The report also stated that Laptop and PC users tend to spend $102 per purchase in 2011. In contrast, tablet owners spent $123 per purchase and smartphone owners tallied $80 per purchase. Tablet owners not only spend more money, they are also prone to make more purchases. On an average, a tablet owner makes three times as many purchases as a smartphone owner makes.

Adobe Digital Marketing Insights collected the data from about 150 US retailers in 2011. The report takes into account more than 16.2 billion transactions carried out last year.

Tablet Owners Spend More on Online Purchases than Smartphone Owners is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

Acer dropped a ‘one more thing moment’ at the end of their CES keynote and it came in the form of their Iconia Tab A700 their new flagship tablet, which has Ice Cream Sandwich and a whopping quad-core processor.

It hasn’t been officially unveiled, so details about its final specs remain scant, but it was on the show floor for consumers and journalists to have a quick play.

The first thing we noticed is the amazing new screen, it boasts an impressive resolution of 1925×1200, which is just a shade above 1080p. It’s bright and pin sharp, and surely means that plenty of other tablets will make the jump to retina-esque displays in 2012….ahem Apple.

Not only does this mean 1080p playback, it also gives things like text and magazines a little more zing, and makes them look more like printed paper than digital text.

The tablet isn’t going to win a beauty contests, it’s the typical glum Acer design. It’s 9.8mm and a lot lighter than many had expected considering its power capabilities. But, if it’s not inconceivable that it could get a facelift when it finally makes it to market.

The A700 comes with Ice Cream Sandwich, 1.3Ghz quad-core tegra processor, 9,800 mAh battery, 5 megapixel camera, micro USB and microHDMI – there’s no word on price, but we’d imagine it’s going to be towards the higher end of the market.

LG may have stole the show with their amazing OLED technology, but, Sony were on hand at CES to try and steal a bit of their thunder.

They announced a new prototype screen technology called Crystal LED, which they hope will prove to the new defacto screen technology. But can it really compete with OLED ?

Sony showed off a new 55-inch panel which is made up of millions of tiny LED’s that act as pixels and offers a Full HD self-emitting display.

The method they’re using ‘dramatically improved the light and efficiency’ and offers higher contrast ratios, wider colour gamut and incredibly hight refresh rates, when compared to LCD and Plasma’s

Intriguingly, Sony added this new technology was “parallel to its continued development and commercialization of OLED displays, and Sony will work conscientiously to bring the “Crystal LED Display” to market.”

We’ve yet to find out the juicy information such as when we’ll see the technology in use or whether it will cost the earth, but Sony better get a wriggle on before Samsung and LG’s OLED TVs start to gain traction in the market.

Not only did Sony show off the new Xperia S which his the Arc HD in all but name, but they also had another handset on show the Xperia Ion.

It’s the first phone to come out of the new Sony buyout and on paper this handset is an impressive beast. Specs-wise it’s a great phone: a dual-core 1.5Ghz processor, 16 BG of internal storage and a 12 megapixel rear camera.

There’s a front-facing camera on the front capable of recording in 720p. In other exciting news the new phone comes with a massive 4.6-inch screen with an impressive resolution of 1280×720, which Sony is calling HD Reality – the handset also comes with Music unlimited and Video unlimited too.

The main selling point for the Ion is that it’s Playstation certified, meaning gaming on the go will have never looked so good on a mobile. The specs bragging doesn’t stop there though, they’ve also managed to cram in Sony’s Exmor camera technology which mean it will be up and running in 1.5 seconds and can go from pic to pic in two seconds.

The only downside we can see with the phone it’s the decision to release it with Android Gingerbread, which is a little old-hat when Ice Cream should be the only OS on sale for all future Android phone – when will Blackberry learn.

Onlive has made quite a splash with its cloud gaming apps and service, but their not content with that, they want to do the same for the desktop apps.

Much to many people’s surprise they were on hand at CES to show of their latest service, Onlive Desktop, for iPad, which will put the power of your desktop in the cloud.

