<div>There once used to be a time when Microsoft would launch a new version of Windows and hordes would flock to buy the newest hardware sporting the latest from Redmond. Not the case this time around with Windows 8, though. With soft sales all around, PC makers have literally to think outside the box and wow customers into the purchase. Can the lineup of innovative Windows 8 form factors on offer today do the trick? Read on…<br /> <br /><strong>Sony VAIO Duo 11</strong>: Is this a laptop or a tablet? How you answer that question will probably affect what you think of the VAIO Duo 11 from Sony. At first glance, you see what looks like a slightly bulky 11.6-inch touchscreen tablet running Windows 8 at a glorious 1920 x 1080 full HD resolution. The touchscreen is extremely responsive, and the flat tablet-style use makes a lot more sense than pecking away at a traditional touchscreen laptop screen. The fat bezel around the screen does make you wonder if they could have jammed in a slightly bigger display had they just tried harder!<br /><br /> <br /><img width="600" vspace="7" hspace="7" height="300" align="middle" src="/image/image_gallery?uuid=405bfd63-842b-45c2-b38c-2b62a27d7b28&groupId=222852&t=1359136944939" alt="" /><br /><br />Once you slide the screen back and up, the keyboard and optical pointer reveal themselves. Now while it looks rather cool, the design is not without issues. For one, I’m not fan of the exposed hinges – they take up too much space, leaving you with a cramped keyboard experience, not to mention just one fixed viewing angle in propped up mode.<br /> <br />Under the hood, the Duo 11 packs a third gen Intel Core i5 processor, 4 GB of RAM and a speedy 128GB solid state drive, which boots quickly and chews through everyday tasks and heavier tasks like 1080p HD movies and picture editing with equal ease. A full complement of ports means this is a perfectly capable machine, if you can learn to love its one major quirk.<br /><strong>Verdict</strong>: Is the unique, eye catching form factor worth the price? Possibly not.<br /><strong> <br />Lenovo Yoga 13:</strong> Now this is a hinge done right! Take what looks to be an ordinary ultrabook, and keep tilting the 13-inch touchscreen back, past what one would assume would be its breaking point, until it folds all the way around. Fold it flat all the way around and the keyboard and mouse are automatically disabled just as the screen goes past the horizontal position. You can even open the Yoga partly on a table or on a bed, with its screen facing outward in a tent-like shape and watch your favorite movie or TV episode. The concept is so simple that you wonder why no one else though of a hinge implementation this useful.<br /> <br /><strong><img width="200" vspace="7" hspace="7" height="192" align="right" src="/image/image_gallery?uuid=fbd263f5-9cc3-443a-afd0-be27856c88cb&groupId=222852&t=1359137009642" alt="" /></strong>What’s useful about the Yoga’s design is that there’s little or no compromise as a notebook. You get a spacious keyboard and a wide touchpad, and while the display may not best the Duo 11’s full HD screen, it certainly isn’t a pushover with its 1600 x 900 pixel resolution. The third gen Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of memory and a 128GB SSD keep things feeling responsive at all times. My only issue with the Yoga 13 is with it claiming to don the tablet hat – it is far too heavy to be treated seriously as a tablet, and battery life is more laptop territory than tablet. Net net, it’s still more a touchscreen laptop than anything else, but one with seriously well-executed hybrid intentions.<br /><strong>Verdict:</strong> Worth the extra pennies? Most certainly.<br /> <br /><strong>Acer Aspire S7:</strong> Perhaps a Windows 8 ultrabook most worthy of the name, the Acer Aspire S7 checks off a number of boxes straight off the bat. Sporting an all-aluminum rear, the S7 offers a stunning looking piece of kit with a shockingly thin form factor at just a shade over 1 kilo. But this isn’t just a looker – the S7 packs in a full HD 11.6-inch touchscreen with a roomy keyboard and mouse, though I personally prefer keyboard keys to have much more travel that the S7’s did. The Windows 8 experience is great on the sharp touchscreen, though you should know that the moment you drop down to desktop mode, the high resolution makes the visual elements and text a tad too small to read easily. Specs are typical high-end ultrabook fare, including third generation Intel Core processors, 4GB of RAM, and a capacious yet zippy 256GB solid-state drive.<br /> <br /><img width="150" vspace="8" hspace="8" height="207" align="left" src="/image/image_gallery?uuid=4ccf75dd-eb92-499c-ab3d-db55e3d8fe90&groupId=222852&t=1359137065540" alt="" />If anything, it’s really the poor battery life and premium pricing that’ll be the undoing of the S7, but other manufacturers should sit up and take note of Acer’s most capable ultrabook offering yet.<br /><strong>Verdict</strong>: Tough pill to swallow at the price, but one of the best Windows 8 devices yet.<br /> <br /><strong>Samsung Series 5 Ultra Touch:</strong> The most traditional of designs in our lineup for today, the Series 5 Ultra Touch makes some rather safe and value oriented choices, both in terms of design and hardware. To begin with, it looks like a bunch of the other ultrabook. Then the choice of display – a touchscreen with a bare minimum 1366x768 pixels resolution. You get a third gen Core i5 processor, 8GB of DDR3-1600 RAM, and a 500GB 5400RPM hard drivecoupled with mated to a 24GB ExpressCache SSD. What ExpressCache allows is the ability to combine the speed of a solid-state drive with the capacity of a regular hard disk. The net result is improved overall system performance and fast boot times, application launches and data access. To be fair, these specs may not beat the fastest ultrabooks out there, but you’re also spending a third less than all the other devices on this page.