TOP 10 (of this month)

To replace the old dinosaur-esque desktops of the yesteryears, here are the sleek, powerful, Gen Next desktops

Apple iMac 27 inch from 1,05,900 Both a potent multimedia machine and a work of art, there’s simply no other desktop computer that comes close to matching the iMac’s minimalist, all-in-one aluminium design. And now, with uprated Core i-series processors, RAM and ATI graphics, it’s more powerful than ever. The superior IPS screen remains, and the mid-range model offers good value for money. Mainstream desktops have the edge with tech – criminally, there’s still no Blu-ray or multitouch screen option – but the iMac is exceptionally fast and uniquely well crafted. Load Steam on it and it’s pretty handy at games, too.

Apple Mac Mini from 44,900 The first major redesign for the Mac mini is smaller but more powerful than ever. The new look is a squashed interpretation of the old one, and the price is high, but remains a great option, and brings the awesome functionality of the Mac in a cute little package.

Apple Mac Pro from 1,63,440 Apple has always had the edge over PCs in looks and design, and with the Pro it has the performance to back it up. Put simply, although it doesn’t come cheap, this is one of the most powerful desktop systems you can buy.

Alienware Aurora from 1,03,100 With looks that would put your average UFO to shame and performance to match, the Alienware Aurora is one mean machine. Built for 3D and HD gaming and stacked with a powerful 4.1Ghz Intel Core i7 processor, you’re sure to see your video games come alive.

Dell Studio XPS 7100 57,600 With a reputation for churning out dull-as-dust office PCs, you might not expect Dell to bother with high-powered systems. However, the XPS has proven that Dell can do objects of desire and the 7100 sits at the top. Raw power and brilliance, but boring looks.

Dell Inspiron 560s from 25,300 The Inspiron is a lot of PC for a low price, with a bunch of options of how you want to load up the inside of the machine. The slim design means you decide whether you want it horizontally or vertically, and this makes for a classy mid-level home computer.

Zenith Smartstyle H55 from 42,500 India-based PC manufacturer Zenith has been around for years, and produces good machines for noticeably less than the competition, just like this Mac-lookalike that’s packed to the brim with features and hardware that not many can provide at the price.

Lenovo IdeaCentre C200 from 23,700 The IdeaCentre C200 doesn’t exactly classify as a powerful desktop, but at this low price, you’re getting more than you expected from similarly priced machines. A simple Atom processor and 18.5 inch screen means this makes a perfect second-room machine.

HP Touchsmart 600-1280in 82,000 HP deserves high fives for trying to inject some originality into the uninspiring desktop market. The Touchsmart’s touchscreen struggles to rise above novelty status, but anyone who likes their PCs stylish and media savvy will find it’s a strong contender.

Dell Inspiron Zino HD from 29,100 If you want power in a small footprint, this is the way to get it. The Zino packs potent dual-, triple- or quad-core AMD processors, up to 1 TB of storage and optional Blu-ray, all into a colourful little brick. If it weren’t a mite plasticky and noisy, it’d be near the top.

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Symbian OS

"I’ve been around before the turn of the century. They call me ‘clunky’, ‘unintuitive’ and ‘ageing’, but I say that with age comes experience. Android and iPhone are youthful ne’er-do-wells next to me. Sure, it’s all about apps these days: I’ve got an app store too, and an army of die-hard developers drowning the internet with hacks and software. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to wee."

FLAGSHIP HANDSET NOKIA N8 
    34,995 The N8 is Nokia’s first smartie to look like a winner in years. It’s a geek’s wishlist, packing up to 48 GB storage, Bluetooth 3.0, USB hosting capabilities (so you can plug in a hard disk) and an FM transmitter for broadcasting tunes through your radio. It eschews the old Series 60 platform for the open source Symbian^3, and is home to a world-beating 12 MP stills camera with xenon flash and the ability to shoot excellent 720p video, the spoils of which can be viewed via its 3.5 inch capacitive AMOLED display or on TV through HDMI. It’s also a lovely thing, with a monobloc aluminium casing and weighs as much as a full cigar case. The screen isn’t as crisp as the best, and the reworked interface still looks and feels like a relic. It’s ripe for app development, and it’s ready for social media and corporate email, but core functionality lacks polish, from the jerky web browser to lack of a software QWERTY in portrait. There are reasons to love the N8, but in use it feels old as the sea. 
JUNE 1998 