The service allows iPad users (for the time being) to use Microsoft Office suite on their tablets with full touch screen capabilities all through the cloud without having to worry about whether your iPad can handle it or is compatible.

The way it works is simple: harness the power of Onlive’s goliath server farm to do all the heavy lifting at their end whilst you get the benefits of the full version of office on a tablet.

It might seem like a strange thing for Onlive to be doing, but, in theory it’s likely to be a smoother experience for the end-user because you won’t be playing triple-A games and merely doing spreadsheet work or presentations, where a tiny bit of lag wouldn’t ruin the experience.

In fact: it’s the next logical step. The servers and technology are already there and the tasks it will have to perform will be more than manageable.

Better still they’re are planning a premium version, if you signup to the top package with 50GB of server space, you can also surf the web and use their amazing bandwidth speeds and, better still, it also allows for full flash support on an iPad. Amazing.

In Onlive’s short history they’ve never had any downtime, so it’s more than plausible that businesses could actually rely on the service.

The Onlive desktop app works by downloading the app, signing up and boom – you’re away.

When the service is released on iOS this week, Onlive Desktop will be free. With this you get 2GB of storage and access to Microsoft Office. If you aren’t an iPad user, then an Android version of the service is coming soon.

CES Round-up: The Best of The Rest is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

CES is in full swing and today we’ll give you some interesting details on origami laptops, tablets, 4K camcorders and even an Apple rumour.

Right, let’s get this Apple iPad rumour out of the way first. Now, everyone knows that Apple isn’t at CES (or are they?). Well, according to iLounge they’ve seen something interesting from Apple at CES.

The iPad 3. Now before you start the obligatory trolling, let’s just give them a chance. First of all there’s no picture. Ok….. But there’s the testimony of someone who has seen it and works for a reputable publication: iLounge.

Jeremy Horwitz, has been shown what he was a told is the new iPad. What does it looks like? Well, the iPad 2. According to Horwitz, if you had them side-by-side then you’d struggle to tell them apart. The only visual difference was that it’s a tiny bit thicker: 1mm. According the whistleblowers the design changes are more akin to the changes we saw in the iPhone 4 to 4S. Basically none.

The main talking point about the rumour is the screen. Although iLounge didn’t get to see it working (we know) the new iPad has indeed got a Retina display. According to Horwitz and his manufacturing sources they reckon the new tablet will be with us within 2 months under the name iPad 2S or iPad 2HD.

It’s not the first time new tech is shown off behind closed doors, remember the time Reuters saw the iPad 2 at The Daily Launch?

We’d say file this under: just maybe.

Now, for the tech announcements that actually did happen – remember the 4K screen’s that we’ve been talking about over the last week or so. Well, we made a caveat that we’d be interested to know what content they’d show off on these new TV’s as we weren’t aware of any film footage in this mind-bogglingly high resolution.

Well, that’s not true: JVC has announced a new camcorder, called GY-HMQ10, which offers recording at 3840×2160 at 24 or 50p. Even more exciting is the fairly reasonable £4340 price tag and the promised UK release of March. This is a professional offering and is sure to future proof yourself for an expected move to 4K content in the next 18-24 months.

For the technical of you, the new camera is powered by HVC’s Falconbrid large-scale integration (LSI) chip, which has a half-inch CMOS imager with an impressive 8.3 million active pixels.

Product manager, Gustav Emrich. “We’re witnessing the birth of what is destined to become a broad market for full 4K end-to-end production. The GY-HMQ10 is a breakthrough product that opens up 4K imaging to users who previously wouldn’t have considered it.”

JVC explains that the big problem with 4K for video is processing power, but that this is now shifting.

“There just hasn’t been the ability to capture, process, display and record full 4K images in real time until now,” adds JVC.

