Not so long ago, Acer relied on traditional hard drives as storage for its C7 Chromebook line, even if Google emphasized that the Chrome OS and systems running it didn't require huge amounts of local storage. But the company recently released the $199 C710-2833 Chromebook at Best Buy with a 16GB solid-state drive, and now it has released the C710-2856 Chromebook with the same storage and price, and has extended its retailer footprint to Walmart.

Aside from the 16GB SSD replacing a 320GB hard drive, the C710-2856 has similar specs to an Acer Chromebook released late last year, using an Intel Celeron 847 processor, 2GB of RAM, and an 11.6-inch LED-backlit screen. The 3.05-pound system also includes a webcam and built-in 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and features four hours of battery life. By using flash storage instead of a traditional hard drive, the C710-2856 can boot up in just 8 seconds, according to Acer.

But perhaps most notable is that C710-2856 is the first Chromebook to be sold at Walmart, one of the major retailers that Google announced it was working with to expand the locations where you can purchase Chromebooks. Acer (and Google) are hoping the expansion to the mega-retailer and also Staples will expose more back-to-school shoppers to the Chromebook lineup. Do you think a laptop like the C710-2856 is a suitable student laptop? Let us know in the Talkback section below.

AMD dropped a bombshell at E3 last week with the introduction of its FX-9000 series of desktop CPUs, which includes the first 5GHz processor. But the real surprise might be the cost of these new chips.

Though it's since removed them from its website, online retailer PCSuperStore.com put the FX-9590 and FX-9370 up for pre-order the other day, with prices that were far higher than what AMD has been charging for its top desktop chips. The 4.4GHz FX-9370 (4.7GHz with Turbo Core) was listed for $576, while the 4.7GHz FX-9590, which reaches the magic 5GHz number with Turbo Core, was listed for a whopping $920.

Those prices are closer to high-end Intel Core i7 CPUs than the previous eight-core AMD FX processors, even if the performance gains are roughly 20 percent over prior iterations. However, AMD has not announced any official pricing yet, so it's difficult to determine if PCSuperStore's pricing is accurate or an attempt to cash in on the buzz surrounding the new chips.

It's also unclear when the FX-9000 processors will even be available for DIYers to purchase. There are reports that the new chips will be provided to system builders and not to the general public. Also notable is that the FX-9000 processors are power hogs, with a TDP of 220 watts. Compare that to the Intel Core i7-3970X Extreme Edition, which has a maximum TDP of 150 watts.

While it looked like AMD had ceded the high-end of desktop processors to Intel and chips like the Core i7-3970X, the FX-9000 series might be a worthier challenger than previous FX eight-core chips. But pricing will be critical, especially since the CPUs are bucking the trend of greater power efficiency that Intel is touting with its new Haswell chips.

Are you interested in AMD's new FX-9000 series? At what price would you consider buying one of the new processors if AMD eventually sells them to the public? Let us know in the Talkback section below.

[Via X-bit labs] 

While many laptop makers chose to debut notebooks using Intel's new Haswell processors at Computex last week, Alienware decided to wait for the E3 gaming trade show this week to show off its latest laptops, which are new inside and out.

The Dell-owned brand has just unleashed fresh versions of the Alienware 14, 17, and 18, which now sport anodized aluminum and magnesium alloy and Intel's latest Core i7 CPUs, along with Nvidia's new GeForce GTX 700 series discrete graphics. The refresh includes a new adjustable lighting system and a fully lit trackpad that can presumably double as a night light.

As you might imagine, the bigger models not only include larger screens, but also more room for additional components. While the new Alienware 14 can hold up three drives (two hard drives and a mSATA solid-state drive), the Alienware 17 and 18 can hold four (three of which are traditional hard drives). The Alienware 18 can additionally house a pair of graphics cards in Nvidia's SLI configuration.

The Alienware 14 starts at $1,199, which gets you a 14-inch 1,366x768 IPS display, Core i7-4700MQ processor, 8GB of RAM, GeForce GT 750M graphics, 750GB hard drive, and your choice of Windows 7 or Windows 8. The base configuration for the 17 is priced at $1,499 and includes similar specs as the base 14 but features GeForce GTX 765M graphics and comes with a 17.3-inch 1,600x900 screen. The 12-pound Alienware 18 behemoth has a starting price of $2,099, which buys you dual GTX 765M cards and a massive 18.4-inch 1,920x1,080 display, along with the same processor, RAM, and hard drive as the other base models. Of course, you can customize any of these and jack the price up significantly.

In addition to the new laptops -- available to order now from the Alienware website -- the company has also released its line of Vindicator laptop bags that were designed to carry its new notebooks. The line includes everything from traditional cases (starting at $69.99) to messenger bags ($89.99 and up) to backpacks (starting at $99.99) and more. Only the backpack and briefcase can handle the Alienware 18, however.

The MacBook Air was already known for solid battery life. On CNET’s tests, the 11-inch model lasted more than 5 hours and the 13-inch version lasted nearly 7.5 hours. Apple says the updated ones will be good for 9 hours and 12 hours, respectively. Vendor battery life ratings are usually overly optimistic, but it still seems likely that independent tests will show some solid gains here. Apple also said the new MacBook Airs will have up to 30 days of standby time.

Intel made longer battery life a primary goal of Haswell from the start. It was Intel’s first chip family designed from the ground up for the Ultrabook, which is basically the Windows equivalent of the MacBook Air. Apple doesn’t provide detailed specs, but it looks like the new starting configuration includes the Core i5-4250U, which has a base frequency of 1.30GHz and can turbo up to 2.60GHz, and the upgraded version uses the Core i7-4650U with a base frequency of 1.7GHz and a turbo mode up to 3.3GHz. Both of these chips are rated at 15 watts compared to the 17-watt Ivy Bridge processors used in the previous models. The fourth-generation Core processors also have a bunch of new power management features, including additional active power and idle states, which boost battery life.

The performance gains will probably be less compelling. The CPU performance gains over Ivy Bridge are likely to be pretty modest based on the tests results to date. Haswell’s HD 5000 graphics should deliver a sizable boost in 3D graphics performance, which will be nice for casual gaming, but serious gamers will still buy Windows PCs with discrete graphics processors.

There are some other changes, too. The 11-inch MacBook Air now comes with a 128GB solid-state drive for the starting price of $1,000, and either model can be configured with an SSD in capacities up to 512GB. The MacBook Air also has faster 802.11ac Wi-Fi; Apple announced updated versions of the AirPort Extreme and AirPort Time Capsule that also support 802.11ac. Finally, Apple cut the stating price of the 13-inch MacBook Air to $1,100.

There were some rumors that Apple would introduce a Retina display on the MacBook Air, but it stuck with the same resolutions: 1366 by 768 pixels for the 11-inch model and 1440 by 900 pixels on the 13-inch version. Competitors have been introducing higher-resolution displays on Ultrabooks and convertibles. The MacBook Pro also has a Retina display.

