The picture becomes complicated with consumer accounts. You'll need to have a data plan and the email data usage will come out of that overall allowance. You'll also need to arrange data roaming with your operator.If you have IMAP, then you'll either use IMAP IDLE for push, or poll the IMAP server every 15 minutes (or less frequently). Both options are more costly in terms of power and data usage than BIS - where BlackBerry's servers do the polling.Finally, if you have a consumer GMail account then the picture is cloudy. Google has now agreed to support ActiveSync until the end of July. It may decide to release a native for GMail client for BlackBerry 10 as it has for Apple's iOS. Or it may not. If Google pulls ActiveSync from consumer (aka free) GMail then it's polling or IDLE for you.TCOKARIM* said that in emerging markets, where BlackBerry consumers get unlimited data, BIS won't disappear overnight.Having decided to bet on the hardware business, rather than flogging everything off except software services, BIS was a necessary casualty. This news was trailed a few months ago but the implications haven't really percolated round the market. Hence the surprise.
* "The legal name of the company has not changed but the company will do business as BlackBerry until shareholders vote for the official change at the company's annual general meeting later in 2013," is the word from the horse's mouth. So there.So the Surface Pro is certainly good enough to act as a system that can be plugged into a home or office setup and used as a primary computer. But is it a fully functioning laptop? Well, sort of.As has been mentioned, you'll need a keyboard to use the Surface Pro to use it as a laptop, and the keyboard's magnetic mounting and flexible hinge is designed to keep the unit very light indeed. But that comes as at a serious design cost for the truly mobile worker.As a journalist I do a lot of writing on the move, usually by having a laptop on my knees in press conference chairs or on the train to and from meetings. While you can use the Surface in this way with the kickstand keeping the screen upright and the keyboard maintaining balance, it's an unwieldy solution, particularly if you're swiping across the screen a lot. So consider how the Surface design fits in with your working style.
While we're on the topic of design, Microsoft has made some very odd choices in port layout for the Surface Pro. The stylus, for example, clicks into the same magnetic lock as the power cord, meaning you can't have the pen mounted and keep the Surface powering up. That's not a major issue if you're sipping power as needed, but with the pen clipped in place you can't use the DisplayPort socket either.Simply shifting the power port, and thus the stylus, a centimeter higher on the side would have eliminated this issue, but – presumably for internal space reasons – this wasn't done. In day-to-day use we found it was easier to remove the pen completely and stick it in a pocket, or just lob it onto the hinge of the machine. Getting a new one will cost you $29.99, and we expect Surface Pro owners will have to buy a fair few.That magnetic mounting for the stylus is also not suitable for carrying the tablet around in a bag. The stylus invariably fell off when we put the unit into a rucksack, and the keyboard covers also became detached if the unit was thrust into a bag – although keeping it in a laptop pouch solved that problem.
We've been having a lot of discussions with sources at Microsoft about the future of the Surface. Is the hardware just Microsoft trying to seed a market with Windows 8 machines, or is Microsoft making a serious play as a hardware vendor?On the face of it, the Surface Pro has limited prospects. Despite ploughing billions into the Xbox and selling some very nice peripherals, Microsoft is still, in its heart, a software company. It probably always will be – some firms are just wired that way. But nevertheless, one gets the impression that Microsoft really is serious in making the Surface the go-to brand for Windows 8.Redmond folks tell us that the company is gearing up for a whole new generation of Surface Pro devices, and Microsoft's move to buy into Dell could prove very handy if it's as serious about the Pro as it seems. That said, the Surface Pro isn't intended to become the number one Ultrabook and sell by the multi-millions – at least from what we can make out – but instead to be a showcase and a premium system that gets people used to paying more for premium PCs.
Given the price point and specifications, Microsoft has a toughish sell. Not including a keyboard in the Surface Pro bundle feels cheap and ensures that almost everyone who buys a unit will spend at least $1,000 on a functioning mobile system.For that kind of money we're not going to see too many field engineers using them – not with with IT budgets beng as tight as they are. The Surface Pro looks more like an executive system based on the current price points and use cases. Even then, the small screen size is a concern – the Surface really needs an external display.A reviewer has to ask themself, "Would I buy this if it were my money?" For the Surface Pro the answer is, for this hack, a firm "No." The tablet is lovely, a beautifully engineered bit of kit with an excellent touchscreen, but it's not stable enough for safe knee-top use with the kickstand. That said, if I were working in a Windows office and just wanted something I could occasionally use in transit, I'd be tempted.While Intel can sound off about how Ultrabooks should be priced at around $699, the fact remains that they are not. To get a touchscreen model with a decent amount of power under the hood, you're going to pay around the same price as the Surface's base-unit prices without the accessories, but you'll get a bigger display.
Apple fans will tell you that the 128GB iPad is only $799, and thus gives better value for money, but that's not comparing like with like, and even comparisons with the MacBook Air are not totally fair. The Surface Pro is a fully functional PC that you can load up with whatever software or operating system you like, and you can dual-boot Linux on there as well, once you've disabled Secure Boot. Try that with an iPad and see how far you get.But if you're stacking the Surface Pro up against other Ultrabooks, then the system's cost is within the bounds of sanity. If Windows is your thing and you're not often working on the go, it's worth taking a look at the Surface Pro.HP has become the latest hardware vendor to release a low-cost laptop based on Google's Chrome OS, topping rivals Acer, Lenovo, and Samsung by shipping its version of a Chromebook with a generous 14" screen.Second-place PC maker Lenovo unveiled its own Chromebook in January, so it's no real surprise that leader HP would follow suit, given the intense rivalry between the two companies.
While Lenovo's Chromebook strictly targets the education market, however, HP's version is a mainstream device with styling that should feel familiar to anyone acquainted with the company's line of consumer laptops.Dubbed the HP Pavilion Chromebook, it's the first Chrome OS device to ship in what is essentially a full laptop form factor. Previous Chromebooks have more resembled netbooks.The Chromebook that held the previous record for screen size was the Samsung 550, which has a 12.1" LED screen at 1280x800 resolution. All of the other models currently available have 11.6" screens, though their resolution is just a hair higher at 1366x768.While the HP Chromebook's screen may have a bigger diagonal, however, it doesn't offer any more pixels, since HP opted to keep its resolution at the industry-standard 1366x768.The larger panel has some drawbacks, too. For one thing, it makes HP's the heaviest of all the Chromebooks, outweighing even the Lenovo ThinkPad model at 3.96lbs (1.8kg) – although it's still skinny at just 0.83" thick.
The big screen also gives the Pavilion one of the worst power ratings of the Chromebook line, with an expected battery life of 4.25 hours. Only the Acer C7 – which uses an actual, spinning hard disk instead of the solid-state drives used by all of the other models – fares worse, at just 3.5 hours. On the plus side, however, both the Acer and HP models have removable batteries, unlike the two Samsungs.Otherwise, the HP Chromebook resembles its cousins in that it's low-powered and frill-free. It's built around a dual-core Intel Celeron 847 CPU clocked at 1.1GHz, just like the Acer and Lenovo models. It ships with 2GB of RAM, upgradeable to 4GB. For storage, it has a 16GB SSD and it comes bundled with 100GB of free Google Drive cloud storage, which is good for two years.It also offers the typical assortment of connectivity options, including 802.11a/b/g/n, Ethernet, HDMI, three USB 2.0 ports, an SD/MMC card slot, an HD camera, and Bluetooth 3.0.While those specs would be weak for a Windows notebook, however, they're more than adequate for a Chrome OS device. In fact, the Acer C7's 320GB hard drive is its most puzzling feature, since most Chromebook owners seldom save anything to local storage.