pc.magazine january.2006
TRANSCRIPT
www.pcmag.com T H E I N D E P E N D E N T G U I D E T O T E C H N O L O G Y JA N UA RY 2 0 0 6
THE NEW MICROSOFT OFFICE
Excellence
Xbox 360: More Than Just GamesMax Out Your BatteriesFirst Looks: The Sexy Motorola PEBL Phone
Excellence
Awards for Innovative Awards for Innovative
Products and TechnologiesProducts and Technologies
• PRODUCT DESIGN
• ENTERTAINMENT
• DIGITAL MUSIC
• CAMERAS
• MOBILE
• WEB
• SOFTWARE
• HDTV & LCD
• PEOPLE OF THE YEAR AND MUCH MORE
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 7
K
You’ll notice a new name atop the masthead of our next issue, as Jim Louderback has been promoted to Editor-in-Chief of PC Magazine and Editorial Director of Ziff Davis’s Consumer Technology Group, which includes PCMag.com, ExtremeTech, DigitalLifeTV, Gearlog, Tech-noRide, and his popular What’s New Now newsletter. Jim has been part of PC Magazine for a long time, as a regular columnist and as editorial director of our many Web sites over the past sev-eral years.
Before that, he held top editorial jobs at ZDTV/TechTV, served as editorial director of PC Week, edi-tor-in-chief of Windows Sources, and the director of PC Week Labs. Jim brings an enormous amount of insight and enthusiasm to his new role, and I know he has plen-ty of exciting new ideas for the magazine going forward. You’ll be seeing many of them in the coming months.
In my new position as Chief Content Offi cer for Ziff Davis Media, I’ll oversee the content of all of our operations, including magazines, Web sites, and events. I’ll continue to write this column, and you’ll see me on our Web site and at various indus-try events. And with PC Magazine now published in 40 countries and 16 languages, I’ll continue to work with our international partners. In recent
months, I’ve traveled to China and Brazil, where we’ve just launched new editions of the magazine. I’m still amazed to see how computer and Internet technology are changing the way people work and live around the world.
I’ve had the great pleasure of running PC Magazine since 1991, and in that time I’ve had the op-portunity to work with many wonderful people. I can’t name them all here, but I’d like to thank all the product testers at PC Mag-azine Labs for their dedication to fair, accurate, and relevant test results; the writers and editors for turning those results into interesting stories for our readers; the art and production folks, who are the unsung he-roes of every magazine; and the sales and mar-keting teams who make
all of this possible.Of course, PC Magazine wouldn’t ex-
ist without the people who develop the seemingly endless supply of technologies and products that we write about every day. And most of all, I’d like to thank all of you who have read and supported the magazine throughout the years. It’s been a great ride.
I’ve been playing with the new Microsoft Office beta recently, and fi nd a lot to like as well as some frustrations. You can read more about the specifi c features later in this issue (see page 134), but here are some quick thoughts.
Not only has Microsoft radically redesigned the user interface, but it has also added a number of the prominent features of competing office pro-ductivity suites. In true Microsoft style, the new Offi ce is evolving just enough to keep up with the competition.
The new user interface looks more like a Macintosh application, but functional-ly the biggest change is the new Ribbon, which is much more task-based than the old menu system.The idea is simple: When you’re doing a task, you see all the relevant commands. For in-stance, as I type this, the Write tab shows up, with the clipboard, font and style changes, paragraph formatting, and so on. Similarly, when I change to Review or Page Layout, I see the most frequently used commands.
I’m still amazed to
see how computer
and Internet
technology are
changing the way
people work and live
around the world.
Changes Under Way at PC Magazine
Microsoft Office “12” Preview
Forward Thinking
M I C H A E L J . M I L L E R
JIM LOUDERBACK
MICHAEL MILLER AT THE LAUNCH OF PC
MAGAZINE IN BRAZIL AND CHINA.
8 PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com
MORE ON THE WEB: Join us online and make your voice heard. Talk back to Michael J. Miller in our opinions section, go.pcmag.com/miller.
One of the most important inventions of the last few de-cades has been the charge-coupled device, or CCD, which is at the heart of the vast majority of today’s digital cameras. This year, we’re honoring CCD in-ventors Willard Boyle and George Smith with our Lifetime Achievement
As I talked with them recently, I was reminded of just how long and winding the path can be be-tween invention and product. Boyle and Smith in-vented the CCD in 1969 while they were working for Bell Labs, but the company couldn’t commer-cialize the technology. As Smith recalls, Bell Labs was allowed to make only products that could be used in the phone system. Originally, the CCD was part of a picture-phone project, and when that was killed, the CCD was killed along with it.
The product didn’t stay down for long. As Boyle recalls, “thousands of engineers worked on it over the years.” He says that at one point more than 4,000 papers referenced the CCD that he and Smith created. Lots of companies worked on pushing the technology forward. Boyle noted the role of Japanese companies in bringing CCDs to camcorders, and Smith mentioned work done by Fairchild, RCA, Sony, and Texas Instruments.
Initially, CCDs were expensive, but with the contributions of many individuals and compa-nies costs dropped dramatically, and by now they are used in nearly every consumer digital cam-era and camcorder. Today, digital cameras vastly outsell traditional film cameras, but the revolu-tion emerged from that fi rst act of invention over three decades ago. I asked Smith whether he feels a sense of pride when he sees someone with a digi-tal camera. “You bet,” he said.
The Ribbon works better than the old menus. You can continue to write and edit no matter which tab is open, but some of the choices as to what goes where will take some getting used to. For instance, you need to go to the Review tab and then to Proof-ing Tools to do a quick spell check. But I really wish it had an option to use the old-style menus.
The new user interface also brings to the surface several things you might not have known how to do before, such as applying a theme to an entire document or changing the
way a reviewer’s comments appear. It also makes certain tasks easier, such as protecting a docu-ment. Beyond these changes, though, Word feels much as it always has, with the occasionally mad-dening formatting choices.
Several welcome features, such as the ability to create PDF fi les from within the application and the ability to preview font changes as you select the font from the menu, are already familiar in competing programs such as WordPerfect. One nice new fea-ture that is unique to the new Word “12” is the Fin-ish command in the File menu, which lets you strip out old comments and identifi able information.
Perhaps the biggest func-tional improvement is the new graphics engine for creating
drawings and charts. This works in both Excel and PowerPoint and is a long overdue fi x. It offers a lot more and much better chart types, but I still noticed some problems with fitting labels. This version of Excel also lets you create much bigger models. The improvements Offi ce “12” offers will let you create more complex documents more eas-ily than ever, and that should mean sharper-look-ing documents for everyone.
The Office beta has a new default file format—called Offi ce XML—which Microsoft recently sub-mitted to a standards body. This move strikes me as a reaction to the OpenDocument format that Sun’s OpenOffi ce uses. The idea of an open XML-based format is a good one, but I suspect that most people will continue to use the old formats for a long time.
In addition to new features in the core applica-tions, Microsoft is also taking Offi ce in a new di-rection. You can still use Office as a standalone product (and my guess is, most of you will), but Mi-crosoft is trying to integrate its traditional Offi ce applications and its server products more tightly and extend their reach in new ways.
Microsoft Office “12” has more than cosmetic improvements. Underneath the covers, Microsoft is trying to build Offi ce into something that con-nects all your business processes together. As applications are moving online, the company has placed a big bet on developing its online applica-tions. But for now, desktop applications are where Offi ce “12” is upping the ante.
Honoring the Inventors of the CCD
Forward Thinking
M I C H A E L J . M I L L E R
New Year’s Resolutions
Back up your data
Keep your operating system up to date
Keep your antivirus software up to date
Run antispyware software
Check system-restore disks;
make them if you don’t have them
Check your fi rewall regularly
Change your passwords regularly
Check your credit reports regularly
Back up again and keep a copy
in a safe location
Have a great 2006!
POWERPOINT “12”
creating it (see page 131).award for their role in
S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N
Getting Controlof Your Business with FileMaker Pro 8 One of the most important, if not the most important thing for a small business owner is to be sure of the control you have over your business. Do too many of your customers pay you late? Of those, how many are overdue by more than 45 days? What percent of your shipments reach customers on time? How many are completely accurate? With new FileMaker Pro 8 you’ll have better control over all your business information - it will be easier to work with, easier to manipulate, and simpler to share.
Controlling Key InformationAt the heart of it, information is really the scorecard of a business. If you can’t get to or analyze your information, your business can quickly spiral out of control. FileMaker Pro 8 can help make sure that doesn’t happen.
With its simple interface and easy-to-use tools, FileMaker Pro 8 makes it easier than ever to see what data you actually have for your business, compare it, and run reports that pinpoint the critical business trends that can improve your results. And, using FileMaker Pro 8 as your information management tool means you won’t have different data coming from different sources, giving you more than one answer to a question. There is no greater waste of time than trying to fi gure out what the right answer is when you get confl icting answers from multiple sources. FileMaker Pro 8 can bring it all together.
Another important part of “control” is determining who can see specifi c kinds of data. For instance, you wouldn’t want the payroll information available to everyone. Using FileMaker Pro 8, you can easily set up rules and policies that determine which employees are able to see what detailed data, or even total, or
FileMaker Pro 8 is the perfect complement to Excel and Microsoft Office. It allows you to easily move data between applications, thereby providing an easy, flexible, and customizable information-management solution.
With new FileMaker Pro 8 you’ll have better control over all your
business information because it’llbe easier to work with, easier to
manipulate, and simpler to share.
S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N
cumulative data. This clarifi es who’s got access to what, thereby protecting sensitive information. If you are in the legal, healthcare, banking, or brokerage industries, this kind of control is mandatory because of the government requirements that now exist with HIPPA or privacy laws. And these mandates are coming soon to other markets. Additionally, with new audit and reporting requirements being thrust upon businesses of almost any size, you want to make sure you have accurate, consistent, and secure data for audit and reporting purposes. FileMaker Pro 8 can help make sure this is the case.
Integration with Other ToolsOne of the most important elements of “control” is the ability to integrate the centralized, controlled data of FileMaker Pro 8 with other important business tools. It’s easy to integrate data from FileMaker Pro with Excel, Microsoft Offi ce, or other standard business tools. Instead of guessing at data, or using old printouts, now you can use the latest information in the tools
you like best. This means that all the individual spreadsheets that employees use in their jobs have the same underlying data, making it easy to see how all this information works together.
It’s easy to integrate data from FileMaker Pro 8 with Excel,
Microsoft Offi ce, or otherstandard business tools.
Control Doesn’t Mean InaccessibleOne of the downsides of some products that control data is that they end up making data inaccessible. Getting information in or out of these software products is a nightmare. This isn’t acceptable. FileMaker Pro 8 ensures that you can easily get to your data without being a rocket scientist. Using FileMaker Pro 8, you can publish data in formats like PDF or standard fi les in just one click. You can even upload this data to the web so customers, employees, and business partners can access it using a browser. All of this helps to make sure you can control your data without losing access to it.
Productivity Kit comes complete with a set of pre-designed, ready-to-use business solutions. These solutions will allow you to simplify tasks such as:
• Managing contacts and companies • Organizing products and inventories • Processing sales orders • Tracking projects and production • Sending targeted mailings • Producing invoices and reports
Visit www.fi lemakertrial.com/business to download your free copy today.
FileMaker Pro 8 is flexible so it can help with customer data, inventory or product information, project tracking, and much more.
The new FileMaker Business
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www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 13
CO
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JO
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Thousands of ideas crossed our desks andlab benches last year, but only the best—the most innovative and revolutionary products,services, and standards—merit a Technical Excellence award from PC Magazine. See if you agree with our choices.
C O V E R S T O R Y
JA N UA RY 2006 • VOL . 25 NO. 1
CONTENTS www.pcmag.com
First Looks
28 Entertainment Technology
• Microsoft Xbox 360 K • Update Rollup 2
for Windows XP MediaCenter Edition 2005
32 Multimedia PCs
• Apple iMac G5 (iSight) M • Sony VAIO VGC-VA11G
34 Business Software
• TurboTax Premier 2005 • TaxCut Premium 2005
39 Notebook PCs
• Apple PowerBook 17-inch • HP Pavilion dv8000 M
49 Mobile Devices
• Motorola U6 PEBL
50 HDTVs
• Westinghouse LVM-37w1 • Panasonic TH-42PX50U
52 Displays
• Samsung SyncMaster 193p Plus • Philips 200W6 M
53 Projectors
• Canon Realis SX50 • Sony VPL-CX20A
58 Scanners
• Canon DR-2580C • Epson Perfection 4490 Photo
59 Printers
• Ricoh Afi cio CL7200D
63 Multimedia Software
• Ulead PhotoImpact 11 • PhotoPlus 10 Studio Pack
64 Business Software
• Seven Server Edition 6.5 • Sproqit Workgroup Edition 1.0
Our Top Products
33 Desktop PCs
40 Notebook PCs
55 Displays
60 Printers
102
ANNUAL AWARDS
FO
R
nd 22 TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE
�
The New Microsoft
Offi ce page 134
Xbox 360 page 28
Max Out Your Batteries
page 82
The Sexy Motorola PEBL
page 49
Excellence:
Awards for
Innovative
Products and
Technologies
page 102
ON THE COVER
Online www.pcmag.com
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 14
Pipeline 21 Toward more intelligent robots.
21 Sony serves up free video conferencing.
21 360-degree gaming immersion, in the VirtuSphere.
