Korlacan Khanthavilay comments

The benefit is you'll have other alternatives aside from just the Surface Pro. If you don't like the Surface Pro, no big deal. Dell, HP, Acer, Sony, Asus, etc have their own tablets you can choose from.

Don't like the Macbook Air, too bad. That's all you get in that category.

Except that now we'll pollute the air with coal and oil burning to generate electricity. There would be nuclear power, but some countries are still iffy on actually using it. Alternative energy like wind, wave, or solar doesn't make enough power right now and probably never will.

Not really. Tablet PCs will just cannabalize regular PC sales. Then Android/iOS tablets are also cannabalizing PC sales. The PC market will drop, since most users are finding that they can easily fill their computer usage needs with a cheap $200-$500 Android/iOS tablet.

The PC market isn't going to die though, as you still have users that need more than just a mobile OS tablet. So they'll go with a desktop, laptop, or tablet PC.

@2020hindsights

Explain to me why you think it is underpriced? At the same time, explain why their stock ever went that high to begin with. I'm thinking there isn't much to say, as it's not underpriced and there was no reason why their stock should have ever rised to where it was (aside from moronic investors/analysts).

Also did you just compare Samsung's revenue/net profit to Apple? Samsung Electronics by itself is in more markets than Apple is in. They products TVs, tablets, phones, memory, hdds, computers, cameras, camcorders, batteries, processors, etc. Consider how many different markets Samsung Electronics is in, the fact that they also have almost triple the employees that Apple has, that their profits are that high.

For an Android phone or iOS device, it will be the same. Rip it and then copy it to the device. To rip it you need a computer.

Doesn't sound very 100% independent

It's so simple and not a problem at all. GoodPlayer or VLC will play video in any format.

Bet your iPad or iPhone won't do much of video playing with a few of my 20k bitrate 1080p mkv vids with 5 subtitle tracks built-in.

Me, I stream from my NAS using the Video Station app provided free from the NAS manufacturer. Supports everything.

See above comment

I also travel to many countries and I find that hotel WiFi and free hotspots suffice. In Hawaii I rented a biscuit for less than 1000 yen/day. Sure, before going on holiday I will preload videos etc. onto my iPad/iPhone. But in general I source from my NAS.

I find hotel Wifi blows and ends up being spotty, not to mention you get charged for it about 1/2 the time. I'm not going to bother getting a biscuit and you'd be lucky to even find a place that rents them out in Europe. I'll just preload everything before I roll out.

The past month I've been in Switzerland, Austria, France, and Germany. You think I'm going to bother with looking for a biscuit or randomly walking around searching for the hotel's wifi? No thanks. I'll just throw my tablet into airplane mode and just play with what's available on my tablet or on my usb key.

@badsey3

The Wii U is hardly any kind of factor, cause that console can't even keep up with the current 360 or PS3. A price drop doesn't make much sense either, as the 360 is still outselling the Wii U and even the PS3 is outselling the Wii U.

@lostrune2

Wouldn't make sense to use AMD as the CPU, as they don't even have the capacity to make their own processors, let alone someone else's. Not to mention, AMD procs aren't as fast as Intels. Also, Sony owns rights to the Cell processor, so it'd be more beneficial to them to keep producing it. MS can use pretty much whatever, but they may just aim at another PowerPC derivative, as it'd make for easier backwards compatibility work for old games.

I also don't see how it's late in the development cycle, when we don't even have any kind of timeframe of when the consoles will be released. For all we know, they plan on having a release date of Q1 2016.

Even if the dev kits are out, that doesn't mean much, as cpu speeds, memory sizes, hdd space, etc can still increase without affecting game development. Everything right now is just rumour mill, which doesn't mean a whole lot. Remember how the PS3 was suppose to have 2 HDMI ports?

@zichi

I have an Acer W700 tablet that sports 128 gig SSD with a USB port that supports well...anything USB. Like my 1.5 TB USB powered external drive. Course I still plan on replacing my 128 GB with a 240 gig mSATA SSD, since the storage isn't enough and I dislike carrying around my external.

My gaming machine has 4 TB of storage, my backup gaming machine has 4 TB of storage, my websurfing machine has 2 TB of storage and my fileserver has 15 TB of storage. My 17" laptop has a pair of 240 GB SSDs, my 13" laptop/tablet has 500 GBs, I also have a 1.5 TB external, 1 TB external, and a pair of 500 GB externals.

Does any of that matter, not really, cause I want as much crap available on hand without the need of 3G/4G or Wifi, as I am a constant traveller. In the past month I've been to 4 different countries and I'm not going to buy a new 3G/4G biscuit for each country, nor pay outrageous data roaming charges on my phone to tether.

I guess when you aren't mobile with your mobile device, you don't care.

@2020hindsights

So repurchase everything on iTunes or have nothing. Ya...sounds like a good way to go about things.

