Google Chromebook Pixel review

Verdict:

With its beautiful retina display, this would be a serious MacBook rival if it wasn’t for Chrome OS

Review Date: 28 Feb 2013

Price when reviewed: £1,049

Supplier: http://www.play.google.com

Reviewed By: Katharine Byrne

Our Rating

• Review

The Chromebook Pixel is the best Chromebook we’ve ever seen – but then it should be given it costs three times what the competition does. You can see where your money has gone, though; from the outside, it’s a minimalist work of art. Its smooth, grey industrial lines are accented solely by a thin LED light on the back of the lid that flashes briefly with Google’s quartet of red, blue, yellow and green when opened and then glows a pale blue.
Mixing modern engineering with a retro shape, the Chromebook Pixel looks fantastic
It measures a svelte 16.2mm thick and weighs just 1.5kg, but the main highlight is its beautiful 12.85in touchscreen. It’s made of Gorilla Glass and has a razor sharp 2,560x1,700 retina display, giving everything an astounding level of detail. Perhaps its best feature, though, is that it’s all packed into a square-ish 3:2 aspect ratio. This is a world away from the 16:9 widescreen configurations we’ve become accustomed to, and is far better suited to the web as it exists today.
It’s incredibly bright and responsive too, and while Chrome OS isn’t quite as touch-orientated as Windows 8, swiping through its app-style menu and scrolling through the Chrome WebStore has never been so simple.
It look great from any angle, though the lid doesn't fold back any further than this
We preferred using the touchscreen to the all-in-one touchpad, but that certainly wasn’t through any fault in the touchpad’s design. Rather, the touchpad’s smooth surface was a joy to use, and it provided a solid amount of click from almost anywhere on its surface. Multi-touch gestures like pinch-zooming were a little temperamental, but two-finger scrolling worked perfectly.
Typing on the Pixel was even more comfortable, as all its Chiclet-style keys were very well-spaced and provided plenty of tactile feedback. It’s lost its Function key labels in favour of a row of media buttons across the top of the keyboard, but all of the unique web-related buttons from previous Chromebooks make an appearance here. It also retains a single Search key to help pinpoint your favourite apps and web pages without taking your hands away from the keyboard; that's at the expense of the Caps Lock key though, which is annoyingly relegated to Alt+Search.
The keyboard is great, even is the layout is a little eccentric
It’s not just a fancy screen that sets the Pixel apart from other Chromebooks, as there’s some fast hardware squeezed into its tiny chassis to try and justify that price. Unlike previous Chromebooks which economised on hardware to help keep their sub-£250 price, the Pixel has 4GB of RAM and a 1.8GHz Intel Core i5 processor. Google has been vague on the exact details of its processor, but it looks to be a Core i5-3427U, the same processor we believe powers Apple’s 13in 

SOURCE: expertreviews.co.uk

Bill gates in Ghana for a day's working visit

The world’s second richest man and founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates arrived in Ghana on Monday, for a day's working visit. This is the second time the founder of Microsoft is coming to Ghana for a private visit. Mr. Gates who arrived in the country yesterday evening, is expected to inspect some projects of “The Bill and Melinda Gate’s Foundation". The Foundation is currently offering support to disease control programmes under the Ministry of Health such as; Tuberculosis, Malaria and HIV. He said in an article online prior to the visit: "I plan to share my experience in Ghana at the Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi April 24-25, where global health leaders will celebrate progress in immunization and demonstrate how the world is united to give all children a healthy start to life." The billionaire is impressed with how successful Ghana's immunization program has fared so far. He said: "Ghana, for example, polio was eliminated a decade ago and an outbreak in 2008 was quickly controlled. No child there has died from measles since 2002. And Ghana was the first country to launch two new vaccines last April, against rotavirus, which causes severe diarrhoea, and pneumococcal pneumonia" The 2013 Forbes magazine's second richest man set up the foundation in 1994 and is worth 36.2 billion dollars as at September 30 2012. It is ranked as one of the biggest philanthropic organizations in the world in terms of fund size. It is controlled by three trustees namely; Bill Gates himself, his wife and the fourth richest man in the world, Warren Buffet. Mr. Gates recently resigned as Chief Executive of Microsoft to take up a chairmanship role in the company and concentrate on his Foundation.   SOURCE : myjoyonline.com

Facebook adds 'Reply' option to comments

Facebook's new Reply feature will be available on desktop first and mobile later.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Facebook is rolling out a new feature so users can reply directly to comments left on their page
• The Reply feature aims to make navigating through conversation threads easier
• For now, threaded replies only apply to Facebook pages, not profiles

(CNN) -- Facebook announced on Monday it is rolling out a new feature so users can reply directly to comments left on their page. Finally.

