Dave Altavilla

Recent posts
A couple of weeks back, we got the chance to get some hands on time with AMD’s upcoming mainstream and low-power APUs (Accelerated Processing Units), codenames Beema and Mullins. These APUs are the successors to last year’s Temash and Kabini APUs, which powered an array of small form factor and mobile platforms. With this release,...
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Two years ago, Samsung launched its Series 9 ultrabook and proved the company could design a thin and light notebook that is both beautiful and powerful. Since the launch, Samsung has unified its Windows PCs under the ATIV brand and continues to innovate and build on the popularity of the Series 9. The new Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus features...
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Solid deals here today on solid state and other bleeding-edge tech, from tablets to speakers and headphones. So, we'll get right to it without further delay... Ends soon! WD Black² Dual Drive 2.5" 120GB SSD + 1TB HDD Kit for $194.67 with free shipping (normally $229). Dell Latitude 10 Windows 8 Pro Tablet...
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Lenovo is targeting its ThinkPad 8 at business users, which makes sense. Everyone values portability and power, but it’s the business user who’s most likely to say “I need my tablet to be capable of doing everything that my main PC can do.” With a full 32-bit version of Windows 8.1 and a 1920 x...
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Mini PCs are big business these days, whether you consider devices like Valve's Steambox initiative, ASUS' Chromebox, Zotac's ZBox line or Intel's own NUC (Next Unit of Computing) mini PC. In fact, Intel has gone on record, projecting mini PCs like this have shipped over a million units in 2013 and are projected for strong growth this...
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Last week, we took a trip to San Diego to meet with Qualcomm and discuss the company's cutting edge 20nm radios and upcoming Snapdragon processors. Unlike the already-launched Snapdragon 801 and 805, these are fundamentally new chips with updated CPU cores as well as Qualcomm's new Adreno 400-class GPU. Qualcomm is announcing two new chips...
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Dell's bodacious Ultra HD UltraSharp UP3214Q continues to be the darling of the deals feed this week (our full review of this bad boy is here), with a $300 eGift card that'll cut the sting on the high-end price tag to go with all those high resolution pixels. We've got a couple other tidbits from Dell, HP and...
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NVIDIA has always been the master of the tech demo. And though they've previously shown Epic's Unreal Engine 4 in action on even mobile platforms like their forthcoming Tegra K1 mobile SoC, there's nothing like a new flagship graphics card to serve as a vehicle to demonstrate the latest in game engine...
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NVIDIA's 2014 GTC (GPU Technology Conference) kicked off with a bang this morning in San Jose California, with NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang offering up a healthy dose of new information on next generation NVIDIA GPU technologies for the professional workstation, big data analytics, cloud computing, gaming and mobile...
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NVIDIA's 2014 GTC (GPU Technology Conference) kicked off with a bang this morning in San Jose California, with NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang offering up a healthy dose of new information on next generation NVIDIA GPU technologies for the professional workstation, big data analytics, cloud computing, gaming and mobile markets. As members...
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Samsung introduced its PRO line of Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Note tablets at CES in January. We had a brief chance to check out these new tablets while at CES and now we have the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 in house for a full hands-on review. As you may recall, this tablet features a 10.1-inch WQXGA display that supports...
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Last week I was sent a rather bizarre picture of my likeness, doubled over as if I was being reflected in a mirror. The message read "wouldn't you agree that two is better than one?" This week, two cans of potato chips, a bottle of Hawaiian Volcanic water and specific details of a mission assignment were...
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One of the most anticipated announcements of GDC this year has been Microsoft's unveiling of DirectX 12. The event today was light on some details, but didn't disappoint -- DirectX 12 looks like a huge step forward for gaming. The problem DX12 wants to solve is the same issue that drove Mantle. DirectX 11 isn't very...
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To date, we've shown you a few versions of Chromebook notebooks, like the Acer C720 Chromebook and Google's own Chromebook Pixel. Today, however, we have a look at the very first "official" Chromebox to hit the market and it comes to us by way of ASUS. The ASUS Chromebox is a tiny palm-sized machine similar in...
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Google's Chrome OS is an open source operating system that is designed to offer fast, simple, and secure computing for connected devices. That's not to say the Chrome operating system can't function offline, but connected to the cloud is where users can harness the full power of Google's cloud services and storage infrastructure. ...
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Today we’re going to take a look at the latest version of the XPS 13. This updated version has not been redesigned, but it does include a new, larger capacity battery (55WHr compared to the previous 47WHr battery). And along with Intel's 4th generation Haswell Core series processor for more efficient computing...
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LG’s new G Flex smartphone is the “world’s first curved flexible smartphone” according to the company. We’ve seen smartphones that have curved bodies before, but this is the first smartphone to feature a display and battery that are curved as well. LG claims the curved design of the G Flex is optimized for the...
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Today we were on hand at Samsung's Unpacked press event in New York City to see the live unveiling of the upcoming Galaxy S5 smartphone, and Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo and Gear Fit smartwatches. If you haven't already seen our coverage of the original announcment, the Samsung's upcoming flagship features a 5.1-inch...
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It could be said that Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon series cuts through the stuffy corporate facade, offering something for the conference room or coffee shop with a sleeker physique and sports car-like good looks. The original ThinkPad X1 Carbon was initially released back in 2012 and at the time, its carbon...
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In terms of brand recognition, Lenovo's ThinkPad probably has some of the best "brand equity" of just about any notebook line in the history of Windows PCs. A favorite among IT managers for their rugged reliability, especially in business environments, Lenovo's ThinkPad brand, previously acquired from IBM, helped propel the company towards...
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It’s a ThinkPad. No, it’s a Yoga! No, it’s...a ThinkPad Yoga. Lenovo has melded two of its popular laptop design approaches together to create a sort of hybrid ultrabook, bringing together elements of its workhorse ThinkPad lineup and multi-mode capable Yoga notebooks. It has the work-friendly keyboard design of the new generation...
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If you’ve ever worked in a professional environment for an extended period of time, chances are you’ve used an IBM-come-Lenovo ThinkPad at some point. Their simple black rectangle designs with the little red dot on the keyboard are downright iconic... To that end, the latest notebook in the T-series, the...
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