Tag Archives: Windows 8

Breaking: Windows Blue will be a free update named Windows 8.1

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The update to Windows 8 previously codenamed “Blue” will be officially known as “Windows 8.1,” and it will be shipping later this year as a free update distributed via the Windows Store. Windows 8.1 was announced by Windows Division CFO Tami Reller today at JP Morgan’s Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference in Boston.

A public preview of Windows 8.1 will be available on June 26, which coincides with the start of Microsoft’s Build developer conference in San Francisco.

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Review: High-DPI Toshiba Kirabook goes after Retina MacBook Pro

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Meet Toshiba’s Kirabook, a high-res Ultrabook for the Windows world.
Andrew Cunningham

High-resolution, high-density screens are expected on most high-end phones and tablets today. Everything from the iPhone 5 to the Samsung Galaxy S 4 to the Nexus 10 is trying to pack as many pixels as it can into a given screen size to increase the sharpness of on-screen text and images.

You often hold a phone or tablet pretty close to your face, so the benefits of a high-resolution, high-density display are easy to see. Perhaps it makes sense then that the technology hasn’t been picked up as quickly in laptop computers. To date, there have only been a few serious contenders: Apple’s 15-inch and 13-inch Retina MacBook Pros, Google’s Chromebook Pixel, and now Toshiba’s Kirabook.

We’re sure that more high-density Windows laptops are on the way, but the Kirabook is the first to make it to market. The laptop raises some natural questions: Does a computer that is both thinner and lighter than the Pixel and the Pros skimp on battery life to achieve these feats? Is the Kirabook good enough to justify its jaw-dropping $1,599.99 starting price? Most importantly, can Windows support high-density displays as well as OS X, Chrome OS, iOS, Android, and others can?

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Hands-on: Sony declares war on 1366×768 with new VAIO Fit laptops

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Sony’s Fit 15, one of four mainstream laptops being announced today.
Andrew Cunningham

We don’t often pay attention to entry-level product launches, but Sony’s latest laptop offerings have piqued our interest. There’s no question that once you’re talking about spending $1,000 or more on a high-end Ultrabook, there are many respectable options: you can get a nice, high-resolution screen and good build quality from Lenovo’s IdeaPad Yoga and X1 Carbon, Dell’s XPS 12, or Asus’ Zenbook Prime series. However, as we found the last time we took a look at entry-level laptops, it’s hard to find features like this at or below $600.

That’s one of the things that Sony wants to change with its new mainstream laptop lineup, dubbed the VAIO Fit series. You won’t mistake these for premium machines, but they do raise the bar in one important respect: a Sony rep told us that none of the systems would include a 1366×768 display. The 14-inch models use a 1600×900 resolution, while the 15-inch models bump this to 1920×1080.

The Fit brand is intended to eventually clean up Sony’s confusing laptop lineup, which currently consists of the E-series (low-end), the S-series (mid-end), and the T-series (Ultrabooks), joining the existing Tap and Duo brands in an effort to make the lineup less obtuse.

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Microsoft Says It Has Sold More Than 100M Windows 8 Licenses, 250M App Downloads In Last 6 Months, Blue Coming “Later This Year”

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By most accounts, Windows 8 isn’t all that popular, but according to Microsoft’s latest numbers, the company has now sold more than 100 million copies of the latest version of its desktop operating system. In January, the last time Microsoft provided updated numbers for Windows 8, the company said that it had passed the 60 million mark. Windows 8 users are also getting used to using the Windows Store, it seems, as the total number of downloads for the first six months has now passed 250 million.

The number of apps in the store, Microsoft’s CFO and CMO Tami Reller said in a canned interview with Microsoft communications manager Brandon LeBlanc today, has increased 6x since launch and 90% of the apps are downloaded at least once every month. Given that the Store didn’t have all that many apps in it when Windows 8 launched, a 6x increase doesn’t sound all that big, but Reller argues that this means Windows 8 has “already passed what iOS had in store, in its first year of app development.” Earlier today, Microsoft also said that SkyDrive now has more than 250 million active customers.

Windows Blue: Coming “Later This Year”

While Microsoft has long acknowledged that the next version of Windows has the codename “Windows Blue” and various leaks have already revealed many of its features, the company has never announced a roadmap for Blue. In today’s “interview,” Keller said that Blue will be available “later this year, building on the bold vision set forward with Windows 8 to deliver the next generation of tablets and PCs.” Blue she said, “will deliver the latest new innovations across an increasingly broad array of form factors of all sizes, display, battery life and performance, while creating new opportunities for our ecosystem.” Blue, she also noted, is an opportunity for Microsoft to respond to feedback from its customers (who all seem to be clamoring for the return of the Start menu).

With Microsoft Build at the end of June, chances are we will hear quite a bit more about Blue at that time, so it’s probably a fair guess that “later this year” refers to the late summer.

Hands-on with Acer’s Aspire R7, the strangest convertible PC we’ve ever seen

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Acer’s Aspire R7 is the latest in a long line of experimental Windows 8 PCs.
Andrew Cunningham

Whatever your feelings about Windows 8, there’s no question that it (along with external threats from devices like tablets) has spurred PC makers to get more inventive than they’ve been in years. Not all of the convertible laptops built for the new operating system have been home runs, but after years of seeing the same designs get slightly thinner and slightly cheaper with every new iteration, the form has given PC OEMs some real opportunities to differentiate themselves.

We’re going to start seeing the second wave of these systems over the next few months and if they’re anything like what Acer unveiled this morning at a New York City event, well, they’re certainly still going to be interesting.

