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PC and Components: Features

Features

  • IT tuning Aussies into emotions

    Australians have never really been an emotional bunch. But if some of our researchers get their way, we might just be showing our feelings at work with a little help from some innovative IT.

  • The new 17-in. MacBook Pro wins over a skeptic

    There's something I have to say at the outset of this review: From the time Apple announced the first 17-in. PowerBook G4 models five years ago, I've always been a little prejudiced against them. I'd never have tried to talk someone out of buying one, but I always shared my opinion that a laptop with a 17-in. display barely qualifies as a laptop at all. It seemed to me that the 17-in. PowerBook and its successor, the Intel-based MacBook Pro, was simply too big, too bulky and too heavy -- though I confess I'd never carried one around.

  • Why we're hard-wired to ignore Moore's Law

    When Gordon Moore made his prediction in a 1965 issue of Electronic Magazine (download PDF) that the number of transistors on a chip would double every year (eventually updated by Moore to two years and then updated again by Intel to 18 months), it was just a "lucky guess" based on a few points of data, he recalled in an interview in 2006. But the idea, which has grown to encompass ever cheaper, ever smaller, ever more powerful components, has so captivated the IT industry that you can't attend a technology conference without seeing at least one PowerPoint presentation displaying the Moore's Law graph.

  • Report: OLPC may eventually switch from Linux to Windows XP

    One day after the resignation of the One Laptop Per Child's president was publicly revealed, the educational project's founder and chairman says the group's XO laptop may evolve to use only Windows XP as the operating system, with open-source educational apps such as its home-built Sugar running on top.

  • OLPC low-power laptop empowers and inspires

    When the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program was first announced in 2005, media attention centered on two aspects: the US$100 price tag and the humanitarian nature of the project. Three years later, the environmental genius of these award-winning laptops still not only burns bright but even inspires copycats. Vendors such as Asustek and Via are working to bring their own low-cost, low-power computing devices to emerging markets and education.

  • 11-step buyers' guide to designer PCs

    Computers come in many different guises; some barely resemble a PC at all. We've had it with plain-vanilla and boring black machines, and we've gone designer. Here's how to get a PC that looks good, both inside and out.

  • Why 'no Macs' is no longer a defensible IT strategy

    Once confined to marketing departments and media companies, the Mac is spilling over into a wider array of business environments, thanks to the confluence of a number of computing trends, not the least among them a rising tide of end-user affinity for the Apple experience.

  • Meet the laptop you'll use in 2015

    A lot has changed in the 20 years since the first laptop computers appeared, including gigahertz processors, colour screens, optical drives and wireless data.

  • HP's 2133 Mini-Note takes on the Eee PC

    Last year, Asustek's Eee PC became a surprise hit by providing far more power and usability than a smart phone for light-traveling road warriors with far less expense and bulk than a traditional laptop. HP's new 2133 Mini-Note PC goes even further, providing a bigger, brighter screen and a host of other advantages that could make the device a mainstream hit.

  • A new day for Macs in the enterprise?

    When Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the iPhone was ready for enterprise use, the announcement caused a stir that few of the world's iconic businessmen could match. It seemed that everyone from rank-and-file worker-bees to CEOs wanted to get their corporate applications served up on the hot new device. Why? This was Apple-a synonym for awe-inspiring design and coolness-the antithesis to stodgy old corporate technology that burns the eyes red and freezes computers blue.

  • Dell mobile workstation rewards the strong

    The world of laptops is riven by pulls in two opposite directions. At one pole is the group of users that greatly favors portability. They see in the Apple MacBook Air a thing of beauty, because it's so light and thin; the limitations of an 80GB hard drive, a single USB port, and unchangeable batteries do not disturb them. At the opposite pole are users who favor functionality and don't mind lugging additional weight if it gives them the equivalent of a true desktop environment. Users in the latter group will find much to like in the Dell Precision M6300, which bills itself as a workstation in the form factor of a laptop.

  • The low-cost laptop offer Microsoft can't refuse

    As the release of low-cost laptops based on Intel's upcoming Atom processor draws near, Microsoft is getting boxed into a corner. The software company plans to stop selling most Windows XP licenses after June 30, yet most of these low-cost laptops won't be powerful enough to run Vista when they arrive later this year.

  • Consumer tech making reseller life hard in SMB

    The increasing availability, and visibility, of consumer technology is catching the eye of many small businesses looking to cut corners on their IT budgets, but one reseller says it's making life difficult for the channel and an analyst warns SMBs are exposing themselves to substantial security risks.