CNET Midyear Review: Top Ten Focus Products Released in the First Half of the Year

Before the eyes, half a year passed. During this half year, the IT industry was not busy. Then, we went back and reviewed the top ten focus product releases in the first half of the year. Strictly speaking, this is not ten products. However, there are ten different series of products. They affected the first half of the year and it is quite possible to further expand their influence.

1. Windows Phone 7.5 landing China review: March 21, Windows Phone 7.5 officially landed in the Chinese market, this is Microsoft's first release of Windows Phone products in mainland China, before and after the release, there have been many domestic Windows Phone mobile terminals, Nokia It also cooperated with China Telecom to launch the Lumia 800C, which is the first time that the Lumia series has entered China.



Comments: The development of Windows Phone in China has always been unpleasant. With the appearance of Windows Phone 7.5, it also means that at home, Microsoft's development efforts have begun. However, over the past three months, WP’s progress in China has not been optimistic. On the one hand, the shortage of terminals has made it difficult to attract more consumers. On the other hand, although Microsoft has invested a lot of energy, developers are encouraged to apply WP applications. The development, but at present, the number of domestic WP application development is less than 3% of the total number of mobile application development, and Microsoft announced that WP8 does not support the existing WP7 and WP7.5 devices, which casts a shadow on the market.

2. Ivy Bridge released a review: April 24, Intel has China released a third generation of intelligent Core processor family, research and development codenamed IvyBridge, the new version of the processor uses a 22nm process and 3D transistor manufacturing process, CPU core architecture is not large The change, but the core graphics card upgrade to HD4000, compared to the previous generation of HD3000, about more than double the performance increase. Intel said that the new generation of IvyBridge will be used in ultrabooks, notebooks, desktops and all-in-one machines. Like previous generation products, IvyBridge has standard voltage and low voltage versions.



Comments: This is an important product of Intel. Whether in the architecture design or the process, it has fully led all kinds of competitors, especially the process, and opened up the distance with all foundries. With 22nm accuracy, there are possibilities for pushing CICIS architecture into more areas, such as mobile internet and embedded.

3. Nokia Releases Lumia 900

Review: On January 9th, CES 2012, Nokia released the Lumia 900, a mobile phone for the Windows Phone 7.5 platform. Compared with the slightly backward configuration of the Lumia 800, this model basically uses the mainstream hardware. Configuration. On June 15th, this Nokia’s flagship product was launched in mainland China. The official retail price is RMB 4,599. Lumia 900 is Nokia's first 4G network mobile phone. Although the configuration of Lumia 900 is not top-notch, its cost is as high as 209 US dollars, even more than iPhone 4s, which puts a lot of pressure on Nokia's operating costs.



Comments: This is Nokia's highlight of the first half of this year, one of the absolute hot models on the market, in the Windows Phone field, even if the Samsung S7530 will soon be released, is not its opponent, however, a crisis constrains the Lumia 900 The continued growth: Microsoft announced that even if Lumia 900 is expensive, it cannot be upgraded to Windows Phone 8. This is an important blow to its sales and reputation.

4. Microsoft released Windows Phone 8 Preview Review: On June 21st, Microsoft released a Windows Phone 8 Developer Preview. From the experience of the desktop version of the Windows platform, the final version of the Windows Phone 8 is both an interface and a function. There will be no major changes. The new Windows Phone 8 has two surprises to many people. First, this version uses the same core code as the desktop version of Windows 8. Therefore, an application can run on both platforms simultaneously. Second, the new version. The system does not even support all existing WP devices, including the Nokia Lumia 900, which is eye-popping.



Comments: From the current point of view, on the WP8, many people are not optimistic, the main reason is not downward compatibility, put aside consumer disappointment, for this piece of news, also reveals two things: First, if you consider not The reason for compatibility is the hardware requirements, so it is not difficult to see that Windows Phone 8's dependence on the hardware seems to improve a lot, 1.4GHz processor, and the screen resolution is only 800x480, Lumia 900 such a configuration running Android is more than enough, is WP8 right Hardware spending is bigger than Android? This will make WP no longer exist on Android! Second, if more hardware is needed to help the WP8 run, cost control is obviously not what Nokia is good at. The existing Lumia 900 is far more costly than a similarly configured mobile phone. If the cost is significantly increased, the price is unimaginable. How many users will pay for the too expensive WP8 Lumia phone?