As far as the design goes, why mess with a good thing? Companies like Acer, Asus, Lenovo and Samsung have certainly closed the gap a bit with some nice Ultrabook designs, but it is remarkable how well the MacBook Air’s wedge design has stood the test of time. If Haswell delivers the promised battery life, the MacBook Air will continue to be the laptop to beat.

Here's a sampling of 10 of the most intriguing laptops launched at Computex this year. Which one are you most exicted about? Or are you waiting for Apple to announce its Haswell plans, possibly at the upcoming WWDC event? Let us know in the Talkback section.

The Duo 13 is an update to the Vaio Duo 11, which Sony released several months as a Windows 8 laptop that uses a sliding hinge to switch into tablet mode. The new version maintains the same convertible design with a bigger full 1080p HD touchscreen and upgraded Haswell processors. As the image above shows, you can use the included digitizer pen to input on the screen, or you can just make use of your fingers. You also get a rear-facing 8-megapixel camera that incorporates Sony's Exmor RS for PC image sensor. Our sister site CNET has a hands-on with the Vaio Duo 13, and still bemoans the inability to tilt the screen, while finding the slider mechanism and touch pad much improved.

Sony may have delivered the best Windows-based competitor to the MacBook Air yet with the new Vaio Pro Ultrabook line. Built with carbon fiber, the Vaio Pro 11 weighs a mere 1.9 pounds and the Pro 13 just 2.3 pounds; both are 0.68 inches thick. Our sister site CNET has already secured units and provided some hands-on testing of the Pro 13 and a full review of the Pro 11. While the base MacBook Air models currently cost less than the $1,150 base Pro 11 and $1,250 Pro 13, they offer lower-res screens and less solid-state storage capacity. Of course, with rumors circulating that MacBook refreshes with Haswell processors could be due as early as next week's Apple WWDC, the Vaio Pro Ultrabooks could lose some of their competitive advantage.

Leave it to Asus to do things really differently with the Transformer Book Trio, which takes the original Transformer Book and adds a third form factor. The Transformer Book combined a laptop with a detachable tablet, but now the Trio not only offers those two modes, but also allows you to connect it to an external monitor station to use as an all-in-one PC. You can even toggle between Android and Windows 8 when you're using the Trio on the go. While the notebook/tablet runs using an Intel Atom chip and offers up to 64GB of flash-memory storage, the PC station packs a Haswell processor and up to a 1TB hard drive. More on the Trio, which does not yet have a release date or any official pricing yet, from ZDNet's James Kendrick.

If you think the Sony Vaio Pro laptops are thin, the forthcoming Zenbook Infinity has them beat by a few millimeters. The new Ultrabook will be just 0.61 inches in thickness. While Asus had the notebook on display at Computex, precious little else is known about it, though it is built with the third (and latest) version of Corning's Gorilla Glass. Despite its beautiful exterior and new Haswell-based interior, the Zenbook Infinity might face difficulties related to Microsoft Windows 8 and the overall PC landscape, according to ZDNet's Larry Dignan.

The XPS 11 is similar to the XPS 12 in its ability to switch between laptop and tablet modes. But while the XPS 12 uses a unique swiveling screen to switch modes, the XPS 11 relies on a conventional hinge (like the Lenovo Yoga uses) that automatically shuts off the physical keyboard when the display is laid flat for tablet use. The carbon fiber convertible notebook features a sweet 2,560x1,440 11.6-inch IPS touchscreen, includes a pen digitizer for input, and will run Windows 8.1. No word on which processor it will use or the pricing, though the XPS 11 is expected this fall. Our sister site CNET has a hands-on with the XPS 11.

Gaming laptops don't always have to be monstrosities. Witness Gigabyte's new "Ultrablade" notebooks, which combine fragging prowess with slim form factors. The 15.6-inch P35K weighs a mere 4.2 pounds, while the 14-inch P34G tips the scales at just 3.7 pounds. They still retain plenty of pixel-pushing power, thanks to Haswell quad-core Core i7 processors options (TBD) and Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M (P35k) or 760M (P34G) discrete graphics. Incredibly, the P35K can hold up to four drives to maximize storage: two 512GB mSATA SSD drives plus a pair of 1TB traditional hard drives. The P34G can "only" handle a 256GB mSATA SSD and a 1TB hard drive. Unfortunately, no word from Gigabyte yet on how much these svelte but brawny systems will set you back, or when you can get your hands on one.

Like the Dell XPS 11, the U21M is a Windows 8 convertible device that can flip between laptop and tablet modes. Roughly 0.8 inches thick and weighing in at 3.3 pounds, the 11.6-inch U21M lacks the high-res screen of the XPS 11, settling for 1,366x768 resolution instead. But it still packs a slate of Haswell processor options, 4GB or 8GB of RAM, and dual-storage choices ranging from 128GB SSD to 1TB hard drives (with many options in between). The touchscreen can swivel up to 180 degrees and, of course, lay flat to use as a tablet. As with its Ultrablade laptops, Gigabyte has not yet provided pricing or availability info for the U21M.

Acer has updated the Aspire S7 beyond the expected Haswell processor options, making some minor tweaks to the design and keyboard, but the new chips promise to improve performance and battery life significantly. There's also an option to upgrade to a ultra-high-res 2,560x1,440 screen. For $1,399, you get a full 1080p 13.3-inch IPS display, 8GB of RAM, 128GB SSD, and Core i5-4200U Haswell processor. The company has also updated the step-down S3, which keeps the same screen but loses the Gorilla Glass lid, though it does add Nvidia GeForce GT 735M graphics. It weighs more than the S7, but costs a few hundred dollars less for the trouble.

Toshiba's Qosmio lineup has been a mainstay of gaming laptops for some time now, but the best version may soon be upon us in the form of the X75. That's because it uses the latest Haswell Core i7 processors (not yet specified by Toshiba), along with graphics courtesy of Nvidia's brand-new GeForce GTX 770M. You also get a 17.3-inch display, red accent colors and lighting, and the ability to configure the system with both a traditional hard drive and solid-state storage. The Qosmio X75 should be available later this month starting from $1,399.

Acer isn't well known for gaming laptops, but the refreshed V3 hopes to change that perception. The Aspire V3-772G is pretty much what you expected from a portable gaming rig -- hefty (7 pounds), big screen (17.3 inches), and the latest hardware -- at a reasonable price. The $1,099 model includes both the new quad-core Core i7-4702MQ Haswell CPU and Nvidia's new GeForce GTX 760M graphics, which should provide superior performance and battery life over previous gaming notebooks.

While consumer laptops earned all the hype with the launch of Intel's new Haswell processors, Dell quietly added a business notebook using the new CPUs to its Latitude family. The E6540 is notable not only for its fresh components, but also for its hefty security features.

