For the last few years, hardware growth has been fast and rough. New processor and GPU generations roll out constantly, with storage formats seeing huge strides in both speed and use cases.
But now, as manufacturers find themselves struggling to surpass existing performance at the same energy levels, a shift is happening. Walking the floors at CES, we saw hardware makers realizing they have to be more specific, and laser focused, to catch up with work that companies like Google, Microsoft, and Intel have been doing at the platform level.
Microsoft’s stunning holographic tech demos have stolen the show since the Windows 10 rollout, but there are a lot of unanswered questions about how such a software package would actually come to fruition. The Hololens, Microsoft’s first party answer, is prohibitively expensive at $3,000, and it still isn’t clear when a consumer version will make it to market.
So Microsoft had to stop and reevaluate, and the solution was to allow more companies to make the headsets. Lenovo is the first to move on such a project for Windows Holographic, attempting to bring a lightweight headset to market for around $300, with support for the Windows Holographic API.
Clearly this is a step in a different direction for Lenovo. This headset won’t be as capable as a Vive, but that’s okay — the headset is built for a specific purpose, using a carefully calculated set of components. It doesn’t need to be the fastest. It needs to be the right fit. And that’s not just true for Windows Holographic.
Take, for example, Samsung’s new Chromebook Plus and Pro. Created in partnership with Google, it’s built for a specific purpose — to bridge the gap between Chrome OS and Android. From the stylus-equipped touchscreen, to the 360-degree hinge, the Chromebook Pro is almost more Android than it is Chrome OS.
And for that purpose, the hardware is more than capable. The m3-6y30 found in the Chromebook Pro should be able to knock down any app from the Google Play Store without breaking a sweat. It might not break any Cinebench records, but for most users, it’s going to provide very usable performance, and it fulfills the software requirements Google has set out and then some.
Then there’s the Plus model, which has an ARM processor of Samsung’s own design. This should prove particularly intriguing, as it sells for just $450, yet offers all the features and app support of the Intel powered model. Samsung admits that it will not be as quick as the Pro version, but we think a lot of users will prefer to save a few bucks.
While sitting in on Asus’ CES press conference, we noticed a striking trend. While the hardware was new, it was being created to support existing software and platform advancements — Google’s Tango and Daydream — which were announced months earlier at Google IO. These features are only now being paired up for the first time, and the Zenphone AR had to be specially crafted to include them both.
These features are considered groundbreaking work in the mobile sphere, and they came well ahead of any intent by Google, or any other company to represent them in a physical form. The amount of work that goes into that sort of platform and software project is immense, and never before have we seen companies like Google putting in that amount of time without plans to implement them. Even the new Pixel phones don’t have Tango, and are among the first to officially support Daydream.
As we come closer to reaching the practical limits of traditional silicon, making it difficult even for giants like Intel to push technology further, we’ll only see the importance of software increase. New ways to squeeze more out of existing products will become the trend.
The move for hardware manufacturers, then, is to build in a different directions. Intel has done so by focusing on lower-power solutions, but there’s more specific refinement ahead of us. Virtual reality, wearables, and 3D cameras — to name just a few categories — is charging forward, and we’re starting to get ahead of ourselves.
That’s not to say software leading hardware is the tail wagging the dog — quite the opposite, in fact. We’ve recently been unimpressed with the extravagantly expensive systems that shatter our benchmarks. In most cases, that kind of power is overkill, so why not target what’s actually possible, instead of chasing fantasies?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.