Followings months of testing, the social network aims to make navigating through conversation threads easier with the new Replies feature. This means that, instead of having to leave a response to a friend's comment way after new ones have been added, you will be able to address each individual comment. Responses will be posted under the original comment too.

The site is also prioritizing comments based on engagement — the most active and popular ones will surface to the top of your posts. This will be especially helpful for pages with thousands of followers.

SEE ALSO: Beyond Barrel Roll: 10 hidden Google tricks

"You and your readers will have the ability to reply directly to comments left on your Page content and start conversation threads, which will make it easier for you to interact directly with individual readers and keep relevant conversations connected," said Vadim Lavrusik, Facebook's journalism program manager, in an official blog post.

"Also, the most active and engaging conversations among your readers will be surfaced at the top of your posts ensuring that people who visit your Page will see the best conversations."

For now, threaded replies only apply to Facebook pages, not profiles. Users will be able to opt into the Replies through the Page admin panel. Facebook will be bringing the feature to all pages with more than 10,000 followers by July 10, 2013, but pages can turn the option off along the way.

"At launch, this feature will only be available on desktop and we plan to make it available in the Graph API and mobile in the future," Lavrusik added.

cnn.com

Hulk-strong screens, IR blasters, NFC-everything: Your future phone (Smartphones Unlocked)

New hardware advancements, build materials, and connected devices are taking smartphones in exciting directions. Here's what's happening now.

When it comes to large, clear screens, HTC's One helps lead the charge.

Here's the smartphone of your short-term future: it has a 5-inch, 1080p HD screen, an 8-core application processor, and a 13-megapixel camera that does crazy things like simultaneously record through both front and rear lenses. You can use it to change your TV channel, tap it to play songs on your car, and control it without ever touching the screen.
The smartphone of your near future takes your pulse, synchronizes to your scale, and tumbles from your hands without a scratch. Oh yeah, and did I mention that it'll last two days on a single charge?
New production materials, leap-frogging processor advancements, and promising battery research are kicking smartphone development forward. Couple that with a surge of smart devices that transmit information to your phone screen, and you have one very exciting, nearly-attainable smartphone future.

Bumped-up hardware specs

Good luck trying to find a quantity of terrific smartphones with medium-size screens. The latest batch of superphones -- including the Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One, and LG Optimus G Pro -- is helping push the new norm to 5 inches (or larger) of high-definition 1080p goodness.
The processor side is also on fire. We've just begun to see quad-core chipsets and are already on our way to eight processing cores that promise tremendous speed and graphical rendering prowess. Samsung's Galaxy S4 is the first announced phone to feature an octa-core chipset (Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa.)
Nvidia is also racing out the starting gate, having just announced the two new upcoming generations of its chipset for mobile devices, which the company promises will increase performance 100 times over its first Tegra chip, within the next five years.
In the meantime, we'll start seeing phones with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600 chips, processors that are expected to complete tasks 75 percent faster.

Extra goodies

We've been mooning over phones with integrated IR blasters for some time, but with the HTC One and now the Samsung Galaxy S4, the TV controller-in-the-phone is myth no more. It's only a matter of time before we start seeing this infrared tool crop up in even more high-end devices, tablets included.

The Samsung Galaxy S4's IR blaster makes it possible to control your TV with this app.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Nokia has already cracked the code on including screen material sensitive enough for gloved hands to operate -- that showed up first in the Nokia Lumia 920, and marched onto the Lumias 820, 810, and 822 as well. The Lumia 720 will get it, too, as will Samsung's Galaxy S4.
I watched my colleague Roger Cheng's fingers slowly stiffen and redden in 30-degree weather while he composed an article on his mobile phone in New York outside Samsung's launch event. Trust me, there's no reason this shouldn't finally catch on.
Keep an eye out for in-car voice assistance to really take off in the coming year or two. Apple and car manufacturers like Honda have been hard at work prepping voice assistant Siri for the car.