The new Latitude is available with two different flavors of 15.6-inch display, both LED-backlit: 1,366x768 or 1,920x1,080 resolution. It's the only Latitude that offers the option of a brawny Core i7-4800MQ processor, and there's also the option to add a discrete graphics card from an unspecified manufacturer. It features a rugged, Tri-metal chassis and protects your storage with rubber hard drive isolation and Dell's Fast Response Free-fall sensor.

Protection also takes the form of a FIPS 201-certified smart card and fingerprint readers and RSA SecurID, along with FIPS 140-2-certified TPM support and proprietary security tools like Dell ControlVault, Dell Protected Workspace, Dell Data Protection | Security Tools, and Dell Data Protection | Encryption. As a result, Dell boasts that the E6540 is "the most secure business laptop on the market."

How much you'll pay for that protection is still unclear. Dell has not announced pricing for the E6540, though it did have a couple of configurations posted on its website earlier that were in the $1,800 range with the i7-4800MQ CPU and full 1080p HD screen options. (They've subsequently been removed.) We'll have to wait a little longer to see what price Dell places on its most secure laptop ever.

Several new tablets using its Tegra 4 processor were announced at or just before the show including the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity, HP SlateBook x2 and two Toshiba Excite tablets. Nvidia’s Matt Wuebbling said to expect more Tegra 4 tablet announcements as well as some high-end smartphones later this year. The other Tegra 4 device at the show was a production version of the Nvidia Shield, a unique handheld gaming device that also runs standard Android apps and content from the Google Play store. It will ship by the end of this month.

Nvidia was also demonstrating its Tegra 4i, a mid-range processor with an integrated 4G LTE modem. Last month at CTIA Wireless Nvidia first showed the Phoenix smartphone reference platform with the Tegra 4i running on AT&T’s 4G LTE network. The company also demonstrated it operating on an LTE, Category 4 test network, which will be 50 percent faster, to illustrate the capabilities of the Software Defined Radio (SDR). The first Tegra 4i smartphones will be available in early 2014.

The next family of SoCs, code-named Logan, will also arrive in 2014. These will be the first Tegras to include a version of its full Kepler GPU for personal computers. At the opposite end of the roadmap Tegra 3 is still finding its way into low-cost devices. Hisense just launched a 7-inch tablet, the Sero 7 Pro, with the 1.3GHz Tegra 3 quad core processor that sells for $149 at Walmart.

Nvidia continues to work on features like DirectTouch and its Chimera computational photography that can take advantage of all this CPU and GPU performance, and lower manufacturing costs by eliminating some components. The latest example is DirectStylus, which lets you draw lines of varying widths with a basic, passive stylus. This should reduce power and potentially eliminate some components, though Nvidia isn’t discussing details yet.

Microsoft’s announcement that it will now include Outlook--along with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote--on Windows RT devices could also be big for Nvidia. It had high hopes for the Microsoft Surface RT, which uses Tegra 3, but has been disappointed by slow sales. Earlier this year, at Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang pleaded with Microsoft to add Outlook. But Nvidia will also have more competition for Windows RT devices. At Computex Qualcomm was demonstrating how its Snapdragon 800 has been optimized for Windows RT 8.1 and talking up its collaboration with Microsoft.

Right before Computex started, Nvidia announced its latest high-end mobile GPU family, the GeForce GTX 700M family. At the show several companies announced new gaming laptops combining Intel’s fourth-generation Core processor (Haswell) and GeForce GTX 700M GPUs including Acer, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and Razer. Tablets and hybrid devices get all the press, but apparently there’s still some demand for good old-fashioned laptops.

The Asus Transformer Book Trio is really two separate computing devices in one with two processors, two operating systems, two sets of storage and two batteries.

The Trio looks like a Transformer Book convertible with an 11.6-inch (1920x1080) display that in notebook mode can run either Windows 8 or Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean). The display doubles as an Android tablet with a 2.0GHz Atom Z2580 processor (Clover Trail+), 2GB of memory, 64GB of storage and a 19WHr battery. That leaves the PC Station dock, which can be hooked up to an external display to use as a Windows 8 desktop with a fourth-generation (Haswell) Core i7 processor and 750GB of storage.

The PC Station’s 33Whr battery can also be used as an extended battery for the tablet in notebook mode delivering up to 15 hours of battery life, according to Asus. The Transformer Book Trio will be available in the third quarter but Asus did not announce pricing.

While the Trio was unusual, the most impressive new product from Acer is the MeMO Pad HD 7, a nice-looking 7-inch tablet that will cost only $129 with 8GB of storage and $149 with 16GB. The Memo Pad HD 7 has a 1280x800 IPS display with wide viewing angles, a MediaTek MT6589 1.5GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of memory, a 1.2MP front camera and optional 5MP rear camera, and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. It weighs about the same as an iPad Mini (302 grams) and comes in four colors (blue, white, pink and green). The Memo Pad HD 7 will be available in July.

The larger Memo Pad FHD 10 has a 10-inch 1920x1200 IPS display, Intel’s 1.6GHz Atom Z2560 (Clover Trail+) dual-core processor, 2GB of memory, 16- or 32GB storage (plus a microSD card slot), a 1.2MP front camera and 5MP rear camera and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Asus is pushing this as a multimedia table for high-definition video and gaming. It is the same thickness as an iPad, but weighs less (580 grams) and its 25WHr battery is good for up to 10 hours of video playback, according to Asus. The MeMO Pad FHD 10 will be available in September; no word on pricing yet. While this looks like a nice tablet with a design similar to the popular Nexus 7, the timing is tough since tablets based on Intel’s more powerful Bay Trail platform should be available only a few months later.

Asus also announced an updated version of its Transformer Pad Infinity with a better display and fastre processor. The new model has a 10.1-inch 2560x1600 IPS display, Nvidia’s 1.9GHz Tegra 4 quad-core processor, 2GB of memory and 32GB of storage. Asus says it has redesigned the keyboard dock adding a multi-touch touchpad, USB 3.0 and an SD card reader. It will launch in the fall for around $400 on its own and $500 with the dockng keyboard.

The VivoPC didn’t get much attention but it looks compelling and has an interesting feature not found on most small form-factor PCs: the ability to easily swap out the hard drive (it can handle either 3.5- or 2.5-inch SATA 6Gbps drives) or upgrade the memory. It also The VivoPC looks like a small set-top box measuring only 56mm tall and has a brushed metallic finish so it will work in any room. Asus also announced a combo touchpad, mouse and remote designed to be used with VivoPC, and an 802.1ac wireless router for streaming high-quality video.

Finally Asus unveiled a new phablet, the Fonepad Note FHD 6, which has a 6-inch Full HD (1920x1080) Super IPS+ display, 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2560 dual-core (Clover Trail+) and a stylus. The Fonepad is 3G-only and is unlikely to make it to the U.S.

Eul said that Intel’s strategy is to develop “leadership products” (from entry-level to high-performance), provide complete platforms, and deliver the scale for mobile markets. “You all know that Intel can create markets,” he said. The foundation of all of this, he said, is Intel’s architecture and process technology.

