Chromebooks are basically just laptops that ship with Google’s Chrome OS rather than another operating system. But since Chrome OS was designed to put the web browser front and center, some folks have insisted that it’s not a real operating system – after all, it loses much of its functionality if you lose your internet connection. […]
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No Comments on PC shipments continue their pandemic-fueled growth streak (but supply chain issues mean slower growth)
PC shipments continue their pandemic-fueled growth streak (but supply chain issues mean slower growth)
No Comments on PC shipments continue their pandemic-fueled growth streak (but supply chain issues mean slower growth)After years of declining shipments, PC makers saw big growth over the past year, largely fueled by the work-from-home trend during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Now research firms Gartner, IDC, and Canalys report that PC shipments are continuing to trend upward… but growth has slowed somewhat in the latest quarter. The most likely reason for […]
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Tablets and Chromebooks continue to do well during the pandemic
We learned earlier this month that PC shipments continued to surge during the first quarter of 2021. Now IDC reports that two particular product categories are doing particularly well: Chromebooks and tablets. According to IDC, 39.9 million tablets were shipped in the first quarter of 2021, which is a 55.2 percent increase over the same […]
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Lilbits: Ubuntu on Windows, rising smartphone shipments, and first-time Mac and iPad buyers
7 Comments on Lilbits: Ubuntu on Windows, rising smartphone shipments, and first-time Mac and iPad buyersWhen Apple introduced the M1 processor late last year, the company made bold claims about its performance and efficiency. And when reviews of the new Macs powered by the chip started to come in, it turned out that those claims were largely true – Apple’s new processors are among the fastest desktop and laptop chips […]
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Lilbits: Apple leaks, NVIDIA’s ARM CPUs, and PC shipments are (way) up
Every quarter a handful of analysts release reports letting us know if shipments of devices like PCs, smartphones, tablets, and smart home devices are rising, falling, or flat. Sometimes this data gives us a good idea of current and future trends. This year, I’m not really so sure what it tells us. With that in […]
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Google’s Lyra audio codec delivers high-quality audio at low bit rates
Broadband wired and wireless internet connections are getting faster all the time. But in many parts of the world high-speed internet access is unavailable and/or unreliable. So researchers continue to find ways to find ways to use compression to save bandwidth while transmitting audio, video, images, and other content that typically uses a lot of […]
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Lilbits: Microsoft Edge gets more interesting, Chromebooks outsell Macs, and a 31.2 inch color E Ink display
6 Comments on Lilbits: Microsoft Edge gets more interesting, Chromebooks outsell Macs, and a 31.2 inch color E Ink displayNow that Microsoft’s Edge web browser is based on Google’s open source Chromium project, it behaves a lot like Google’s Chrome browser… and for the most part that’s left me wondering why you’d use Edge instead of Chrome. Microsoft has been adding features that help set its browser apart, but up until now I haven’t […]
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Canalys: Tablet and Chromebook shipments hit all-time highs in Q4, 2020
According to the latest global PC market report from research firm Canalys, PC makers shipped 458.2 million computers in 2020, up 17 percent from shipments in 2019. Much of that growth came in the fourth quarter of the year, with a total of 143.7 million units shipped, up 35-percent from the same period a year […]
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IDC: Huawei smartphone shipments tank, but the market is up overall
Smartphone makers shipped 385.9 million devices in the fourth quarter of 2020 according to preliminary data from IDC, which is a 4.3 percent increase over the same period a year earlier. But while the global smartphone market ended the year on a high note, IDC’s report points out a few interesting trends that were largely […]
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Lilbits: More new Intel chips, PC shipments are up, and Qualcomm’s new in-screen fingerprint reader is bigger
No Comments on Lilbits: More new Intel chips, PC shipments are up, and Qualcomm’s new in-screen fingerprint reader is biggerIn addition to launching new 35-watt Tiger Lake processors for gaming laptops and new 6-10 watt chips for low-cost, low-power notebooks for the education market, Intel had some other big announcements today. The company launched a new line of 11th-gen Tiger Lake chips with vPro technology for business-class security, management, and performance features. Intel also […]
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Lilbits: Chromebook explosion, Huawei’s respite, and PinePhone KDE Community Edition
The global pandemic has been hard on everyone… except maybe for PC makers. With more people working and schooling from home, a lot of people have been looking for laptops, tablets, and other devices capable of handling your daily Zoom quota. That’s been enough to reverse a trend in recent years that’s seen PC shipments […]
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Reports: Tablet shipments were up in Q3, smartphone shipments were down
As the global COVID-19 pandemic continues to reshape the way people around the world live and work, two new reports suggest there’s been an impact on the types of mobile devices people are buying. According to IDC, global tablet shipments were up nearly 25-percent in the third quarter of 2020 when compared to the same […]