This week, the company that brought its near-ubiquitous Zip storage drives to PCs everywhere unveiled the second in what may be a string of consumer electronic devices that aren't PC-storage peripherals.
Sounds kind of PC-like, doesn't it?
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It's not all sweet-loving however -- PC Mag isn't too psyched on the Starbucks feature, which apparently can't be turned off, and says that the earbuds are absolutely awful (no real surprise there), though the complaints are minor compared with the praise lavished on the player.
At 9 inches wide and weighing in at just 2 pounds, Asustek's pint-size Eee PC doesn't look like a heavyweight contender.
We'd certainly hope so, considering it was the venerable US computing giant which first released the 700C back in 1992, and only gave up its claim to the name a mere two years ago with the completion of its PC division sale -- but don't worry Big Blue, even if the new guys forgot, we still sent you a card.
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Only 6131 users can opt for FOTA right now -- the remainder require a PC and cable -- but we're guessing we won't be hearing many complaints from Nseries owners now happily humming along on the latest cuts.
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What you're going to see -- if you haven't already -- is Xbox Live connecting up to the PC so your presence -- the ability to send messages and talk, you can even play some of the games that are cross-platform enabled -- that Live asset is going to make gaming on Windows a lot better.
While we told you earlier this week that the Ion 2-powered ASUS Eee PC 1201PN wouldn't be arriving until late May, a number of European sites have gotten early review samples of the 12-inch "netbook" -- if you choose to call it that -- and have discovered that it doesn't use NVIDIA's Optimus automatic graphics switching technology.
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So trying to be a nice guy, I sent him e-mail explaining what had happened, that I hadn't done anything to his PC, and noting that he should password-protect his copy of pcANYWHERE.
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That said, if we assume the as yet unknown price isn't stereotypically high -- and that audiophiles don't mind a big, potentially noisy desktop as a home theater PC -- the Hi-Fi Z77x could be a treat for those who want to wring every nuance out of music and movie soundtracks.
But phones aren't the only common non-PC device that faces a real security threat.
In stand-by mode modern PC's don't consume much power anyway.
"The Samsung Series 7 Slate PC was designed for on-the-go users who need a slim, lightweight computer but can't afford to sacrifice true PC functionality, " said Scott Ledterman, director of mobile PC marketing at Samsung Enterprise Business Division.
Last month police officers protested outside Mr Mitchell's constituency office wearing T-shirt with the words "PC Pleb and Proud" printed on them.
That's good news, seeing as the Pine Trail-based Eee PC 1005PE we just reviewed didn't offer much of a performance benefit over the older Diamondville chips and definitely couldn't bust through the first few seconds of a YouTube HD clip.
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The touch-enabled Eee PC model(s) could come in the form of a convertible tablet although Shen wouldn't specify -- he only promised more details in Q1, presumably at CES. Unsurprisingly, ASUS has no plans to put Vista onto Eee PCs at all.
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When you plug in the handset, the display turns into an all-in-one PC, with Ice Cream Sandwich as your desktop OS. Since the 1920 x 1200 screen isn't touch-enabled, you'll have to get used to interacting with Android using only a mouse and keyboard.
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There haven't been many choices in PC motherboards for audiophiles -- the 'real' kind that might see even a good dedicated sound card as slumming it.
While the update isn't available over-the-air, PC users may snag the latest OS with Sony's PC Companion, whereas Mac users can do the same with the Bridge application.
Based around Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system the TouchSmart PC doesn't dispense with a mouse and keyboard totally -- these are readily available when required -- but rather it takes the emphasis off them as tools of necessity for all tasks.
One of the biggest complaints about the Media Center PC is that you couldn't build your own, well- it looks like that might change soon according to Winnetmag.com.
Hard to imagine Xbox 360 doing for PC-free online movie downloads what all the other companies couldn't or haven't (we're looking at you TiVo, Netflix, iTV, etc.), but then again Microsoft did start up with that Xbox Live music video download thing last year.
Wall Street worries that HP and Compaq won't find enough cost cuts in their slow-growing PC businesses.
The main problem: By loading music from a user's PC to a phone, the handset doesn't create any revenue-generating opportunity for the carriers.
Researchers note that the only way to stay safe is to check those URLs and only visit sites that you trust (which isn't very reassuring) and "may or may not be exploitable" from Mac and PC versions of Safari -- the same vulnerability exists only they haven't written the proof-of-concept exploit to test it yet.
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But, if you don't, or can't, and have even a three-year-old PC, you may want to just stick with the Windows you've got.
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Let's be honest here: there hasn't been an overly compelling option in the all-in-one PC space in a really, really long time.
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Just being slightly better than the cable company's garbage won't cut it for much longer -- again, the Media Center PC kicks your ass right now, and the high-end customer on which you're currently relying is going to figure that out soon.
You could say that its operating system sets it apart, or its knack for streaming PC games, but that's not it -- it's that Shield won't be sold at a loss.
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Upcoming PC mech shooter Hawken is also promising Rift support, though it won't launch until mid-December.
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