After years of false starts this strategy seems to be paying off with a steady increase in the number of Intel-based tablets and smartphones in the market. And it is paying off with positive reviews. Eul said that the current Atom single- and dual-cores are very competitive with the best dual-core ARM solutions. (ARM disputed this at its own press conference earlier this week.)

Intel is now shipping Clover Trail+, a dual-core processor that delivers twice the performance (three times the graphics capabilities), lower power and longer battery life than the previous generation. Lenovo’s K900 smartphone was the first device to use Clover Trail+ (the 2.0GHz Atom Z2580). The first device in the market to use Clover Trail is the with 2.0GHz Atom Z2580. Asus CEO Jerry Shen came onstage to talk about two new products, the MemoPad FHD 10 tablet and Fonepad Note FHD 6 phablet, which both use the 1.6GHz dual-core Atom Z2560 processor. Eul mentioned several other products using Atom--several of which were announced this week--including the Acer Iconia W3, Asus Transformer Book Trio, Lenovo IdeaPad Mix 10, Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 and ZTE smartphones.

Intel announced its next architecture, Silvermont, on 22nm with Tri-Gate transistors, a few weeks ago. Silvermont will be used in variety of platforms including Bay Trail for tablets and Merrifield for smartphones. It will deliver three times more peak performance or five times less power. The first Bay Trail tablets running Windows 8.1 or Android will be available by the end of the year. Eul said these will have twice the performance of the current platform, better graphics and about 8 hours of battery life. Intel demonstrated the performance of a Bay Trail tablet on video transcoding (2.5 times faster than Clover Trail) and playing a “full PC game,” Runic Games’s Torchlight 2.

On smartphones, Merrifield will deliver 50 percent better performance, longer battery life and more advanced imaging features than Intel’s current platform, Eul said. The first Merrifield smartphones will ship next year—expect lots of announcements at Mobile World Congress in February.

What’s really holding back Intel on smartphone isn’t performance, or even power; it is the lack of a global 4G LTE baseband. Intel is currently shipping a 3G baseband, the XMM 6262 and will begin shipping an LTE multimode baseband, the XMM 7160, in “coming weeks.” Eul said the chip will be smaller and use less power than competing solutions. The XMM 7160 will be used not only in smartphones, but also in tablets, 2-in-1s and standard clamshell Ultrabooks. The Galaxy Tab 3 10.1-inch tablet will use the 1.60GHz Atom Z2560 (Clover Trail+) and either the XMM 6262 or XMM 7160. Eul demonstrated both a Bay Trail tablet and an Ultrabook running on Far EasTone’s 4G LTE test network. Intel is also working on a single-chip solutions with integrated 3G and 4G modems, but it won’t comment on the timing.

Intel has yet to land a global hero phone, but its mobile business is clearly headed in the right direction. Altogether Intel’s mobile group expects to ship more than 400 million chips to customers this year, Eul said. What’s interesting is that Intel can also leverage all this mobile technology to “reinvent” PCs as well. A thin and light convertible with a Bay Trail quad-core, integrated global 4G LTE and Windows 8.1 at prices starting around $400 should be pretty compelling.

AMD announced desktop versions of its latest Richland A-Series processors and gave the first public demonstration of its upcoming Kaveri processor at the Computex tradeshow today.

The company is currently shipping its third-generation APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) including Temash, Kabini and Richland. AMD said these APUs, which combine x86 CPUs with high-performance are key to AMD’s strategy.

“AMD invented the APU. The APU is really the future of computing,” said Dr. Lisa Su, Senior Vice President and General Manager, noting that more than 40 percent of the chip’s die area is devoted to graphics. “Our competitor is following and the truth is they will continue to follow.” Yesterday competitor Intel launched its fourth-generation Core processors, which feature improved graphics performance.

The next step, she said, is to expand AMD’s portfolio of IP and solutions to emerging product categories such as ultrathins and new client form factors; low-power, dense micro-servers; and embedded and semi-custom solutions such as the Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Xbox One.

The PC market is changing, and while traditional notebooks are still important, the growth is coming from “new converged form factors” bridging the gap between media tablets for consumption and traditional notebooks, which are more powerful. These new form factors--tablets, hybrids and small touch notebooks--is where AMD is focused. “This is where we see the growth over the next few years,” Su said. It also happens to be the same “2-in-1” segment that Intel is targeting with Haswell and Bay Trail.

Temash, which is focused on tablets and convertibles, includes quad-cores that uses less than 10 watts and dual-cores that uses less than 5 watts. The Acer Aspire V5 Series is the first to use Temash A4 and A6 APUs, but Su said other OEMs will launch systems in coming weeks. She also showed an MSI 11.6-inch Windows 8 tablet with Temash that is less than 10mm thick. Kabini, which AMD bills as the first quad-core x86 SoC for entry-level and mainstream systems, will be available in systems at prices below $500 and with as much as 10 hours of battery life, Su said.

At the top of AMD’s APU lineup, Richland is designed for high-performance graphics and compute, but can still deliver up to 10 hours of battery life, Su said. The desktop versions with Radeon HD 8000 graphics, which AMD launched today, are capable of 779 gigaflops of peak performance. They also use the same FM2 socket and motherboards as the current Trinity APUs, which makes upgrades easier. Su showed benchmark results for PCMark 8 and 3DMark Fire Strike that indicated Richland A10 desktop APUs are on par with Haswell Core i5 4670K and 4430 processors on productivity applications and faster on 3D graphics. We’ll obviously need to see independent tests of Richland desktop APUs to see how it really stacks up to Haswell (also these Core i5s use Intel’s HD 4600 graphics, not the faster Iris graphics in some Haswell processors).

AMD gave the first public demonstration of AMD's fourth-generation Kaveri APU, which will be the company’s first chip to support its heterogeneous, unified memory architecture. This feature is designed to make it easier for developers to create applications that can take advantage of both the CPU and GPU. AMD id not demonstrate any GPU compute applications, however, though they did show the APUs 3D graphics capabilities on Ninja Theory’s DMC: Devil May Cry. Su said that AMD has been sending sample Kaveri APUs to customers for the past few months and will begin shipping it towards the end of the year.

AMD said that gaming is a $100 billion a year business including $40 billion for PC gaming hardware and software, $40 billion for console gaming and another $20 billion for mobile gaming on tablets and smartphones. “So when we look at our strategy going forward, we say how can we get a piece of that market,” said Matt Skynner, Corporate Vice President and general manager of the graphics business. He talked about AMD’s gaming strategy on the client, in the cloud and with content developers.

Skynner said that games are developed for consoles and then ported to the PC. Since AMD chips are in the next-generation consoles, new games are likely to work best on AMD-based PCs, he argued, adding that the company already has the fastest desktop (Radeon HD 7990) and mobile (Radeon HD 8970M) GPUs. (Nvidia would, of course, disagree with this.) He showed the MSI GX70 desktop replacement with the Radeon 8970M, which he said lets you play demanding games at the highest quality settings, along with several smaller laptops with mid-range Radeon 8000 graphics including the Acer Aspire V5, Asus U38DT, and Lenovo Y Series.

