Hp Beats Edition

The good: The HP Pavilion dm4-3090se Beats Edition is a sharp-looking black 14-inch laptop with a hybrid hard drive, a high-res matte display, a very cool red-backlit keyboard, and a subwoofer.

The bad: Starting at only $150 less than the all-metal HP Envy, the dm4 has a plastic body parts of which feel cheap in comparison. With thin, lightweight laptops popping up everywhere, it's a bit hefty, and the touch pad can be finicky.

The bottom line: The only real knock against this chic-looking 14-inch multimedia laptop is its plastic body; other than that, this is a great midrange laptop with a unique, eye-catching design.

 

Samsung smart tv

In many ways, Samsung’s Smart TV service is the one to beat. For starters, it’s got for us the best interface of any of the online platforms in the shape of the Smart Hub. This graphically intensive, icon-based interface is actually the TV’s default menu, and does a mostly excellent job of presenting you with lots of information without appearing over-cluttered. It also provides a universal search tool that lets you look for content everywhere, including on the Internet.

What’s particularly impressive about Samsung’s Smart Hub is that it works quickly and slickly, and gives more or less equal weight to both your ‘normal’ TV sources - like the tuner and AV inputs - and Samsung’s streamed content. This shows a good understanding of the balanced way most end users will likely treat content in the Smart TV era.

Samsung’s Smart Hub also makes it more likely that users will find and thus use more of the platform’s apps - a particularly important point for Samsung’s system given how many online services it supports. In fact, once you’ve added together its many video streaming services, music services and smaller, infotainment apps, it’s currently got the widest and most varied selection of content of any Smart TV platform.

There are some notable highlights among all this content too. LoveFilm, BBC iPlayer, Acetrax, Facebook, Twitter, Google Chat, an exclusive and surprisingly well-stocked 3D ‘channel’, Blinkbox, YouTube, The Cartoon Network, Daily Motion and Box Office 365 are just a few of the Samsung services we can imagine people using regularly.

Despite scoring a hit with both its presentation and some aspects of its content, though, Samsung’s Smart TV service certainly isn’t perfect. In particular we question the ‘quality control’ Samsung applies to its apps approval process. For while most of the video services are useful, many of the smaller apps range between pointless and ridiculous.

Of course, you don’t have to use these smaller apps if you don’t want to. But actually they tend to clutter up some corners of the interface, and generally dilute the sense of quality from the platform as a whole.
Another issue we have with Samsung Smart TV right now is that it doesn’t have as many free catchup services as we’d like.

 

Imac 2013 27-inch

Apple’s (AAPL) iMac has been the star of the all-in-one desktop category ever since it made its debut in 1998. Over the years, Apple has taken their usual strategy of refinement and churned out some of the  best desktops in the world — forgetting the iMac G4. The iMac itself hasn’t changed too much since Apple settled on a size and shape. First it was white glossy plastic, then alunimum. But for the last while, you’d hardly be able to tell the difference between a new iMac and one from 2007. This year, however, Apple brought to market a brand new iMac, one with 5 milimeter thin bezels, an amazing laminated display which finally reduces all of the glare and reflections of the screen, and advancements in hard drive storage with the Fusion drive. Even Apple’s packaging has got smaller, lighter, and better.
Speaking of lighter, the new iMac is considerably lighter than before, and yes it’s supposed to sit on your desk, but its lightness lends itself to more work environments and situations. After transferring my old data over a Thunderbolt connection, I soon realized something… not only was the new iMac quieter, but it is not noticeably hot. My previous iMac would get to the point of burning if you touched it towards the top where the fans are, and it looks like Apple’s been able to fix these two issues by corralling all of the components in the center of the back case.

Speaking of components, the new 2013 27-inch iMac features the latest third-generation Intel Core i7 processor, and the ability to expand the memory to 32GB of RAM, making this the fastest computer I have ever used. Combined with the Fusion drive — a solid state drive and a traditional hard drive — you have the speed of disk reading and writing with the computing power of some of the fastest processors with more memory than you can take advantage of in the most elegant and slim all-in-one packages. Apple’s display also gets a bump thanks to its optical lamination that reduces the air gap between the front glass surface and the screen itself, this brings the display right to the surface like your iPhone 5, while reducing glare by 75%. My iMac is no longer like a mirror in my sun-filled office.

In short, there’s not even a worthy alternative to Apple’s iMac if you’re looking for an all-in-one computer. The 21-inch model starts at just $1,299 and the 27-inch starts at $1,799.

Blackberry Playbook

With more price drops for the BlackBerry tablet, we've taken yet another look at the Playbook to see if it's finally worth the cash, in light of a 4G PlayBook coming later this year.
It's probably fair to say that the BlackBerry Playbook had something of a rocky start to life. Hailed by many as as the first worthy successor to the iPad when it was announced, it eventually arrived with a bit of a crash landing, pulling in average reviews and failing to really attract customers.
In no small part, the problem was that it didn't come across as the kind of complete package that the iPad 2 - released about the same time - did. Its lack of third-party apps was a shame, but the fact that it lacked its own email and calendar apps, relying on a BlackBerry phone to provide this functionality, really dragged it down.
Whether a 7-inch screen is big enough comes down partially to personal preference, but at 194 x 130 x 10mm, this is definitely a dinky device.
RIM has released PlayBook OS 2.0 to power the BlackBerry PlayBook, which is intended to fix a lot of the original problems.
Android apps now work on the BlackBerry tablet operating system, and can be downloaded through the App World store, where they appear just like any other app.
This could really help to flesh out the range of apps available for the BlackBerry PlayBook, although the whole Android catalogue isn't here yet.

