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Posts tagged CES
Motorola Atrix: The All-In-One Mobile Powerhouse
Jan 26th
Android-based phones and tablets seemed to dominate the discussion during CES this year, and in particular Motorola had an awesome show. Not only did they launch the most substantial iPad competitor in the Xoom tablet, but they also had some interesting new phones on display as well. The one that impressed me the most was the Motorola Atrix 4G, not only because of its hardware specs, but some really cool things they're doing with dock support.
Beefy Specs
As I mentioned Motorola has rolled some cool features into the Atrix, some of which involve a PC-style computing experience, so they need to have the hardware to power that functionality. To start off the phone uses a Tegra 2 dual core processor which is significant. It's a chip developed by Nvidia that is the world's first multi-core CPU crafted with mobile devices in mind. They've also packed in a gigabyte of RAM, a front-facing camera and a fingerprint reader. That's the boring part though - things get interesting when you take a look at some of the accessories and integrated software features, most-importantly the Webtop OS.
Webtop OS
Where the Atrix really shines is when you see it seamlessly transition into a desktop or laptop computer by simply inserting it into one of its docks. Webtop is an operating system that runs on the phone to give you desktop-like functionality from a device only 4" in size. There are two implementations of the custom Atrix dock - one that allows you to hook up an external display and one that's integrated right into an inexpensive laptop enclosure. The easiest way to understand how Webtop works is to see it in action, and the folks from Engadget have put together an awesome hands-on video that certainly gets the point across.
Can you say perfect business and travel device? Given the tiny stature of the laptop dock especially I can imagine using the Atrix with Webtop anytime I met with clients or whenever I needed to fire off emails in the car. There's no wonder why this phone was Engadget's best of CES!
Some Concerns
I would happily trade my current phone in for the Atrix, but I am somewat concerned about the fact that getting the most out of Webtop OS requires an investment beyond just buying the phone and paying the contract fees. Although not required and certainly affordable in its own right, the 11.6" laptop dock is rumored to cost $150 when it's available for purchase later this year. I tend to get a new phone every year or so, and therefore the prospect of paying roughly $350 (assuming the Atrix is about $199 with a contract) for a device I won't have in a year is somewhat troubling. Hopefully Motorola will continue to make Atrix phones without changing the form factor of the dock so that you don't have to re-buy hardware.
There's also the whole AT&T exclusivity thing. I'm not a fan. Motorola did announce a Verizon-based phone that uses the Tegra 2 chip called the Droid Bionic, but it only has half the RAM and there hasn't been a whisper about Webtop OS integration. That said I'm proud of Motorola for becoming the premiere Android device developer in the market by building on the success they began with the Droid and Droid X.
Dell Adamo – Style over Substance
Mar 18th
My interest was piqued back at CES when Dell announced their new Adamo line of laptops. They are branded as extravagant, stylish and lightweight alternatives to Apple notebooks for the PC crowd, and given Dell's push to compete aesthetically with some of the prettier laptops on the market this new line truly showed promise.  On Tuesday the Adamo's details were leaked and since then most of my excitement has evaporated.
I'm not going into the details (I'll save that for a link at the end of this post) but this new Adamo laptop is like the Dubai of notebooks. Â That is to say Dell seems to have paid most attention to outward appearances and the look of the laptop but when it gets down to it beauty is only skin deep. Â The actual hardware inside the sleek chassis is pretty anemic. Â The machine's processor only maxes out at 1.4ghz, and that's only on the $2,700 model. Â That's right. Â $2,700! Â The lesser model comes in at $1,999 for a 1.2ghz core 2 duo. Â Sheesh...I think Dell is borrowing one of my least favorite parts of the Apple model - premium pricing.
There is some good to be had.  Like I mentioned the machine is beautiful, and each models come with a 128GB solid state drive.  They've also worked in DDR3 memory which is a plus.  However that's all I can really say about the Adamo that's positive.  One of the best things about purchasing a PC laptop is that you can customize the model by picking and choosing details like processor speed and amount of RAM, but you can't even do that with the Adamo.  You either get the expensive laptop or the even-more expensive laptop, and hey if you want to you can drop some expensive accessories on top of it for good measure. The hardware and price on this 13" beauty just isn't justifiable.
See the whole nitty-gritty here: Dell.com - Dell Adamo Specifications
CES 2009
Jan 15th
Today I'm going to continue our trip through early-2009 conventions by talking about some of the announcements from CES that I thought were interesting.
Let's start with the keynote. This was the first year that Bill Gates wasn't the headliner, but I think Steve Ballmer did a good job as far as Microsoft keynotes go. They didn't really announce much, and a lot of the cool stuff was just review of what we've known for a while. It seemed like a sort of "State of the Union" Microsoft style, where-in the crew informed the crowd about all of the great things the company has been up to for the past year. The highlight was definitely the demo of Windows 7, as well as the (predictable) announcement that the Windows 7 public beta would be out soon. It's out now and I've had an opportunity to play with it a bit, but that's for another day. To see the demo, you can check it out here:
The other major announcement that's caught a lot of people by surprise was the "rebirth" of Palm in the form of the Palm Pre. I have to say I met this bit of news with a great deal of anticipation, but then I watched the presentation and I was stunned. The Palm Pre (running Palm's new Web OS) is, in my opinion, the first true competitor to the iPhone. Of course this is all speculation right now because a device looking cool in a demonstration and actually being cool in your hand are two different things, but Palm seems to be the first company since Apple to use the "Apple approach" in creating a touchscreen smartphone. The OS looks great, featuring an easy-to-manipulate interface and some features that might even have iPhone users drooling. I'll save the details for a later post so I can dedicate enough words to the device to do it justice. Just know I was impressed. You can view the Palm presentation here:
Other than that most of the announcements were hardware and gadget-based. It's impossible to do a complete rundown of all of the devices that were announced, so instead I'll just mention a couple of the things that caught my eye. Firstly, the Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds is worth mentioning because it has a freakin' slide-out screen! Pretty cool. Also pretty expensive. This new laptop is meant to be a desktop replacement, and finally solves the conundrum of enhancing a laptop's monitor size without sacrificing portability. It's obvious you can hook most laptops up to an external display, but as I mentioned, you lose the ability to roam because your computer is tethered to that display. The W700ds solves this problem by having a 10" slide-out display, giving the user a whole lot of LCD goodness. It's a little niche, but apparently the W700ds has been targeted towards artists since it has built-in Wacom functionality. Not to mention a $3,663 starting price tag. Ouch.
Camera and display technology was also a big hit this year at CES, but I'm going to stay with notebook computers. The Dell Adamo looks quite stunning. It's a very thin machine sporting an almost Macbook Air-like quality to it. The Adamo has been branded a "luxury laptop." It's extremely thin and has some industrial design that's only rivaled by Apple's line of notebooks. Dell was kind of sketchy on the details but it seemed to me that the notebook wouldn't be the only computer or device in the line, perhaps they're looking to debut some multimedia devices with it as well? At any rate this is a product to keep your eyes on, if only because it looks so cool.
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