dual core

Aiming to Power Ever More Complex Graphics, Nvidia Plans Quad-Core Mobile Chip This Year

Ina Fried in Mobile on February 15, 2011 at 4:00 pm PT

Not content to rest on its dual-core laurels, Nvidia said it will have a chip out later this year that combines four processing cores and 12-graphics chip cores to power, among other things, video with far better than HD resolution.

Qualcomm Aims to Heat Up Phone Chip Race with Dual-Core, Quad-Core Chips

Ina Fried in Mobile on February 13, 2011 at 11:00 pm PT

Qualcomm is announcing a new series of chips including dual-core processors this year, with plans for a quad-core chip that will begin sampling next year. Although the company was a little late with dual-core chips, it sees an opening with the new processors, as well as by recent moves by Nokia and Microsoft.

Tablets Flying Fast and Furious at CES

Ina Fried in Mobile on January 5, 2011 at 5:00 pm PT

This year’s Consumer Electronics Show figured to be the year of the tablet, and so far it hasn’t disappointed. Motorola, Samsung and LG all announced new slates on Thursday, adding to a growing list of aspiring iPad rivals.

AT&T and Friends Talk Up 4G Network, New Devices

Ina Fried in Mobile on January 5, 2011 at 9:35 am PT

AT&T showed off a bunch of new devices on Wednesday, including a Motorola smartphone that can plug into a screen and keyboard and transform into a thin and light laptop-like device. AT&T also plans to accelerate development of a next-generation network.

Analyst: Flash Could Be Hogging PlayBook Battery Life

John Paczkowski in News on January 4, 2011 at 4:02 am PT

Despite Research in Motion’s best efforts to silence them, questions about the battery life of its forthcoming PlayBook tablet have followed the company into the new year. In a sequel to his original research note suggesting the PlayBook’s battery life is “relatively poor” compared to rivals’, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu reiterates that claim, saying he would be “very surprised if PlayBook matches anywhere near the battery life of the iPad.”

RIM: PlayBook Battery Life Will Be “Comparable,” Not Crappy

John Paczkowski in News on December 30, 2010 at 7:55 am PT

Research in Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook does not suffer from poor battery life. Or, rather, if it does now it won’t when it finally ships.

BlackBerry PlayBook: Car Battery Not Included [UPDATED]

John Paczkowski in News on December 28, 2010 at 10:38 am PT

If Research in Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook is to succeed at market the way the company hopes, there are a few engineering hurdles to overcome. The most significant, according to Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu, is the pre-release device’s relatively poor battery life. Sources tell him the tablet currently lasts just a few hours per charge.

Qualcomm CEO Explains What Happened to Smartbooks

Ina Fried in Mobile on December 2, 2010 at 6:30 am PT

A year ago, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs was talking a lot about smartbooks. Today, well, not so much. For those who have already forgotten what the smartbook even was, the idea was to have a low-cost device that looked a lot like a netbook but offered far better battery life and instant-on capabilities. Once Apple released the iPad, though, everyone started focusing on tablet devices rather than on little notebooks. “Obviously, tablets are the flavor of the day,” Jacobs said in an interview on Tuesday.

Operating Systems Offer New Choices in PC Shopping

Walt Mossberg in Personal Technology on October 28, 2009 at 6:02 pm PT

Walt Mossberg gives tips on purchasing laptops with the latest pre-installed operating systems in his annual fall computer-buying guide.

New iMacs May Include "Bag of Hurt" Option

John Paczkowski in News on September 25, 2009 at 10:19 am PT

Asked in October 2008 why Apple wasn’t yet offering Blu-ray DVD drives as an option on machines, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the licensing issues were too complex to make doing so worthwhile. “Blu-ray is a bag of hurt,” he quipped. Well, no longer. Because Apple is planning to refresh its iMac desktop computer in the next few weeks, and when it does, it may well offer a Blue-ray drive option.