Sometimes I wish I could be a fly on the wall to listen in when Microsoft’s mobile folks make their decisions. I mean, a few years ago they found themselves in a position where, against all odds, their erstwhile omnipotent foe Palm collapsed and left Windows Mobile as the heir apparent. So did Microsoft take advantage of that? Nope. […] →Read more
Just when Windows 8 is looming ever larger as perhaps a credible competitor to iOS and the iPad, we’re finally starting to see some Android action in vertical market tablets and handhelds. It’s timid, exploratory action still, but nonetheless a sign that the industry may finally break out of the stunned disbelief as Apple was first selling millions and […] →Read more
Almost everyone has a smartphone these days. Smartphones are selling by the tens of millions every quarter. In Q1 of 2012, Apple and Samsung sold over 30 million smartphones each. Smartphones have become part of modern life. Everyone is tapping, pinching and zooming. Everyone except those who need a rugged smartphone. Because there isn’t one. Now to be fair, […] →Read more
A little while ago I had an email conversation with the folks at e-con Systems. They are an embedded product development partner with significant expertise in camera solutions in the Windows CE and Windows Embedded space. The company offers a variety of lens and camera modules that can be interfaced with most of the common handheld processors from TI, […] →Read more
Well, Microsoft announced in its Windows Blog (see here) that there will be three versions of the upcoming Windows 8. For PCs and tablets based on x86 processors, there will be plain Windows 8 and and the more business-oriented Windows 8 Pro that adds features for encryption, virtualization, PC management and domain connectivity. Windows Media Center will be available […] →Read more
There are few technologies that have changed our lives and work as fundamentally as GPS. Not so very long ago, if you needed to know where to go, you used a paper map. Today we simply punch in where we want to go, then listen to directions and monitor our position on the GPS display. And industry, of course, […] →Read more
If you want to sell tablets it’s tough not to be Apple. And on March 7, 2012, it got that much tougher. For that’s when Apple introduced the next version of the iPad, setting the bar even higher for anyone else. Why do I even mention that here at RuggedPCReview.com where we concentrate on computing equipment that’s tough and […] →Read more
Recently I received an email from someone in the industry that concluded with the question: “Wouldn’t a conversation on imaging in rugged handhelds be interesting to your readers?” The answer, of course, is “definitely,” and so I responded as follows: “I recently wrote two articles on the general state of imaging in handheld/mobile systems, so you basically know where […] →Read more
As far as operating system platforms go, the rugged mobile computing industry is in a bit of a holding pattern these days. Thanks to the massive success of the iPhone and iPad there is a big opportunity for more durable handhelds and tablets that can handle a drop and a bit of rain, yet are as handy and easy […] →Read more
In mid-September 2011, Microsoft showcased a preview of the next release of Windows at the BUILD developer conference. After reading up on it, I wrote the below in the days following the preview, but held off putting it in the RuggedPCReview blog until I had a bit more time to let it sink in and contemplate the likely impact […] →Read more
Unlike Gary Trudeau whose “Doonesbury” strips can be personal and mean-spirited (remember his relentless unfair mocking of the Apple Newton?), Scott Adams’ “Dilbert” presents a lighthearted, humorous, yet keenly insightful commentary on the corporate and technical issues of the day. In a recent strip (August 3, 2011), Dilbert’s working on his computer when a young colleague approaches and asks, […] →Read more
It’s fashionable these days to say that something’s “in the cloud.” The cloud is in. Everyone’s moving stuff to the cloud. Which is really annoying. “The Cloud,” of course, isn’t a cloud at all. In fact, it couldn’t be farther from a cloud. It’s the same old server farms somewhere in a warehouse. That’s all. So why the sudden […] →Read more
I don’t often do phone interviews with product managers or PR people when a new product is announced. That’s because, for the most part, whatever they can tell me I already know from the press materials. And what I really want to know they usually can’t tell me because PR folks, by and large, need to stick to a […] →Read more
When we recently used our standard benchmark suite to test the performance of a new rugged computer, we thought it’d be just another entry into the RuggedPCReview.com benchmark performance database that we’ve been compiling over the past several years. We always run benchmarks on all Windows-based machines that come to our lab, and here’s why: 1. Benchmarks are a […] →Read more
In a recent blog entry I wrote about the generally low quality of cameras built into rugged mobile computers compared to the very rapidly advancing state-of-the-art in miniaturized imaging technology. It doesn’t seem to make sense that high quality, costly tools for important jobs should be saddled with imaging hardware that ranges from only marginally acceptable to quite useless. […] →Read more
In a recent blog entry I wrote about the generally low quality of cameras built into rugged mobile computers compared to the very rapidly advancing state-of-the-art in miniaturized imaging technology. It doesn’t seem to make sense that high quality, costly tools for important jobs should be saddled with imaging hardware that ranges from only marginally acceptable to quite useless. […] →Read more
Who could forget Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stomping around the stage and yelling “developers, developers, developers!” at conferences in the mid-2000s (see Balmer’s developers on YouTube)? Well, according to the Appcelerator/IDC Mobile Developer Report, April 2011, the developers have spoken and the news isn’t at all good for Microsoft, and not even that good for Android. What Appcelerator and […] →Read more