21 Passwords: We’re loaded with too many.
22 IBM’s Blue Gene/L: the fastest computer.
22 Skype’s security questioned.
24 COMING ATTRACTIONS: Velocity Micro’s Dolby PC, Iomega ScreenPlay, Everstrike’s Universal Shield 4.0, Serious Magic’s Ovation, and more.
O F F I C E P R E V I E W
134 Offi ce “12”: Extreme Makeover
Microsoft’s next version of its ubiquitous Offi ce suite offers a radically different inter-face and a more accessible docu-ment format. Is this a good thing? Read our preview to learn if 2006 will be a good year for suite users.
Opinions 7 Michael J. Miller:
Forward Thinking 75 John C. Dvorak 77 John C. Dvorak’s Inside Track 79 Jim Louderback 81 Bill Howard
Solutions82 Getting the Most from Your
Batteries: Here are some hints for choosing and using them, and pitfalls you may encounter.
84 Desktop: Confi gure a new com-puter the way that’s best for you.
86 Offi ce: Insert images and sym-bols into documents with custom Microsoft Word toolbar buttons.
88 DIY Software: Windows users can run a free partitioning tool from a bootable Linux disc.
90 Security Watch: Sony’s rootkit is the wrong approach to copy-protecting music.
92 Business: Free Wi-Fi access for all? One California city is doing it with a mesh network.
95 User to User: How to secure com-puters using unencrypted Wi-Fi connections, and more.
A L L- I N - O N E P R I N T E R S
143 Do-It-Alls
For printing, scanning, copy-ing, and faxing, you can have it all—in one device. Among the seven ink jet all-in-ones that we tested, we found gems for every need and budget.
After Hours 162 Real-World Action Gaming:
New gadgets let you physi-cally interact with games.
164 Gear + Games: Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000, new mobile phone accessories, Dungeon Siege II.
Also in This Issue 73 Feedback
168 Backspace
USB Key Superguide We have put together the ultimate guide to fl ash drives, U3 keys, and USB hard drives, all of which will let you carry your most important data (as well as some software) in your pocket. (go.pcmag.com/usbkeysuperguide)
SPECIAL REPORT
New reviews every week!
Coming soon:
• Archos AV500 Portable Media Player
• HP Deskjet 460cb Portable Printer K
• Magellan RoadMate 360 GPS
• Samsung SGH-D307 Phone• Sony Cyber-shot DSC N1(go.pcmag.com/fi rstlooks)
FIRST LOOKS
Discussions: Log on and participate!(http://discuss.pcmag.com/pcmag)Downloads: Check out our indexed list of utilities from A to Z.(go.pcmag.com/utilities)
TOOLS YOU CAN USE
DVORAK ONLINEK Each Monday,
John C. Dvorak
gives you his take on
what’s happening in
high tech today. Visit
go.pcmag.com/dvorak.
EXCLUSIVE COLUMNS
ULANOFF ONLINEK And each Wednesday,
Lance Ulanoff puts his
own unique spin on
technology. Visit
go.pcmag.com/ulanoff.
Coming up:
• ATI to deliver GPU-accelerated
video transcoding
• ET’s dual-core Media Center PC
• GPS navigation that fi ts
in your pocket
(www.extremetech.com)
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael J. Miller
EDITOR (ONLINE) Lance Ulanoff
EXECUTIVE EDITORS Stephanie Chang, Carol L. Gonsher, Ben Z. Gottesman, Vicki B. Jacobson (Online)
ART DIRECTOR Richard J. Demler
SENIOR EDITORS Jamie M. Bsales (First Looks), Dan S. Costa (Online), Carol A. Mangis (After Hours, Special Projects), Sebastian Rupley (West Coast, Pipeline), Sharon Terdeman (Solutions)
MANAGING EDITOR Paul B. Ross
FEATURES EDITORS Sarah E. Anderson, Sean Carroll, Sarah Pike, Michael J. Steinhart
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ASSOCIATE SECTION EDITOR (ONLINE) Kyle Monson
ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR Michal Dluginski COPY CHIEF Elizabeth A. Parry
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STAFF EDITORS Tony Hoffman, Molly K. McLaughlin
COPY EDITORS Ann Ovodow, Steven Wishnia
PRODUCTION MANAGER Nicholas Cosmo
COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER Anita Anthony
INTERNS Veronica DeLeon, Nicole Price Fasig
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Helen Bradley, Sheryl Canter, John Clyman, John R. Delaney, Richard V. Dragan, John C. Dvorak, Galen Fott, Les Freed, Sally Wiener Grotta, Bill Howard, Don Labriola, Bill Machrone, Edward Mendelson, Jan Ozer, Neil Randall, Larry Seltzer, Barry Simon, M. David Stone, Don Willmott
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PC MAGAZINE LABS
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PC MAGAZINE ONLINE
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EXTREMETECH
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, INTERNET Jim Louderback EDITOR, INTERNET Loyd Case EDITOR Jeremy A. Kaplan
SENIOR NEWS EDITOR Mark Hachman ASSOCIATE EDITOR Dan Evans PRODUCTION EDITOR Gary Berline
TECHNOLOGY ANALYSTS Jason Cross, Victor Loh SENIOR WEB PRODUCER Michael Muchmore
JUNIOR WEB PRODUCER Jeremy Atkinson COMMUNITY MANAGER Jim Lynch
CORPORATE PRODUCTION
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THE INDEPENDENT GUIDE
PC Magazine is the Independent Guide to Technol-ogy. Our mission is to test and review computer- and Internet-related products and services and report fairly and objectively on the results. Our editors do not invest in fi rms whose products or services we review, nor do we accept travel tickets or other gifts of value from such fi rms. Except where noted, PC Magazine reviews are of products and services that are currently available. Our reviews are written without regard to advertising or busi-ness relationships with any vendor.
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MEY
ER
MOVE OVER, C-3PO. Researchers at the Neuro sciences Institute in La Jolla, Cali-fornia, are making strides in developing a machine that thinks. The result is a two-foot-tall “auto maton” named NOMAD (Neurally Or-ganized Mobile Adap-tive Device), capable of learning from its own ex-periences through its sim-ulated brain. That brain has a name of its own: Darwin VII, after Charles Darwin, the 19th-century biologist who devised the theory of natural selec-tion. The Darwin brain is a “selectional system,” says Dr. Gerald Edelman, institute director and No-bel laureate, not an “in-structional system” like a computer. He adds that computers are essentially electronic abacuses carrying out unambigu-ous sets of instructions. The human brain, however, “does not work by logic like a com-puter; it works by pattern recognition, similar to evolution.”
Though at the behavioral level of an infant, NOMAD can sense light and sound, and can grab objects with a mechanical gripper as it moves around its holding area. In the course of
exploring its environment NOMAD has developed a preference for striped blocks as opposed to spot-ted ones, says Edelman. When NOMAD’s gripper picks up a striped block, it gets a charge of current, which Darwin VII reg-isters as good. With the spotted block, there is no current. “It does learning and conditioning and has episodic memory,” Edel-man explains.
He says that as NOMAD generations become more powerful, there may come a breakthrough when they can be hooked up to com-
puters. In that case, many pursuits centered on computer science would be enhanced. “As Bill Gates has said, if anyone could invent a computer that can learn, it would be worth ten Micro softs,” offers Edelman.—Karen Jones
Face to Face from Far AwayYOU’RE ON THE GO and you need to see the other person on the end of the phone? Sony and Internet-based video provider Glow-point have teamed up to offer a free video-conferencing service called Instant Video Everywhere that you can use anywhere there is a broadband connection.
The application can be downloaded for free at www.sony.glowpoint.com, and you can use it easily with any webcam-enabled computer, but the companies are also of-fering several fee-based services. For $9.95 a month, you can add VoIP calling and more.—Sebastian Rupley
Talk about visiting a whole
new world. The VirtuSphere
(shown), from the Univer-
sity of Washington’s Human
Interface Technology (HIT)
Lab, is a hollow ball that
sits on top of a base that
lets the sphere rotate 360
degrees. The person inside
it, equipped with a head-
mounted display, interacts
with an immersive virtual-
reality environment. The
visitor inside can walk, and
even fall, within VRML simu-
lation environments.
The spheres are pricey—
$100,000—but they’re
already in use for military
training, gaming, and
museum applications. The
new invention “comes close
to the holodeck of Star Trek
fame,” says Dr. Thomas
Furness, founder of the HIT
Lab. It also looks a little like
the wheel inside a hamster
cage.—SR
Beam Me Up
Toward Intelligent MachinesCalifornia researchers have developed a robot that learns from patterns.
PIPELINE T E C H N O L O G Y T R E N D S & N E W S A N A L Y S I S
NET THINGS All the change that the Internet has wrought will be eclipsed by the networking of common objects, says a report from the U.N. called The Internet of Things. The authors predict that tiny sensors and electronic tags will eventually network most objects around us.
go.pcmag.com/pipeline
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 21
Source: RSA Security, Oct. 2005. From a survey of 1,700 enterprise users.
ILLU
STR
AT
ION
S B
Y A
LEX
EB
EN M
E YER
COMPUTERS MAY BE ABLE to beat us at chess and calcu-late our taxes faster, but there are still tasks we humans are better at, such as being able to tell good photos from bad ones. So now, a project from Amazon.com is allowing software to ask a few good humans for help.
The service is called Mechanical Turk, and it lets program-mers request human assistance automatically by writing a few lines of code to a Web-services API. Tasks are then post-ed at www.mt urk.com, where anyone with an Amazon ac-count can answer the requests.
“Never before has anybody had a net-work of human intel-ligence on tap like this,” says Peter Cohen, Web services director at Amazon. “The idea is to fi x gaps where a program doesn’t work well.”
The Mechanical Turk was an 18th-century chess automaton that could beat humans. In reality it was a man in manne-quin’s garb. In Amazon’s version, humans make comput-ers look smarter by performing human-intelligence tasks, or HITs. One example of a HIT is looking at photos to de-termine which image best represents a particular storefront (part of Amazon’s A9 search project). Cohen expects that de-velopers will come up with HITs that augment AI programs.
We just wonder how long it will take students to get Me-chanical Turk to write their research papers.—John R. Quain
Help Wanted: Humans
Super-Duper
ComputingThe fastest computer on
Earth just got a whole lot
faster. According to data
gathered by independent
researchers who compile the
Top500 list (www.top500.org), IBM’s Blue Gene/L
supercomputer, which runs
at the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory in
California, has dramatically
extended its lead over com-
petitors by achieving speeds
of 280.6 trillion fl oating-point
operations per second (tera-
fl ops)—more than double the
136.8-terafl op speeds the
system clocked in June.
The achievement, along
with other advancements
from supercomputers in the
U.S., “mark the completion
of a ten-year challenge to
develop supercomputers for
entry-level simulations that
support a future free from
nuclear testing,” says Dr.
Dimitri Kusnezov, director of
the National Nuclear Security
Administration’s Advanced
Simulation and Computing
program, part of the Depart-
ment of Energy. Blue Gene/L
is primarily used to simulate
and evaluate the safety
and security of the nation’s
nuclear weapons.
Until 2004, Japan’s Earth
Simulator had spent years
ranked as the fastest com-
puter in the world. It has a
maximum speed of 35.86
terafl ops.—SR
SKYPE HAS ALREADY made waves in Voice over IP (VoIP) telephone service for con-sumers, but its more recent extension into the corporate arena has raised new issues. Info-Tech Research Group, an IT analyst fi rm, has released an advisory cautioning corpo-rate users about the potential dangers of placing business calls on the Net via Skype.
Though Skype calls are encrypted from end to end, it is diffi cult for IT departments to monitor the interactions, say Info-Tech researchers. In industries subject to compli-ance regulations, Skype’s Internet calls could be major violations of corporate policy
and the law, they say.“The bottom line is that
even a mediocre hacker could take advantage of a Skype vulnerability,” says Ross Armstrong, a research analyst for Info-Tech.
Skype offi cials maintain that they have addressed the pressing security issues. Tom Berson, a principal at Ana-
gram Laboratories, has also conducted a review of Skype’s encryption. He calls any sort of attack “computationally infeasible,” and stands by Skype’s security methods. “The designers of Skype did not hesitate to employ cryptography widely and well in order to establish trust and confi dentiality for their peer-to-peer services,” Dr. Berson says. He says that Skype conversations may even be more secure than those over a regular phone or via e-mail. Berson also points out that in some markets, Internet cover-age is more widespread and reliable than phone service.—Nicole Price Fasig
Skype Security Questioned
BUDGET PC MIT Media Labs is now demonstrating its much-anticipated $100 laptops, which are part of a plan to give every child in the world a portable computer. The fi rst prototype has a 7-inch screen and a hand crank that can provide 40 minutes of power for kids who don’t have electricity.
WHO’S IN CHARGE? At the U.N.’s recent World Summit, held in Tunisia, negotiators agreed to leave the United States in con-trol of the Internet’s domain name sys-tem. Many govern-ments, including China and members of the European Union, have been campaigning for shared control, while U.S. offi cials argue that such sharing could threaten the security of the Inter-net. Currently, the Internet Corpora-tion for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) manages the domain name system, working with the U.S. government. That arrangement will stay in place, at least for now.