Earlier this year AMD announced its Radeon Sky dual-GPU graphics cards with passive cooling for cloud gaming servers. AMD gave a demonstration of an HP Pavilion DM1 11.6-inch laptop with an A6 APU playing IO Interactive’s Hitman: Absolution using the Ubitus cloud gaming service based on Opteron servers with Radeon Sky 700 graphics cards.

Finally Skynner talked about AMD’s work with game developers to make content look better on AMD graphics and the Never Settle and Never Settle Reloaded game bundles. Jurjen Katsman, the CEO of Nixxes, talked about how AMD worked with his company on Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Hitman: Absolution and Tomb Raider. For example, Nixxes, Crystal Dynamics and AMD jointly developed the TressFX technology in Tomb Raider, which simulates the movement of Lara Croft’s individual strands of hair. Katsman announced that Nixxes will release a new AMD Gaming Evolved title, called Thief, in 2014. AMD wrapped up the press conference with an updated version of its well-known Ruby demo, using an actual game engine (CryTek’s CryEngine 3) and running on the Radeon HD 7990, which illustrated how far gaming hardware has come in the past decade.

In a series of events at Computex today, Intel officially unveiled its fourth-generation Core processors. The company said its latest chip is the foundation of a new breed of 2-in-1 devices up to “aspirational” premium Ultrabook convertibles. At the same time Intel said its upcoming Silvermont Atom processors--originally designed for smartphones and tablets--would be extended into entry-level notebooks, convertibles and all-in-one desktops starting as low as $400.

Intel Executive Vice President Tom Kilroy said in his opening keynote that the PC of the past is dying. “The 2-in-1 is the new norm,” he said. “It is a laptop when you need it. It is a tablet when you want it.” Intel said there are more than 50 different 2-in-1 designs in the works based on either the fourth-generation Core (Haswell) or Silvermont processors.

Kilroy described Haswell as the industry’s first PC System-on-Chip (SoC) and the company’s first designed from the start for Ultrabooks and 2-in-1s. It delivers the largest generational improvement in battery life in Intel’s history with 50 percent better battery life under active workloads and up to 13 days of standby time compared with four days with the current Ivy Bridge processors. The new graphics, branded Iris, deliver twice the performance of Ivy Bridge pushing it to the same level as discrete graphics, he said.

Like most mainstream chips, the Haswell mobile processors were originally designed with a 35-watt power rating, but Kilroy said the engineers “ripped up the roadmap” and cut the power down to as little as 6 watts on some versions (keep in mind though that Intel now uses a different method to measure power for these low-voltage parts). Kilroy showed some early 2-in-1 designs from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Panasonic and Toshiba and he held up an extremely thin, fanless slate to illustrate what was possible with a 6-watt Core processor. With these, Kilroy said, you’ll no longer need to choose between a PC (high performance, multi-tasking, productivity, PC applications) and a tablet (simple touch interface, light weight and thin design, long battery life, and apps ecosystem).

While this sounds compelling, don’t expect to see these sorts of Haswell 2-in-1s until sometime around September or October. That’s because the fourth-generation Core processors announced today are mostly quad-cores with higher power ratings designed for standard desktops and mainstream laptops. Today’s lineup includes:

• 3.50GHz Core i7-4770K: 4 cores/8 threads, 8MB cache, HD 4600 graphics, 84 watts
• 3.40 GHz Core i7-4770: 4 cores/8 threads, 8MB cache, HD 4600 graphics, 84 watts
• 3.10GHz Core i7-4770S: 4 cores/8 threads, 8MB cache, HD 4600 graphics, 65 watts
• 2.00 GHz Core i7-4765T: 4 cores/8 threads, 8MB cache, HD 4600, 35 watts
• 3.0GHz Core i5-4670R: 4 cores/4 threads, 4MB cache, Iris Pro 5200 graphics, 65 watts
• 2.70GHz Core i5-4570R: 4 cores/4 threads, 4MB cache, Iris Pro 5200 graphics, 65 watts
• 1.40GHz Core i5-4350U: 2 cores/4 threads, 3MB cache, HD 5000 graphics, 15 watts
• 1.30GHz Core i5-4250U: 2 cores/4 threads, 3MB cache, HD 5000 graphics, 15 watts
• 3.20GHz Core i3-3210: 2 cores/4 threads, 3MB cache, HD 2500 graphics, 55 watts
• 2.60GHz Core i3-3130M: 2 cores/4 threads, 3MB cache, HD 2500 graphics, 35 watts
• 1.90GHz Core i3-3227U: 2 cores/4 threads, 3MB cache, HD 2500 graphics, 17 watts
• 1.40GHz Core i3-3229Y: 2 cores/4 threads, 3MB cache, HD 2500 graphics, 13 watts

Kilroy said that Intel has “busted the x86 power myth” and is starting to gain traction in smartphones and especially in tablets. He said there are dozens of Intel-based tablets in the market now, and noted several new announcements at Computex including the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3, Acer Iconia W3 and Asus Fonepad Note. Silvermont will deliver either a 3x increase in performance or a 5x reduction in power. The Bay Trail-T platform will ship later this year with the first Android and Windows 8 tablets appearing in time of the holidays while the first Merrifield smartphones will arrive at Mobile World Congress in early 2014.

Intel demonstrated a Bay Trail-T tablet playing a PC game (Runic Games’ Torchlight II, a role-playing game) and playing a 4K video streaming over 4G LTE on a test network using the company’s own multimode LTE baseband. He later said that the XMM 7160 LTE baseband would be coming to market this year. Intel will also release Bay Trail-M and Bay Trail-D platforms to push down prices of laptops and all-in-one desktops, respectively.

In a separate event, Kirk Skaugen, a senior vice president and General Manager of the PC Client Group, gave more details on some of the 2-in-1 devices coming to market and described some of the user experiences they will enable. He said that there are “hundreds” of Haswell systems launching starting today with Ultrabooks coming in a few months and vPro Ultrabooks for business users arriving by the end of the year.

The number of 2-in-1 designs available will increase 10x by the holidays and the number of laptops with touchscreens has increased three times from Ivy Bridge to Haswell. “Touch is going to go broad on Haswell,” Skaugen said. “Almost every design in the notebook category is going to have the capability of touch.” Laptops with touchscreens are already available for as low as $529.

Intel showed several 2-in-1 models including an Acer convertible, Dell XPS 11 tablet and XPS 12 convertible, Lenovo’s next-generation Yoga, Panasonic Let’s Note hybrid, a Sony VAIO Duo and a Toshiba Portege convertible. HP is likely to ship the first fanless Haswell design later this year. Skaugen talked about how Haswell is Intel’s most scalable architecture ranging from these 6-watt fanless designs all the way to a single Core i7 chip with Iris Pro graphics capable of 1 teraflop. He showed an MSI Ultrabook capable of a teraflop (300 gigaflops from the CPU and 700 gigaflops from the graphics) in a thin and light package. In general the new Iris graphics deliver good enough performance to go after 80 percent of the discrete graphics market, Skaugen said, while using less board area and power.

