There is no doubt that there is a volume-versus-value equation, with Android users purchasing lower-cost devices compared to Apple users, Gartner analyst Annette Zimmerman said.Windows is forecast to be in 360 million new devices, up from 328 million in 2013.Growth in the PC and laptop segment has been hit by the popularity of tablet computers, sales of which are forecast to increase by 47% this year to 263 million, according to Gartner.Users continue to move away from the traditional PC as it becomes more of a shared-content creation tool, while the greater flexibility of tablets, hybrids and lighter notebooks address users' increasingly different usage demands, Gartner research director Ranjit Atwal said.Sales of mobile phones are expected to continue to increase, but at a slower pace, with the focus moving away from top-end premium devices to mid-level products, he added.There are many reasons to fall for Sony¡¯s latest hybrid, the VAIO Duo 13. Whether it¡¯s the novel sliding design, which sees it flip from Ultrabook to tablet in a moment; the presence of Intel¡¯s power-efficient Haswell CPU technology; or the gleaming Full HD touchscreen, this 13.3in hybrid is hardly lacking in raw appeal.
The headline feature remains that nifty hinge, though. Just like its predecessor, the 11.6in VAIO Duo 11, the Duo 13 looks initially like a giant tablet, but gently lifting the rear of the display sees it spring upwards to reveal a keyboard and touchpad; two hooks on either side of the base grip the display¡¯s bottom edge to hold it in place.
Yet, despite its larger 13.3in touchscreen, the VAIO Duo 13 remains impressively slender. It¡¯s barely a centimetre wider and longer than the VAIO Duo 11, and only 1mm thicker. It isn¡¯t much heavier, either. The VAIO Duo 13 weighs a reasonable 1.31kg ¨C only 30g more than its 11.6in sibling.With the VAIO Duo 13, Sony is keen to prove it¡¯s learned from the mistakes it made with the VAIO Duo 11. Where the Duo 11¡¯s hinge popped up to reveal a messy bundle of cables and sliding mechanisms, the VAIO Duo 13 is altogether more neat and streamlined. Most of the ports have been moved, too, with a pair of USB 3 ports, HDMI, an SD card reader and a 3.5mm headset jack now sensibly positioned along the rear edge, and the SIM card slot for the integrated 4G modem neatly secreted under the display.
HP said on Friday it was aware of the watchdog's report. HP acknowledges the findings of the AQSIQ. We are working on a detailed action plan to ensure all points are addressed and will publicly outline this plan soon, it said, adding its customer care program would look into its customers' needs.The Chinese watchdog's report said that in its handling of the complaints, HP also ignored rules to protect customers with three guarantees of a refund, replacement or repair.Some 170 people have filed complaints over faulty HP laptops, with their lawyer saying the problems dated back as far as 2007. The group that filed the initial complaint wanted the Government to investigate and order HP to recall all faulty laptops in China, but the watchdog's report fell short of that.It's been nearly four years since Apple gave its 13-inch MacBook Pro a radical overhaul. And even though 2015 marked the debut of Apple¡¯s Force Touch trackpad, most people wouldn¡¯t have noticed the difference unless it was explicitly pointed out to them. For all the clever technology that went into creating Apple¡¯s new touchpad technology, it would appear that one click is much like any other.
This isn¡¯t strictly true, however. Beneath the touchpad¡¯s familiar layer of frosted glass, Apple has employed a bank of touch sensors, strain gauges and electromagnets, dubbed the Taptic Engine, which monitor every press of a finger, or thumb, and emulate the clicking sensation of traditional touchpads.
Press gently and the pad responds with the solid, familiar-feeling click you¡¯d expect, the touchpad moving just the tiniest bit under the weight of your finger (in fact, it moves laterally rather than downwards ¨C not that you¡¯d notice it).Apply a little more pressure, however, and although the pad doesn¡¯t physically move any further, the electromagnets provide the feel of a slightly weightier Force Click. It doesn¡¯t feel artificial in the slightest. Despite being nothing more than haptic trickery, it feels completely convincing ¨C just like a mechanical switch clacking into place.What¡¯s more, since the ¡®click¡¯ is generated via haptic feedback rather than physical movement, it¡¯s possible to adjust the click pressure required between light, medium and firm. I preferred the firm setting, which meant I never found myself activating it too easily, or by mistake.
It may not sound like hi-tech stuff, but it works well. Force-Clicking on a file brings up a preview in an instant, a trick that¡¯s incredibly handy when sifting through large audio, video or photo libraries. Force Click also works in Safari, where clicking a hyperlink brings up the linked web page in a preview window. Do the same with a word or selected text on a web page and a balloon notification pops up with relevant Dictionary, Thesaurus and Wikipedia entries.