P I P E L I N E • go.pcmag.com/pipeline
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 22
For more new products see go.pcmag.com/productbulletin
Make PowerPoint Bearable
Ovation takes existing Power-Point presentations and kicks them up a notch, using broad-
cast media graphics. Just drop a tem-plate into the program and choose from one of several hundred PowerLooks, and the software will add high-quality animated backgrounds and amazing transitions.—MKM
$99.95 direct. Serious Magic Inc., www.seriousmagic.com.
Keep It on the Down Low
Universal Shield 4.0 both en-crypts and hides fi les, folders, or entire drives. Protected items
are completely invisible until the pass-word is supplied. Protection remains in place even when the drive is removed and placed in a different computer. The program will optionally run in a hot key–activated stealth mode, leaving no evidence that anything is hidden.—Neil J. Rubenking
$34.95 direct. Everstrike Software, www.everstrike.com.
Show Off Your Media Anywhere
The sleek, portable Iomega Screenplay Multimedia Drive lets you easily play stored movies and music and display digital images directly on any TV or stereo. The plug-and-play drive works with any A/V receiver and transfers
content at USB 2.0 speeds. It includes an easy-to-use remote control and on-screen menus; no computer is needed for playback. The 60GB of storage space will hold up to 240,000 photos, 1,110 hours of music, or 90 hours of video.—MKM
$219.95 direct. Iomega Corp., www.iomega.com.
Keep Your Guard Up
PC Tools AntiVirus
watches for viruses and
related threats in real
time and, using OnGuard
technology, prevents
them from installing. It will scan the system for viruses, on
demand or on schedule, with the option to quarantine and
restore infected fi les. All scanned objects are logged in a
database, and the product’s large library of threat defi ni-
tions is updated frequently and automatically.—NJR
$29.95 direct. PC Tools, www.pctools.com.
Protect the Kids
More than its name sug-
gests, the Netintelligence Parental Control service
offers user-specifi c Web-
content fi ltering, time limits
on Internet and computer usage, and IM blocking and moni-
toring. It also includes automatic protection against viruses
and spyware, with no need to download local updates. The
service tracks the time each user is on the computer, along
with application usage. And it does this for up to three com-
puters, even mobile ones.—NJR
$39.99 per year. Netintelligence Ltd., www.netintelligence.com.
World’s First Dolby PC
Audiophiles, gamers, digital media enthusiasts, and users with home recording studios will line up
to hear the Velocity ProMagix MSX with Dolby Master Studio, the fi rst PC to meet Dolby’s rigorous audio specifi cations. The Intel-based PC will integrate seamlessly with home the-ater sound systems and offers high-quality audio and surround sound, complete compatibility with playback applications, and more realistic audio for PC gaming. Dolby Master Studio provides up to 7.1 channels of sur-round sound and the power to author DVDs with multichannel surround sound.—Molly K. McLaughlin
From $1,295 direct. Velocity Micro Inc., www.velocitymicro.com.
COMING ATTRACTIONS
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 24
P I P E L I N E • go.pcmag.com/pipeline
All offers available from HP Direct and participating resellers. Prices shown are HP Direct prices, are subject to change and do not include applicable state and local sales tax or shipping to recipient’s destination. Reseller prices may vary. Photography may not accurately represent exact configurations priced. Associated values represent HP published list price. 1. Lease products are available through Hewlett-Packard Financial Services Company (HPFSC) or one of its affiliates to qualified commercial customers in the U.S. and are subject to credit approval and execution of standard HPFSC documentation. Offer valid on all transactions greater than $349 through 1/31/06. Other fees and restrictions may apply; please visit www.hp.com/go/HPfinancialservices. HPFSC reserves the right to change or cancel this program at any time without notice. 2. Instant saving and mail-in-rebate offers are valid through 1/31/06 on qualifying HP Compaq nx6110 and nx9600 notebooks, HP Compaq dc7600 desktops, HP ProLiant ML110 G3 servers, HP Compaq tc4200 Tablet PCs, HP DeskJet 6840dt printers and HP xw4300 workstations from HP Direct and participating HP resellers. 4. Intel’s numbering is not a measurement of higher performance. 5. The Hyper-Threading feature is designed to improve performance of multi-threaded software products: please contact your software provider to determine software compatibility. Not all customers or software applications will benefit from the use of Hyper-Threading. Go to http://intel.com/info/hyperthreading for more information. 6. Wireless access point is required and is not included. Wireless Internet use requires separately purchased Internet service contract. Availability of public wireless access points limited. 7. For hard drives, GB=billion bytes. 9. 24X DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive data transfer rates may vary as follows: for recording to CD-R media, for writing to CD-RW media, for reading CD media, max transfer rate may be up to 3600 Kbps; for reading DVD media, may be up to 10,800 Kbps. Actual transfer rates may vary depending on media quality. 10. Wireless performance is dependent upon physical environment and distance from the access point. 11. 48X, 32X CD-RW Drive data transfer rates may vary as follows: for recording to CD-R media, the max transfer rate may be up to 7200 Kbps (use 48X discs for best performance); for writing to CD-RW media, the max transfer rate may be up to 4800 Kbps (use 32X high-speed media discs for best performance); for reading CD media, the max transfer rate may be up to 7200 Kbps. Actual transfer rates may vary depending on media quality. 12. One-year limited warranty for parts, labor and next-business-day support. 13. Three-year limited warranty for parts, labor and next-business-day support. For on-site coverage, terms and conditions apply. For more details, go to http://www.hp.com/hps/carepack. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Intel, Intel Logo, Intel Inside, Intel Inside Logo, Intel Centrino, Intel Centrino Logo, Celeron, Intel Xeon, Intel SpeedStep, Itanium and Pentium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. ©2005 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
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H A N D S - O N T E S T I N G O F N E W P R O D U C T S • go.pcmag.com/first looks
For those of you who are trading up from the original Xbox, you’ll be happy to know you can play
most existing Xbox titles on the 360, including Halo. Unfortunately, Microsoft includes no instructions on how to transfer saved games from an original Xbox to the 360, and we haven’t been able to accomplish that yet either. And you will need new con-trollers, either wireless or USB-connected.
Under the HoodThe 360’s hardware is de-signed for high-performance
gaming and—far more so than the first version—with aesthetics in mind. So inside a chassis that looks as if it was designed with an Apple iBook or iPod very near by is a processor capable of 1 tera-fl op. The processor actually consists of three symmetri-cal IBM cores running at 3.2 GHz each, although rumor has it that few of the launch
titles use more than one CPU. Superior graphics performance is supplied by a 500-MHz custom ATI processor and super-fast memory: The GPU and CPUs share 512MB of GDDR3 RAM via a unifi ed memory architecture.
Games are supported in high defi nition with a 16-to-9 aspect ratio, at either 480p, 720p, or 1080i, with anti-aliasing as well as standard definition. Au-dio can be mono, stereo, or Dolby Digital 5.1. Dur-ing installation, you can set audio and video pref-erences easily. The only trick is to remember to put the HDTV/TV switch at the base of the A/V cable on the right setting. A detachable 20GB hard drive comes w it h t he prem iu m package; it can be used
Microsoft has estimated it will sell three million Xbox
360s in the next three months. It may be right. Except
for a few design issues, we were very impressed with the
console and its accessories. We get goose bumps thinking
about what games will be like when the power of the 360
is fully unleashed. This is truly cutting-edge technology in the vanguard
of next-generation console gaming.
THE MAGAZINE WORLD’S LARGEST
COMPUTER-TESTING FACILITY
Xbox 360: Wow!
30 Update Rollup 2 for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
32 Apple iMac G5 (iSight)32 Sony VAIO VGC-VA11G33 Our Top Desktop PCs
34 TurboTax Premier 200534 TaxCut Premium 200539 Apple PowerBook 17-inch39 HP Pavilion dv800039 Sony VAIO VGN-FJ Series (FJ180)
39 Sharp M4000 WideNote39 Toshiba Satellite M65-S80940 Our Top Notebook PCs49 Motorola U6 PEBL49 Aeronix Zipit Wireless Messenger
49 Samsung SGH-e63549 Nokia 6255i49 Sprint PM-225 by LG50 Westinghouse LVM-37w150 Panasonic TH-42PX50U
BY MATTHEW D. SARREL
GORGEOUS DESIGN and awesome game-play graphics set the 360 apart.
F I R S T
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 28
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WHAT THE RATINGS MEAN: LLLLL EXCELLENT l LLLLM VERY GOOD l LLLMM GOOD l LLMMM FAIR l LMMMM POOR
less gaming is built in and can accommodate up to four wire-less controllers, which are sold separately for $50 each; one comes with the premium package. Progressive-scan DVD playback is standard, and there’s a small media-control remote that’s current-ly shipping with the premium package. A full-size and uni-versal remote is available for $30. The premium package also includes a headset for use with Xbox Live.
The wireless controller is well designed and solidly
to save music, gamer profi les, and downloads.
The 360 has two slots for add-on 64MB memory units and three USB ports for con-necting devices or controllers. Networking is accom plished with an Ethernet port; an 802.11a/b/g adapter is avail-able ($100 street). In our in-stallation, the 360 correctly identified that the Ethernet cable was connected to an Xbox wireless gaming adapt-er, read the settings from it, and effortlessly connected to our wireless network. Wire-
constructed. It fits comfort-ably in the hand, doesn’t weigh too much, and is well balanced. The controls were precise and responsive in each of the games played. The controller takes two double-A batteries (included).
In choosing a physical lo-cation for your Xbox 360, you have to take a few things into consideration. It can be placed fl at or on its side, but the unit throws a tremen-dous amount of heat from the back panel, so make sure you provide adequate venti-
lation. The enormous trans-former (8.5 by 3 by 2.5 inches) is roughly one-fourth the size of the console itself. We wonder why the Xbox 360, though smaller than the orig-inal Xbox, is still so big, if the power supply is outside the machine. Who has room in an entertainment center for yet another big, bulky con-sole from Microsoft?
But How Does It Play?Physical design shortcom-ings aside, playing Xbox 360 games is a transcendent
52 Samsung SyncMaster 193p Plus52 Philips 200W6 52 Philips 190P652 Planar PX1910M 52 Sony SDM-S95D
53 Canon Realis SX5053 Sony VPL-CX20A55 Our Top Displays58 Canon DR-2580C 58 Epson Perfection 4490 Photo
58 Canon CanoScan LiDE 6058 NeatReceipts Professional v.2.0.258 IRISPen Translator Executive59 Ricoh Afi cio CL7200D 60 Our Top Printers
63 Ulead PhotoImpact 1163 PhotoPlus 10 Studio Pack 64 Seven Server Edition 6.564 Sproqit Workgroup Edition 1.0RED denotes Editors’ Choice.
L O O K S
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 29
Media Extender Abilities are Good, Not Great
The Xbox nation can’t play games round the clock. (“Wanna bet?” someone’s already saying.) For
those other times, the new Microsoft Xbox 360 offers the ability to stream, in high-defi nition video and surround-sound audio, all manner of music, photo and video fi les, TV, and recorded TV from a Media Center Edition PC located elsewhere in the house. It’s a nice benefi t if you’re already buying the Xbox 360. But Microsoft stopped just shy of making media streaming a killer side benefi t of its second-generation Xbox.
The original Xbox functioned as a Me-dia Center Extender, but with fewer bells and whistles. The Xbox 360 extender solution raises the ante, with support for HDTV and surround-sound audio. In re-turn, it requires you to run Windows MCE 2005. The interface is a dead ringer for the MCE interface, with the addition of an X (exit to Xbox) button and a clock in the upper left corner of the screen.
If you have an Xbox 360 attached to the TV in your living room, then all the photos on your MCE PC are available to be shown on the TV. If it’s an HDTV, then
they display in high defi nition, up to the 720p (720 vertical pixels) maximum resolution of the Xbox 360, and the effect is dazzling. Modest photo-editing tools are available. You can’t print photos.
Likewise, you can play all your MP3s or WMAs plus any home videos you’ve stored as movie (WMV, MPEG) fi les. You can rebroadcast TV from your PC to your TV, including any recorded TV shows.
Though you can summon up the multimedia features with the included wireless game controller, more likely you’ll want to use the bundled 26-button
remote. Spend a little time with the Xbox remote, though, and you’ll wonder how much Microsoft’s heart is in this multi-media-via-Xbox thing. There’s the usual MCE-green button to summon the Media Center main menu and direct- access buttons for live TV, for the TV guide, and for Start Recording (to the MCE PC hard drive, not the Xbox). But there are no direct- access buttons for music, photos, or videos; no marked volume buttons; no numeric keypad for direct channel access; and the channel page-up/down buttons are marked in tiny letters under the blue X and green A buttons, which duplicate game controller buttons. Still, for users who just want to play a media fi le from start to fi nish, the Xbox 360 media features are more than adequate.
If you’re getting an Xbox 360 anyway, you’ll be happy enough. Others who want streaming media only should look into other media hubs, starting with the Roku HD1000. —Bill Howard
Microsoft Xbox 360 Media Center Extender
Free with Xbox 360. Microsoft Corp., www.microsoft.com. lllhm
THE XBOX 360 EXTENDER solution sup-ports HDTV and surround-sound audio.
F I R S T L O O K S Entertainment Technology
Update Rollup 2 for Windows XP MCE 2005
experience. The quality of-graphics and audio in the launch titles we’ve seen is astounding. The only nega-tive is that load times haven’t been improved over those of existing consoles, but they may improve as developers learn more about coding for the 360.
