The ViewPad 10Pro was a master of no trades at all. Don't believe the bullet points on the box. It all looked very exciting and futuristic in the Apple launch announcement, but when Siri arrived on the iPhone 4S there was something Apple hadn't signed up a local business data partner for the UK, so a rather large chunk of the personal assistant's brain was left empty.
The partially lobotomised UK Siri was therefore a bit of a disappointment. Just like every voice-controlled thing there has ever been. Toshiba took a place on last year's worst gadgets list with its appalling, half-broken Folio Android tablet and it's back once again with the AT Released in the US as the Thrive, Toshiba's tablet was at least a step up over the Folio, but it still managed to be bigger, bulkier, slower and more expensive than the numerous other Android tablets it was up against.
Better luck in , Tosh. Odd to see Sony Ericsson launching a cheap Walkman-branded phone powered by its Java-based OS in , what with the Xperia Android range doing such a great job. The Mix Walkman therefore seems like a throwback to the middle of the last decade, further marginalised by a collection of bugs that made the phone reboot itself at random.
Not all mobile phones are smart. The novelty 3D display works, no doubt about that, but the rest of the package is very underwhelming. The inclusion of two cameras makes the EVO 3D one of the biggest, fattest and heaviest smartphones around.
After the iPad 2 debuted in March, Samsung had a major "uh-oh" moment. It was about to release a inch Honeycomb tablet that was thicker and slower than what Apple was offering.
Instead of rushing the device to market, Samsung made the smart move and went back to the drawing board. The result was the ultra-thin Galaxy Tab Why it's important: The Galaxy Tab Who says 3D is just a gimmick? Nintendo's 3DS broke new ground this year by being the first major portable console that displays 3D images without glasses. Why it's important: As more gaming goes mobile, Nintendo depends on the 3DS to keep it competitive with games on iPhone and Android.
Plus it's a breakthrough in affordable 3D technology. People went nuts when an ex-iPod engineer decided to go on his own and make a The result was the Nest, a stylish thermostat that is smart enough to learn your habits and adjust your home's temperature automatically. Why it's important: The nest proves that even the most mundane appliances can look gorgeous and be functional too. With each refresh, the iMac keeps getting better. This Spring the iMac got a refresh adding a Thunderbolt port for super fast file transfers.
It's one of the most powerful consumer-grade desktops you can buy. Why it's important: The iMac isn't cheap, but it's easily the best desktop on the market. If you have the cash, load it with a speedy solid state drive and take your computing to the next level.
For years Verizon customers were dying for the iPhone to come to Big Red. In February, their prayers were answered. The iPhone 4 was a huge success on the carrier, and gave way to more Apple gadgets including the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. The Verizon iPhone proved other carriers were finally ready to get on board. By the time the iPhone 4S launched in October, Sprint joined too. The screen is gorgeous, plus there's a SD card slot so you can load up to 16 GB of your favorite movies, music, photos, etc.
If and when it launches a store for downloading movies and music, it'll finally be able to stand up to the Kindle Fire. For you. World globe An icon of the world globe, indicating different international options. Get the Insider App. Click here to learn more. A leading-edge research firm focused on digital transformation. Good Subscriber Account active since Shortcuts. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile. Log out.
US Markets Loading H M S In the news. Steve Kovach. HTC Thunderbolt. MacBook Air Summer refresh. Motorola Xoom. RIM unveiled its PlayBook tablet in late , but the device didn't hit store shelves until July Running a custom operating system based on the QNX kernel, the tablet received mixed reviews from the tech press.
And unfortunately for Research in Motion, the PlayBook didn't sell as well as the company had hoped -- at least, not initially. In December , RIM still had a lot of inventory and was relying on new marketing efforts and lower prices to push the tablets to more customers [source: Whitney ]. The discounts did improve sales somewhat, and as of the end of , RIM hasn't thrown in the towel on the tablet market. Mobile gaming is a market that's becoming hotter every year.
The gadget on the next page is proof of that. Portable gaming has certainly come a long way since the single-game, red-LED-lit handheld games of the s. Today's devices display thousands of colors and allow interaction by touchscreens.
But pure gaming consoles face stiff competition from smartphones, many of which offer a vast selection of apps for gamers on the go. In , Sony Ericsson delivered on the long-expected hope that the creator of the PlayStation series of home gaming consoles and the PlayStation Portable devices would release a PlayStation phone.
A slide-out tray gives gamers a set of dedicated gaming controls. Smartphone users chose Android phones such as the Xperia Play more often than phones running other operating systems in On the next page, we'll look at another device running Google's operating system that stirred up some headlines. Followers of phones using the Android operating system know that manufacturers seem to release new products constantly.
Once the buzz cranks up about one phone, another comes out and steals its thunder. With a dual-core processor and Corning Gorilla Glass protecting the sharp Super AMOLED active-matrix organic light-emitting diode Plus screen, the device has features that set it apart from many other phones released at around the same time. In fact, at the end of , the phone still commanded a premium price over many other smartphones in the United States, even after factoring in the contract required by many carriers.
The Galaxy S II drew the attention of Apple, which has been suing many competing smartphone manufacturers for alleged patent infringements. Samsung didn't exactly shy away from the attention. On the next page, we return to the tablet wars. Only in , this product saw an unlikely surge in popularity -- but only after it was discontinued. Priced to compete with Apple's iPad , the TouchPad featured a dual-core processor and a front-facing camera [source: Krakow ]. The devices were received reasonably well by critics, though some complained of slow performance.
But it didn't sell. Retailers soon found they had a surplus of TouchPads, and only weeks later rumors surfaced that Best Buy wanted to send thousands of TouchPads back to HP [source: Arya ]. On August 18, HP announced that it would stop manufacturing and selling computers [source: Satariano ]. The company also announced the end of the WebOS business, less than two months after the TouchPad was released [source: Associated Press ].
To get rid of inventory, HP -- and many retailers -- decided to hold a sale. TouchPads sold out in a hurry. In fact, HP took reservations for the tablets it had ordered but hadn't yet received. Those sold quickly, too. Could the sudden popularity of the tablet spur a renewed interest in the OS?
HP wasn't the only company to release a much-hyped product to slow initial sales, as you'll see on the next page. Nintendo's DS owned the lion's share of the portable console gaming market in Sony's PlayStation Portable was a distant second. But that market was changing rapidly, thanks to the rise in popularity of games for smartphones and tablets [source: Reisinger ]. But Nintendo had a plan in place to create what it saw as the next big step in portable gaming -- a glasses-free 3-D version of the popular console.
But at first, despite the hype, the device's sales didn't meet the company's expectations [source: Kohler ]. Sales immediately picked up [source: Schreier ]. Once Nintendo offered a new game just in time for holiday sales, "Super Mario 3D Land," the title became the fastest-selling of its portable games ever and pushed 3DS sales even more [source: Sherr ].
The Nintendo 3DS shows us that pre-release hype isn't an accurate predictor of how a gadget will do when it hits the streets. Our next gadget may be a victim of the same phenomenon. Although tablet computers had been out many years prior to the release of Apple's iPad in April , they seemed to be popular with medical professionals and others who wanted a portable computer with handwriting recognition.
And portable computers they were, too -- most were laptops with screens that could be pivoted and closed so that the screen faced outward.
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