Last week Dell officially announced two new Android-powered mid-range tablets, and now they are available to purchase online from the manufacturers online shopping portal. The Venue 7 is listed for $150, and the Venue 8 is retailing for the slightly higher price of $180.
Teardown specialists iFixit have published a new tablet repairability guide that quickly tells you how difficult it’s going to be to mend your broken Android, iOS, or Windows 8 slate. The guide features 18 popular tablets, which have been given a repairability score between one and ten. The higher the score, the easier they are to repair.
Unsurprisingly, Apple’s iPads are some of the hardest tablets to fix, second only to the Microsoft Surface Pro — the only tablet with a score of one. Amazon’s Kindle Fire’s, on the other hand, are relatively easy to repair, as are Dell’s devices.
Samsung has surpassed Apple as the world’s biggest buyer of semiconductors, according to Gartner. The Korean company’s hugely popular smartphones, such as the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Note II, led to a 29% surge in chip purchases in 2012, taking its semiconductor spending past that of any other company.
Yes, Dell once made some smartphones.
The smartphone market has proven to be incredibly lucrative for a small number of companies — Apple and Samsung are the first that spring to mind — while others struggle to maintain a sizable market share. Dell is one that has now decided it cannot see itself becoming a successful player, and so the company is turning its back on Android and exiting the smartphone business. It will not be releasing any new handsets during 2013.
