Asus Memo 370T

Nvidia and Asus teased a product that may change everything. At the Nvidia press conference at the CES 2012 show the companies flashed that a quad-core, Tegra 3-based 7-inchtablet would soon be released for only $250.

The tablet in question actually turned out to be the Asus Memo 370T. An upgraded version of the 7-inch stylus-supported Memo tablet Asus debuted at CES 2011.

While the previous version ran on Honeycomb and utilized a dual-core Qualcomm 8260-1.2Ghz CPU, the 370T will ship with Ice Cream Sandwich and houses a quad-core Tegra 3. No word yet on the actual speed of the processor, though. The previously announced stylus peripheral has been dropped for the device.

The 370T comes with 1GB of RAM and at least 16GB of storage. It also sports a 1,280x800-pixel IPS screen that delivered smoothly scrolling menus. Holding it in my hands, the tablet felt and looked very similar, dimensionally, to the Acer Iconia Tab A100. The 370T even hits the typical-for-a-7-inch-tablet weight of 0.88 pound, right on the nose.

Other details include a Micro-USB port, a microSD card reader, and a Micro-HDMI port. Lastly, the tablet will feature the same great 8-megapixel camera found on the Transformer Prime.

Last year, the $200 Kindle Fire had a similar effect, by offering users a quality tablet experience that didn't necessitate taking out a second mortgage.

The existence of the 370T now demonstrates that performance doesn't necessarily require a price premium. While this is likely to have a tangible effect on tablet prices, we may see an even greater effect on the portable gaming market.

Look for the Asus Memo 370T in the second quarter of 2012.

Nokia Lumia 900

Best smartphone of the CES 2012 show this year has to be the Nokia Lumia 900 with Windows phone 7.5 at last making a punch in the mobile phone market.

"It's the first one built for and designed for the North American market," said Stephen Elop, Nokia's CEO. He unveiled the new phone at CES in Las Vegas.

The Lumia 900 is somewhat larger version of the overseas Lumia 800 model and Polycarbonate never looked so good. The 900 additions: the larger, 4.3-inch screen (as with the 800: AMOLED, at 800 x 480 resolution); support for LTE/4G cellular. The Qualcomm 1.4GHz CPU and 512MB of RAM should make Windows Phone 7.5 just as quick and smooth as it is on the 800 and 710 models.

The back camera has a 28-millimeter focal length, meaning users can squeeze more into photos than with most camera phones. The Lumia 900 also has a front-facing camera for video conferencing.

Nokia worked closely with app developers to create apps that really take advantage of the Windows Phone "Metro" user interface, said Kevin Shields, a senior vice president at Nokia. He showed off ESPN and CNN apps that Nokia helped develop. "We're going to make the sports nuts who are Lumia customers delighted," said Nokia.

Both Microsoft and Nokia are hoping to boost lagging performance in mobile phones, which I think we all agree that of we have a great Windows mobile OS, then most of us would welcome a Windows unit to sync more effectively with our Windows desktop. Microsoft had just 1.5 percent share of the worldwide smartphone market in the third quarter of 2011, down from 2.7 percent in the previous year, according to research from Gartner. Nokia was still the top phone maker, with 23.9 percent share of the mobile device market in the third quarter. But its share has been steadily declining over the years; it dropped from 28.2 percent in the third quarter of 2010, Gartner found.

Nokia have no launch date for this phone yet as well as  no details of the price tag. T-mobile may be the first operator to offer the unit in the UK.

Envy 14 Spectre

Pretty much every computer maker showed off an Ultrabook laptop at this years 2012 CES in Las-Vegas, with varying chassis designs and sizes but with the same MacBook Air-inspired fundamentals of being thin, weighing little, using power sparingly, and using SSD storage, plus Intel's own contribution of fast bootup.

Hewlet-Packard's Envy 14 Spectre stands out not because it is in the Ultrabook camp but because of its innovative glass lid, which frees up the space normally used by the frame to allow the use of a larger screen in the same space. HP claims it can thus fit a 14-inch LCD in the same laptop dimensions normally holding a 13-inch LCD. It also supports nearfield communications (NFC) very-short-range wireless. The base model ships on Feb. 8 for $1,399.