Skaugen then shifted to what you can do with this hardware. Aside from touch, Intel demonstrated high-resolution displays like the qHD display (2560x1440) on Dell’s XPS 11, the use of an active stylus on the Sony VAIO Duo, a new secure payment technology using NFC, a 720p videoconferencing system for China’s Tencent, Intel’s WiDi wireless display technology, voice and face recognition and gesture control.

WiDi receivers are in 10 million TVs today and Intel announced a deal with Samsung to double that later this year. Intel is also hoping to double the number of laptops with WiDi from 40 million today. Intel very briefly demonstrated a facial recognition feature, the oddly-named Sensible Vision Facial Login Solution, which was surprisingly fast. It will be available on Asus and Sony laptops.

The Nuance Dragon Assist voice command and control software, which is currently in beta and available for Dell PCs, will also be available on Acer, Asus and Lenovo PCs—a total of 10 systems--and will be sold through Best Buy in time for Back to School. The software will be available in nine languages in 27 countries by the end of the year and Intel is requiring dual-array microphones on Haswell Ultrabooks to ensure it works well in noisy environments.

Last year at its annual developer forum Intel announced the Perceptual Computing SDK (Software Developer’s Kit) for gesture recognition, which included a Creative 3-D depth camera. The Creative Senz3D camera will be available in the third quarter along with a free Perceptual Pack for Portal 2 allowing users to control the popular game with gestures. Skaugen also announced a $100 million Experiences & Perceptual Computing Fund to jumpstart the development of gesture-controlled software. But the big surprise was that Intel has been quietly working on its own 3-D camera technology, which it plans to start integrating into even thin Ultrabooks. Dell and Lenovo have already committed to using it in some systems starting in in late 2014, he said. HP recently announced a deal with Leap Motion to integrate its competing motion controller into some systems.

Skaugen noted that there are more than 500 million PCs out there that are at least four years old. All of this work to reinvent the PC and establish a 2-in-1 category is designed to convince those uses that it’s time to upgrade.

Acer’s Computex press conference can be summed up in a single word: touch. Acer announced several new products including what it billed as the industry’s first 8-inch Windows 8 tablet, a 6-inch phablet and updates to its Aspire S3 and S7 laptops—all equipped with touchscreens. This comes on the heels of a recent event in New York where Acer announced several products with touchscreens including the unusual Aspire R7 15.6-inch convertible.

Acer CEO JT Wang said that Acer is squarely focused on developing the best tablets and touch-enabled laptops. “Users are becoming smarter and demand a significant improvement in the user experience,” he said. “If you don't do that, they won't buy.”

The biggest news was the Iconia W3 Windows 8 tablet. Both Intel and Microsoft have talk extensively about the need for smaller, lower-priced Windows devices to compete with Apple's iPad Mini and inexpensive Android tablets. The Iconia W3-810 has an 8.1-inch display (1280x800), Intel’s 1.8GHz Atom Z2760 dual-core processor (Clover Trail), 2GB of memory, and either 32- or 64GB of storage. It also has a microSD slot for expansion as well as micro- HDMI and USB. Perhaps to emphasize the difference between a full Windows 8 tablet and existing small tablets, the Iconia W3 also comes with Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013 pre-installed and has an optional full-size Bluetooth keyboard. It weighs 500 grams and is only 11.4mm thick, but Acer said it has up to 8 hours of battery life. The Iconia W3-810 will be available in the second quarter starting at $379.

Acer also announced an even smaller “phablet,” the Liquid S1, with a 5.7-inch display (1280x720), MediaTek MT6589 1.5GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of memory and 8GB of storage. The S1 is largely a “pure” Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) device, but Acer has added its own Float Use Interface, which it claims helps with multi-tasking, as well as Float camera, maps, calculator and notes apps (a digital stylus is optional). The Liquid S1 supports dual SIM cards and will be available in Asia and Europe starting in the third quarter, but it doesn’t support 4G LTE and won’t be available in the U.S.

The Acer Aspire S7 was one of the best Ivy Bridge Ultrabooks. The model I tested, the S7-391, has a 13.3-inch Full HD (1920x1080) touchscreen. The new model, the S7-392, adds an optional WQHD (2560x1440) touchscreen and Intel’s fourth-generation (Haswell) Core i5 and i7 processors, as well as up to 8GB of memory and either a 128- or 256GB SSD. The S7 retains the same basic design with Gorilla Glass 2 on the back of the display and an ultra-slim case (13mm) that weighs only 1.3 kilograms. Acer claims battery life with Haswell has increased 33 percent to as much as 7 hours. The S7-392 will be available in the third quarter (the 11-inch S7-191 has been discontinued).

The less-expensive Aspire S3 now has a similar design but it is thicker (18mm) and heavier (1.7 kilograms). The S3-392 can be configured with either a 720p or Full HS 13.3-inch display, fourth-generation Core i3, i5 or i7 processors, on-die or Nvidia discrete graphics, and either a hard drive or SSD. It will also begin shipping in the third quarter.

The hero phones get all the glory. But ARM, the company behind the chips that power the world’s smartphones, believes that the mid-range — smartphones that cost $250 to $350 before subsidies — is where the fastest growth will be in the next few years. On the eve of the Computex tradeshow in Taiwan today, ARM announced several new products, including the Cortex-A12 processor, designed for this mid-range market.

“Today I want to talk to you about how the mobile industry is going to change,” said Ian Drew, ARM’s chief marketing officer and head of business development. “I want to talk to you about how the mid-range is going to explode.” The industry will ship more than a billion smartphones this year, and he said ARM expects that by 2015, the mid-range will grow to 500 million units per year.

The A12 fits in between the Cortex-A15 for high-end smartphones and tablets and the Cortex-A7 for low-end mobile devices. It also gives ARM’s customers something to replace the Cortex-A9, which was once the engine behind high-end mobile devices but is starting to look old. ARM said the A12 will be 40% faster than the A9 at the clock frequency thanks to a new, 11-stage pipeline design and improvements in the memory system. Some chipmakers such as Samsung are using both the A15 and A7 in the so-called big.LITTLE arrangement, but ARM said the A12 will initially be used on its own in dual- or quad-core processors for smartphones that will start shipping toward the end of 2014.

In addition to the A12, ARM announced the Mali-T622 graphic processor, Mali-V500 video IP and processor optimization packs (PoPs) with physical IP that makes it easy for customers to rapidly design and manufacture chips using the current 28-nanometer process. This is the first time that ARM has announced at the same time a complete suite of processor cores and IP targeted to a particular market. Drew talked about the importance of delivering the whole system — performance, price, power, software and graphics — tuned to the right segment. He said this will enable high-end features such as video editing, speech and handwriting recognition, and facial recognition in mid-range smartphones.

