Mobile Races: 4 Telling Numbers (Apple vs Samsung)

Very interesting numbers - not totally surprising at all but is good to see in print.
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Tablet Races: 4 Telling Numbers
Hardware makers and network operators provided insight on adoption of the hottest mobile platforms--Android and iOS--via financial reports this week. Here are four things we learned.

Complete article here, a bit expanded below, too.

By Eric Zeman InformationWeek
January 28, 2012 09:05 AM

Consider these four facts that rose above the noise.

1. It's Apple, Samsung Versus Everyone Else: Globally, Apple sold 37 million iPhones in the fourth quarter of 2011 and 93 million for the entire year. Samsung sold 36.5 million smartphones during the fourth quarter and 97.4 million for the entire year. Nokia ranks a distant third, with 19 million smartphones sold in the fourth quarter and 77.3 million sold for the year.

In terms of percentages, Apple accounted for 23.9% of global smartphones sales during the fourth quarter, and 19% for the year. Samsung accounted for 23.5% of all smartphone sales during the fourth quarter and 19.9% for the year. RIM, Motorola, LG, Sony Ericsson, and others are battling for Apple and Samsung's scraps.

Same goes for tablets. Considering the poor numbers from RIM and Motorola (each sold about 1 million tablets in 2011), Apple and Samsung own the tablet market for now.
[ Apple's tablet has come a long way in two short years. Take a look back and a peek ahead in Apple iPad: Happy 2nd Birthday. ]

2. Android And iOS Will Lead For Foreseeable Future: Together, Android and iOS own approximately 76.3% of the U.S. smartphone market. Android has 46.3% of the market, while iOS has about 30%. RIM's BlackBerry platform is third with about 15%. The remaining 10% is owned by Windows Mobile, PalmOS, webOS, and Windows Phone.

RIM's current BlackBerry platform will continue to see losses in overall marketshare as the company prepares to release BlackBerry 10 and new smartphones later this year. RIM will be starting with zero presence with the new platform when it launches. Will it catch on? Will it surpass Windows Phone? Apple CEO Tim Cook thinks Microsoft's Windows Phone--and not RIM's BB10--will take the third spot in the market. Even if it does, Android and iOS will only continue to cement their lead.

3. Android Tablets Gaining In Popularity: Apple notched a massive 15.4 million iPad 2 sales during the fourth quarter of the year. While cheapo tablets weren't much in the way of competition, it appears as though Android's presence in the tablet market is eroding Apple's lead, bit-by-bit.

New data released this week by Strategy Analytics shows that the iPad owns 57.6% of the global tablet market. That's down markedly from the previous year's 69%. Where did Apple's lead go? Straight to Android. Android's share of the global smartphone market swelled from 29% is 2010 to 39.1% in 2011. If Android tablets make similar gains in 2012, Apple and Google will be neck-and-neck in the tablet space before we know it.

Intel processor speeds, so many choices so little time

Below are a couple handy tools for reviewing details specs on various new processors. Hope they are helpful!
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Intel is rolling out lots of new CPU's these days and manufacturers are building systems with them fast. Here are a couple of tools to help determine actual speeds of various Intel Core i7 and i5 processors.

1. cpubenchmark.net: A handy site to get a benchmark on a specific processors and additional info, can be found at cpubenchmark.net

2. Intel.com: Intel has a handy processor comparison tool as well.

SSD Drives

This article is a few months old but I still thought it informative on SSD drives and comparisions and myths to conventional hard drives.
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Solid State Drives for Desktop PCs and Laptops: Ready for Prime Time?
by richi on 07-11-2011 11:15 PM

An SSD is a large flash memory drive, usually packaged as a drop-in replacement for a regular hard drive — in the same form factor and with the same interfaces.

SSDs are fast. Even the slowest SSD gives you far better real-world performance than does the fastest conventional hard drive — 100 times as fast or more. This translates not only into improved user productivity, but also into higher quality work.

More User Productivity, Fewer Errors
Imagine starting Windows in seconds, not minutes. Imagine if unpacking a .ZIP file in the background didn’t bring the rest of your PC to a crawl. Imagine never feeling the need to dropkick your PC for its inexplicable slowness.

You’ll see a vast performance improvement using an SSD in a desktop PC. It’s even more noticeable on a laptop or netbook, which use slower drives than their desktop counterparts.
Research by the University of Maryland and others show that a faster PC means reduced user frustration, which in turn causes users to make fewer mistakes. This has an inevitable effect on productivity.

Complete article and some top myths about SSD drives at the turn...