Lenovo has been incredibly busy at this year’s CES with plenty of smart TV’s and laptops, but, the device that caught our eye is their up-and-coming IdeaPad Yoga. Admittedly it’s not the greatest name, but, just look at it.

It’s a Windows 8 laptop than can also double up as a tablet in a similar vein as Asus’ Transformer, which saw impressive reviews and sales last year.

The current trend of latops sharing design cues from tablets is something we’ll see a lot of in 2012. So expect everything to get thinner and lighter. Essentially Yoga is an Ultrabook laptop that’s as gorgeous as a MacBook Air, but also doubles as a impressive tablet.

The hybrid laptop comes with a 13.3-inch screen and has 10-finger touch capabilities. Although, we fear that it might just be to heavy to use as an every-day tablet as it weighs twice as much as an iPad 2.

Lenovo expects the IdeaPad Yoga to ship when Windows 8 is available commercially, which should be in the third or fourth quarter of this year. The company expects the device to run for less than $1,200.

Razer’s newly announced prototype tablet is getting a lot of coverage and when you first set your eye’s on it you can see why.

Gaming on tablets can be cumbersome and fiddly. Anyone who has played GTA3 on iPad or Android will testify to this. At the moment Apple isn’t making any plans to make a games controller for their tablet, so it’s up to companies like Razer to show them where there are going wrong.

Hydra controllers connected up to a PC gaming tablet certainly appeals to us – especially with some impressive suggested specs. They’ve included an impressive workhorse in the form of a Intel Core i7 processor, and a 1280×800 display. Now you’d look quite the wholly if you popped this out on your daily commute to work. But gaming on tablets is big business, Angry Birds is proof of this, but so far we’re yet to see a hardcore game really find a home on tablets – could this be the answer?

There are also magnetometer and accelerometers thrown in to take advantage of its mobility.

“Adapted from a full featured PC gamepad, Project Fiona’s integrated dual controllers coupled with its advanced multi-touch screen are designed to make complex game navigation ergonomic and intuitive without compromising on the portability of the tablet,” states Razer.

“You’ll be able to carry out headshots and command troops in-game with ease. This first-of-its-kind PC gaming tablet with integrated dual controllers is definitely not for playing casual games about unhappy birds or zombie-killing flora.”

It’s only a prototype, but it’s good see companies trying to marry tablets and gaming in a perfect match for each other without have to dumb down today’s complex triple-A titles.

More CES news tomorrow.

CES 2012 Round-up: iPad 3, 4K JVC Camcorder, Razer Tablet & Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

We’re back with our second installment of our top tech predictions for CES 2012. In this part we will be looking at computing, tablets and mobiles. We’ll cover everything from what Microsoft has planned for Windows 8, Intel-powered Ultrabooks and everything you should expect when it comes to mobile phones and tablets.

Home Computing 

Xbox 720 aside Microsoft is expected to the have more details on its new Windows 8 operating system at CES. Steve Ballmer is expected to give an opening keynote speech where he is expected to show off the tablet-friendly OS.

So far the tech world has only seen a developer preview of the new OS, with a beta expected to the ready for February – so it’s expected that Ballmer & Co will take to the stage for the last time and announce the exact date of the beta. So keep your eye’s peeled.

Other computer related news expected from Microsoft is their decision to start supporting ARM processors with Windows 8. We’re not whether they will support both desktops and tablet architecture with Arm. But, it could be that we’ll see some Windows tablets in the future with ARM processors and more traditional desktops and laptops sticking to tried and tested Intel power plants.

Intel

Intel Chief Paul Otellini is set to deliver one of the keynotes at CES, and is expected to show off some new Ivy Bridge hardware, which should be in the form of Ultrabooks, although Ivy Bridge, the follow-up to Sandy bridge, isn’t expected until later 2012.

Graphics cards-wise AMD is likely to be on hand at CES to show off their new Southern Island, 28nm graphics card, which are expect to hit retail stores by Q1 2012. Nvidia is also expected to show off their 28nm cards too, but it’s not know whether the Kepler architecture cards will be shown on the show floor or behind closed doors.