Okay, how about I take out a portion of my question.

"My mp3 collection and movie collection is sitting in CD form or in DVD/Bluray form. How do I put it on a 100% independent iPhone or iPad?"

Also, iOS has horrible format support. Try opening an .mkv, .m2t, .divx, or the multiple multiple other video containers out there. Even the 4 video containers that iOS supports, only supports specific codecs or specific settings/sizes/etc. Outside of that support, you'll be stuck having to download additional apps to expand format support. More than likely, multiple apps to do it.

Me, I just run Mediaplayer Classic for every single video container and codec that's out there with vobsub to support non-hard encoded subtitles.

@lostrune2

Razer Edge Pro. Win 8 tablet with a dedicated graphics card. It's not the greatest PC gaming hardware, but it'll run every game out there today. Albeit, in lower settings and your battery will only last 1 hour while gaming.

I've got the Acer W700 and I play Quake 3, Dungeon Defenders, RF Online, and other lower power requirement games. It still drains my battery like crazy though when playing games.

@zichi

$600 for an iPad that can't even do 1/2 or even 1/4 the work that a Surface Pro can. Having the inability to upgrade storage, use USB devices on it, or run normal OS programs. I mean, exactly what does Apple make that even compares to the Surface Pro in specs and price? At an extra $100, the 11" Macbook Air is still worse than the Surface Pro spec wise.

Great time to buy Apple stock? lol, unless you're plan is to lose money, it's a terrible time to buy Apple stocks. It's not going to go back up. I feel the Apple stock has finally leveled out and will float in the 450 range, which I already stated multiple times. Now whether it keeps dropping is all up to what Apple plans to release in the future.

If Apple keeps releasing these mediocre rehashes in different sizes, I expect their stock to continue down to the 300ish range and stay there. I don't see their stock ever climbing back up to it's previous levels, as it was simply overpriced with no discernible reason as to why.

@zichi

Dividend amount = $2.65 per share Stock loss = $250 per share

Those who kept stock, lost a whole lot more money than those who sold off at the peak. Even if Apple gave out $2.65 per share in dividends every quarter, that would be 23 1/2 years of dividends to make up for that large of a loss.

Those who sold off their Apple stock, a whole lot less regret than the morons who kept it.

Sat phones can already transmit voice messages worldwide and with built-in GPS, it can transmit coordinates too. We just have no transporters.

My mp3 collection and movie collection is sitting on my computer, in CD form, or in DVD/Bluray form. How do I put it on a 100% independent iPhone or iPad?

Lower prices?

Huh? Regular AMD components? Sony doesn't use AMD at all currently and MS only uses an AMD GPU. The processors are both IBM, based off the PowerPC architecture, although the Cell is a much different approach.

Changing specs isn't hard. Just add more cores, more memory, more hdd space, different gpu, other feature sets, etc. It's still up in the air. Now major changes like cpu/gpu changes would make game development longer, so they'd end up with a shorter list of launch titles if they keep changing specs.

2020hindsights

Wrong. iOS doesn't need a computer at all.

How do you get content onto your iOS device, if it's not readily available on iTunes, iCloud, or whatever iBlahblahblah that is available? Like maybe the latest cd/movie you just ripped on your Mac. There will always be a computer involved to move content around.

Now if you simply don't care about the content, then ya. You don't need a computer. Don't need it for Android or Windows Phone either.

That would resemble Android, not iOS. iOS doesn't expose you to a daunting file system like Android. You just open the app and the files are there.

Huh? With Android, you just open the app and the files are there. If you want to go into the folder structures, that's there too. It's called options and I like having them.

I personally like setting up multiple folders, so that when I open up the Gallery, I'm not exposed to just a smorgasbord of content. It's nice and organized. That or I spend hours having to tag every mp3, video, picture, etc so I can sort via the app.

The Xperia Z does look like a very good device. I'd rather have a Android flip-phone, but Sharp seems to be the only one doing it.

It's a non-compete agreement. It's nothing new in the tech industry. Now, California doesn't allow non-compete agreements (except in small instances).

Anyways, agreements between large companies happen all the time. I seriously don't see any reason why they didn't agree to not poach each other's workers. As in, constantly try to pick up someone else's employee. If the employee willingly left and move to a different company, than I'd say that's fair game and the agreement doesn't come into play.

We'll see what was actually going, I guess.

If you think it's virtually impossible, then there's a whole lot of virtually impossible things happening.

A simple google search with the words "iTunes hacked" will show you that.

Well, the regular iPad. No word on the iPad Mini. That's to be expected. I think we all saw that the iPad Mini would cannabalize normal iPad sales.