Apple¡¯s marketing material offers the example of the touchpad vibrating while aligning annotations on a PDF, but I can imagine the same concept working just as well for aligning audio, video or layers in a Photoshop project. It¡¯s a subtle upgrade, but once third-party app developers take advantage of the potential of the Force Touch pad¡¯s features, I can see it coming into its own. Even taken as a plain old touchpad, it's just that much better than most of its rivals ¨C it's unlikely you'll ever find yourself reaching for a USB mouse. Apple 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display (2015): Performance and battery life
It¡¯s a similar story for the MacBook Pro¡¯s internal specifications; evolution rather than revolution is the order of the day. Intel¡¯s 14nm Broadwell processors have now taken centre-stage, and Apple supplied us with the entry-level ¡ê999 model, which comes equipped with a 2.7GHz Intel Core i5-5257U, 8GB of RAM and a 128GB PCI Express SSD.If that¡¯s not potent enough, it¡¯s possible to move up to a 2.9GHz Core i5 for ¡ê80, and a 3.1GHz Core i7 for ¡ê250, while upping the storage to 256GB adds a further ¡ê200 to the cost. If you want a fully stacked model with a Core i7, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, you¡¯ll need to find a spare ¡ê2,129.If you¡¯re expecting a significant performance bump over the Haswell generation then you¡¯ll be disappointed. There's no significant improvement in our benchmarks. In our standard benchmark suite, the 2015 model achieved an overall score of 0.75, a whisker behind the previous year¡¯s Core i5 model, which scored 0.76. Graphics performance was nigh-on identical, with an average frame rate of 34fps in our Crysis benchmark run at 1,600 x 900 and Medium detail settings, putting it on a level-pegging with the previous generation.
Even the entry-level model Apple sent for testing felt astonishingly nippy, something that you can put down to the PCI Express SSD. In the AS SSD benchmark, our review unit¡¯s 128GB drive soared past last year¡¯s model with sequential read and write speeds of 1,299MB/sec and 625MB/sec respectively. By comparison, last year¡¯s model achieved read and write speeds of 723MB/sec and 616MB/sec. In fact, the only disappointment is in the 4K file performance, where the Apple drive recorded read and write speeds of 21MB/sec and 27MB/sec, which is a fair way behind the best SSDs.Battery life is one area where the MacBook Pro of 2015 smashes past the Haswell generation. The more efficient CPU and Iris Graphics 6100 GPU made a huge difference in our light-use battery test, where the MacBook lasted for 16hrs 42mins ¨C more than five hours longer than the Haswell-equipped model. Admittedly, that¡¯s with the screen dimmed to 75cd/m2 and Wi-Fi turned off, but it bodes well for battery life in more strenuous conditions.Many of us are using PCs that are several years old ¨C and if the hardware is still doing its job, that¡¯s fine. However, the march of technology quickly leaves such systems behind. If you ever want to upgrade your ageing hardware, it can seem like your only option is to junk it and buy a whole new system.
It doesn¡¯t have to be this way. In this feature, we¡¯ll guide you through your options for revitalising your supposedly outdated hardware. Whether it¡¯s a comparatively recent Windows 7 system or a decade-old clunker, you might be surprised at how upgradeable it is.A PC purchased in 2010 isn¡¯t exactly old, but some of the core technologies will already have been superseded ¨C in particular, the CPU. If it¡¯s a laptop system, the processor probably won¡¯t be replaceable at all. A desktop system will likely use either an Intel Core 2 processor or a ¡°Westmere¡± Core i3 or Core i5 model. Both of these platforms were superseded in 2011 by the more powerful Sandy Bridge architecture, which introduced a new socket and chipset; unless you¡¯re willing to replace the entire motherboard (see Replacing the motherboard, below) there¡¯s very little scope for a significant upgrade. The situation is similar with AMD processors: after the Phenom II range, the chip-maker switched to new chip sockets, dubbed FM1 and AM3+, which won¡¯t be found on motherboards of this vintage.
However, there are other things you can do to give such a system a boost. In 2010, a low-cost PC may have come with 2GB of RAM. If that¡¯s the case with your system, it could be dragging down performance by requiring the OS to frequently use the hard disk as extra virtual memory, especially if you regularly switch back and forth between modern applications.The obvious solution is to add more RAM. Going up to 4GB should smooth out performance; if you want to go higher, check that you¡¯re running a 64-bit OS, since 32-bit systems can¡¯t address more than this.Adding memory is a great way to smooth out performance on older hardware
Also, check the technical documentation for your motherboard or laptop to determine the maximum supported amount of RAM. It¡¯s a good idea to check how many RAM sockets you have free, too ¨C do you need to replace existing DIMMs, or can you simply add to them? Lastly, remember that in 2010 both DDR2 and DDR3 were in use; you¡¯ll need to check which type of module to buy.
Another thing you can do if your system is constantly thrashing the hard disk is switch to a solid-state drive (SSD). This will make any PC noticeably snappier and smoother ¨C and a PC from 2010 will certainly support the SATA standard used by today¡¯s SSDs, so you don¡¯t need to worry about compatibility.There are two caveats, however. First, your system will probably have only a 300MB/sec SATA II connector, so there¡¯s no point paying extra for a 600MB/sec SATA III drive ¨C you won¡¯t see the full benefit of its maximum speed. Second, to benefit fully from an SSD, it should be your system drive. Ideally, that means carrying out a fresh installation of Windows and all your applications. If you use imaging software to copy Windows from a mechanical disk to an SSD, you should get Windows to re-rate the disk afterwards, so it knows to enable TRIM and treat it as an SSD. To do this, open a command prompt and type ¡°winsat disk¡±.Upgrading the RAM and moving from a conventional hard disk to an SSD should make your PC feel much faster, despite its older CPU. If gaming performance is a concern, you can also freely upgrade the graphics, at least on a desktop system: the PCI Express slots on a 2010 motherboard are fully compatible with today¡¯s most powerful graphics cards. These slots are also your gateway to conveniences such as USB 3 and Gigabit Ethernet, if your system doesn¡¯t already have it.
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