One of the main draws for many at CES will be: Ultrabooks. This is because Intel is throwing a lot of money at the manufacturers to make a line of laptops that will reinvigorate the ailing laptop market. Over the last 3 years we’ve seen an explosion of Netbooks, then Tablets and Intel now hopes the consumers will jump on board their ultra-thin Intel-powered laptops. They are essentially MacBook Air’s, but, running Windows. From what we’ve seen of Ultrabook they do make Windows laptops cool, but with a hefty price tag and increased competition from tablets they might be too expensive for hard-up consumers to stomach.

Mobile Technology

The Mobile industry tends to make its announcements at the MWC in Barcelona, but with such a competitive marketplace many companies are likely to steal a march and get some of their announcements out before the rest of the competition. Tablets will also be big business at CES, with many manufacturers making the switch from dual-core Tegra chipsets to the new Tegra quad-core chipsets.

HTC

HTC has yet to give a UK release for their Jetstream tablet – so we’re not expecting that tablet but something entirely new – known as the HTC Quattro. It’s the usual 10-inch tablet that we’ve seen so many times over the last 12 months. For us, it’s not the hardware that is keeping Google from competing with Apple, but the fragmentation of the Android OS – especially the app marketplace – which is way off the quality and reliability of Apple’s own app store.

HTC will no doubt have several mobiles on the show floor at CES, but, they tend to make their products for different markets – so many of the new handset may well be US-only for the time being. But you should expect details on the HTC Edge, HTC Ville and possibly some quad-core phones too.

Acer

Acer is expected  to show off a new tablet, which will hopefully be a bit more exciting than the rather drab Iconica A500. This time around they’re hoping that the A700 might grab some positive headlines – especially as it’s thought to come with a 1080p resolution screen.

Samsung

Samsung is expected to show off the follow-up to the Galaxy S2, it’s been the at the centre of plenty rumour-mongering – so it’s highly likely that they could unveil it at CES and once again grab a decent head start over Apple and the iPhone. It’s expected to be dramatically different from the previous version as Samsung wants to move it away from the iPhone and avoid any further legal action.

LG 

LG is expected to show off a new Android 4.0 mobile called the Optimus U1, which could be worth keep an eye out for, especially if they managed to get it out to retailers with Ice Cream Sandwich in toe before the competition.

Sony Ericsson

Sony Ericsson might use CES to the finally officially unveil the Xperia Arc HD, which has been the subject of many leaks recently. It’s expected to come with a 4.3-inch LCD display, with an impressive 1280×720 resolution, a matte finish and for the first time the Arc will have the power to match its looks. The current Arc only has a single core, which by todays standards is like a pocket calculator.

Sony will want to make a splash at CES, they are in the process of buying the mobile company outright, so a good showing at the show would allay any fears from nervous shareholders and investors.

Nokia

Nokia is expected to unveil its next Windows Phone at a Window Phone-themed press conference, there’s no word on whether the reported Lumia 900 will make it to the UK, but the phone is expected to come with a 4.3-inch AMOLED screen, better battery life and their fantastic Carl Zeiss 8 megapixel camera.

We’ll be reporting all the latest news from CES – so stay tuned from the 9-13 of January.

CES 2012: Gaj-it’s Top Tech Predictions Part 2 is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

Digitimes has reported that Intel is collaborating with PC makers for spreading the use of Thunderbolt technology. It is likely that by April 2012, several top-notch PC makers would be releasing their products with Thunderbolt port.

If true, then this new practice would mark a major departure from current PC industry market practice, which uses USB standard. The PC industry is currently promoting USB 3.0 standard. But it looks like PC industry is now following Apple’s lead and instead of USB 3.0, it is opting for Thunderbolt for faster transfer of data.

