Intel branches out

.
Intel and Microsoft have partnershiped each other for more than 3 decades but now with the declining PC market Intel is looking at other avenues. The Mobile phone and Tablet market have generally used 'ARM' chips as Intel had little to compete with them, until the arrival of the low power 'Haswell' chipset. As Windows 8 has not been well received Intel are now looking at the Chromebook market to recover in the PC market. Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo and Toshiba are all releasing new model Chromebooks of which some are using the Intel chips. These are selling for under US $300 and are capable of word processing, media playing and picture editing without an Internet connection, contrary to the misconception that they only work with the Internet. More offline applications are appearing each month. These units are maintenance free and will not slow down with time. They are automatically updated from Google so always have the latest software on them. New Zealand is always slow at bringing new ideas in but hoping they will be in the shops for Christmas.

Is your next computer a tablet

.

As the desktop computers disappear from the retail stores the tablets are taking over. Most people in the older age group will worry about being able to manipulate and see these newer touch screen devices. It has to be remembered that the important specification is the "Dots per inch" (dpi) value. This is a characteristic of the screen resolution and the diagonal dimensions of the screen. The higher the dpi value the clearer the picture. A typical high resolution desktop screen has only 100 dpi compared to a 7" tablet having over 300 dpi. That is 3 times clearer and brighter. The other factor going for tablets is the "Pinch to zoom" feature making it easy to read small print with one movement. Security is at a much higher level for tablets except for the Windows 8 pro tablet which uses the standard windows 8 OS and needs the normal virus checkers and updates.