The games we’ve played so far are impressive in every aspect. Project Gotham Rac-ing 3 is simply beautiful, and the details are remarkable: Each engine sounds unique, so you can hear a car behind you and identify it before it passes you. The New York City skyline when viewed from the Brooklyn Bridge is exceptionally detailed. And Ridge Racer 6 hits the nail on the head for an arcade-style racing game.
The animations and game-play mechanics in Kameo:
Elements of Power are so smooth that the main char-acter looks almost alive. Activision’s Gun looks beau-tiful; when our character was riding a horse along a ridge and watching the sun setting across a valley, we were cap-tivated and paused to refl ect on the insane number of poly-gons involved in the moment.
Among shooters, Quake 4 is every bit as frighten-ing and thrilling as the PC version, and Call of Duty 2 swept us off our feet and into the insanity of World War II ground combat. For sports titles, NBA Live is so detailed that players sweat and their eyes move to watch the ball. In NHL 2K6, the texture and reflectivity of the ice are a work of art. The crime drama Condemned: Criminal Ori-gins is highly successful at setting the mood of a surviv-
al horror game with its excel-lent audio and video.
All in all, the Xbox 360 is a fantastic gaming platform, despite its still-too-big, heat-generating design. It sets a new standard in console gaming with high-defi nition
video and surround-sound audio. The launch titles are fantastic—and developers are only getting started.
Xbox 360
Core system: $300 street; premium package: $400 street. Microsoft Corp., www.xbox.com. llllh
BY BILL HOWARD
What, a new ver-sion of Microsoft Windows arrived
and there wasn’t a celebra-tion with Jay Leno and the Rolling Stones entertain-ing thousands aboard the Queen Mary? Indeed. This one’s a nice-to-have rolling improvement and bug fi x for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 that will tide us over until Windows Vista appears sometime in 2006, when MCE will likely be-come one version of Vista.
Update Rollup 2 for Win-dows XP MCE 2005, which arrived in fall 2005, offers more HDTV options, support for a very cool 200-disc DVD and CD read/write changer, support for the Xbox 360 as a remote media player, im-proved stability (read: bug fixes), and improved power management. It’s free; the only cost is however much
time it takes you to perform a 29MB download.
If you buy a new MCE PC and it’s from Sony or Niveus, Rollup 2 lets you attach a new 200-disc DVD changer from Sony or Niveus and load it with DVDs; the My DVD Changer function then cre-ates a library that you can browse to see jacket photos and film descriptions. (You can do that also for CDs, but
those, unlike DVDs, you can rip to disc). If you have more than 200 DVDs, Windows can’t cache the information and tell you to insert the disc if it’s on the shelf. The chang-er can also be used for unat-tended MP3/WMA ripping of up to 200 CDs at a time.
Rollup 2 supports two stan-dard and two high-defi nition TV tuner cards (of which two can record), but they’re
only ATSC (broadcast), not cable TV tuners. Away mode (new PCs only) lets an MCE PC be nearly suspended yet still able to record TV shows or stream media fi les to other devices. Rollup 2 supports the Xbox 360, which has more functionality than the first Xbox and the previous Media Center Extenders.
Among the stability tweaks is a daily shutdown and re-start of individual services at 4 a.m. The Sonic-supplied DVD burning tool now lets you convert an HD show to standard def and burn a DVD in a single step. Extender us-ers can now remotely burn DVDs on the host PC.
For most users of MCE 2005, there’s little reason not to add the stability and fea-tures of Rollup 2.
Update Rollup 2 for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
Free. Microsoft Corp., www.microsoft.com. llllm
WITH MCE ROLLUP 2 you can create a browsable library of your CDs and DVDs with jacket photos and descriptions.
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 30
Xbox 360 Launch Games*TITLE GENRE SCORE**
Kameo: Elements of Power Adventure 7
Project Gotham Racing 3 Racing 10
NBA Live 2006 Sports 7.5
NBA 2K6 Sports 7
Call of Duty 2 Shooter 9
FIFA Soccer 2006 Sports 7
Need for Speed: Most Wanted Racing 8.5
Condemned: Criminal Origins Adventure 8
Ridge Racer 6 Sports 8.5
Madden NFL 2006 Sports 8
Gun Action 7.5
Amped 3 Sports 7
* For more 360 game reviews, visit xbox360.1up.com. **Out of 10.
VISIT www.mpccorp.com/pcmag601CALL 1-800-219-2284
©2005 MPC Computers, LLC. All rights reserved. MPC Computers, LLC is not responsible for omissions or errors in typography or photography. All purchases are subject to availability. Prices and specifications may be changed withoutnotice; prices do not include shipping and handling and any applicable taxes, unless specifically required to be included under applicable contract. Seller's return policy does not include return freight and original shipping/handling charges,and all return and warranty periods begin from the date a product is shipped, not when it arrived. A restocking fee may be charged upon the return of a product. All sales are controlled by seller's current terms and conditions of sale, andcontract terms and conditions as applicable. Copies of seller's terms and conditions of sale and contract terms are available on seller's website or from its sales representatives. On-site service is provided at sole discretion of MPCComputers, LLC. A diagnostic determination for on-site service must be made by a MPC service technician prior to the provision of on-site service. On-site service is provided by a third-party service provider under a separate service con-tract between you and the service provider. Intel, Intel Inside, Intel Inside logo, Intel Centrino, Intel Centrino logo, Celeron, Intel Xeon, Intel Speedstep, Itanium, Pentium and Pentium III Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks ofIntel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Product names of MPC products are trademarks or registered trademarks of MPCComputers, LLC. Other product names used in this publication are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies. Note: Advertised configurations may differ from award-winning configurations.
MPC recommends Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional.
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F I R S T L O O K S Multimedia PCs
BY JOEL SANTO DOMINGO
The f irst two ver-sions of the Apple
iMac G5 were won-ders of design and engineering, and the
newest version continues on that same path. The newest 20-inch iMac G5 adds a few features, including upgraded graphics and a slightly fast-er processor, while cutting the price by $100. It’s a great desktop for Mac users whose needs go beyond simple Web browsing and e-mailing.
The integrated iSight cam-era—which is the main focus of the new iMac upgrade—provides iChat A/V video-conferencing capabilities as well as the usual picture and video webcam duties. A neat novelty program called Pho-to Booth lets you select fi lters for self-portraits, giving your iChat/AIM buddy pictures visual qualities such as sepia
toning, “X-ray” coloring, and other effects.
The Apple Remote with Front Row interface gives the iMac features very similar to those of a Media Center, al-beit, unfortunately, without the TV tuner. It’s a simple yet powerful control panel with the same sort of long-range viewing capabilites found in Windows Media Cen-ter Edition. The in-cluded infrared Remote looks like a shrunken, thinner iPod shuffle, with the same fi ve-way control pads.
Together, the remote and the Front Row software let the user control iPhoto (slide shows), iTunes (music), Vid-eos (downloads and video podcasts), and DVD movies from the comfort of an easy chair. The Apple Remote also works with the new iPod Universal Dock, which can
control any variation of iPod.Now that the multibutton
Apple Mighty Mouse is stan-dard, users switching from Microsoft Windows will feel right at home.
The iMac is power-ful enough for light to medium graphics duties, as well as day-to-day of-fice and graphics tasks. It’s still not cut out to be a gaming machine, but it’s a defi nite improvement on previous models.
The iMac G5 with built-in iSight is a very good reworking of an excellent product, with additions that
enhance the all-in-one na-ture of the iMac. It’s a great
mainstream Mac desktop for people whose comput-ing needs extend beyond
the basic functions.
Apple iMac G5 (iSight)
With PowerPC G5 processor (2.1-GHz), 512MB 533-MHz DDR2 SDRAM, 250GB 7,200-rpm SATA hard drive, ATI Radeon X600 XT graphics card, dual-layer DVD±RW drive, built-in 20-inch widescreen LCD monitor, integrated Apple sound card, Mac OS X 10.4, $1,699 direct. Apple Computer Inc., www.apple.com. llllh
Set Your Sights on the Latest iMac G5
Sony’s Near Perfect All-in-One PC BY JOEL SANTO DOMINGO
The Sony VAIO VGC-
VA11G is a prime exam-ple of how to combine
a PC and a TV. Despite a few wrinkles that need to be ironed out, this is one of the more appeal-ing all-in-one Media Center PCs we’ve seen. Its impressive widescreen monitor makes watching DVDs and widescreen TV easy and enjoyable.
As a TV and DVR combo, the system is superb. It comes with two 160GB SATA hard drives, for a total of 320GB, so it can record enough programming for an avid TV fan and hold tons of pictures, music, and the like. The 20-inch, 16:9 widescreen
is bright and clear for watch-ing DVDs and TV programs and playing the occasional 3D game.
The remote is a standard Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition model, but
its IR receiver is an external USB device that stands out from the system’s otherwise sleek design.
Once set up, the PC dis-plays and records stutter-free TV programming. With Sony’s Click-to-DVD integra-tion and MCE Update Rollup 2 enhancements, you can eas-ily get programming off your Media Center to display on other devices. There’s even a utility that will help transfer video, music, and pictures to a Sony PlayStation Portable.
The VA11G’s USB, Fire-Wire/i.LINK, and cable
TV ports are well situ-ated on the sides of the
case, easily accessible and barely visible from the front.
However, the VA11G’s most irritating feature is that it
forces you to use the remote or wireless keyboard/mouse to change channels or raise and lower the volume.
In addition to Media Cen-ter Edition 2005 with Update Rollup 2, the VA11G comes loaded with a good amount of software, as well as a 3.2-GHz Intel Pentium 4 640 processor and 1GB of SDRAM.
Only a few little annoyanc-es prevent us from recom-mending that you chuck the bedroom TV in favor of the all-in-one Sony VAIO VGC-VA11G PC. As a Media Center PC, it’s one of the best.
Sony VAIO VGC-VA11G
With Intel Pentium 4 640 processor (3.2-GHz), 1GB 533-MHz DDR2 SDRAM, two 160GB 7,200-rpm SATA hard drives in a RAID 0 array, ATI Mobility Radeon X700 graphics card, dual-layer DVD±RW drive, 20-inch LCD wide-screen monitor, integrated Sony sound card, Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 with Update Roll- up 2, $2,200 direct. Sony Electronics Inc., www.sonystyle.com. llllm
THE IMAC G5 allows users to go beyond basic computing.
THE VA11G MEDIA CENTER is practically perfect.
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 32
F I R S T L O O K S Top Products
GAMING/MULTIMEDIA PROS CONS BOTTOM LINE SPECS AND SCORES
Dell XPS 400$2,399 directllllh
Direct XPS customer support and add-ons. Dual-core performance. Nice widescreen display. Quiet. Wireless keyboard and mouse.
Could use a bigger hard drive. Dell’s new luxury multimedia desktop suits demanding users who expect more from a system and want the best available.
Intel Pentium D 840 530J (3.2 GHz), 1GB RAM, two 160GB hard drives, 256MB nVidia GeForce 6800 graphics. Doom 3 (10x7): 82 fps.
Falcon Northwest X2-4800 SLI$5,671 directllllh
Blazing gaming performance. Attractive automotive paint. Generous 600GB of drive space and 3-year warranty.
Pricey. Fingerprints collect on case. The X2-4800 SLI delivers the rich gaming experience you demand, with the forward-looking technology you need for games yet to come.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (2.7 GHz), 1GB RAM, two 300GB drives, dual 256MB nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX graphics. Doom 3 (10x7): 165 fps.
Voodoo Omen a121$6,023 directllllh
Media Center in a gaming system. Blazing gaming performance. Distinctive case. 1TB of hard drive space.
Pricey. Internal sound card instead of high-end Creative X-Fi solution.
The Omen excels as a gaming system, and has Windows XP Media Center Edition to boot.
AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 (3.0 GHz), 1GB RAM, two 500GB hard drives, dual 256MB nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX graphics. Doom 3 (10x7): 138 fps.
MEDIA CENTER
Dell Dimension E510$1,299 directlllhm
Newer EM64T-compatible processor. Twin TV tuners. Quiet operation. Multimedia keyboard.
Hard drive is a little small for Media Center with TV/PVR.
This is a good Media Center for entry-level users or those moving beyond basic multimedia tasks.
Intel Pentium 4 630 (3.0 GHz), 512MB RAM, 160GB drive, 256MB ATI Radeon X600 HyperMemory graphics, 17-inch LCD.
HP z555 DEC$1,999 directllllm
HDTV tuner along with two standard-def tuners. Sleek A/V form factor. Quiet. HP Personal Media drives. Plenty of I/O ports.
ATSC tuner doesn’t work with satellite or cable HDTV. Some crashes and system slowdowns with our early-production unit.
The z555’s HDTV tuner is a nice extra, with its own share of issues. Otherwise, this is a feature-packed Media Center PC.
Intel Pentium 4 530J (3.0 GHz), 512MB RAM, 250GB hard drive, 128MB nVidia GeForce 6600 graphics. Doom 3 (10x7): 53 fps.
Sony VAIO XL1 Digital Living System$2,300 directllllm
Included 200-disc CD/DVD changer. More input/output ports than on any other Media Center. 802.11g Wi-Fi.
Changer is loud during some operations. Single SDTV tuner. Smallish hard drive.
The XL1 approaches Media Center nirvana. You can load 200 CDs and walk away while the system rips them, then load 200 DVDs.