<br /><strong>Verdict:</strong> At its price, the Samsung makes for a good ‘safe’ buy.<br /> <br /><strong>Sony Duo 11</strong><br /><strong>Rating:</strong> 7/10<br /><strong>Price:</strong> Rs. 89,990/-<br /><strong>URL:</strong> http://bit.ly/10cC6Er<br /> <br /><strong>Lenovo Yoga 13</strong><br /><strong>Rating:</strong> 8/10<br /><strong>Price:</strong> Rs. 84290/- onwards<br /><strong>URL: </strong>http://lnv.gy/UyQWgK<br /> <br /><strong>Acer S7</strong><br /><strong>Rating:</strong> 8/10<br /><strong>Price:</strong> Rs 88,499/-<br /><strong>URL:</strong> http://bit.ly/UUjLXz<br /> <br /><strong>Samsung Series 5 Ultra Touch<br />Rating:</strong> 8/10<br /><strong>Price</strong>: Rs. 64,990/-<br /><strong>URL:</strong> http://bit.ly/REp0e6<br /><br /><br /> </div><table width="600" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="1" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><strong>Complete Makeover</strong></td></tr><tr><td><img width="200" vspace="8" hspace="8" height="333" align="right" alt="" src="/image/image_gallery?uuid=b1b7ce59-ab77-4fc8-b339-c574a7499fbd&groupId=222852&t=1359137371393" />It’s been a tough couple of years for Research in Motion, but with the 30 January launch BlackBerry 10, the company may well turn a page. I’ve spent some time with the new OS, and here’s my pick of the top features I like.<br /> <br /><strong>Homescreen:</strong> You can get a lot done on a BB10 device simply by swiping from different edges of the screen, great for one-handed use by on-the-go types, no fumbling around for a home button to get things started. Yep, no home button! The main home screen contains “Active Frames”, which give you an overview of information from a particular app and launch the full app when tapped. Swiping right to left will take you to the app list.<br /> <br /><strong>BlackBerry Hub:</strong> Possibly one of the best implementations of a notification center on any platform yet, the new BlackBerry Hub is accessed by swiping an “L” shape, up and to the left. The new Hub can handle it all — multiple email accounts, text messages, BBM, calls, WhatsApp (among others) and all your social networks in one place. Not just that, if you’re in middle of composing an email and a new one comes in, you can swipe ever so slightly to “peek” at the new content before you continue with the email. No switching between windows, pressing buttons or saving to drafts! Or for that matter, when you’re in the Hub looking at your new notifications – you can drag down from the top of the screen, and the Hub will automatically show you the calendar events for the day in the top half of the screen, allowing you to quickly see how your day ahead looks like without launching the full calendar app. I can safely say this feature will make the sale for productivity-obsessed folks!<br /> <br /><strong>Touchscreen Keyboard:</strong> Yes, yes I know most ‘berry fanatics swear by the keyboard, but you have to use the BB10 keyboard to see how good it can get! Visually the keyboard looks similar to regular BB keyboard, down to the silver line between the rows of keys which looks like the metal strips between buttons on the Bold range. The BB10 keyboard app scans through your email/chat history to better predict the words you will type, and the keyboard embeds some very handy swipe gestures to type stuff in really quick. You get next-word suggestions overlaid over the keyboard, and if it's the word you want to use, you just need to swipe up over the word and it will be added to your sentence. In my limited time with the device, this is a serious time saver! Another interesting feature is that the keyboard can support up to three languages at any one time, so if you're writing in English it will offer up English words as suggestions, but if you choose to suddenly switch to typing out words in French, even if it is in the same message, the BB10 keyboard can detect the change in tongue and adjust its recommendations accordingly – very neat! Hinglish can’t come soon enough!<br /> <br /><strong>Personal and Work Modes: </strong>When you have two distinct personas – one for work and one for play – why should your phone be any different? BB10 lets you have two modes, with separate background images and a password that can stop petulant kids from sending from sending out a garbled text message or email to your boss. For example, in Personal mode, you can install any apps you want, send any email, save files etc without being locked down in any way. Work mode can be completely set up just the way the company wants, giving you as much/little freedom within this area as they deem fit. Plus, everything is encrypted and fully secured and just one remote wipe away in case your device is lost. Both modes coexist on the same device, but with zero interaction between the modes, you’ll never end up saving that company confidential file into your personal cloud storage account! It’s like having two smartphones in one, and with BYOD on the rise, this is a feature whose time has come.<br /> <br /><strong>Camera: </strong>While details about camera hardware are scant, there is an innovative camera feature I did like. It’s called ‘Time Shift’ and what it does is offer you a rewind mode to correct photos after the fact. It works by taking a series of photos at a time, and then locating the faces in the image. Once a face (or many) is located in the photo, you can tap it and literally rewind time to find the point at which the person had their eyes open and was flashing their best smile. If there are more people in the photo, you can individually adjust each person to the time when they were looking their best, and the app will seamless merge all these photos into one final photo!<br /> </td></tr></tbody></table><div><br />technocool at kanwar dot net<br />twitter@2shar</div>
