Motorola, Samsung, Hewlett-Packard and a variety of other manufacturers face a host of challenges over the next few months. In addition to racking up big holiday sales, their newest and best devices must carve off significant shares of their respective markets in the coming year. Whether it's Motorola Mobility with its Droid Razr, or Samsung with its ever-larger Galaxy line, or HP with its latest laptop-and-tablets refresh, all these companies hunger for consumer and business mindshare—not to mention a sizable portion of their wallets. Indeed, at a recent event in New York City meant to showcase these manufacturers' next generations of offerings, Android-based devices seemed a particular focus. In addition to that plethora of smartphones and tablets, the other coming trend is "ultrabooks," or super-thin laptops with more powerful specs than netbooks. HP, Acer, Asus and Toshiba are just some of the manufacturers who have already unveiled their ultrabook models to the public eye—with more manufacturers apparently waiting in the wings to reveal their own ultrabooks at January's Consumer Electronics Show. The elephant in the room is Apple, whose iPad continues to hold a dominant share of the tablet market, and whose iPhone remains a significant player in the smartphone space, despite the flood of Android devices in recent months. Ultrabooks' emphasis on thin and light seems primed to take advantage of the same types of specs that made Apple's MacBook Air so popular, while the latest smartphones and tablets desperately want to generate that same sort of buzz that drew users to Apple's devices. Time will tell whether these manufacturers succeed in their aim.
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Droid Razr
Motorola Mobility's Droid Razr runs Google's Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, powered by a 1.2GHz processor and 1GH of LP DDR2 RAM. Verizon Wireless touts the smartphone's support for 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network as a selling point.
Motorola Admiral
Motorola Mobility's Admiral, for Sprint, runs Android 2.3 and is designed with ruggedness in mind. Its specs include a 1.2GHz processor, 3.1-inch VGA touch-screen display and QWERTY keyboard.
BlackBerry Torch
Research In Motion's BlackBerry Torch with BlackBerry 7 OS could be one of the last BlackBerry devices with that operating system before the company's next-generation "BBX" OS makes its debut sometime in 2012.
Ultrabooks
Ultrabooks, or super-thin laptops with more powerful specs than netbooks, are scheduled to debut in large numbers in 2012.
Toshiba Ultrabook
Toshiba's Protégé Z830 ultrabook boasts a 13.3-inch screen and weighs less than 2.5 pounds. Its Trusted Platform Module gives IT pros and administrators the ability to encrypt disks and set strong password control.
Asus Zenbook
As with ultrabooks from other manufacturers, the Asus Zenbook features second-generation Intel Core processors. It also boasts a solid-state drive (SSD) and runs Windows 7.
Acer Aspire S3-951
The Acer Aspire includes a 13.3-inch screen, along with a thermal design that channels warm air away from the user, allowing the model to be held for hours without becoming excessively hot.
Samsung Galaxy Player 5
Samsung hopes its 5-inch Galaxy Player, an Android-based media player, will allow the company to fill out its Galaxy line of mobile devices and compete head-to-head with Apple's iPod franchise.
Samsung Galaxy Player 4
In a bid to further increase its media-player presence, Samsung has also produced a 4-inch Galaxy Player, also equipped with Android.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus
Samsung's Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus features a 1.2GHz-processor, and runs Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) skinned with Samsung's proprietary TouchWiz user interface. It retails for $249.99 with the signing of a two-year mobile data contract with T-Mobile.
HP Slate 2 Tablet PC
HP's Slate 2 Tablet PC, its successor to the Slate 500, runs Windows 7 (relying on a 1.5GHz Intel Atom Z670 processor) on an 8.9-inch screen.
HP Envy
HP's Envy line of laptops gets a refresh that further emphasizes the integration of Beats Audio—note the giant volume dial with the Beats logo on the right side of the chassis.
Acer TimelineX
Acer's newest TravelMate TimelineX is a higher-power laptop with a choice of screen sizes (11.6 inches, 13.3 inches, 14 inches, and 15.6 inches) and second-generation Intel Core processors. Battery life is advertised at longer than eight hours.
ZTE Warp
The prepaid smartphone, which includes a 4.3-inch display and 5-megapixel camera, runs Android 2.3.
Nook Tablet
Barnes & Noble's latest addition to the Android-device marketplace is a 7-inch tablet equally adept at displaying e-books as playing multimedia.
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Motorola, Samsung, Hewlett-Packard and a variety of other manufacturers face a host of challenges over the next few months. In addition to racking up big holiday sales, their newest and best devices must carve off significant shares of their respective markets in the coming year. Whether it's Motorola Mobility with its Droid Razr, or Samsung with its ever-larger Galaxy line, or HP with its latest laptop-and-tablets refresh, all these companies hunger for consumer and business mindshare—not to mention a sizable portion of their wallets. Indeed, at a recent event in New York City meant to showcase these manufacturers' next generations of offerings, Android-based devices seemed a particular focus. In addition to that plethora of smartphones and tablets, the other coming trend is "ultrabooks," or super-thin laptops with more powerful specs than netbooks. HP, Acer, Asus and Toshiba are just some of the manufacturers who have already unveiled their ultrabook models to the public eye—with more manufacturers apparently waiting in the wings to reveal their own ultrabooks at January's Consumer Electronics Show. The elephant in the room is Apple, whose iPad continues to hold a dominant share of the tablet market, and whose iPhone remains a significant player in the smartphone space, despite the flood of Android devices in recent months. Ultrabooks' emphasis on thin and light seems primed to take advantage of the same types of specs that made Apple's MacBook Air so popular, while the latest smartphones and tablets desperately want to generate that same sort of buzz that drew users to Apple's devices. Time will tell whether these manufacturers succeed in their aim.