Intel Pentium D 820 (2.8 GHz), 512MB RAM, 200GB hard drive, 256MB nVidia GeForce 6200 graphics.
ALL-IN-ONE
Apple iMac G5$2,103 directlllll
Simple, stunning design. Quiet. Just one cord (for power), thanks to optional Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Gorgeous 20-inch screen.
Can’t upgrade graphics. Built-in speakers don’t deliver much bass.
Apple has another design coup on its hands with the iMac G5. It’s about time someone made a computer like this.
PowerPC G5 (1.8 GHz), 512MB RAM, 160GB hard drive, nVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra graphics, 20-inch widescreen LCD, DVD-R drive.
Sony VAIO VGC-V520G$2,699.99 directllllh
Bright widescreen display. Great TV tuner. Wireless keyboard with built-in touch pad. Wireless mouse. Lots of included software.
A little pricey. No HDTV support. Needs TV/volume controls on the PC/TV case bezel.
In the spirit of the Apple iMac, the PC components reside behind the VGC-V520G’s 20-inch LCD. But Sony adds a TV tuner and a DVR.
Intel Pentium 4 (3.2 GHz), 1GB RAM, 250GB hard drive, nVidia GeForce FX Go5700 graphics, 20-inch LCD. SYSmark: 174.
VALUE AND MIDRANGE
Compaq Presario SR1620NX$499 directllllm
Dual-layer DVD writer. Good performance. DX9 graphics capabilities. FireWire ports. Seven USB ports. PCIe x16 expansion slot.
Lackluster 3D game performance. The SR1620NX has a lot of appeal for entry-level users, and the tech-savvy tinkerer will like the expandability.
AMD Sempron 3400+ (1.8 GHz), 512MB RAM, 160GB hard drive, 256MB ATI Radeon Xpress 200 graphics. SYSmark: 142.
Velocity Micro Vector SX-V$999 directllllh
Better-than-average graphics card. Motherboard supports the latest technologies. Loaded with multimedia features.
Only one optical drive. The Vector SX-V offers the latest technologies, a wide upgrade path, and enough horsepower to satisfy gamers and multimedia enthusiasts.
Intel Pentium 4 540 (3.2 GHz), 512MB RAM, 120GB hard drive, nVidia GeForce 6600 graphics. SYSmark: 188.
BUSINESS
HP dx5150 Business Desktop$915 directllllm
Windows XP x64-capable. PCI x16 slot for graphics upgrades. AMD-enhanced virus protection. Quiet. Built-in dual-display capabilities.
Half-height slots. May not fi t your current disk image directives.
The dx5150 benefi ts from the future-proofi ng and hardware-based virus protection that the AMD Athlon 64 platform offers.
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (2.2 GHz), 512MB RAM, 40GB hard drive, ATI Radeon Xpress 200 graphics. SYSmark: 155.
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 33
Our Top Desktop PCsVisit go.pcmag.com/desktops for the full reviews of these and scores of other top-rated systems.
ANALYST'S TIPJOEL SANTO DOMINGO, Lead Analyst
All-in-one PCs are a good fi t for constrained spaces, such as a dorm room or studio apartment. What’s
more, if you opt for a PC with a TV tuner card, like the Sony VAIO VGC-VA11G, the PC can do double duty as
your TV set. All-in-ones are quiet enough to use in a living room or bedroom, and most have 20-inch wide-
screen panels, which are larger than even the largest 17-inch notebook LCDs.
F I R S T L O O K S Business Software
BY KATHY YAKAL
TurboTax has been our favorite person-al tax-preparation product more years than not , and the
2005 version is no exception. Intuit has made the interface even sleeker and more under-standable than it already was, and abolishing the unwieldy rebate structure eliminated the pricing confusion that plagued previous versions. ItsDeductible, the deduction-tracking program, is now included, and there’s a new gift-card rewards offer.
If you regularly track per-sonal finance information using products like Quicken, QuickBooks, Quicken Rental Property Manager, or others that export in TXF (Tax Ex-change Format)—or if you access info from last year’s ta x progra m—TurboTa x helps you glide through the
import process. And as always, you can enter f inancial information directly into TurboTax forms or use the guided tour, which poses ques-tions and transfers your answers to the correct forms and schedules.
Even if you can’t im-port any data, a new n a v i g a t i o n s c h e m e makes plowing through your return simpler this year. You’ll f ind con-tent divided into four categories: Income, De-ductions, Taxes & Credits, and Miscellaneous, each of which is further divided. Clicking on Deductions, for example, brings up 16 sub-categories ranging from Mortgage Interest to Child Care Expenses.
A new and welcome ad-dition, the Where Do I En-ter button, lets you scroll
through the list of topics such as “child’s return” or enter a search phrase to go directly to the appropriate informa-tion entry screen.
A Get Answers box takes you to multiple levels of help including tax-related FAQs, Web-based support, and live advice for $29.95 per topic.
When you’ve completed
your return, TurboTax checks for items like your eligibility for the Alter-native Minimum Tax. The software also looks for possible errors, omis-sions, and missed deduc-tions and gives you an opportunity to fi x them.
If you have a refund coming, you can spend some or all of it on the $29.95 TurboTax Refund Bonus program, which lets you buy gift cards from more than 50 retail-ers at a discount.
In overall usability, guid-ance, and added value, Turbo-Ta x has improved more substantially than its com-petitors this year, and it’s our favorite to help guide you through the annual tax maze.
TurboTax Premier 2005
$69.95 direct; e-fi le: $14.95 (free with online version). Intuit Inc., www.turbotax.com. lllll
TurboTax Unravels Tax Maze
TaxCut Eases Tax ChoresBY KATHY YAKAL
H&R Block’s TaxCut has a long history of pro-viding tax relief with
an annual release that vastly simplifies tax preparation. In addition, users can save money on related software, either as soon as they pur-chase TaxCut or when rebate checks appear.
T h e p r o g r a m i s top-notch as usual. It covers the tax bases thoroughly, using sim-ple explanatory lan-guage, and provides a ton of guidance on both simple and com-plex topics. This year’s release isn’t exactly a barnburner, but there are some good addi-tions that users will ap-preciate.
The product simplif ies things up front, in order to save you the labor of entering data. You can import informa-tion from last year’s TaxCut or any program that supports the Tax Exchange Format (TXF).
A clean, simple interface helps take some of the pain
out of your annual chore. L i n k s to ma i n prog ra m blocks sit at the top of the page, with subtopics such as Dependents, Income, Deduc-tions, and Taxes below.
Click on one and the navi-gational outline appears: It not only lists the primary
content elements but also displays any forms you’ve already worked on. Each is earmarked as To Do, May Need, In Progress, Done, and Not Needed. We like this convention, but we’re surprised that Block hasn’t updated it.
Beyond the help of-fered on the prepara-tion screens, TaxCut provides tons of be-hind-the-scenes guid-ance. Click the Help
button and a window displays context-sensitive tax tips, IRS instructions, and customer-support information.
The biggest news this year is the new Worry-Free Audit Support. Premium purchas-ers who successfully e-file get free audit support from H&R Block’s network of tax professionals. TurboTax does not have a similar offer.
Overall, there’s not much to criticize about TaxCut, though we’d love to see an inter face overhaul that would make its individual parts more consistent. We’d recommend that past users of the product stick with Tax-Cut for the 2005 tax year. For new users, though, our pick this year is rival TurboTax.
TaxCut Premium 2005
Premium + State: $49.99 direct; e-fi le: free after rebate. H&R Block Digital Tax Solutions LLC, www.taxcut.com. llllh
TAXCUT’S GUIDANCE IS BOTH abundant and easily accessible.
TURBOTAX 2005 divvies up your tax-related topics in a clean interface.
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 34
Bring Dead SpotsBack to Life!
45
40
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25
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15
10
5
10 164 328 492 656 820 984 1148 1312 1476 1640 1804 1969
ou
tdo
or testin
g resu
lts
Mb
ps
Feet
MIMO Solution
High Power Solution (Turbo G)
Standard 802.11g
Learn more www.buffalotech.com/pcmag1
Tired of hitting "dead spots" in your wireless network? Buffalo Technology’s
Turbo G High Power Wireless Solutions bring those dead spots back to life!
Now you can go places you never could with standard 802.11g devices. With an
effective outdoor range of up to 2000ft., connecting in the bedroom or office
down the hall should be no problem.*2 Whether you’re upgrading your wireless LAN
or just getting started, the Turbo G High Power Wireless Solutions provide the perfect
answer for those who need Speed, Performance and Value. Bring dead
spots to life while enjoying faster connections and extended range.
Further & faster than Standard 802.11g. Further than MIMO Solutions.*1
WHR-HP-G54Wireless Smart Router
WLI-CB-G54HPWireless Notebook Adapter
WLI-TX4-G54HPWireless Ethernet Converter
© 2005 Buffalo Technology (USA), Inc. Buffalo Technology, Buffalo Technology logo and AOSS logo are registered trademarks of Buffalo Technology (USA), Inc. The names and logos of other companies mentioned herein belong to their respective owners. Products tested: High Power solution (WHR-HP-G54, WLI-CB-G54HP), MIMO Solution (WZR-G108, WLI-CB-G108), Standard 802.11g (WBR2-G54, WLI-CB-G54S). *1 Based on Buffalo Technology internal testing results. Products tested: High Power solution (WHR-HP-G54, WLI-CB-G54HP), MIMO Solution (WZR-G108, WLI-CB-G108), Standard 802.11g (WBR2-G54, WLI-CB-G54S).*2 Wireless networking speed and distance will vary depending on environment.
Wireless
Great for Wireless Online Gaming!
*2
I N S H O R T
For an in-depth look at these products, go to go.pcmag.com/guides.
F I R S T L O O K S Notebook PCs
BY CISCO CHENG
There's always been much to like about the Apple PowerBook 17-
inch ($2,499 direct), and the latest version is no different. The entire PowerBook line (including the 12- and 15-inch models) has gotten a boost, with brighter displays, light-er weights, and improved fea-tures. And perhaps the best part: Prices have dropped.
Processing power is fueled by the 1.67-GHz Power PC G4 processor, which is not that impressive. Apple has final-ly made the move to DDR2 memory (from DDR)—512MB for the 17-inch—but we expect at least 1GB standard for a notebook of this size. Graph-ics memory for the ATI Mo-bility Radeon 9700 increases to 128MB (from 64MB), which helped the PowerBook score a 15.6 on Doom 3.
Apple has made some great improvements to the Power-Book 17-inch, including light-ening the weight, brightening the screen, and upgrading components, while lowering the price.
Apple PowerBook 17-inch
With PowerPC G4 1.67 GHz, 512MB DDR2, 120GB hard drive, ATI Mobility Radeon 9700, 17-inch widescreen, AirPort Extreme 802.11g, SuperDrive DVD+R DL, Mac OS X 10.4.2, $2,499 direct. Apple Computer Inc., www.apple.com. llllm
The new PowerBook’s dis-play is much brighter, thanks to a combination of 36 percent more pixels and new materi-als that direct more light to the front of the screen. It also retains an anti glare coating. Watching movies and editing photos here is a treat.
We were disapointed that the PowerBook 17-inch has just two USB ports. It does have two FireWire ports—FireWire 800 and FireWire 400—which are great for con-necting external drives and DV camcorders. A DVI-D port is located in the back for con-necting to Apple’s breathtak-ing flat-panel displays. The
SuperDrive DL (DVD+R DL) is now standard,
and AirPort Ex-t re m e 8 0 2 . 1 1 g and Bluetooth 2.0
(EDR) are built in. Storage is improved as well, with a 120GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive.
HP’s Solid Desktop Replacement BY CISCO CHENG
The thinner and lighter HP Pavilion dv8000 is not as powerful as
its predecessor, the Pavil-ion zd8000, but it serves as a nice desktop replacement notebook for moderate work-loads. It uses the AMD Tu-rion 64 ML-40 (2.2 GHz) and has dual 100GB hard drives.
The dv8000 is the high-end laptop in the Pavilion line. It has slimmed down to 8.2 pounds, well below the 9.5-pound zd8000. The 17-inch widescreen with HP’s BrightView screen is ideal for multimedia tasks.
Like the HP Pavilion dv4000, the dv8000 is configured with Quick-Play, which provides quick ac-cess to DVDs and music fi les in a preboot environment.
To our surprise, the dv8000 came with a Turion 64 ML-40 processor instead of the Pentium M processor found on the dv4000. In PC Maga-zine Labs testing, the 2.2-GHz Turion delivered very good SYSmark 2004 SE per-
formance, but still fell behind Pentium M systems. The ba-sic ATI Mobility Radeon Ex-press 200M with 128MB of discrete memory won’t get you very far if you’re a hard-core gamer.
Performance may not be commanding, but the fea-tures are. You get four USB ports, one FireWire port, and a 6-in-1 card reader.
It’s not a media-rich note-book, but the dv8000 is a good general-purpose computer for small-business owners or multitasking home users.
HP Pavilion dv8000
With AMD Turion 64 ML-40 (2.2 GHz), 1GB DDR, 200GB hard drive, ATI Mobil-ity Radeon Xpress 200M, 17-inch wide-screen, DVD+R dual-layer LightScribe, Broadcom 802.11a/g, Microsoft Windows XP Professional, $1,579 list. Hewlett-Packard Development Co., www.hp.com. lllhm
Apple Gives PowerBook a BoostSony VAIO VGN-FJ Series (FJ180)Pros: Great new colors. Integrated webcam. Ample hard drive space. Cons: Large AC adapter. Lacks built-in Bluetooth.Bottom line: The FJ Series brings color and affordability to Sony’s VAIO laptop line and is a solid midrange system.