The Acer Aspire R7

The Aspire R7, a sort of spiritual sibling to the earlier Aspire S7.
Andrew Cunningham

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that Acer’s Aspire R7 is the strangest Windows 8 laptop I’ve seen yet. Two things make it interesting: first, its 15.6-inch, 1080p touchscreen is mounted on a stand called an “Ezel” (pronounced “easel”) that allows you to tilt the screen, flip it over to show something to a person in front of you, or fold it down over the keyboard and trackpad. Second, it swaps the traditional positions of the keyboard and trackpad, putting the trackpad nearer to the monitor and moving the keyboard nearer to the user.

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Samsung’s Ativ Tab 7 reviewed: Kickstands can kick it

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The Samsung Ativ Smart PC 700T1C tablet doing its convincing impression of a touchscreen Ultrabook.
Sean Gallagher

When I met with Microsoft in January to get an advance look at the final Office platform, the Office team was eager to make sure I had “the full Windows 8 experience” with a device that showed off all that Office 2013 could do. But for various reasons, they couldn’t let me run it on their own Surface Pro hardware. Instead, they handed me what one person close to Microsoft said was the next best thing available: the Samsung Ativ Tab 7 (previously known as the Samsung Ativ Smart PC 700T).

Ars briefly looked at the Tab 7—a novel combination of tablet and Ultrabook—when Samsung first unveiled it. But this was the first time we were able to use one for longer than a guided tour.  When I asked if I could review the tablet I had in hand, Samsung quickly consented.

After kicking the loaner system’s tires, I believed I had found the first Windows tablet that I actually would consider buying myself. “You had me at ‘keyboard/dock,’” was my first impression—and that impression remained long enough for me to think my MacBook Air was getting an inferiority complex. In benchmarks, Samsung’s system tested solidly faster than the Surface Pro as tested by Peter Bright and the Acer W700.

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Windows 8 Wins 7.4% Share Of Global Tablet OS Market In Q1 – “Niche” Portion Still Beats Windows Phone’s Smartphone Share

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Don’t write off Microsoft’s chances in mobile just yet. It may still be struggling to make itself count in the smartphone space but early signs are more promising for Windows plus tablets. Microsoft has gone from having no share of the global tablet OS market in Q1 last year to taking 7.4% one year later, with three million Windows 8 tablets shipped in Q1 2013, according to preliminary figures from Strategy Analytics‘ Global Tablet OS Market Share: Q1 2013 report.

The analyst notes record tablet shipments in the quarter, with global branded tablet shipments reaching an “all-time high” of 40.6 million units in Q1, driven on by year-on-year growth of 117% (vs 146% in Q1 2012).

Microsoft launched Windows 8, its touchscreen-friendly reboot of its desktop OS, last fall – so it’s swung from zero to a 7.4% share in just under half a year. Compare that to the Windows Phone OS, which launched more than two years ago, in fall 2010: Windows Phone took only a 4.1% share in the US smartphone OS market in the three months ending February, according to Kantar figures. Globally, its share is even smaller. Earlier this year ABI Research predicted Windows Phone will end 2013 with around 3% of the worldwide market.

Returning to tablets, compared to the dominant players in the tablet OS market — iOS and Android — Microsoft’s share is still very modest. Strategy Analytics dubs it a “niche” portion, noting that “very limited distribution, a shortage of top tier apps, and confusion in the market, are all holding back shipments”. Microsoft has followed its Windows Phone strategy of paying developers to create apps for Windows 8 but it’s still got work to do in the quality vs quantity stakes. While “confusion in the market” likely refers to Microsoft’s decision to offer two flavours of tablet OS (Windows RT/Windows 8).

According to Strategy Analytics’ figures, Apple retains its lead in the tablet OS space, with a 48.2% share in Q1 vs a “robust” 43.4% for Android on 19.5 million and 17.6 million unit shipments respectively. Apple’s tablet lead over Android is shrinking considerably, dropping to under half the market from 63.1% in the year ago quarter when Android took just over a third (34.2%).

The analyst described Apple’s performance as “solid”, helped by its first full quarter with the iPad mini in its tablet portfolio. But Android is growing fastest, with global branded Android tablet shipments increasing 177% annually in the quarter. Add in budget white box tablets and Android becomes the market leader, taking a 52% share of the total tablet market while iOS slips to 41%.

Microsoft Confirms Its Plans To Bring Windows 8 To Smaller Touch-Enabled Devices Soon

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windows-8-logo

During its Q3 2013 earnings call today, Microsoft’s outgoing CFO Peter Klein noted that the company plans to bring Windows 8 to smaller devices. Until now, Windows 8 was mostly geared toward desktops and larger tablets, including Microsoft’s own Surface and RT machines.

With the forthcoming Windows 8 Blue, rumor had it that Microsoft would enable its OEMs to run Windows 8 on smaller devices, too. Klein confirmed this on today’s call, though he mostly talked about OEMs and did not mention whether Microsoft also plans to launch a smaller Surface tablet, though that’s probably a fair bet, too. Currently, there are no sub-10-inch Windows 8 tablets on the market, but according to Klein, we will hear more about these in the coming months.

During the Q&A phase, Klein also noted that Microsoft is working on “expanding and improving the experience, not just for Surface, but for Windows 8 devices at multiple price points, including lower price points going forward.” Earlier this week, Intel’s outgoing CEO Paul Otellini also noted that his company wants to ensure that OEMs can build Windows 8 machines for under $200 soon.

In addition, Klein also acknowledged that the transition to Windows 8 isn’t easy, but the company remains “excited about the opportunities ahead of [it].” According to Klein, Windows 8 has prepared Microsoft well for the transition from desktops to touch devices. “We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but we feel comfortable about where we are going.”

He also expects to see more – and more attractive – Windows 8 touch-enabled devices to come on the market in the near future, too, and he thinks these will become more attractive.