Symbian is established as an independent private company, owned by Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and Psion.
 DECEMBER 2000 

The Ericsson R380 is the world’s first Symbian phone. With a touchscreen and stylus it’s almost a smartphone.
 SEPTEMBER 2006 

Nokia launches the N95, Technoholik's favourite smartphone of its time, with GPS, HSDPA and a 5MP camera. 
SEPTEMBER 2010 

Sony Ericsson drops Symbian, followed by Samsung, leaving only Nokia developing Symbian handsets.
 THE FUTURE... 


All is not rosy for Symbian. Nokia keeps using the OS for its lower-end smartphones, but N-series devices adopt the Linux-based MeeGo.

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The Thinnest TAB

The iOS has some serious contenders in Samsung’s newer, thinner, tablets. Now Apple is bracing for its competitor to enter the market with their tablet optimised OS

    In the world of tablets, the thinner the better. That’s why Apple went all out to design the iPad 2 with an impressive 8.8 mm thickness throughout. 8.8mm is thinner than what most smartphones can manage, and is almost scary to hold, thanks to the all-pervasive feeling that it’ll slip through your fingers or that you’ll snap it in two. 
    8.8 mm is not easy to achieve either. The iPad 1 is 13.4 mm thick - to reduce that to 8.8mm while bumping up the specs and keeping the battery life intact took a radical re-tooling of the innards. For starters, Apple drastically thinned down the mammoth battery (a 59% reduction in thickness of the battery) and other components like the display. You can take a look at the iFixit (www.ifixit.com) teardown of the iPad 2 to get a sense of what this means. 
    Now that Apple had their say with the iPad 2, its Samsung’s turn. They pulled a shocker just a couple of days back at the CTIA Wireless 2011 show in Florida - two brand-new tablets with Android 3.0; a 10.1 inch and an 8.9 inch Galaxy Tab – both thinner than the already hot-selling iPad 2. Impressively, the Tab 10.1 is also lighter than the iPad 2, though not by much (595 grams versus the iPad 2’s 601 grams). 
    The 8.9 inch Galaxy Tab was expected around this time, but the surprising bit is that Samsung had previously showcased the 10.1 inch Tab at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. The 10.1 inch Tab showed at CTIA is a very different beast from the one shown at MWC. For starters, the MWC version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was 10.9 mm thick, weighed 599 grams and had an 8 MP camera around back. The CTIA version is 8.6 mm thick, 595 grams and has a 2 MP camera at the back. It’s also a completely different design. 
    It almost seems like Samsung had initially chosen to launch the fatter 10.1 Tab - but they had a thinner backup tablet waiting in the wings the whole time. Because there’s no way that they could conceptualize, build and finalize a whole new design within the space of about a month. If they actually did – hats off Samsung! They’ve also managed to better the screen resolution of the iPad 2 (1280 x 800 versus the iPad’s 1024 x 768) and match the iPad 2 pricing. When they start selling in the US in a few months time, the 16GB 10.1 inch Wi-Fi model will cost $499 and the 16GB 8.9 inch Wi-Fi model will cost $469. At this point, it’s not clear what happened to the Galaxy Tab 10.1’s poor, fatter cousin. But it does look like gadget enthusiasts in India will have a lot more than just the iPad to choose from. 


(REFERENCE : THE ECONOMIC TIMES)

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The iPad 2

It's heaven on earth. It's a gadget you would love to have, with everything better than its first brother, faster sleeker and overall, its awesome. A lot thinner, it looks better. Mr. Steve Jobs has worked on it a lot. With a faster processor too its got its weight less. Though it runs on the same Apple iOS, i would say its a gadget i'm waiting for. Price ranging almost the same as it was for the iPad 1 when it had released. For those who don't have a tablet yet, the iPad 2 is the one you should buy. And for those who already have the first edition of the iPad, i Think its not wise enough to buy the expensive iPad 2. 

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