I just make my car what I want. I'm still driving my 96 Subaru Impreza that I bought in 99. I've since replaced the hood with a carbon fiber hood, moved to 18" wheels, swapped to larger brakes, swapped to coilover suspension, replaced the stereo, and soon, WRX engine/tranny swap. Once I'm more use to double the hp, I'll move to an STI engine with 6 speed tranny swap. I also drive around my 2001 Subaru Impreza Outback Sport wagon when working on the car, which will eventually get replaced with a 2004-2005 Subaru Forester XT (as it uses the STI engine that's been detuned).

Screw stock

Mali was a good country, until soldiers got angry about having crappy gear. They overthrew the democratic government and was slowly taking over. Then the Islamic extremists attacked the soldiers and gained control of the north.

Anyways, I hope they send in a competent special forces team to rescue the hostages. SAS, Seals, Flotilla 13, Delta, etc. I'm not sure how good the French Naval Commandos are. They can have the JSDF shadow them to learn from them, but that may slow down the other special forces teams.

How does he call Apple a one trick pony, if they came out with the iPod, then the iPhone, then the iPad. That's 3 things right there. Granted, it's the exact same thing, just in different sizes.

Pretty much all your first world countries, their crime rates are dropping. 3rd world countries? Who knows, when they don't really do a good job tracking it.

Cars...so out of date. I already have the ability to play dvds, cds, mp3s, etc in my car. I have a tablet mount in there too for my old Android, but it's getting replaced with a Win 8 Enterprise tablet. Now my passengers can work while I drive.

The S3 does seem small when compared to a tablet, but it'll seem quite large when compared to other smartphones. It's all perspectives, but for a phone.

Great phone? No better than any other Android phone that has the exact same feature set in a smaller package. I've already gone through 3 Android phones and they all felt the same. Can't imagine the S3 would be any better or any worse. Unless it has some glaring defects, which I haven't heard of. I gave up on jumping on the new phone bandwagon. Maybe if I didn't burn through a new phone every year or sooner, I might see the big differences in speed.

I have a cheap pre-paid SIM card from Softbank that I use with my smartphone. It doesn't have data though, but I don't care about that. I just connect to any of the hundreds of unsecured wifi hotspots that people setup in their homes. Now some would want the data and I have no idea if Softbank does that.

Bike rentals or public bikes, I don't think there is much need in Tokyo. Subways, buses, and taxis are everywhere. Outside of that walking is also an option, as the special wards are only a short walk between two. I've walked from Shijuku to Shibuya all the time. That or Harajuku to Shibuya.

Fashion? Ya...definitely not Tokyo. Unless they think the businessman look is really in. Crazy, weird, colorful, etc fashion. That definitely sticks out. Gyaru, loli goth, visual kei, etc. It's not something you'd see anywhere else.

ATMs would be an issue for some, but I don't know if that's really a Japan issue or your bank issue. I have credit union, where my card works everywhere. I've used it in England, S.Korea, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, etc. My other credit union, that card won't work outside the states. Both cards are Visa, so can't see why both my bank cards don't work.

I also don't see Japan as being number 1 in technology. Not anymore at least. In 2005, I'd say they were. Their phones were far more sophisicated and their internet faster than anywhere else I've been (still is today).

Japan getting the Olympics. I don't know. They'd definitely do a decent job of housing the Olympics, I just don't see how it can be anything good for Japan. I'd just imagine they'd end up hating foreigners even more, if their is a slew of crime from travellers.

Just try to get the yen back to 120 per dollar. That seemed to work well half a decade ago.

360 yen to the dollar? Man, I would be buying yen like crazy right now. I'd also be buying up a lot of car parts. I've kept from buying some nice Cusco parts for my Impreza, cause the yen rate was just terrible.

Sounds like the Casio G-Shock GB6900AA, which costs $200 or less. I'm more inclined to go with the G-Shock, simply cause of the brand and the fact that they have been making awesome watches for decades.

I sometimes watch TV naked, with the blinds and curtains open. TV watching me...I'm fine with it.

Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S3 are too big for me. I'm trying to get away from gigantic phones. I'm good with a 4.3" screen. iPhone isn't for me either, as it doesn't have a microSD slot. I'm good with a 16 gig phone, then I can drop in my 32/64 gig microSD card into it. 16 gig for music, 32/64 gig for videos.

If I was rich, I'd buy a $10-$20k UltraHD TV. I love watching movies on a big screen, but I hate going to a movie theatre. Crappy parking, disgusting seats, annoying people, overpriced snacks, then the traffic trying to leave. Last movie I've watched at the theatre was Shaun of the Dead. I got a 40" HDTV, then later on a 50" HDTV. Haven't bothered with the theatre since. Maybe when I own a big enough house and the prices go down, will I have a nice 80" UltraHD tv.

Nothing at CES has really impressed me. Big TVs that majority can't afford and the rest is just the same old things that came out last year, just with faster procs or more memory.