The Nokia Lumia 920 introduced a screen sensitive enough to use with gloved fingers.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Samsung's stab is a new standalone version of S Voice, dubbed S Voice Drive. I got a chance to look at it right after the launch event, and despite past S Voice performance disasters, this version for the car might not completely suck.

Crazy camera software

Camera hardware will continue to improve, but, as if on cue, the manufacturers are also fighting the battle of supremacy with increasingly specialized (read: gimmicky) camera apps.
Among them, the HTC One, LG Optimus G Pro, and Samsung Galaxy S4 include features that pair audio recording with still images, photo and video that includes input from both cameras, bite-size video clips, and action shots that includes separate shots of movement in the same frame.

Using dual-recording mode on phones like the LG Optimus G Pro, you can record both the gloomy day in Barcelona, and your disdain for the rain.

(Credit: Lynn La/CNET)

Sweet, sweet motion

Touch-free navigational gestures have been around for some time -- my favorite is flipping over a phone to silence it -- and both LG and Samsung have been on the forefront of creating new ways to interact without tapping the screen.
Waving your hand in front of the device to advance photos, and pause or play music is one newish gesture, as is hovering a finger over a thumbnail of something to preview what it is.
Both LG's Optimus G Pro and Samsung's Galaxy S4 highlight gestures, especially interactions that register where your eyes are and aren't looking -- so much so that the two rivals could go at it in court over using your gaze to pause and play video.

On Samsung's Galaxy S4 and others, a wave of your hand can advance your photo album, and then some.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

While I could personally take or leave most gestures, I think exploring more touch-free interactions like this is where we're headed, and the phone-makers might eventually hit on a combination that's innovative, yes, but also useful.

NFC and connected devices

The future feature trend I'm probably most excited about is the interplay among smart devices, like connected watches, cars, cameras, laptops, washing machines, thermostats, and of course, your smartphone.
NFC, or near-field communication, is a short-range wireless pairing protocol that's helping drive all sorts of close-range data-sharing, including mobile payments and wireless charging. But the real possibilities are just now unfolding.
Imagine using NFC to sync data with a tap from your smartphone to, well, just about anything. Samsung wants to use NFC to exchange info on your weight and vitals from the Galaxy S4's S Health app to a variety of accessories, including a scale.
I also envision using it to directly transfer media to any other NFC device in a jiffy, push out map coordinates to your car's in-dash navigation system, and check you into appointments, among other items on my NFC wish list.
Keep an eye on this feature, because NFC is picking up steam. Fast.

Promising new materials

A phone screen made of sapphire...say what? At Mobile World Congress this year, I scratched and pounded away at a sapphire screen with a chunk of concrete, leaving only powdery concrete residue behind.

The sapphire screen I saw was perfectly translucent, responsive, and amazingly tough.
In the same vein, Nokia has begun working with graphene, a material known for its incredible strength, lightness, and slimness. Imagine a Lumia smartphone made of the stuff, which is 300 times stronger than steel.
While phone cases protect devices from the worst wear and tear, creating beautiful phones out of incredibly durable materials will also help get you avoid bad scrapes.
On the other end of the spectrum is Corning Willow Glass, a sheet of ultrathin, ultra-bendable glass that could maybe, maybe one day be used within a flexible smartphone.
New build materials are extremely important areas of research, but battery tech is more crucial still. Some novel ways to conceptualize basic battery chemistry hint at much longer-lived tickers than ever before achieved on a smartphone.
Although we're still a good way off from handsets that last longer than a day on a single charge, small improvements are ongoing.

Bringing it all together

When you add up all the trends and longer-term advances, the smartphone of the near future is a remarkable device that's destined to become even more personal, cherished, and indispensable than handsets are today.
It's also true that I'm describing the tip-top of the high end, and that features will likely come in combination. While I hope they'll all have NFC, sensitive screens, and IR blasters (even you, iPhone 5S,) not all will have the wacky camera extras or extremely-hard bodies and screens.
Regardless, I can't wait for this next future to arrive.

(Credit: CNET)

Smartphones Unlocked is a monthly column that dives deep into the inner workings of your trusty smartphone.

Read more: http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-57575356-85/hul