With Intel Pentium M 750 (1.86 GHz), 512MB DDR2, 100GB hard drive, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 GM, 14.1-inch display, DVD+R dual-layer, Intel Pro Wireless 2200BG, Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, $1,599 direct. Sony Electronics Inc., www.sonystyle.com. lllhm
Sharp M4000 WideNotePros: Ultralight weight. Good bat-tery life. Bright widescreen.Cons: Has only a DVD/CD-RW combo drive. Too few USB ports. No FireWire.Bottom line: Impressively light for its size, though it needs improvement on features.
With 1.73-GHz Intel Pentium M 740, 512MB DDR2, 80GB hard drive, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 GM, 13.3-inch color screen, DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, Intel Pro Wireless 2200BG, Windows XP Professional, $1,799 list. Sharp Systems of America, www.sharpsystems.com. lllmm
Toshiba Satellite M65-S809Pros: Good bar-gain. Bright 17-inch screen. Number pad. Colorful lids.Cons: Poorly designed mouse buttons. Integrated graphics.Bottom line: An afford-able desktop replacement notebook with a bright 17-inch widescreen and customizable colored lids. It’s ideal for home or school.
With Intel Pentium M 740 (1.73GHz), 512MB DDR, 100GB hard drive, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 GM, 17-inch display, DVD±RW drive, Intel Pro Wireless 2200BG, Windows XP Home Edition, $1,499 list. Toshiba America Inc., www.toshiba.com. lllhm
THE NEW POWERBOOKS:More for less.
A GOOD SOLUTION for multitaskers.
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 39
F I R S T L O O K S Top Products
BUSINESS PROS CONS BOTTOM LINE SPECS AND SCORES
HP Compaq nc8200$2,699 directllllm
Durable design. Light, despite a 15.4-inch widescreen display. Good battery life.
Client software is not as rich as that of IBM’s ThinkVantage.
Even with a 15.4-inch screen, the nc8200 is well suited for the road. It’s lighter and less bulky than you might expect.
Intel Pentium M 760 (2.0 GHz), 512MB RAM, 60GB hard drive, 15.4-inch widescreen. 6.2 pounds. SYSmark: 140. BatteryMark: 4:53.
Lenovo ThinkPad T43$2,199 directllllh
Next-generation Centrino. Terrifi c typing experience and security options. Top-of-the-line management utilities.
Only two USB ports. No memory card slots.
Next-generation Centrino components and a robust security suite make the T43 the perfect business tool.
Intel Pentium M 750 (1.86 GHz), 512MB RAM, 60GB hard drive, 14.1-inch screen. 5.5 pounds. SYSmark: 134. BatteryMark: 4:49.
Lenovo ThinkPad Z60t$1,879 directllllm
More screen real estate. Built-in EV-DO WAN option. Even better keyboard. Titanium cover option to break from basic ThinkPad black.
Screen is not the high-gloss transrefl ective type found on other widescreen notebooks.
With an updated look, a widescreen display, and built-in EV-DO WAN support, the Z60t will appeal to business and home buyers alike.
Intel Pentium M 750 (1.86 GHz), 512MB RAM, 60GB hard drive, 17-inch widescreen. 5.1 pounds. SYSmark: 140. BatteryMark: 4:26.
ULTRAPORTABLE
FujitsuLifeBook P1510$1,649 directllllm
Pentium M processor. Use as a notebook or tablet. Just 2.2 pounds.
Small keyboard. Small pen. Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition OS not an option (yet).
The P1510 is a tiny, lightweight notebook that converts to a tablet. It’s a very good machine for those who want a constant PC companion.
Intel Pentium M 753 (1.2 GHz), 512MB RAM, 30GB hard drive, 9-inch widescreen. 2.2 pounds. BatteryMark: 2:17.
Lenovo ThinkPad X41 Tablet$1,900 streetllllh
Lightest convertible tablet. Fine pen-on-paper feel. Fingerprint reader. ThinkVantage security system.
No built-in optical drive. Only 1,024-by-768 maximum resolution.
Lenovo’s fi rst tablet is the lightest convertible around, and the screen has a perfect paperlike feel for writing.
Intel Pentium M 758 (1.5 GHz), 512MB RAM, 40GB hard drive, 12.1-inch screen. 3.2 pounds.
Sony VAIOVGN-TX670P$2,199 directllllm
Integrated EDGE wireless WAN radio. Built-in optical drive. Instant-on features for multimedia playback. Good battery life.
Cramped keyboard. The 2.7-pound TX670P has nearly everything a road warrior could hope for, including built-in WAN support and an optical drive.
Intel Pentium M 753 (1.2 GHz), 1GB RAM, 60GB hard drive, 11.1-inch screen. 2.7 pounds. SYSmark: 100. BatteryMark: 5:04.
MULTIMEDIA AND GAMING
NEW Dell XPS M170$3,419 directllllm
Top-of-the-line graphics card. Design fi t for gamers. Media Center 2005 OS.
Noisy mouse buttons. External TV tuner. Premium price.
This new XPS notebook comes with specialized, customer-centric support, improved security, and top-of-the-line components.
Intel Pentium M 770; 1GB RAM; 100GB hard drive; 17-inch widescreen; 8.6 pounds; 3DMark 05: 6,500; MobileMark: 2:34
HP Pavilion dv4000$1,449 directllllh
Excellent performance. ATI Mobility Radeon X700 graphics processor. LightScribe optical burner.
Less-than-average battery life. Not very portable.
A faster processor and dedicated GPU make the latest dv4000 more of a multimedia dream machine than ever.
Intel Pentium M 770 (2.13 GHz), 512MB RAM, 80GB hard drive, 15.4-inch widescreen. 6.6 pounds. SYSmark: 151. BatteryMark: 2:28.
Toshiba Qosmio G25-AV513$2,999 listllllh
Multitude of A/V features. Designed for A/V rack. Terrifi c screen. Large hard drives.
Heavy. Shiny chassis prone to fi ngerprints and dust. Below-average battery life. TV-in dongle.
The G25-AV513 is the best multimedia laptop we’ve seen, especially when it comes to integrating A/V features.
Intel Pentium M 760 (2.0 GHz), 1GB RAM, two 60GB hard drives, 17-inch widescreen. 9.4 pounds. SYSmark: 145. BatteryMark: 1:59.
VALUE
Dell Inspiron 6000$1,024 directllllh
Great battery life. DVD±RW drive. Latest-generation Centrino technology.
Price varies according to Dell’s specials at a given time.
The Inspiron 6000 is a feature-rich desktop replacement model. It delivers top-end components for an aggressive price.
Intel Pentium M 730 (1.6 GHz), 512MB RAM, 60GB hard drive, 15.4-inch widescreen. 7.0 pounds. SYSmark: 130. BatteryMark: 5:52.
Gateway M250X$1,170 directllllm
Good performance and features for the price. Good portability.
Battery life could be better. Not built for gaming.
The M250X rides the line between ultraportable and thin-and-light notebook. It’s not fl ashy, but it delivers solid value for the money.
Intel Pentium M 740 (1.73 GHz), 512MB RAM, 60GB hard drive, 14.1-inch widescreen. 5.1 pounds. SYSmark: 142. BatteryMark: 3:16.
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 40
Our Top Notebook PCsVisit go.pcmag.com/notebooks for the full reviews of these and scores of other top-rated portable PCs.
ANALYST'S TIPCISCO CHENG, Lead Analyst
Upgrading your system memory is an inexpensive and relatively simple way to increase your notebook’s
performance, especially if your notebook uses integrated graphics. Integrated graphics can hog up to 128MB
of your system memory, so if you don’t already have 512MB of RAM, consider upgrading to at least that. And
if your notebook uses integrated graphics, I recommend upgrading to 768MB or even a full gigabyte (1GB).
J U M P TO N E X T PA G E >>
For many aggressive small and midsize businesses, not being mo-bile may be competitively equivalent to marching backwards. These companies realize that their employees’ ability to securely access in-formation and transact business quickly while away from the offi ce can give them a competitive advantage. Their logic is simple: mobil-ity leads to productivity, and productivity creates business benefi ts and value.
Cookie Time is a perfect example of this trend. Based in Christ-church, New Zealand, Cookie Time manufactures, wholesales and distributes the number-one cookie brand in the country. To reach the largest possible marketplace, it uses 44 mobile distributors working a wide range of geographical domains.
Today’s mobility solutions from HP enable businesses to strengthen bonds with customers, increase productivity, streamline operations and drive competitive advantage.
H P S M A R T B U S I N E S S . Z I F F D A V I S . C O M
CONNECTING WITH SUCCESS
S PEC I A L A DV ERT I S I N G S EC T I O NS PEC I A L A DV ERT I S I N G S EC T I O N
[1a]
EASY ACCESS FOR YOU.
1. Instant savings and free shipping good on purchases made through 3/31/06. Free shipping available only within the United States. 2. Wireless access point required and is not included. WirelessInternet use requires separately purchased Internet service contract. Availability of public wireless access points limited. All offers available from HP Direct and participating resellers. Prices shownare HP Direct prices, are subject to change and do not include applicable state and local sales tax or shipping to recipient’s destination. Reseller prices may vary. Other fees and restrictions mayapply. All images simulated. Intel, Intel Inside, the Intel Inside Logo, the Intel Centrino Logo and Intel Centrino are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in theUnited States and other countries. Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. © 2005 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
I N T R O D U C I N G T H E H P C O M PA Q n x 6 1 1 0 B U S I N E S S N O T E B O O K.
HP COMPAQ nx6110 —SPECIAL PRICE $9991 WITH INSTANT SAVINGS AND FREE SHIPPING
CALL 888-291-7965 CLICK hp.com/go/secure3 CONTACT an HP reseller
You aren’t always thinking about protecting your company information. But HP is. Our HP Compaq nx6110 business notebookwith Intel® CentrinoTM Mobile Technology2 features exclusive HP ProtectTools, built-in security software and hardware that workstogether to keep your data safe. Combine that with the HP Mobile Data Protection System, which helps protect your hard drivefrom shocks and bumps, and you have data security every road warrior will love. All at a price you can’t resist, just $999.1
A DEAD END FOR ANYONE ELSE.
Smart Advice > Smart Technology > Smart Services
H P S M A R T B U S I N E S S . Z I F F D A V I S . C O M
S PEC I A L A DV ERT I S I N G S EC T I O NS PEC I A L A DV ERT I S I N G S EC T I O N
Successful as it is, Cookie Time was not
satisfi ed with the status quo. To maximize
the effectiveness of its mobile distribution
network, the company turned to HP and HP
business partner ROCOM Wireless for an
end-to-end mobile printing solution for its
distributors’ vans.
“Being mobile, we realized our distribu-
tors would certainly be more effective if they
had the ability to print and access data on
the move,” says Chris White, Cookie Time’s
manager of information systems.
Under the old system, Cookie Time dis-
tributors issued handwritten invoices to cus-
tomers, entered sales details into a book,
tallied invoices at the end of the day, then
faxed or mailed them back to the offi ce.
Once at the offi ce, data would be re-entered
by offi ce staff.
So Cookie Time enlisted HP’s help because,
according to White, “HP was top of mind for us
as the leader in imaging and printing technol-
ogy. We naturally turned to HP when it came
to looking for a reliable, effective solution that
would bring value to our business.”
BUSINESS BENEFITSThe resulting mobile digital printing solution
consisted of an HP Deskjet 450 infrared- and
Bluetooth*-enabled mobile printer installed
in each distribution van, as well as SalesLink
software for near-real-time access to order
processing and inventory update informa-
tion. Used in conjunction with smartphones,
the mobile printers generate invoices and
sales reports through infrared connectivity.
The solution integrated easily with Cookie
Time’s existing IT infrastructure, minimizing
the burden on IT staff.
Says White, “As a robust, fully integrated
and economical system, HP’s solution has
made life simple and has allowed our sales
force to be truly mobile. And for its size, the HP
Deskjet 450 has delivered on its promise of re-
liability, page economy and performance.”
Cookie Time’s business benefi ts have
been bountiful. Distributors save up to
an hour a day and minimize inaccuracies,
which allows them to spend more time with
customers. Perhaps the most productive
benefi t of the new mobile printing system
is the ability to gather near-real-time market
data that facilitates market analysis, deci-
sion-making and inventory planning.
The solution also has direct bottom-line
benefi ts. White concludes, “We believe the
benefi ts of building customer confi dence as
well as collecting important sales data for de-
cision making would help us break even on
our initial investments within 12 months and
generate incremental sales in the future.”
THE IT SIDE OF MOBILITYJust as important to the success of any
mobility solution is the IT side of the equa-
tion. IT professionals must deploy reliable,
dependable, affordable mobility solutions
that enhance the business. These solu-
tions must be a natural extension of exist-
ing infrastructure, they must augment key
business applications, and they must be
secure, manageable and easy to use. Oth-
erwise, any solution—rather than enabling
IT staff to support the needs of the busi-
ness—will cause integration and support
headaches.
One of the keys to the success of the Cook-
ie Time solution was its easy integration with
the company’s existing IT systems. Another
company that’s reaping the rewards of an
easy-to-use mobility solution is Middleton
Lawn & Pest Control of Orlando, Florida.
