Stories by Melissa J. Perenson

Apple without Steve Jobs: A charisma crisis

Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ resignation leaves the company's internal operation in the capable hands of his replacement, Tim Cook. But his departure also leaves a cavernous void when it comes to the company’s public persona. And right now, it’s unclear who...

Five features that shouldn't die with the HP TouchPad, WebOS

Barely two months after the HP TouchPad launched, and we're already writing its obituary. Even RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook tablet has survived for longer than that. I was among the reviewers who took HP to task on the TouchPad -- but even so, I'm sadde...

Panasonic reveals ruggedised Android tablet

Panasonic joins the long list of notebook manufacturers getting into the tablet game. The company announced it would release its Toughbook Android tablet later this year.

Seagate GoFlex Satellite portable hard drive

The Seagate GoFlex Satellite hard drive takes the shackles off your tablet, freeing it to connect to a greater amount of storage capacity -- without having to go through any pesky wires. But although the hardware implementation is adequate, the softw...

First look at the HTC Flyer

The HTC Flyer 7in Android tablet is already available overseas, but U.S. shoppers will be able to find it at Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile starting May 22. I just received a shipping unit, so here are some first impressions.

Google releases Android 3.1, first big Honeycomb update

Google today announced its first significant update to Android 3.0 Honeycomb. Google will roll out the update to Verizon Xoom 3G users today, and to other Honeycomb devices over the next couple of weeks.

Five things Google needs to fix in Android 3.0 Honeycomb

Make no mistake: Google's tablet-optimized Android 3.0 represents a huge improvement overall over previous versions of Google's mobile operating system. But that's not to say it gets everything right. After extensive use across multiple tablets, I've...

RIM BlackBerry PlayBook

To say that Research in Motion's BlackBerry PlayBook is a study in contrasts is an understatement. After extensively testing a PlayBook ($500 for 16GB of storage, $600 for a 32GB version, and $700 for 64GB) that was running not-quite-final software, ...

Hands on: Budget Android tablet, Huawei S7 Slim

There are great budget PCs and laptops, but where are the decent budget tablets? The answer could be Huawei's S7 Slim, an Android 2.2 OS 7-inch tablet shown here at CTIA. Tablet maker Huawei offers a bright spot among a sea of mediocre "value priced"...

RIM’s Android Play: 5 questions

It's the day after the big news that Research in Motion will, albeit indirectly, support Android 2.3 apps on its BlackBerry PlayBook -- and questions swirl over what this means for users, for RIM, for developers, and for the BlackBerry PlayBook itsel...

Mobile Web browsers: Hands-on with Firefox 4 for mobile

Apps are all about choice. And nowhere is choice more appealing than in the world of Web browsing. In the early days of smartphones, users had no choice but to use the browser that came installed with the operating system, but now we have multiple ch...

Samsung announces Galaxy Tab 8.9 and 10.1

Samsung announced two new Android 3.0 Galaxy Tab tablets Tuesday boasting both are the world's thinnest. The Galaxy Tab 8.9 and Galaxy Tab 10.1 are 8.6mm thin (or 0.34-inches) which is about 0.2mm thinner than the Apple iPad 2.

Sprint to update Galaxy Tab OS for Flash

In yet another of a flurry of Sprint news on the eve of CTIA's week-long event in Orlando, Sprint announced that it will bring its Sprint ID pack to the Samsung Epic 4G and Samsung Galaxy Tab. Sprint showed off its customizable Android software at la...

Buy a tablet

As more tablets come to market, be prepared to be wowed by the power that some of these slates are capable of. But also be prepared to be disappointed: The tablets already on the market, or coming soon, have a slew of gotchas -- especially the lower-...

Star Wars Episode I to go 3D in 2012

Lucasfilm has been busy of late. First came the announcement that the Star Wars films would arrive in 2011 on Blu-ray Disc. Now, comes word that Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace would revisit theaters in 3D come 2012.