On its own, the Mali-T622 is 50 percent more power-efficient than the Mali-T600, according to ARM, but it is also designed to share compute workloads with the CPU cores to save overall system power. ARM said the OpenGL ES 3.0 Mali-T622 is the world’s smallest GPU Compute solution with support for the Renderscript and OpenCL APIs and cache coherent memory. The Mali-V500 is a dedicated hardware video processor that scales from a single core for 1080p video encoding and playback at 60 frames per second to multiple cores for 4K video at up to 120 frames per second. It also extends ARM’s TrustZone security features to video processing to make it easier to securely deliver high-definition video content to mobile devices.

ARM announced Cortex-A12 CU and Mali-T622 optimization packs for TSMC’s 28HPM process and an A12 pack for GlobalFoundries 28nm-SLP process. In a separate press release, GlobalFoundries stated that a Cortex-A12 processor manufactured on its 28nm-SLP will deliver up to 70 percent better performance and up to 2x lower power than a current 40nm Cortex-A9 processor. ARM executives also hinted at “other variants of 28nm,” which most likely refers to FD-SOI, an alternative technology that STMicroelectronics and GlobalFoundries are developing.

Intel’s recent announcement of the Silvermont Atom microarchitecture clearly irked ARM, and in response to a question, company executives were prepared with slides designed to “set the record straight.” Noel Hurley, VP of ARM's Processor Division, showed a slide indicating that the Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7, manufactured on a 28nm process, were already outperforming Silvermont on Intel’s 22nm FinFET process, which won’t start appearing in tablets and smartphones until early 2014. He said 20nm and 14nm/16nm — the first node with 3D FinFET transistors — won’t be far behind and that ARM had a big edge with its hardware and software ecosystem. ARM said it has more than 50 customers designing chips using its technology and 60 percent of the top apps use ARM native code.

While Windows 8 has been available for several months now, Toshiba has just released its first business laptop using the new(ish) operating system in the form of the Portege Z10t, an Ultrabook that features a detachable display to provide tablet functionality.

The Z10t joins a bevy of Windows 8 convertible devices like the Dell XPS 12 and Lenovo Yoga 11S and ThinkPad Helix that hope to marry the productivity of a laptop with the media-consumption convenience of a tablet. It's built around a 11.6-inch 1080p IPS touchscreen display with Corning Concore Glass, and a digitizer pen for easier inputting comes standard. Its innards include an Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, 4GB of RAM, and either a 128GB or 256GB solid-state drive.

The screen attaches to a locking hinge that's combined with a LED-backlit, spill-resistant keyboard and touchpad for Windows 8's gestures support. The total package is a mere 0.49 inches thick and weighs just 1.91 pounds. Though it ships with Windows 8 Pro, Toshiba points out that it will also support Windows 7 in both its 32- and 64-bit varieties. Other business-friendly features are Active Management Technology (AMT) and Trusted Platform Module (TPM) support.

The impressive package doesn't come cheap, however. The starting configuration with 128GB SSD will run $1,499 when it becomes available soon. While the company's press release says the Protege Z10t should be ready to order on Toshiba's web site, it does not appear available yet. Will it be worth the wait at that price?

Last week AMD announced three new mobile platforms all of which include low-power processors. The Elite Mobility platform (Temash) includes both dual-core (A4-1200 and A4-1250) and quad-core (A6-1450) processors and is designed to compete with Intel’s Clover Trail in what AMD calls “performance tablets” running Windows 8. Although it carries the A-Series brand, Temash actually replaces older C- and E-Series processors, which didn’t get much traction in tablets but are used in some budget laptops. The new chips are also designed to compete against Celeron and Pentium processors in this segment. The strategy is to offer better performance than the current Atom Z2760, but longer battery life and lower prices than the Core i3.

The Mainstream platform (Kabini) is based on the same low-power core, known as Jaguar, but it is designed for low-end and mainstream laptops. It includes E-Series dual-cores, designed to compete with Celeron, and A-Series quad-cores that go head-to-head with Pentium and Core i3 systems. These have faster CPU and GPU cores than Temash at the expense of slightly higher power. The strategy is to push quad-core processors down into budget laptops. Earlier this week AMD announced a server version of Kabini, the Opteron X-Series (Kyoto), which will compete with Intel’s Atom and upcoming ARM-based processors for micro-servers.

Finally AMD expanded its Richland mainstream platform with seven new chips, including some low-voltage versions designed for thinner and lighter laptops. These are based on an enhanced version of the Piledriver core already used in AMD’s mainstream platform; the new architecture (Kaveri) has been pushed back to sometime next year. The first Richland APUs, which AMD announced back in March, were all rated at 35 watts. The latest ones include dual-core A4 and A6 processors at 17 watts, a quad-core A8 at 19 watts, and a quad-core A10 at 19 watts—in addition to three new 35-watt chips. These are designed to compete directly with Intel’s Core i3 and i5 processors in ultrathin and mainstream laptops.

Taken together, these appear to be a big step forward for AMD’s mobile portfolio and should close the gap a little with Intel. The problem is that Intel is about to announce its own product refresh.

First up is the fourth-generation Core (Haswell) processor, which Intel will announce at Computex in Taiwan next week. Low power and long battery life has been a big focus of this design from the beginning. Last week Intel said that Haswell will deliver up to 50 percent better battery life than the current Core processors along with a 20x improvement in standby time. Some versions of Haswell could have power ratings as low as 7 watts. The processor is also expected to deliver a big boost in graphics performance—it has even rolled out a new brand name, Intel Iris, for the graphics. Intel will give a presentation on the Iris Pro version (GT3e), with DRAM in the package, at a chip conference in Japan the week after Computex. The Core line is designed for everything from desktops to Ultrabooks, though Intel also seems to be emphasizing convertibles more (what they are now calling “2-in-1 computing”).

Later this year Intel will replace its Clover Trail platform with Bay Trail, which will include the first quad-core Atom designed for tablets running either Windows 8 or Android. Bay Trail is one of several processor families based on the Silvermont architecture, which Intel announced earlier this month. Intel has said Silvermont, which is manufactured on a more advanced 22nm process, will require up to five times less power than the 2.0GHz Atom Z2580. Tablets using the Bay Trail platform should be available in time for the holidays.

These new chips should make AMD and Intel much more competitive with chip designers that rely on the ARM architecture, such as Qualcomm. Thinner laptops with longer battery life, touchscreens and Windows 8.1 should breathe a little life into the PC market. But whether it will be enough to establish a real x86 tablet market remains to be seen.

Gaming peripherals maker Razer is continuing to expand its hardware footprint (which includes the Razer Edge Windows 8 tablet) with its new additions to the Razer Blade laptop family: a 14-inch version and the new 17-inch Blade Pro. 

