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by Staff Writers San Francisco (AFP) Dec 12, 2010 Yearning for an Internet-linked gadget bigger than a smartphone but smaller than a laptop merged with always-connected lifestyles to make tablet computing a defining trend for 2010.

SAN FRANCISCO: Yearning for an internet-linked gadget bigger than a smartphone but smaller than a laptop merged with always-connected lifestyles to make tablet computing a defining trend for 2010. The iPad launched in April by Apple became the must-have device of the year and has rivals intent on dethroning the culture-shifting California company

Once upon a time, the PC was king, then its crown (and reign) was stolen by the laptop; in its turn, the laptop was defeated by the notebook, then the new kid on the block was the netbook, but now, there’s a new guy in town: the tablet netbook.

Ladies and gents, welcome the technology world’s latest offspring: every gadgeteer’s dream come true, the perfect combination of mobility, power, storing capacity, sleekness and flexibility.

In order to have a clear view on the subject at hand, we should first do a recap of this marvel’s forerunners. In the 1970′s, Alan Kay envisioned a “personal, portable information manipulator” that he called the “Dynabook”. Laptops’ screens are at least 11 inches wide, thus permitting for full-size keyboards to be added.

As these products were pretty heavy to carry around, the netbook was born a few years later: a slimmer and lighter laptop, also less expensive, the only drawbacks being on the CPU side. As such, the netbook soon took center stage, a combination of both its predecessors but with added portability (being smaller and lighter) and power (due to the advancements in the field: smaller and more potent chips).

But not even the netbook would do for the busy and demanding businessmen and road warriors; thus, the tablet netbook was invented, the perfect combination of all the plusses offered by the aforementioned products.

Netbook tablets deliver more mobility, being way more portable (as they are much lighter), more computing power (chip makers having made miracles in the meantime and conceived even tinier products), access to a whole suite of office applications and multimedia features, thus being a match made in heaven for those that want to be in touch with their employees (or employers) and their loved ones all the time.

What sets netbook tablet PCs apart from the other portable PCs is their swiveling screen, which can even lie flat, being extremely useful during conferences (showing one’s partners charts, graphs and so on) or for teambuilding sessions.

Also noteworthy is the fact that one can employ both the full-size keyboard (for those who need to touch or even smash buttons from time to time to feel comfortable while typing) and the capacitive touchscreen, which is usually around 11 inches wide, enough for performing al the daily chores on any PC. To the small form factor, one should add the longer lasting battery and the lower price, making netbook tablet PCs a very valuable acquisition.

And now, let us take a look at the best tablet netbooks out there: T101MT, Viliv X10 and Acer 1825 PT. They are all garnered with a swiveling touch capacitive screen that measures around 11 inches diagonally, a storage of around 160 GB, a complete suite of office apps, a long lasting and reliable battery, and the Windows 7 operating system or lower but upgradeable.

June 2010 – perfect time to buy a new gaming computer!

Intel still is the king of the hill with Core i7 processors – real quad cores with Hyper Threading (8 virtual cores), also Extreme Hexa Core available – i7 980X that can be pushed over 4Ghz overclocked on air! Also Intel brings unlocked parts (like only in extreme editions before) to the market – i5 665K and i7 875K – both for socket LGA 1156. Core i5 665K has unlocked multiplier for awesome and easy overclocks above 4Ghz – you only have to change multiplier. It’s only a dual core processor but it has Hyper Threading technology so you can consider it a virtual Quad Core – great for multi threaded applications. Though Core i7 875K is so better at that. It’s basically the same as older i7 870 – same frequency and characteristics, but it has much lower price tag (0 vs 0) and it has unlocked core – essentially making i7 870 a no go processor. Even i7 860 with lower price tag is not that attractive any more.

AMD – still the best for the low-mid range gaming computers (and high end to some extent). Bringing to the table new Athlon II and Phenom II processors and lowering overall prices across the board it has achieved much in the last months. Six Core Phenom II processors are really good for gaming and multi tasking and are very poplar in enthusiast lines. AMD fights ACC – advanced core calibration but board manufacturers still offer (and even more than before) ACC on their motherboards – it lets you unlock dormant cores on Phenom and Athlon X2 and X3 – many times making them great triple and quad core processors without any effort. For example I had just got Athlon II X3 440 3.0Ghz running as a quad core Phenom II B40 X4 at frequency 3.5Ghz – without voltage increase and with stock cooler – below 50′C loaded! So AMD is doing really good these says.

Videocards – same as before – Nvidia GTX 470 and 480 leading the way competing with ATI 5850 and 5870. Nvidia just released a new videocard GTX 460 – it’s a cut down GTX 470. Still expensive to manufacture it’s not really anything new – pretty hot and power hungry. As of now it has hard time competing with ATI 4830 which is cheaper by the way. Let’s just hope that new drivers will increase performance.

Memory is not going in price too much over the late times so it’s good for now. Really nothing else major happened on the gaming computer hardware front, unless you’ve missed release of new AMD 870, 880G, 890GX and 890FX boards. Same great cases from Antec and Thermaltake and Cooler Master are recommended as before. Cooler Master Hyper 212 is still the best cooler for the price.

Stay with us and we will keep you updated on the latest in gaming PC hardware!