Middleton has 23 branch offi ces across
Florida to serve its 71,000 customers. In the
past, servicing customers involved stacks
of paperwork. Technicians created this pa-
perwork in the fi eld and mailed it to a dis-
trict offi ce, where other employees would
use it to update the central customer data-
base. The old system also forced managers
to wait up to fi ve days for revenue and prod-
uct-usage data, which negatively impacted
customer service.
The company needed a reliable mobile
solution that was easy for fi eld technicians
to use. It chose the HP iPAQ Pocket PC run-
ning FMC Software Solutions’ SmartBiz Mo-
bile, an application optimized for the lawn-
care and pest-management business. Now,
when Middleton technicians arrive for work,
they download their day’s route to their iPAQ
devices via a wireless connection. Once they
reach their job sites, they have access to all
the customer information they need. At the
end of the day, the technicians return to the
offi ce to upload their data to the company’s
HP ProLiant servers. That data is available to
managers by the next morning.
This fall, HP added a few new and updated members to its mobile device family, all designed to make it even easier to stay con-nected and productive while on the go. They include the new HP iPAQ hw6515 Mobile Mes-senger and HP iPAQ rx1950 series Pocket PC, and upgrades to the existing HP iPAQ hx2000 series Pocket PC.
The HP iPAQ hw6515 Mobile Messenger ($649) is a global communications device that enables users to access the digital content and services that they need to stay connected and productive. This device features GSM/GPRS/EDGE and Bluetooth* wireless technolo-gies, as well as an integrated GPS receiver, HP Photosmart 1.3 megapixel camera, and built-in keyboard. Trial versions of mobile applications for this and other HP devices are available for download from the HP Mobility Solutions Evaluation Center (www.hp.com/go/mobile-evaluation). The HP iPAQ rx1950 series Pocket PC is a powerful handheld with
an affordable price tag ($299). Its integrated 802.11b wireless capabilities let you stay connected to email, applications and the Internet as you move about. A bright color display makes it easier to view documents, images and Web pages in both portrait and
landscape modes.
The HP iPAQ hx2000 series has been upgraded with the new HP iPAQ hx2790 ($499), which includes a biometric fi ngerprint sensor, as well as the HP iPAQ hx2490 ($399) and HP iPAQ hx2190 ($349). All three run on Windows Mobile 5.0, and feature 144MB available memory, dual Compact Flash Type 2 and secure digital expansion slots for ad-ditional storage and peripheral devices, integrated Bluetooth* wireless to connect to Bluetooth*-enabled printers and other personal devices, and
powerful data and device security via HP Pro-tectTools secured by CREDANT Technologies. The iPAQ hx2490 and hx2790 also feature integrated 802.11b wireless connectivity.
NEW WAYS TO STAY CONNECTED
The new HP iPAQ hw6515 Mobile Messenger is a quad-band global
communications device.
[4a]
H P S M A R T B U S I N E S S . Z I F F D A V I S . C O M
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[5a]
An important aspect of the iPAQ installa-
tion to Middleton’s IT staff was the device’s
usability. Within a few hours of training,
thanks to the iPAQ’s simple-to-use inter-
face, technicians were up and running and
productive. The acceptance of the new tech-
nology has been so favorable, it has enabled
the IT team to develop new mobile applica-
tions, including a module that will allow
technicians to track their hours. Middleton’s
IT staff is also developing a way to geo-code
customer data to calculate more effi cient
service routes—via iPAQ Pocket PCs with
global positioning system modules.
What’s the bottom line for Middleton?
“Outstanding,” says Mike Reynolds, Middle-
ton’s director of information technology. “HP
is helping us reduce both redundancy and
time of reporting, giving us a back-offi ce ef-
fi ciency that we weren’t getting before. As a
result, we can use our human resources in
ways that will give our customers better ser-
vice and increase our opportunities to cross-
sell our other products.”
With its back-offi ce workload reduced 75
percent, Reynolds estimates that Middle-
ton saves $10,000 per month, and that
the project will pay for itself in less than a
year. Since deploying the iPAQ devices, the
company has added fi ve technicians and 10
salespeople without increasing the size of
its back-offi ce staff.
Working with HP reseller and agent
PowerOne has helped Reynolds and his staff
deploy new HP equipment easily. Middleton
purchases equipment directly from HP’s
Web site. PowerOne then provides imaging
services and delivery of the equipment to
Middleton’s branch offi ces, along with war-
ranty support and networking services.
MANY CUSTOMERS, MANY IDEAL SOLUTIONSMobility, like most applications, must be
shaped by business need—there is no “one-
size-fi ts-all” scenario. It starts with under-
standing business needs and objectives.
Only then is it possible to determine the
right mobility strategies and the right tech-
nology fi t.
Many companies use a combination of
different devices to create complete, on-the-
go solutions. Two such organizations are the
RE/MAX 1st Choice agency in Pleasanton,
California, and Albert Almeda Publicitat of
Girona, Spain.
Pleasanton RE/MAX 1st Choice owner and
lead broker Mike Hyles turned to HP solu-
tions to help him become more productive
on the road. “Real estate agents don’t make
any sales sitting in their offi ces,” says Hyles.
Previously, after printing a contract or offer
sheet, Hyles would either have to go to his
offi ce or fi nd a nearby copy store in order to
make copies or fax the paperwork to all the
interested parties, then wait to get a signed
copy back to the prospective buyer. “With
the amount of vehicle traffi c in the area, it
can turn into a very time-consuming pro-
cess,” says Hyles.
Today, Hyles takes his new wireless LAN-
enabled HP Compaq Tablet PC and HP Desk-
jet 450 mobile printer along to meetings
with customers, which often occur in one of
hundreds of wireless-enabled Starbucks cof-
fee bars. When the customer is ready to sign
a contract, Hyles takes advantage of Adobe
Acrobat 7.0 and the Tablet PC’s drawing and
handwriting features, which allow the signa-
ture to be captured directly on screen. Hyles
then wirelessly faxes or emails the signed
electronic document from his tablet to other
relevant parties. He also provides customers
with a signed copy instantly, printed on his
HP Deskjet mobile printer.
“If I had to go back to my offi ce to produce
a contract, I probably would only be able
to handle one client per day,” Hyles says.
“I recently did two contracts in a day and
didn’t have to go back to the offi ce for ei-
ther. I did one at a Starbucks and the other
at the client’s house with the Bluetooth*
wireless technology on the mobile printer.
With that kind of time savings, my sales
volume has increased signifi cantly with the
Tablet PC.”
Indeed, thanks to HP’s mobility solutions,
Hyles spends an estimated 90 percent of his
time away from his desk working with cli-
ents, which has helped establish him as one
of RE/MAX’s leading brokers worldwide with
a top-10 ranking in agent productivity.
“The Tablet PC has become invaluable to
me. I couldn’t live without it,” says Hyles.
Another company that uses HP technol-
ogy to help serve its clients better is Albert
Almeda Publicitat, a media company that
specializes in helping customers create
high-impact advertising campaigns. Since
company founder Albert Almeda works alone
and is out of his offi ce most of the time, he
needed a mobile solution that would allow
him to access his centralized data no mat-
ter where he was working. That’s because he
was losing existing contracts and failing to
win new business since he couldn’t access
the data that he needed unless he was sit-
ting in the offi ce.
The answer was a solution that included
an HP iPAQ Pocket PC, an HP notebook run-
ning Microsoft® Outlook, a Vodafone mobile
phone featuring Bluetooth technology and
Symantec AntiVirus software to protect the
whole package. Now Almeda carries all the
information he needs on his iPAQ, which can
be connected to the Internet via the mobile
phone. Data—which includes everything
from contact information to radio commer-
cials in MP3 format—can be synchronized
with Almeda’s notebook quickly and easily,
so it’s always up-to-date.
“The signifi cant time saved by this imple-
mentation is valuable in terms of increas-
ing revenue and has allowed me to become
more fl exible and focused in building client
satisfaction and loyalty,” Almeda notes. “HP,
Intel®, Vodafone, Microsoft and Symantec
made my mobile offi ce possible. It’s a huge
advantage having your entire offi ce inside
your pocket and accessible through such
simple tools.”
Real estate broker Mike Hyles believes that his sales volume has increased signifi cantly thanks to his wireless-enabled HP Compaq Tablet PC and HP Deskjet mobile printer.
P R E S E N T I N G T H E H P C O M P A Q d c 76 0 0 U L T R A - S L I M D E S K T O P.
An open cubicle. An unwatched desktop. Sound like a security risk? Not if it’s an HP Compaq dc7600 Business Desktop, powered by an Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor with HT Technology. Your data is vigilantly guarded by our exclusive HP ProtectTools. Securityfeatures are built into the desktop infrastructure, providing enhanced protection. Access is tightly controlled. Crucial passwordsare stored in a secure file. And you can remotely control users’ preferences and security settings. Having award-winning HPsupport available 24/7 further adds to your sense of security. Secure desktops, competitively priced.
CALL 888-860-9412 CLICK hp.com/go/securepc3 CONTACT an HP reseller
HP COMPAQ dc7600 ULTRA-SLIM DESKTOP—$8991 WITH INSTANT SAVINGS
1. Instant savings good on purchases made through 2/28/06. Monitor sold separately. All offers available from HP Direct and participating resellers. Prices shown areHP Direct prices, are subject to change and do not include applicable state and local sales tax or shipping to recipient’s destination. Reseller prices may vary. Other fees andrestrictions may apply. All images simulated. Intel, Intel Inside, the Intel Inside Logo and Pentium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. © 2005 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
Smart Advice > Smart Technology > Smart Services
IT MAY LOOK LIKE A TARGET.
IN FACT, IT’S MORE LIKE A VAULT.
H P S M A R T B U S I N E S S . Z I F F D A V I S . C O M
COMMON THREADSAs we’ve seen, the power behind mobility
lies in the ability to change the way work
gets done, so employees are more produc-
tive and the business gets better results.
Here are some common elements that small
and midsize businesses should demand
from their solutions and solution providers:
1. Simplicity. As illustrated by Middleton
Lawn & Pest Control, easy-to-use solu-
tions can free up IT staff time for more
strategic projects. That’s why HP mobility
solutions offer simple ways for businesses
to be more productive—from fl exible pur-
chasing options that make solutions easy
to own, to local expertise that makes solu-
tions easy to customize and implement.
2. Security. Mobility solutions that don’t
protect data can jeopardize a business.
That’s why HP offers safer ways to help
control and protect data while mobile. HP
offers the latest encryption technology in
its mobile devices as well as access con-
trols on many of its products. And HP’s
PartnerONE network of over 200,000 local
experts can help companies fi nd the right
security solution.
3. Seamless connectivity. Mobility is all
about enabling access to business-critical
data. HP solutions provide better ways to
connect across voice and data networks
through features like self-sensing connec-
tivity. HP also works with over 200 global
network service providers.
THE HP MOBILITY VALUE PROPOSITIONHP has a vast repository of mobility experi-
ence and expertise. Its combination of tech-
nology partnerships, product offerings and
global channel partners puts the company in
a unique position to meet customer needs.
HP’s portfolio of proven, mobility-enabled
products includes desktops, notebooks and
handheld PCs, servers and storage systems,
and networking and management software
designed to accommodate mobile custom-
ers without increasing IT’s workload.
HP’s lineup of notebook and Tablet PCs
is among the most comprehensive in the
industry. It includes the HP Compaq nc8230
Notebook PC and HP Compaq nw8240 Mo-
bile Workstation, both available with 15.4-
inch widescreen displays; the affordable
HP Compaq nx6110 and nc6120 Notebook
PC systems with 15-inch displays; and the
HP Compaq nx6125 Notebook PC featuring
32- and 64-bit–compatible AMD Turion 64
Mobile Technology.
There’s also the ultra-mobile HP Compaq
nc4200 Notebook PC, weighing under 4
pounds; and the HP Compaq tc4200 Tablet
PC. The latter can be purchased with an out-
door-viewable display that delivers 67 per-
cent more contrast in bright sunlight with no
loss of battery life—great for professionals
who work outdoors or out of their cars.
Services are also important. With HP’s
worldwide network of 70,000 partners,
customers can access HP mobility services
when and where they need them, from the
provider of their choice. Through HP’s certi-
fi cation program, customers can expect con-
sistent, high-quality service.
One company that provides a great exam-
ple of HP end-to-end expertise and solutions
at work is Sebaly Shillito + Dyer (SS+D), a le-
gal professional association in Dayton, Ohio.
So-so service, weak product warranties and
increasing support costs from its old PC ven-
dor prompted SS+D to seek a better solution.
SS+D turned to HP for a technology re-
fresh, which included HP servers, note-
books, desktops and Tablet PCs,
along with printers, scanners,
projectors and networking gear,
all protected by extended war-
ranties. The equipment is leased
through HP Financial Services,
so technology is kept fresh and
payments are predictable.
“The improvements in hardware reliability
alone have the potential of making the fi rm
more profi table and more productive for its
clients,” says Beverly Shillito, SS+D partner.
This level of reliability has not come at the
expense of the IT budget. According to SS+D
Information Systems Group Manager Brian
Clayton, “I’m working with nearly the same
IT budget we had in 1999, but our produc-
tion from that budget is probably four to fi ve
times what it was. Standardizing on HP to
refresh our IT has decreased help desk calls
to our department by 75 percent.”