Who could forget Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stomping around the stage and yelling “developers, developers, developers!” at conferences in the mid-2000s (see Balmer’s developers on YouTube)? Well, according to the Appcelerator/IDC Mobile Developer Report, April 2011, the developers have spoken and the news isn’t at all good for Microsoft, and not even that good for Android. What Appcelerator and […] →Read more
So I’m getting to the next machine in the review queue, charge it, then start it up, just to get nagged by Windows to activate the OS. Would I like to do that online, right now? Huh? Huh? I didn’t think that was going to be possible since the machine didn’t know the password to my WiFi network yet. […] →Read more
When I founded the original Digital Camera Magazine in 1997, almost no one thought that digital photography would ever seriously challenge film. At best, digital cameras were thought to become novelties or peripherals for computers. Yet, just a decade later, digital imaging had surpassed film and, in one of the quickest major technology upheavals, quickly made film irrelevant. As […] →Read more
A big part of the work here at RuggedPCReview.com is getting and spreading the news on what’s going on in the rugged and mobile computing world. How do we do that? And how can manufacturers help get the news out? In the past, it was pretty simple. We went to trade shows to see what all was new, loaded […] →Read more
There was a time, around the year 2000, when Microsoft essentially decreed that Pocket PCs were to run Intel XScale processors. That was a big change, and a rude awakening for some of the Windows CE hardware vendors who had been promised that Windows CE was going to be a multi processor architecture platform. But Intel XScale it was, […] →Read more
Well, the much anticipated Las Vegas CES is shedding no light on how the industry will react to Apple’s monster tablet home run. Yes, there were some tablets here and there, but really nothing that we didn’t know already, and certainly nothing earth-shattering. Microsoft, stunningly, showed nothing. Nada. No product, no strategy, no plan. The whole situation was remarkably […] →Read more
So on January 4, 2011, Motorola will complete its separation into two companies. The way it actually works is that what used to be Motorola will separate Motorola Mobility Holdings, or Motorola Mobility for short, from Motorola proper, and Motorola will then change its name to Motorola Solutions. So technically it looks more like Motorola jettisoned their phone business […] →Read more
This morning, one of my longterm PR contacts brought to my attention a feature entitled “10 tablets that never quite took off.” It was published by itWorldCanada, which is part of Computerworld. Now Computerworld is one of the world’s leading resources of excellent IT reporting, and has been for decades (I used to contribute it in a former life […] →Read more
This whole tablet thing is really interesting. Despite getting soundly trashed by a good number of industry experts when the iPad was first announced by Steve Jobs on January 27, 2010, Apple ended up selling about ten million of them in 2010, and the same experts now predict that a lot more will be sold in the coming years. […] →Read more
If you follow the mobile computing beat, you’ve probably come across the term “discrete graphics.” What that generally means is a computer’s graphics display capabilities that are a separate sub-system and not part of the motherboard or, more recently, processor. Why should you care? Because as with almost everything else in life, one-size-fits-all only applies to a certain extent. […] →Read more
So Intel has added two more processors to its ever growing family of Atom processor products with all its many branches and suggested applications. The new chips are the single-core Atom D425 and the dual-core Atom D525 both of which run at 1.8GHz, representing a small step up from the existing 1.6GHz D410 and D510. Thermal Design Power remains […] →Read more
Off the cuff, the way I see it is that Android has a better than even chance of becoming the OS of choice for tablets and other mobile devices. Android is really nothing more than another Linux distribution, but one backed and sort of run by Google. Microsoft, of course, will make the usual argument of leverage and security […] →Read more
Pretty soon everyone will be talking about 4G. Who has 4G and whose 4G is better or faster. Somehow, marketing from all wireless camps has latched onto the cool-sounding terms 3G and 4G, though they’re avoiding “3.5G” or “3.75G” you often find in tech specs. That’s probably because three and a half sounds like not quite four. Anyway, Sprint […] →Read more
If you follow chipmaker Intel, you know that the company not only loves code names, but also special technologies that are then used to market certain chips or chip families. At some point it was “with MMX” that made Intel Pentium chips special in hilarious commercials showing Intel engineers in astronaut suits. “Hyper-threading” was big for a while, and […] →Read more
On May 4th, Intel introduced the next generation of its initial family of Z5xx Atom processor. Codenamed “Moorestown,” the Z6xx family, together with a new I/O controller and signal processing chip are meant to make Intel competitive in the booming smartphone and internet access device market. On paper at least, the new processor family looks very good and may […] →Read more
This has nothing to do with rugged computing, but everything with publishing and how information is presented and distributed. As a former print publisher, I spent some time comparing different approaches to magazine publishing on the iPad. Given the amount of hype about the iPad being the savior of publishing, I am surprised there is not an iMagazine app […] →Read more