There are a few roadblocks. The peripheral products used for Thunderbolt technology have higher costs and thus PC makers have so far avoided adopting the technology. Now, it is expected that prices for these peripherals will fall during next year, leading to widespread use of Thunderbolt.

The report also suggests that Asus and Sony are expected to be the first PC makers to incorporate the technology. Major companies like ASRock and Gigabyte are likely to produce Thunderbolt compliant motherboards by April, 2012, leading the path for Thunderbolt equipped PCs later in the same year.

PCs May Get Thunderbolt Treatment in 2012 is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

According to Barclays Capital, the industry is likely to see mild to no growth during the coming year. The firm had earlier predicted the segment to grow by 5.1 percent, but later heavily trimmed the forecast down to 0.8 percent. The biggest threat to PC market comes from smartphones and tablets. These gadgets are gaining acceptance in the mass market and are eating away PC’s market share.

The PC industry is also grappling with parts shortage problem. Currently, it is facing shortage of hard drives and the problem is likely to continue through the first half of next year. The problem has been exacerbated by recent flooding in Thailand, which has disrupted various manufacturing operations. Barclays Capital has also blamed sluggish economic scenario for lax demand. As global economy is not showing any signs of picking up any time soon, the PC demand is also likely to remain damp in the new year.

Barclays is not the only firm to revise its PC shipment estimates downward. Earlier, IDC had revised its forecast from 5.1 percent to the range of 2.2 percent and 3.4 percent.

Outlook Cloudy for PC Shipments in 2012 is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

The study also concluded that PCs are maintaining their downward slide. In the third quarter of the year, PC shipments grew by 3.2 percent to reach 91.8 million units figure. The growth rate is well below the projected rate of 5.1 percent growth rate. The decline clearly shows that the people are moving away from PC set up and are more inclined to use their mobile devices for computing purpose. However, if we look at the dismal sales performance shown by the tablets, barring iPad, then it looks like that the major companies are failing in an epic way.

While one giant from Asia is rising, the other one seems to be going in the opposite direction. Acer reported decline in its market share and revenue. Acer had built its position on low-end notebooks, which are losing market in favor of tablets. Dell, on the other hand, is consoling itself by claiming that its profitability and revenue has increased as it is focusing on high-end computing solutions. Since, PC segment is losing its steam, Dell would do itself a favor if it stops patting itself on its back and start concentrating on tablet segment, where it has failed spectacularly.

HP is the Biggest PC Company: Lenovo Bags Second Spot is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

While laptop sales numbers are not exactly soaring, but at least their downward trajectory is getting a little less steep. During the first half of 2011, laptops saw 12 percent decline in their sales on year over year basis, however, in July and August of this year, the slide rate has fallen down to 4 percent.

However, the pause in slide is mainly due to the back to school rush. However NPD provided an alternative explanation as well when its vice president of industry analysis Stephen Baker said, “The sequential results from NPD’s back-to-school point-of-sale (POS) data indicates that after a shortfall early in the year that was mostly related to the difficult comparisons to the binge of buying after the release of Windows 7, the Windows notebook market remains solid.”

Another reason for the spike in sales is a drop in the prices of laptops. During July and August, the average sales price for the laptop fell 7 percent, down to $477. The survey also showed that the consumers are interested in getting more bang for their bucks, as 65 percent of the buyers picked the machines in sub-$500 category. The report provides a gleam of hope for laptops and shows that tablets are not yet quite ready to annihilate laptops.

Notebook Computers See Revival in Demand is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

We’ll be bringing you all the major announcements, and they’re will be plently, but before the press conferences and show actually starts we thought give you our of our predictions.

There are expected to be some big announcements from Microsoft, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, HTC and many more. Here’s what you should be looking out for over the next week.

HTC Puccini

HTC Puccini has been rumoured several times over the summer and is the second HTC Android tablet, and should be unveiled for the first time at this week’s IFA.

It will be the first 10-inch Android Honeycomb tablet from HTC and is expected to continue the trend of 1280×800 touchscreen tablets that have been released over the last few months from loads of different manufacturers.

