As one of the largest technology companies in the world, Samsung was omnipresent at CES 2018, with a host of new and enhanced products. In personal computing, its most significant introductions include a pair of new pen-enabled notebooks in the Notebook 7 Spin and the Notebook 9 Pen, to go along with a long-lasting Notebook 9, and some enhanced displays that improve performance and quality.
Shoneel Kolhatkar, Samsung Senior Director, Product Marketing, stopped by the Digital Trends booth and began his session talking about the Notebook 9 Pen. This is a 13.3-inch convertible 2-in-1 that brings Samsung’s extensive S Pen capabilities to a Windows 10 notebook. Kolhatkar described the Notebook 9 Pen as “the best of productivity and the best of portability,” and went on to focus on the functionality brought to Samsung notebooks by the S Pen software.
Next, Kolhatkar discussed the importance of the “prosumer,” or the typical consumer who uses PCs to get work done. Clearly, Samsung is focused on providing solutions that meet the needs of consumers — watching video and playing casual games, for example — while providing real productivity enhancements like the Action Memo utility that allows users to take a screenshot, draw, and more on any web page and the S Notes app that allows user to create notes while saving audio recordings and syncing everything to the Samsun cloud.
Kothatkar also discussed Samsung’s desire to match PC functionality to that provided by Samsung smartphones. For example, the S Pen from a Samsung Note 8 will work on the Notebook 9 Pen and vice versa. And, the notebook can be synced with a Samsung smartphone for transferring notes and other information that’s created using the S Pen technology.
There’s more to learn, including an overview of Samsung’s other laptop offering, the Notebook 9, which skips the S Pen but packs in a 75 watt-hour battery for up to 19 hours of battery life and tosses in an Nvidia discrete GPU for enhanced graphics capabilities. Check out the video for more on Samsung at CES 2018, including an overview of Samsung’s general strategy to leverage its success in smartphones to help grow its presence in notebooks as well as where its Bixby digital assistant fits into the picture.
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.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.