A Hardware Junkie’s Paradise

This is a guest blog from Ryan Asdourian, Sr. Product Manager for Windows

Last week I had a chance to travel down to CES in Las Vegas. It was a bit of a different feel since this is the first year Microsoft hasn’t had a booth. Luckily for me, this meant I had a bit more time to explore what was going on and get my hands on some of the cool new toys.

I’m a bit of a hardware junkie so when a bunch of new PCs rolled out in October, I was pretty excited. Now that even more PCs have been revealed, I keep trying to figure out how many I can fit into my house. I’m writing this on my Dell XPS 12 which I love to show off because of the cool hinge. I just flip it around and can always manage to get a few oohs and ahhhs, which is really what is all about. I’ve found myself flipping and spinning my PCs into different modes as I spend more and more of my life in apps that I would never imagine could suck up so much of my life.  To that end, I have to call out two of my favorites from this year’s show .

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon is the new toy I have to convince my wife to bring into the house. Not only can it be our entertainment center, but it has a battery so I can fold it down and put the giant 27” screen on my lap. When playing on this giant table-of-a PC I’m convinced I’ll get a much higher score on Jetpack Joyride.

And since I do love games, I can’t leave out the new Razer Edge. It took home a ton of awards and looks to be one of the most powerful tablets ever built.  It has a few different accessories, but the one I love the most has game controls on the sides, as you can see in the picture. I use my phone to turn on internet sharing, take my W8 gaming tablet and then suddenly I’ve got Call of Duty with me no matter where I am. Turns out this works surprisingly well on road trips!

 

The other cool thing I got to see at CES was the way some of the hardware and software have come together.  I’ve seen some of this in the past, especially in the audio space with HP PCs and HTC Phones that feature Beats audio, but it was really cool to see LL Cool J getting involved with a new app called Boomdizzle. (The video above has a bit more on that and some other cool devices at the show.) It was just a preview, but as I understand it, it’s going to help me get a chance to become a rock star. If my next blog post comes with an audio track and a Grammy, you’ll know why.

Those are some of my favorites, but of course you should choose your own. Then it is just a matter of convincing your wife, or whoever you share your house with, that you’re going to need a PC for every room and the freedom to play video games in the car!