20 biggest tech launches of 2008

[soniyaa]

Apple MacBooks

Apple Macbooks saw two big launches this year. In January at MacWorld, Apple launched what it claimed was world's lightest and thinnest laptop, Macbook Air. Measuring 0.16-0.76 inches, it weighs about 3 pounds (1.36 kg). Sporting a silvery finish, it featured 13.3-inch LED backlit widescreen with a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution and a full-size keyboard. Air came powered with 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, with 4MB on-chip shared L2 cache running at full processor speed and uses an 800MHz front side bus. The Core 2 Duo chip is custom-built by Intel to fit within the compact dimensions of MacBook Air. The notebook comes with 2GB RAM and 80 GB hard drive. The hard drive is a Parallel ATA (PATA) model that operates at 4200 RPM. However, MacBook Air's thinness leaves no room for an Ethernet jack, a removable battery and a built-in DVD drive. In September, the company launched new MacBook and MacBook Pro models. Its thinnest and lightest laptop, Air, too went for a slight revamp. Apple attracted eyeballs with its manufacturing process that will help it machine out laptops from a single block of aluminium. Apple's new line-up boasts of a sleeker and slimmer look, thanks to the new manufacturing process. Measuring 12.78 by 8.94 by 0.95 inches, the new MacBook weighs 4.5 pounds (2.04 kg), half a pound lighter than previous version. It has a thickness of 0.95 inches, similar to the MacBook Pro. The new MacBook boasts of a 13.3-inch LED-backlit glossy display screen (diagonal) with support for millions of colours. The revamped MacBook has a corner-to-corner glass LED screen. The MacBook Pro has also gone thinner. Measuring 14.35 by 9.82 by 0.95 inches, the new model weighs 5.5 pounds (2.49 kg). Pro will come with 15.4-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy display with support for millions of colours. Both models come with multi-touch glass trackpad. Apple has done away with the click ****on, which means now the trackpad is the ****on. The MacBook Pro's speaker holes on both sides of its keyboard have gone smaller. The MacBook's stereo speakers continue to remain embedded right next to the display hinge.

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BlackBerry Storm

RIM's long-awaited touchscreen iPhone rival, Blackberry Storm, finally made its entry. BlackBerry Storm 9530' most striking feature is its nifty SurePress touchscreen, which combines the flexibility of software-based input with the tactile response of physical ****ons. Measuring 4.43 X 2.45 X 0.55 inches, the new BlackBerry weighs 1.55 kgs. The phone's look is quite similar in size to larger BlackBerry models but trades a standard QWERTY keyboard for a high-resolution 3.25-inch touchscreen. The phone's display supports 480x360 pixel resolution and 65,000 colours. The phone packs a host of multimedia capabilities including Bluetooth 2.0 with support for stereo Bluetooth headsets, dial-up networking and GPS. The phone comes with Media Player with support for music and video formats including MP3, AAC, WMA, WMV, MPEG4 and H.264. Storm is equipped with a 3.2 megapixel camera with video recording, auto focus and flash. The phone also comes preloaded with instant messengers like Yahoo, Windows Live, AOL, and ICQ and social networking apps like Facebook, MySpace and Flickr. The phone has BlackBerry Maps for text-based turn-by-turn directions. The company claims Storm supports battery life of up to 15 days (standby time) and up to 5.5 hours (talk time).

[soniyaa]

Sony Xperia

Out of the box, Sony Xperia is a pure eye candy, with a black or silver metal-and-plastic body, crisp 3-inch touch screen and slightly curved QWERTY keyboard that slides out smoothly with a satisfying click. The X1 has minimal included memory, users will need a sizable microSD card to access lots of songs, videos and photos on it. There is assortment of 11 ****ons on the X1's face, including a center ****on that can select items or work as an optical joystick, which scrolls with a finger swipe. The X1 uses Windows Mobile 6.1 as its operating system, but Sony Ericsson developed a variety of customised enhancements that run on top of it. Most notable is the stylish panel interface, which consists of up to nine small rectangles you can customise and use to view different applications or media on the device in different ways. There's a built-in 3.2 megapixel camera that can also be used for videos.

[soniyaa]

Nokia E63

Nokia made another addition to its Eseries range with the addition of E63 smartphone, very similar to the company's flagship messaging device the E71. Nokia claims it to be a BlackBerry rival with its "mass market appeal" and smart pricing. Unlike the E71, the E63 has an improved keyboard and comes in two colours. However the E63 lacks GPS support and has 2 megapixel camera as opposed to E71’s 3.2 megapixel. Specs wise the Symbian S60-based smartphone measures 113 x 59 x 13 mm and comes with a 2 megapixel camera with LED flash, 36-inch QVGA display with 320 x 240 pixel and 16 million colours, a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack and a music and video player, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 and HTML, XHTML support. Other features include support for Microsoft Exchange, POP/IMAP e-mail accounts, basic personal information management tools and Nokia Ovi support. The E63 also has the ability to switch modes with a single key press. From design perspective, the E63 is similar to the E71, but slightly changed. Instead of a metal body, the E63 has a plastic one in two colours, ruby red or ultramarine blue. The E63 supports a full QWERTY keyboard and it is much thicker than the E71. The keyboard also features a smaller space bar and two additional keys which are missing in the E71.

[soniyaa]

Kodak W820 and W1020

Kodak launched two new digital photo frames, W820 with an 8-inch display and W1020 with a 10-inch display. Users can upload pictures from Flickr, FrameChannel and Kodak Gallery because of the Wi-Fi capability. Kodak has added another new feature called the Quick Touch Border that is touch-sensitive and can control other features. Other features include a media player for music and video. Both frames also use the CF, SD, MMC, XD and MS external memory cards, picture mail feature and 512MB of internal memory with USB connectivity for hooking them up to a PC for file transfer. The W820 and W1020 DPFs display images in HD format ie 16:9 aspect ratio. They also use Kodak Color Science to help boost the colour and skin tones in the images. The W820 and W1020 digital photo frames are priced at $250 and $280 respectively.