We’ve been discussing Android smartbooks for years on UMPCPortal. It started four years ago when we got the Compaq Airlife 100 and has been an interesting possibility ever-since. The latest Android book is from HP and offers a Full-HD 14-inch screen – something you’d consider as part of a fully productive laptop. This is the HP Slatebook 14, a product which leaked at HP.com this week and has subsequently been removed.

At first I didn’t understand how the service worked but after testing Flatster over the last week I’m enjoying it. I’m also convinced there’s something new and interesting going on here. Legal MP3 downloads with no DRM for very little money. My testing started after I won 50 MP3 songs on a beer-bottle-top competition. The Warsteiner / Flatster promotion allowed me to log into the service and choose 50 songs. I won another, and then another and I’ve got a 250 song allowance right now which really isn’t bad for […]

In our last review we looked at an 8-inch tablet running on the Atom Z3740 costing under $300. In this review we have the Dell Venue 11 Pro 10.8 inch tablet running the current high-end Z3770 CPU and costing $499. The powered keyboard is an additional accessory at $159. The two units are extremely well built but are they worth it? We take a look in our detailed Dell Venue 11 Pro  review.

For cheap, off-the-grid entertainment, OTA digital TV is the only way to get live information onto a tablet. I took a DVB-T receiver from Terratec, installed the driver and the TV software along with a codec pack on a Dell Venue 8 Pro and it’s working very well. According to tests, one charge should run for the full length of a footballl game, including extra time and penalties. It’s perfect for the up-coming World Cup! I’m using the DVB-T standard Terratec Cinergy DT USB XS which is a USB-connected receiver […]

With only 2/9 touch PCs updated here, 1 installing as I write, 1 downloading and 5 failures that need re-trying I suspect that there’s quite a bit of throttling and control going on by Microsoft today. I’m behind 1 IP address and after trying concurrent installs I’ve dropped back to a one-at-a-time method and it seems to be working now. I advise you do the same if you have multiple PCs The Dell Venue 11 Pro, Lenovo Miix 2 10 and Acer W510 have updated successfully and all three are […]

Miix 2 8 and Miix 2 10, Thinkpad 8 and Thinkpad 10. It makes sense, right? The Thinkpad 10 is due to launch next month if the news is correct. Expect something to challenge the HP Elitepad 1000 and Fujitsu Q584 and something that could have all the great qualities we’ve already seen on the Thinkpad 8 but with more processing power, more RAM, an optional keyboard and a lot of business options. Yes, pricing is going to be on the high side but if they can engineer something lighter […]

In our fifth 8-inch Windows Tablet review we’re taking a look at the Acer Iconia W4. Acer were the first to bring an 8-inch Windows 8 tablet to the market but the W3 really wasn’t at all an impressive device. The W4, however, looks a whole lot better and performs a whole lot better thanks to the upgrade from Clovertrail to Baytrail. We’ve also got 3G on board which makes it one of the first 8-inch Windows tablets to have the feature. Read-on for the full Acer Iconia W4-821P 3G […]

As YouTube and display ad revenues fall, the business plan for an independent content creator becomes more and more difficult. Over 8 years I’ve created content around mobile PCs and follow a start-up phase funded party by the German state, everything has been organically funded. The ad revenue problem is there because we’re not talking about a hobby business anymore and, as with everything, it reaches an equilibrium where business becomes just as hard as it should be. In the early years we could always relay on ‘break-out’ content to […]