Unlike the Flyer, the firm’s upcoming tablet is much bigger and will be clocking it at 10.1-inches, and will come with 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal SSD storage and an 8MP camera with dual flash. The Puccini supports LTE 4G connectivity too.

Toshiba Excite

Toshiba’s new Excite tablet should be on show at this year’s show and is one to be excited about.

The super-sleek design is expected to replace the Thrive, which never made it to UK shores and was only on sale in the US only.

According to Notebook Italia, Toshiba is set to announce a new Honeycomb tablet sometime during IFA 2011 in Berlin. According to Notebook Italia, the new Toshiba tablet is supposed to be an ultrathin tablet and it’s going to be nice competitor to Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Sony S1 and S2

Continuing the tablet theme Sony are finally making their entrance into the tablet market with the S1 and S2.

They’ve been teased for months now and have garnered quite a bit of attention, especially with the clam-shaped S2.

The S1 tablet will be bringing Honeycomb (Android 3.2), 9.4-inch touchscreen with 1280×800 resolution, Tegra 2 dual-core processor, 1GB RAM, PlayStation Suite, WiFi, DLNA, Qriocity media support, Adobe Flash support and the usual cameras, Bluetooth, media players, etc.

Some more of the S2 specs have also been leaked too – the leak is pegging the S2 as a dual 5.5-inch screened slate weighing in at 370g, with 512Mb of RAM, 4GB of storage, 2GB SD card and 4G connectivity.

Samsung Galaxy Q

Samsung are planning yet another tablet. But this one is a little different. It’s only 5-inches. The follow-up to last year’s 7-inch Galaxy Tab and is expected to come with a Super AMOLED screen, dual-core processor and will be running Android.

We don’t really think Sammy needs another tablet to be honest as the similarly sized Dell streak was quickly discontinued after its release – so were not sure about a 5.5-inch version of Samsung’s Galaxy tablet range.

Ultrabooks

Intel splashed the cash and spent $300 million on developing Ultrabooks this month – they’re essentially waver-thin laptops akin to the MacBook Air.

IFA is expected to be jam-packed with them so expect Ultrabooks from Lenovo, Asus, Acer in their 2011/2012 ranges.

Asus’ chairman has already spoken about his companies new Ultrabooks, Jonney Shih said that depending on the screen size and features, price will start from £552 and go as high as £1228 – depending on specs and features.

Windows Phone Mango handsets

HTC will be one of the first companies to take to the stage at IFA and it’s also the day when Windows Phone 7 Mango will be unveiled – so you expect major announcements on new Mango phones throughout today.  Expect to see handsets from LG and Samsung too.

Microsoft is hoping that the release of the Mango update later this year will boost its sales numbers. Especially as they announced that they have now reached 30,000 apps on their App store.

Mango adds more than 500 new features such as multitasking and hardware assisted Web browsing through Internet Explorer 9, will yield noticeable improvements.

IFA 2011: Our Predictions For Europe’s Largest Electronics Show In Berlin is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

Reportedly, HP is working on two Ultrabooks and has collaborated with Foxconn for the manufacturing of the hybrid machines. The notebooks will run on Intel Core i7 chips and are likely to use Windows 7 platform. It is also rumored that Foxconn has already started shipping out the tablets. Though, the company has not released any statement regarding the launch of the Ultrabooks, but it is widely believed that we may get to see them in summer season.

Ultrabooks are expected to tow the footsteps of MacBook Air and such other compact notebooks. However, their USP would be their lower price. Essentially, Ultrabooks would be MBA for the mass market. Asus is working with Pegatron for its Ultrabooks but now is in the danger of being beaten by HP. HP, on the other hand, needs to ensure that its Ultrabook endeavor does not meet the fate of its TouchPad project.

HP to Go Ahead with ‘Ultrabook’ Laptops, Beating Asus is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com