There are additional built-in apps too, including the long-awaited email and calendar apps, which are coupled with some changes to how the Home screen works.

Blackberry Z10

One cannot overstate the importance of this phone. This, the BlackBerry Z10, is the device upon which the fate of BlackBerry (formerly Research in Motion) hangs. That's not to say that the company will disappear if the Z10 -- and the BlackBerry 10 OS that it contains -- is not a mass-market success. But if this phone does not do its job of extending the reach of the 'Berry OS beyond those die-hard loyalists who have clung on to their Bolds and Torches and Storms, it's safe to say that BlackBerry is in for some very hard times.
The company hasn't exactly bet the proverbial farm on this BB10 release, but with massive financial losses tempered only by job cuts, plus an absolutely tectonic shift among the executive leadership and corporate culture architected by CEO and President Thorsten Heins, the phrase "make or break" feels pretty apt. So, then, is this the phone that's good enough to woo buyers away from the Galaxy S III or the iPhone 5 or any of the other delicious devices on the other platforms? The short answer is that no, as of now it isn't quite -- but of course it's a lot more complicated than that. Join us as we explore.
As the PlayBook was an understated, professional-looking device, so too is the Z10 stylistically muted. Its dark, monochrome exterior is broken up only by a mirrored BlackBerry logo beneath the display, the chromed BlackBerry emblem on the back and a few matte-aluminum buttons around the rim. (Our review device, which included an AT&T SIM, is carrier branding-free, but we're told that will not be the case on retail phones shipping to the US.) These details fade into an overall appearance devoid of chromatic highlights. It's an appearance that from the front, it must be said, looks an awful lot like the iPhone 5.
That's not to say there was any creative inspiration going on here -- surely the Z10 was on the drawing board long before the iPhone 5 was revealed -- but the visual similarities can't be ignored. Still, where Apple's device presents an all-glass front, creating a clean, monolithic appearance, the front of the Z10 is broken up by horizontal bands that span the top and bottom.
These painted pieces extend across and meet the sides to form the rim of the chassis, components that give this phone a feeling of rigidity, much like the PlayBook before it. But, unlike that tablet, here the soft-touch exterior doesn't carry around the back of the device. The Z10 features a removable backplate, made of plastic and given a thick, rubberized, dimpled coating. It does make for a device that's easy to hold in one hand securely, with no worries about it slipping and falling, but it lacks the premium look and feel of the tapered carbon-fiber back on the 9900, and even the faux leather on the 9700. This is not a phone that says "prestige" in any way.
You might be inclined to think this is a much bigger device than the 9900, and indeed with a 4.2-inch, 1,280 x 768 display it's certainly far from petite. But, at 66mm (2.6 inches) wide, it's actually a fraction of a millimeter narrower than the most recent Bold. It's only slightly taller, too, at 130mm (5.13 inches) vs. 115mm (4.5 inches) but, thankfully, it's far thinner: 9.3mm (0.37 inch) vs. the 11mm (0.43 inch) of its QWERTY-bearing predecessor.
Inset above the pane of (non-Gorilla) glass is a wide, gunmetal speaker grille that covers the earpiece. Just below that, protected beneath the glass, are the front-facing, 2-megapixel camera and a notification LED. That sensor can record 720p video, but if you want full-quality 1080p stuff you'll need to rely on the 8-megapixel rear-facing unit, situated in the top-left corner of the back and paired with a small LED flash.
BlackBerry's BlackBerry Z10 is genuinely a pretty nice phone. Performance, helped by the lightweight QNX-based OS, is more than acceptable. The form factor offers you plenty of screen size in a device that may not feel luxurious, but does at least seem durable. And, bucking the trend, the battery is removable. Camera performance is adequate in most cases and overall there's really a lot to like.

Galaxy Ace

The Samsung Galaxy Ace is still being touted as a top smartphone years after its launch, so we've updated our review accordingly. Should you consider it at all despite it's super-budget price tag?
Once a bit player on the smartphone scene, famed more for questionable construction than standout handsets, Samsung has turned a corner in recent years, establishing itself as a genuine player on the pocket phone front and producing some of the most desirable handsets on the market.
Following on from the success of the high-end Samsung Galaxy S and Samsung Galaxy S2, the Korean tech behemoth expanded its range of intergalactic-named mobile phones, with the Samsung Galaxy Ace touching down last year as a mid-level handset.
Tasked with raising the expectations of what is possible from a wallet-friendly smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Ace, which also flies under the flag of the Samsung GT-S5830, has since spawned a sub-series of its own, with the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 also landing on the market.
Now cheaper than the likes of the 3.7-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display-packing, Windows Phone 7.5-powered Nokia Lumia 710, the Samsung Galaxy Ace remains in an area of the market flooded with competition such as the full QWERTY keyboard-touting BlackBerry Curve 9300 and the Android 2.3-powered, 8MP camera-hosting Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray.
Many of today's high-end smartphones are following in the footsteps of the iPhone by being made available in an eye-catching white hue a few months after the original standard black model lands.
Samsung, with the Galaxy Ace, has killed two birds with one proverbial stone by offering the device with a pair of interchangeable back panels that take us back to the days of the Nokia 3330.

While not quite matching the rest of the "onyx black" smartphone in terms of colour, aesthetics aside, the packaged black rear panel offers a more user-friendly feel in the hand than its smooth, glossed white counterpart, with the diamond-cut uneven surface offering a certain amount of grip.