5. Windows 8 Basic Stereotype Review: In the first half of this year, Windows 8 had two major release updates: the consumer preview and the release preview. From the past experience and time, the final version of Windows 8 should have been basically finalized. It can even be said that there is no difference in the interface and main functions between the Windows 8 release preview version and the final listing version. On March 1, Microsoft released a preview of the Windows 8 consumer, and on June 1, the release preview was launched. Windows 8 contrasts with previous systems, the biggest change is the start menu, the traditional start menu replaced by the Metro interface, touch features began to become a part of Windows 8, the entire Windows 8 has a redesigned UI, more It is optimized for touch.



Comments: Windows 8 carries Microsoft's hope, PC makers hope, Intel's hope, objectively speaking, on the desktop platform, Windows 8 has no incentive to improve, this time, Microsoft's hope is put on a new On the platform, the most important one is the tablet computer, followed by the ultrabook and the all-in-one. In the new product form, Microsoft and its partners all hope to kill the bleeding road and shake Apple’s dominance in these fields. .

6. Apple releases new iPad

Review: On March 8, Apple released a new generation of iPads in San Francisco. To everyone's surprise, the new version is not named iPad 3, but the new iPad. On March 16th, the new iPad went on sale. However, as of now, the sales regions still do not include the mainland China. The reason is likely to be a dispute between Apple and Proview. Compared with the previous generation of products, the new iPad is obviously not good enough, just an upgrade on the hardware, and even an increase in weight.



Comments: This is another disappointing product Apple released after the iPhone 4s, and even some fans said that the only value of the new iPad is to make the iPad 2's price drop. Apple now seems to have entered a period of lack of creativity, the two main product lines iPhone and iPad, after upgrading the product, almost no change in appearance, even the MacBook series products, also lackluster, after Steve Jobs's death, Apple really only Jianglang Yet? There are still rumors that a new generation of iPhone will be proposed in the morning to save Apple's current decline.

7. The wave of quad-core cell phones released: The earliest quad-core cell phones were released on MWC 2012, and LG Optimus 4x won this award. However, the release was released. The launch of this cell phone was just a matter of time. The first device was listed. The quad-core handset was the HTC One X. Later, a series of quad-core handsets such as the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the Meizu MX quad-core version came out. According to the latest news, the Lenovo quad-core handset K860 has passed the certification of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and will be released soon. In addition to using quad-core processors and larger screens, the new generation of mobile phones does not seem to differ much from its predecessors in other hardware parameters. The main processors they use are nVidia, Samsung and Qualcomm.



Comment: The arms race of the Android camp is still continuing. Like Apple, there is a lack of new creative elements in the entire industry. We do not see the emergence of great products.

8. Intel entered smart phone review: On January 9, Intel launched a smart phone program with Lenovo at CES 2012. This new Android smart phone uses the Atom Z2460 processor. In addition to Lenovo, it includes some Motorola devices. Vendors also plan to launch Intel platform products. This is after Xscale, Intel returns to the intellectual mobile phone market again, the new processor adopts the x86 framework, can run on Android, it is uncertain whether Intel will offer support to Windows Phone in the future.



Comments: Intel's sale of Xscale business to Marvell has been a matter of years ago, and now Intel is looking to use the Atom platform to create a new generation of smart phones. To achieve this, Intel and Google launched a secret cooperation last year. In all fairness, the first-generation Z2460 is not enough to shock the ARM camp, and the current strength of Intel's partners is still unable to challenge the mainstream, with the continuous maturity of Atom processors, with a mature application development environment, x86 and ARM must have war.

9. Review of the new version of the MacBook: On June 11, Apple released the Snow Leopard and iOS 6 operating systems on the WWDC. At the same time, there are new versions of the MacBook series of hardware products, including MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. In addition to the configuration upgrade, the most important change in the new version of the MacBook is the significant increase in screen resolution, and the retina screen has entered into this series of products. At the same time, the Snow Leopard system carried out for the first time did a lot of localization work in Chinese, and it can be seen that Apple began to review and position the Chinese market.



Comments: The lack of highlights, and frequent failures, a new generation of MacBook has suffered great challenges, just rely on the retina screen to attract consumers?

10. Lenovo launched ideaTV smart TV review: Last year, Lenovo threw out a four-screen cloud strategy. TV has always been the missing part of the “four screens”. This year Lenovo filled in this component. On the CES, Lenovo smart TV was officially released. In May, this product appeared in China. Lenovo Smart TV is the first Android 4.0 platform smart TV product. The hardware configuration is similar to a high-end mobile phone. At the same time, it is optimized for applications and has some applications tailored to the high resolution of the TV.



Comments: As the first smart TV launched by Lenovo, it can be used to describe this product. Whether it is Android 4.0 or the application store, it does not give a brighter feeling. In the future, Lenovo needs to improve in at least three aspects: user interaction experience, design, and application.