Battle of the Super-Slim Ultrabooks: HP Spectre vs LG Gram

As well as being treated to the latest cutting-edge components, the new ultrabooks from HP and LG stand out with their super-slim, lightweight designs.

HP Spectre trims down to 10.4mm

HP has unveiled the world's slimmest laptop computer with a model that's just 10.4mm thick (compared to 13.1mm for Apple's MacBook). The HP Spectre is billed as a high-end, stylish device, loaded with the latest-generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors.

This 13.3-inch notebook PC has a scratch-resistant glass display (Corning Gorilla Glass) plus an aluminum and carbon fiber chassis ensuring a lightweight build, at a little over 1kg. It comes with up to 512GB of flash memory (SSD) and 8GB of RAM. It also features a twin-speaker audio system, developed in partnership with Bang & Olufsen, and has three USB Type-C ports.
The new HP Spectre is due on sale April 25, 2016, via HP‘s website, with US prices starting at $1,169.

LG gram pushes under the 1kg mark

Unveiled at the CES trade fair in Las Vegas in January 2016, the LG gram comes in three screen sizes (from 13.3 to 15.6 inches) and has a similarly lightweight design, with 980g on the scales. Plus, its super-slim form factor doesn't have much to envy of the HP Spectre (from 12.8 to 16.8mm thick). The three models are all top-of-the-range laptops, using the latest Intel Core processors.

The LG gram can be loaded with up to 256GB of flash memory and 8GB of RAM, depending on the model. All versions have an instant boot function that boots the system in a second, as soon as the screen is opened.

The LG gram is already on sale in the USA, priced from $800 (13-inch LG gram with Core i5 processor) to $1,500 (15-inch, Core i7).

These Windows 10 ultrabooks offer a new line-up of alternatives to the Microsoft Surface Book, a device that's lined up as the ultimate in super-slim design in the current PC market, even though it's thicker and heavier than these two new models. Apple will also need to trim down its laptops to stay in the game, a little over a year after launching its 12-inch MacBook. Rumor has it that the firm could have two new ultra-slim notebooks (13- and 15- inch models) in the pipeline for 2016.

Virtual reality set to transform filmmaking

Chris Milk stepped onto a TED Conference stage and took the audience on an awe-inducing trip into the future of movies. While much of the early attention on virtual reality has focused on use of the immersive technology in video games, Milk and his US startup Vrse are using it to transform storytelling and filmgoing. "We have just started to scratch the surface of the true power of virtual reality," Milk said. "It's not a video game peripheral. It connects humans to other humans in a profound way... I think virtual reality has the potential to actually change the world." He had everyone in the Vancouver audience at TED , which ended Friday, hold Google Cardboard viewers to their eyes for what was billed as the world's collective virtual reality experience. Google Cardboard gear is literally that -- cardboard

Explained: Camera Improvements in the New HTC 10

With the HTC 10, the Taiwanese company is promising to undo the past wrongs in the cameras of its previous flagship phones. The camera has long a weak point in HTC devices. At first, HTC sacrificed image resolution in the M8 and made the size of individual pixels larger to capture more light (what HTC called Ultrapixel). But the resulting 4 megapixel images were often fuzzy, especially when cropped or enlarged. To fix the issue, in its next flagship - the M9 - HTC went with smaller individual pixels in a 20-megapixel camera last year, but it still underperformed in extreme situations, such as indoors and close-ups. In the HTC 10, the company attempts to strike a balance with larger individual pixels (1.55µm), but not as large as before and a 12 megapixel sensor in its camera coupled with a ƒ/1.8 lens. HTC accepts that in the imaging performance in the M9 was not up to the kind of spec of what they really like to see in a flagship. HTC is giving a slight boost to the selfi...

Freedom 251: 30,000 Units Sold, Components for Up to 2.5 Million Will Be Imported

Ringing Bells, the makers of the Rs. 251 smartphone - the Freedom 251 - confirmed to Gadgets 360 on Tuesday that it has still only accepted payments for 30,000 units of the phone. It also added that the components for these phones will be imported, and only assembled in India, not made here. Ringing Bells stopped accepting orders on February 19, and claims to have received over 70 million registrations. The company President and Director both repeatedly stated that the price of the phone would be made possible through economies of scale, and making the phone in India to cut out import costs. Economies of scale? However, in a discussion with Gadgets 360 the company revealed that it had only sold 30,000 units of the phone on day one. The company has now confirmed that it has not sent out the payment emails to anyone else who registered - "we were working out details of cash on delivery, which we are announcing now, so we will be sending emails to the first 2.5...

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