At just 0.66 inches when closed, the 14-inch Blade notebook is being dubbed by Razer as the "world's thinnest gaming laptop." It also weighs just 4.1 pounds. Nonetheless, it will still feature the latest hardware from Intel and Nvidia, in the form of the forthcoming Haswell processors and the new GeForce GTX 765M graphics card. In addition, you get a 1,600x900 LED-backlight display, 8GB of RAM, a choice of SSD, and Killer Wireless-N Wi-Fi adapter. Razer also says it's using other "bespoke" components to keep the Blade's form factor extra-slim.

The company couldn't do quite the same with the new Blade Pro (pictured above), which features a massive 17-inch screen with full 1080p resolution. Still, it weighs in at 6.58 pounds and is 0.88 inches thick. While the specs are similar to the 14-inch Blade, the Pro takes advantage of the extra real estate to include a trackpad with built-in LCD display for working with Razer's Switchblade user interface.

Also notable is Razer's attempt to reach out to potential game builders with special pricing for the Blade Pro. Developers who have already launched games or ones who have at least $50,000 contributed to a Kickstarter-funded game project can score a Blade Pro for just $999.

For those who consume games instead of write them, you can get the Blade Pro for a starting price (with 128GB SSD) of $2,299, while the 14-inch Blade runs from $1,799 (with 128GB SSD) to $1,999 (256GB SSD) to $2,299.99 (512GB SSD). Pre-orders will start on June 3, though the company hasn't announced a firm shipping date.

Acer has bucked the trend with Chromebooks by using traditional hard drives with its C7 lineup instead of pricier, but more mobile-friendly, solid-state storage. Even when the company recently bumped up the notebook's specs, it merely added a bigger hard drive rather than switch to SSD.

Fast-forward a few months and now Acer has finally yielded to the siren's call of solid-state drives. The new C710-2833 is the first C7 Chromebook to include an SSD instead of a hard drive. The laptop still has fairly minimal specs, per the Chromebook philosophy of not needing a lot of power to run Google's Chrome OS. That means the C710-2833 comes with a modest Intel Celeron 847 processor running at 1.1GHz, 2GB of RAM, and an 11.6-inch LED-backlit display with 1,366x768 resolution.

As for that SSD, you get a mere 16GB of flash storage, though, again, Chrome does not emphasize local storage of files. However, it's a dramatic switch from Acer increasing the C7's hard drive size to 320GB last year. That model — the C710-2605 — also had double the RAM of the C710-2833, but also cost $299. Best Buy is now selling the new SSD version for just $199, though you can also get a model with a 320GB hard drive but 2GB of RAM for the same price.

Would you rather have a Chromebook with a larger hard drive or a smaller SSD for the same price? Let us know your thoughts in the Talkback section below.

While there have been lower-tier Android tablets available on the cheap for some time, Walmart's decision to promote Hisense's Sero 7 version for $99 starting this weekend marks an important next step in the tablet pricing wars.

You might see other 7-inch Android slates at drugstores and the like for similar prices or lower, but they aren't given the Walmart seal of approval through website banners like the one above from Walmart.com. The $99 Sero 7 isn't going to be confused with a high-end model, as it includes specs like a 1.6GHz dual-core processor from an unnamed manufacturer, standard 1,024x600 resolution, Android Jelly Bean 4.1, and a mere 4GB of storage (though it does include a microSD card slot for additional capacity). Then again, it is breaking the $100 price barrier.

If you are looking for a better-equipped model for less, the Sero 7 Pro still will only set you back $149, but you get a quad-core Tegra 3 chip, double the storage, the newer Android Jelly Bean 4.2, and a higher-res screen (1,280x800). That compares well with the Google Nexus 7 if you don't want 16GB of storage for $50 more.

Of course, there may be reluctance on the part of some buyers to purchase a tablet from a vendor like Hisense that's not well-known in the United States. Others may find the deal too good to pass up, however. Enough of such buyers may put more pressure on other Android tablet makers to drop their prices. Could $99 could be the next price point new budget tablets will be sold around?

Are you one of those who thinks the new Sero 7 tablets are a good deal? Are you planning to buy one? Let us know in the Talkback section below. 

[More: Walmart.com]

The launch of Windows 8 has led to the birth of a new computer category: the tabletop PC. Whether the idea of using what's essentially a 20-inch touchscreen tablet on a flat surface will be successful is still very much to be determined, but HP is joining Sony and Lenovo in the nascent market with the new Envy Rove 20.

The Envy Rove is notable compared to the Sony Tap 20 and Lenovo Horizon for its support of Intel's Haswell processors (which could be added to those other systems, but they currently use Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs). It provides a 1,600x900 IPS display for users to tap and swipe on, along with built-in Beats Audio technology to provide superior sound. It also includes a stand so it can function as a "normal" all-in-one PC, which might come in handy sometimes because the Rove 20 weighs roughly 12 pounds.

According to Engadget, the Rove 20 will include a 1TB hard drive and 8GB of solid-state storage when it ships in July. Unfortunately, HP hasn't yet provided an official price, though it's supposedly under $1,000.

If you don't need to schlep something like the Envy Rove 20 around the house, you might prefer one of the two new Pavilion TouchSmart all-in-ones HP has also announced. There's a choice of a 20-inch model or a 23-inch flavor, the latter of which sports full 1080p HD resolution. Both offer touchscreens, though they are arguably trickier to use than if they could lay flat like the Rove 20, and will come with your choice of AMD or Intel Haswell processor.

The Pavilion 23 TouchSmart will be available on June 5 starting at $749.99, whereas the Pavilion 20 TouchSmart will start being available from June 26, but cost only $619.99 for the base configuration.

The school year hasn't ended in many places yet, but computer manufacturers have already started prepping new systems for the next school year. For instance, HP has just previewed its back-to-school refresh of its laptop lineup, including new Envy and Pavilion notebooks.

Pricing for many of these new portables is pretty aggressive, with the new Pavilion 11 TouchSmart starting at just $399. That price includes an 11.6-inch touchscreen with 1,366x768 resolution and an AMD processor. The Pavilion 14 TouchSmart Sleekbook offers similar resolution on a 14-inch screen starting at $479.99. Both new Pavilions will be available on June 26.

HP has also updated its pricier Envy line, with the Envy TouchSmart 14 Ultrabook even getting an ultra-high-resolution display option. The 3,200x1,600 screen rivals those of the Google Chromebook Pixel and Apple's MacBook Retina display lineup, though we don't know pricing for that version yet. The base price is $699, though that only gets you a 1,366x768 14-inch display.

There's also the Envy TouchSmart 15, which isn't an Ultrabook but does boost the base resolution of the 15.6-inch display to full 1080p HD. Likewise for the Envy 17, which will also feature Intel's forthcoming Haswell processors and Nvidia discrete graphics. The Envy TouchSmart starts at $529, while the Envy 17 will be priced from $699; both will be available starting on June 5.

[Via HP, Engadget]