee Pad Transformer and Eee Pad Slider take an innovative approach to incorporating an optional full keyboard. Both have 10.1” IPS touchscreens, NVIDIA Tegra 2 mobile processors (1Ghz), and will likewise ship with Android 3.0. The way they’ve incorporated the keyboard is the stand-out of both these products. The Transformer keyboard is a docking option that also serves as a battery extension station, giving you a reported 16 hours of battery life. The Slider comes loaded with a sliding keyboard that is really slick. Check out both of these in action on ASUS’s promo video but try not be distracted by the pretty British lady with the giggly boobs.

Last but not least, the Eee Slate EP121. It’s loaded with a 12.1” multi-touch screen and an Intel Core i5 processor that packs 2.66 GHz of processing power. A break from the other Android-driven products, it ships with Microsoft’s Windows 7 Home Premium OS, . With the Windows OS, a boatload of power, a nice big screen and a 64GB SSD drive the Slate is definitely being targeted towards the enterprise crowd. ASUS also highlights that there’s a bunch of data input options like pens and Bluetooth keyboards too.

If you’re at CES you can see them all live and in action at the Aria Hotel Juniper 1 Ballroom.

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Not surprisingly, Motorola won’t be the only one rocking out with a Honeycomb tablet this week. We’re fully expecting to see the Motorola XOOM at CES in a couple of days, but it’s going to be joined by an offering from LG as well.

It has been confirmed that the Korean electronics giant will be showing off a new Android tablet and it will come powered by Android 3.0 Honeycomb. This is just a generic mockup that we see here, so any specific design cues are still largely up in the air.

Going through the rest of the buzz (bad pun, sorry), we hear that the yet-unnamed LG tablet will feature a 8.9-inch display. There are rumors that it may also be offered in a full 10-inch variant, possibly with a full keyboard of some kind (a first in this era of tablets, as far as I know), and the NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor that’s become the norm for Honeycomb.

LG has a press conference at CES scheduled for Wednesday, so we’ll likely get to see the new tablet in the flesh (so to speak) at that time.

[Unwired Review]

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So, now that we’ve gotten a really good look at the upcoming HTC Thunderbolt smartphone with its Verizon-happy 4G LTE connectivity, we want to take a closer look at the spec sheet to see if it really is all it’s cracked up to be. Some hearsay has revealed some new specs for the phone and, more likely than not, they’re probably too good to be true.

For starters, it has more or less been confirmed that the Thunderbolt will only have a single-core processor when it gets formally announced at CES. German blog HTC Inside, on the other hand, says that the Thunderbolt will have a dual-core Snapdragon 1.2GHz (MSM8960) CPU under the hood. The trouble is that this processor won’t really be ready for “sampling” until the middle of 2011. That means it won’t actually show up in consumer-ready devices until early 2012 at the earliest. The good news is that, when it does pop up in phones, it will be capable of PS3-level graphics.

HTC Inside also goes on to mention a five-megapixel front-facing camera and expandable storage up to 128GB. I don’t see why HTC would want such a high resolution cam in the front, at least for now, but the expandable storage could be a real possibility with the increasing affordability of microSDHC cards.

And for the record, Qualcomm is still having some trouble with its dual-core Snapdragons anyhow. That could be why Google is opting for NVIDIA Tegra 2 as its reference platform for Android 3.0 Honeycomb.

Update: HTC has run an ad in Rolling Stone, the ThunderBolt is confirmed.

[Android and Me]

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It has been almost one whole year since we last heard of the Lenovo U1 and it’s only now that a real “hands-on” is being provided? Yes, I was able to fondle the alpha-level device at CES 2010, but it wasn’t exactly market ready.

Well, it turns out that Lenovo has not yet abandoned this contraption just yet and some real “first impressions” are being posted on the Internet. For starters, the standalone tablet portion is being dubbed LePad and the docking part is being called the U1 dock. Combined, you get the Lenovo U1 Hybrid.

The interesting thing is that a lot has changed since we saw this product at CES last year. The “new” 10.1-inch LePad gets a capacitive display, Google Android 2.2 (instead of the Linux-based Skylight), and the LePhone skin for colorful navigation. The guess is that Snapdragon has also been ditched in favor of NVIDIA Tegra 2, possibly as a pre-maneuver for Honeycomb support, but we can’t say for sure. And yes, it has dual cameras.

As far as the Lenovo U1 Hybrid dock is concerned, it seems to function in much the same way as we saw before, offering a full chiclet keyboard, a beefed up processor, and Windows 7. The unit available for the “hands on” was non-functional, though.

[Engadget]

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You may have seen this phone floating around the rumor mills as the LG Star, but the name has been abandoned for the Optimus 2X moniker instead. This is the first time that we’re seeing a smartphone with that impressive chip under the hood, after all.

So, what kind of power does that processor provide to this Android 2.2 smartphone? Well, not only will it output full 1080p video to your TV via its HDMI-out port, but it will also record full 1080p HD video via its 8MP primary camera. There’s also a 1.3MP camera on the front for your video calls too.

Running through the rest of the specs, you find 8GB memory, microSD expansion, and a 4-inch WVGA display. There’s only a 1500mAh battery in there, though, so it’ll be interesting to see what kind of life you get when you really start to push the limits on this beast of a slim phone.

The LG Optimus 2X will show up in Korea next month. Europe and other Asian markets get it a few weeks after that. And North America? Well, we’ve got to ask the carriers about that.

On a side note, since Google is reportedly using Tegra 2 as a reference platform for Android 3.0, this phone could be ready for the big update whenever the Googs decides to push out some Honeycomb action.

[LG]

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The world of Android smartphones is getting more and more enticing by the moment. One of the latest devices to get leaked out on the Internet is the Motorola Olympus. We had heard about this phone before, but this is one of the first times that we’ve seen real live photos of the upcoming device. And it’s quite the looker too.

Also known as the MB860, the Motorola Olympus is one of the new generation of smartphones getting powered by the Nvidia Tegra 2 processor. This is supposed to be a step up from the Qualcomm Snapdragon processors that we’re seeing on so many devices today. You’ll also notice the beautiful four-inch display; from what I hear, it’s not AMOLED, but more likely SLCD.

Backing up Android 2.2 Froyo (or possibly 2.3 Gingerbread) is the MOTOBLUR user interface that we’ve come to expect from Motorola smartphones. The Olympus also has a pair of cameras and HDMI out. Looking pretty darn slick there, but it’ll easily blend in among the crowd of other large-screened Android phones.

In any case, we expect to see the Olympus make its official debut at CES 2011 in Las Vegas next month. I plan to be on hand, so I’ll do my best to stop by the Moto booth to take a look at the real deal.

[New Launches via Electric Pig]

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As can be expected, the yet unnamed device (possibly Streak 7 or some variation?) will be running on a newer build of Google Android than the current 1.6 OS that powers the 5-inch Streak. The screen is bigger too, of course, but we’re hearing that the processor is getting bumped into the dual-core Tegra 2 variety. That should help to enhance the performance.

Aside from that, Michael Dell and the rest of his team are staying pretty mum on the specifics. It seems that seven inches is quickly becoming the magical size for Android tablets and it’ll be interesting to see what Dell does to separate itself from the pack. Lets hope the touchscreen is a bit more responsive once it gets released than in the video.

For now, the word going around the blogosphere is that the 7-inch Dell Android tablet could hit as early as Q4 of this year, but an early 2011 launch is probably more likely. This way, they can preload the thing with the newest Android OS possible.

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