During the course of testing in the RuggedPCReview.com lab, we examine ruggedness specifications and claims. For the most part, while we report and comment on those specs, we do not put them to the test. That’s because ruggedness testing is pretty involved business, and checking how much punishment a device can take before it fails makes about as much […] →Read more
The dirty little secret of millions of Atom N270-based netbooks (and pretty much all other Atom-based systems) is that they really cannot run HD video. If you try it, you get choppy video that creeps along at frame rates of no more than 10 frames per second max even with just 720p video, let alone 1080p. This makes HD […] →Read more
On April 3rd, the Apple iPad tablet will be available in Apple stores. According to various reports, almost 300,000 iPads have been ordered before the device even became available. The hype is enormous, with experts falling all over themselves proclaiming why the iPad will succeed or fail. Fact is, at this point no one knows how the iPad will […] →Read more
A few weeks ago I wrote an article on Windows Mobile and the vertical markets and concluded with the question, “So what will the small but significant number of vendors who make and sell Windows Mobile devices do as their chosen operating system platform looks increasingly dated and is becoming a target of customer dissatisfaction?” I got some good […] →Read more
I wrote this column for the blog at iPhoneLife Magazine, a terrific resource for iPhone owners (or anyone interested in the iPhone) that’s published by my old friend Hal Goldstein who used to be a friendly competitor when we published the print version of Pen Computing Magazine. The article really has nothing to do with rugged computing, but I […] →Read more
While Windows Mobile pretty much has ceased to be a factor in consumer markets, it remains very firmly entrenched in industrial and vertical markets where it may have a market share that’s probably larger than that of Windows in desktops and notebooks. The good news is that as long as Microsoft continues to dominate the desktop, the leverage of […] →Read more
Just when most manufacturers of rugged mobile computers have switched from earlier platforms either to Intel Atom or Core processors, Intel raises the ante again with new Atoms and the next generation of Core processors. In essence, the Core 2 Duo that has served the mobile community long and well is being replaced by a next generation of mobile […] →Read more
The other day I had a very interesting hour-long conversation with Paul Moore, who is Senior Director of Mobile Product Development at Fujitsu. The call was arranged by Fujitsu’s ever helpful Wendy Grubow to give me a chance to talk with Paul about the Fujitsu Lifebook T4410 Tablet PC that’s currently in the RuggedPCReview.com lab for evaluation and testing. […] →Read more
A day before an Apple event where Steve Jobs will announce a new computing device, the hype about tablets is at an absolute fever pitch. Experts are popping out from the woodwork, showering us with their wisdom and predictions, most apparently believing that Microsoft invented and introduced the tablet in 2001, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. But, […] →Read more
According to CNN, tablet-sized computers are now “a much-hyped category of electronics.” True. The Associated Press says, “Tablet-style computers that run Windows have been available for a decade.” Yes, and a lot longer than that. And a PC World editor states, “Tablet PC’s are not new. The slate form factor portable computer has been around for almost a decade, […] →Read more
Sometimes the most amazing news is not a product announcement. That’s what I thought when I saw Getac’s press release about offering 5-year “bumper-to-bumper” warranties for all their rugged notebook computers. That’s a long time. According to Getac, the new warranty covers all of their fully rugged computers (i.e. the A790, B300, E100, M230 and V100 models) delivered on […] →Read more
On December 21, 2009, Intel announced the next generation of Atom processors. The new generation of Atom processors includes the single core N450, the single core D410 and the dual-core D510. Up to this announcement, millions of netbooks (as well as related devices such as tablets and boards) used the Atom N270 processor with its two companion chips, the […] →Read more
Well, this is going to be interesting. Despite the Intel Atom chips’ modest performance, consumers have bought millions and millions of those little netbooks. I am quite certain they bought them because of the low price that made netbooks an impulse buy as opposed to spending more for a “real” notebook computer. Whether or not customers are happy with […] →Read more
Anyone who’s ever been to an Apple store for an appointment or service knows the weird procedure where someone greets you at the door, takes your info, and then wirelessly sends it to some other Apple people who then come greet you when it’s your time. Same for making payments away from the main desk and so on. It […] →Read more
Well, the much advertised public release date of Windows 7 has come and gone. The equivalent of “War and Peace” has been written on how wonderful it is and on how Microsoft “got it right” this time. Maybe they have and maybe they haven’t. Here at RuggedPCReview.com, we’ve used Windows 7 on some of the rugged hardware we’ve had […] →Read more
Multi-touch has been all the rage ever since Apple showed the world the effortless elegance and utility of the iPhone’s two-finger pinch and spread to zoom in and out. So what is multi-touch? Basically, it means the touch screen is able to accept simultaneous input from more than one position. While on the iPhone, multi-touch is currently limited to […] →Read more
On October 6, 2009, Motion Computing announced that their C5 and F5 were the first Tablet PCs to use Corning’s Gorilla Glass. What is Gorilla Glass? In its press release, Motion states that it is “thin-sheet glass that was designed to protect against real-world events that cause display damage.” To learn more I scheduled a call with Corning’s Dr. […] →Read more