If there’s anything safely predictable about the volatile computer hardware industry, it’s that each new generation of devices will be smaller, faster, and more powerful than the last. Audience members received firsthand proof that this pattern remains intact during a session on the latest hardware trends at the ChannelPro SMB Forum, held April 10th in Long Beach, Calif.
Rather than merely discuss those trends, however, attendees got hands-on experience with real-life examples of them. The session, arranged in a format that ChannelPro publisher Michael Siggins facetiously referred to as a “petting zoo,” gave attendees an opportunity to inspect and use a wide array of hot new products.
Among them were sleek Ultrabooks, including products from Acer’s Aspire line; innovative convertible and hybrid PCs such as the ASUS Taichi and Lenovo ThinkPad Twist; and slender, stylish tablets, including Hewlett-Packard’s new ElitePad. Equipped with Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system and optimized for the needs of mobile professionals, all of those products pack large amounts of computing power into thin, light cases while still delivering plenty of battery life.
One long-standing complaint about tablet computers like the ElitePad is how hard they make printing, but a demo conducted by ChannelPro-SMB’s Online Director and Technical Editor Matt Whitlock showed off an elegant solution to that problem. Using Epson Connect technology from SMB Forum Gold sponsor Epson America Inc., Whitlock printed a document stored on a tablet simply by emailing a copy to a member of Epson’s WorkForce printer family.
Also on display at the session were samples of Intel’s Next Unit of Computing, or NUC, mini-servers. Introduced late in 2012, the NUC features a 4-inch x 4-inch motherboard bearing an Intel Core i3 processor as well as support for up to 16 GB of memory. As demos during the session made clear, the NUC has more than enough power to run high-definition video or graphic-intensive games smoothly despite its diminutive size.
In fact, many of the products on display at the hardware session ultimately reinforced the same basic point: These days, capitalizing on the convenience and portability of compact form factors no longer obliges you to compromise on power or functionality.