Clayton’s staff is now more focused on
developing a mobile network and helping
the fi rm’s litigators use technology in the
courtroom. SS+D also relies on HP when its
legal staff travels out of town. “We opted for
the extended warranty Care Pack with the
follow-me plan,” Clayton explains, “so our
people with laptops are covered when they
are on the go.”
Today, HP mobility solutions are enabling
remote and mobile workers to access infor-
mation and business applications away from
their desks. Employees are using this new-
found advantage to work more productively,
better satisfy their customers and generate
more sales. HP understands mobility. It also
knows how to design hardware,
applications and services that
meet the needs of mobile work-
ers and the IT departments that
support them.
[8a] * Bluetooth is a trademark owned by its proprietor and used by Hewlett-Packard Company under license. Microsoft is a US registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Intel is a trademark or registered trade-mark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
To download a white paper on this topic, visit http://hpsmartbusiness.
ziffdavis.com
Copyright © 2005 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
S PEC I A L A DV ERT I S I N G S EC T I O NS PEC I A L A DV ERT I S I N G S EC T I O N
I N S H O R T
For an in-depth look at these products, go to go.pcmag.com/guides.
F I R S T L O O K S Mobile Devices
mini-USB cable or over a Bluetooth connection.
Speaker-independent voice commands are part of the PEBL’s features, which is a big step forward from the RAZR.
And they work with Bluetooth headsets.
The photos tak-en with the PEBL’s VGA camera had a serious case of the jaggies, and the video recording mode works but is of such poor qual-ity that it ’s basi-cally useless. You can play AAC and
MP3 ringtones with the PEBL, and with the phone’s 7MB of built-in memory you can even pack in a fair number of them, as well as some games. Gam-ing performance wasn’t great, but it was on a par with that of the RAZR.
Treat your PEBL with loving care. We
dropped ours from waist height several times onto car-peted or rubber floors, usu-ally causing it to fl ip open on impact, though it sustained no apparent damage. We also suspect the PEBL’s hinge has more give than those on stur-dier phones.
There’s no other phone that looks like the PEBL. You’ll be buying it because of its unusu-al design. Design mavens may also want to check out the more feature-heavy Samsung T809 slider phone, though. T-Mobile will sell the PEBL for a reasonable $199 after re-bates. For a beautiful device that will surely become an icon, that’s a bargain.
Motorola U6 PEBL
$299.99 list; as low as $199.99 with contract. Motorola Inc., T-Mobile, www.tmobile.com. lllhm
BY SASCHA SEGAN
Motorola’s PEBL has the smooth con-tours and weight
of a pet rock—one you might have plucked out of some lovely volcanic mountain stream during a Hawaiian sojourn. As befits a succes-sor to the RAZR, the PEBL doesn’t have many high-end features, but it is one exceed-ingly stylish voice phone.
Where the RAZR is angu-lar, the PEBL is round, thicker (1.9 by 3.4 by 0.8 inches), and slightly heavier (3.8 ounces). It’s more of a phone to drop in your purse than a phone to slip into your pocket. You open it by placing your thumb on the Motorola logo and moving it slightly forward; the phone then flips up in a smooth motion. Inside is a very shiny plastic keypad—one that resembles (though doesn’t quite feel like) metal.
In fact, the whole PEBL feels a little organic, a little mineral, a little like a sea-soft-ened stone—thus the name. You want to rub it, turn it in your hands, and handle its slight but noticeable weight. It’s the fi rst phone we’ve had in our hands that could re-place a set of worry beads.
Since a color external screen would obviously clash with its design and mar the PEBL’s perfection, Motorola instead employs a basic mono-chrome, text-only display on the outside, showing the time and caller ID information. The color screen inside is decently bright, though it’s too refl ective in sunlight, and it has the same 176- by 220-pixel resolution as the
RAZR’s screen. Alas, both the main screen and the shiny keypad are horrendous fi nger-print magnets, so you might just want to keep a soft cloth in the vicinity of your PEBL.
Reception with the PEBL seemed good on t he T-Mobi le network, and sound through the ear-piece was unusu-ally sharp and clear, though neither the earpiece nor the bui lt-in speaker-phone were very loud. We found that transmission qual-ity wasn’t as good as reception qual-ity; voices transmit-ted from the PEBL sounded slightly f uzzy. L i ke t he RAZR, the phone is quad-band for the best possible i n t e r n a t i o n a l
roaming experience. Battery life, at well over 8 hours of talk time, was very good.
The PEBL comes with all the necessary basic Bluetooth 1.2 profiles for supporting headsets, file transfer, and dial-up networking over the phone’s slow (30- to 40-Kbps)
GPRS modem. We hooked up a Plantronics headset and also sent fi les to and from both a Mac G5 and a Lenovo ThinkPad; all the devices paired eas-ily. The PEBL doesn’t con nect to Apple ’s iSync, at least so far, but you’ll be able to sync ca lendars and
contacts with Moto-rola’s Mobile Phone Tools
software through a standard
Another Design Coup for MotorolaAeronix ZipIt Wireless MessengerPros: Very easy to use. Supports AIM, MSN, and Yahoo! instant messaging. Auto-matic updates.Cons: No support for WPA (yet) or networks with Web-based gateway pages. Keyboard drops characters if you type too fast. Bottom line: The ZipIt is a fi ne way to get IMing kids off the family PC, as long as they don’t type very fast.
$99 list. Aeronix Inc., www.zipitwireless.com. lllhm
Samsung SGH-e635Pros: Tiny. Easy to use.Cons: Mediocre call quality.Bottom line: The cutest slider phone available today, the Samsung SGH-e635 is more about looks than performance.
$199.99 list; as low as $149.99 with service. Samsung, T-Mobile, www.tmobile.com. lllmm
Nokia 6255iPros: Bluetooth. MP3 player with memory card. FM radio. Cons: A bit chunky. Screens are dull.Bottom line: This pretty good midrange fl ip phone helps bring Bluetooth to the CDMA masses.
$249.99; as low as $129.99 with service. Nokia, Alltel, Cellular One, MetroPCS, www.alltel.com. lllmm
Sprint PM-225 by LGPros: Small and light. Excellent ergonomics and call quality.Cons: Lousy camera. Short on memory.Bottom line: This is a good little voice phone with a very basic camera.
$219.99; as low as $49.99 with service. LG, Sprint, www.sprint.com. llhmm
YOU WON’T WANT TO KEEP your hands off the PEBL’s stylin’ handset.
THIS RAZR follow- up has a more rounded look.
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 49
F I R S T L O O K S HDTVs
BY ROBERT HERON
The 37-inch Westing-
house LVM-37w1 LCD TV has garnered at-
tention by offering native 1080p (1,920-by-1,080 pixels) resolution for under $2,000. Its two-megapixel resolu-tion unleashes the detail of high-definition TV and PC content, but it wasn’t quite as impressive with standard-defi nition content, including DVD video.
You get a surprising num-ber of quality video inputs for a value display, including two for component video, one for VGA, and a pair of DVI-D connections that are HDCP-enabled for protect-ed sources. But the lack of an integrated TV tuner rel-egates the LVM-37w1 to “HD Ready” status.
The 2-inch-wide si lver bezel with matte fi nish is at-tractive; we just wish that
the distracting LED status l ight on the lower-right section had a dimmer func-tion. The monitor’s display modes, includ-ing picture-in-picture and picture-beside- picture, had surpris-i n g l y fe w s o u r c e limitations.
In the lab, the LVM-37w1 managed its best per for m a nce u s i ng a DVI connection, which offered improved color accu-racy and image clarity as well as access to the full 1080p res-olution of the monitor.
Impressively, the LVM-37w1 managed an average contrast ratio of 719:1 (DVI input), placing it second overall among the fl at-panel LCD TVs we’ve tested. The backlight control was ideal for adjusting the image to suit ambient lighting conditions.
T he most s ig n i f ica nt shortcoming was a subpar video processor that was ineffective at deinterlacing standard-definition (480i) video, which caused a loss of image detail and poor sup-pression of image artifacts. Our resolution tests revealed that the LVM-37w1 couldn’t quite resolve all of the detail
of a 1080i video signal, but 720p signals were well-defi ned.
Disappointingly, the monitor’s analog video quality grew increas-ingly worse in terms of color acc u rac y a nd detail perseveration as we moved from compo-nent to S-Video to com-
posite video input. The lack of advanced color
controls limits the ability to fi ne-tune output.
The monitor achieves its low price by eliminating ex-tras found in more expensive LCDs. Still, the Westinghouse LVM-37w1 is undeniably one the most affordable ways of enjoying 1080p resolution on a larger fl at-panel display.
Westinghouse LVM-37w1
$2,000 street. Westinghouse Digital, www.westinghousedigital.com. OVER-ALL lllhm Image Quality lllmm Value llllm Usability lllhm
Mind-Blowing Images, Not a Bad Price
Quality Viewing Out of the BoxBY ROBERT HERON
Th e P a n a s o n i c T H -
4 2 P X 5 0 U 4 2 - i n c h high-defi nition plasma
television offers a quality viewing experience right out of the box, but there are com-petitors that offer compa-rable image quality and more digital input options.
The TH-42PX50U has a native resolution of 1,024-by-768 (non-square pixels), so it isn’t a high-definition device in the truest sense (since it doesn’t have enough pixels to draw a 1,280-by-720 HDTV image). A/V connections include one HDMI port, a pair of component video in-puts, and a CableCARD slot. Integrated ATSC/NTSC
tuners allow for reception of over-the-air digital TV and analog broadcasts. The TV lacks DVI or VGA inputs or a second digital video input (DVI or HDMI).
The remote control, how-ever, is one of the best we’ve seen. Its slender shape makes
it easy to operate with one hand, each button is fully il-luminated by the backlight, and it can control up to six additional A/V components.
We were pleased with the TV’s default picture quality, and three presets (Standard, Cinema, and Vivid) provide
a quick way to optimize the picture for lighting conditions.
Image quality using the integrated over-the-air HD tuner was quite good. But there are no image scaling/stretch-ing options, so content with a 4-to-3 aspect ra-tio that is broadcast in HD gets sandwiched between pi l lar bars along the left and right
sides. Our results with the challenging Silicon Optix
HQV Benchmark DVD tests revealed the TH-42PX50U’s video processor to be quite adept at suppressing MPEG and video noise artifacts without sacrifi cing detail.
In the lab, we found that the not-quite-HD resolution prevented the set from fully resolving the fi ner details of our 720p and 1080i test pat-terns. HD imagery on TH-42PX50U appeared softer and less distinct than on the Westinghouse LVM-37w1.
T h e P a n a s o n i c T H -42PX50U is a good choice if you need a plasma tele-vision with an integrated CableCARD slot, and you can get by with a single digi-tal video input.
Panasonic TH-42PX50U$2,999.95 list. Panasonic, www.panasonic.com. lllhm
SUPERIOR RESOLUTION for the budget-conscious.
THE TH-42PX50U is not quite HD.
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 50
For an in-depth look at these products, go to go.pcmag.com/guides.
I N S H O R T F I R S T L O O K S
Displays
BY JOHN R. DELANEY
Taking a page from Apple’s style guide, Samsung ’s Sync-
Master 193p Plus bucks the traditional business black monitor trend. The SyncMaster’s 1,280-by-1,024 19-inch LCD panel is housed in a glossy white case with a thin silver bezel and sits atop a round silver MagicStand swivel base. A dual-hinged arm provides tilt and pivot capabilities and can adjust height, although height is limited to 2.5 inches from the desktop surface, a tad short for the 6-foot-plus crowd. A nice feature is the combination of MagicPivot and PivotPro software that automatically rotates the screen image when the panel is fl ipped for portrait mode viewing.
Two video inputs (DVI and analog) are built into the base, a long with the
activate by pressing and holding the power button.
Using images from our Display Mate tests (www.displaymate.com), the Sync-Master 193p Plus performed well in both analog and digi-tal modes, although its light-grayscale performance was slightly better when we were using a DVI connection. The 193p Plus handled
movie playback and game play smoothly, thanks to the monitor’s 8-ms midtone (gray to gray) pixel-response rating.
Budget-conscious consum-ers and businesses may fi nd the SyncMaster’s $500 price tag a bit too high for a 19-inch LCD, but if performance and aesthetics are important, we think the 193p Plus is a real bargain.
SyncMaster 193p Plus$500 street. Samsung Electronics America, www.samsung.com. llllm
brick-style power connector. Analog and DVI cables are included in the box. Other than a blue backlit power but-ton, the monitor is devoid of function buttons. Instead, all adjustments are performed via Samsung’s MagicTune utility, with the exception of auto-adjust, which you
An IT-friendly LCD BY JOHN R. DELANEY
The Philips 200W6 is an attractive choice for business users who
need to view multiple docu-ments simultaneously but don’t have the desk space for dual displays. The 20-inch widescreen LCD panel, with a native resolution of 1,650-by-1,050, delivers good im-ages, and the price is right.
A narrow bezel frames the 16:10 screen on the top and sides. The lower bezel is wid-er and holds two integrated 2-watt stereo speakers.
The panel sits on a round base that uses a lazy Susan mechanism for swiveling and a dual-hinged arm for tilt and height adjustments.
A recess in the back panel contains DVI and analog in-puts and a power connector.
Below the recess are audio-in and headphone jacks as well as a USB port for connecting to a PC. Another USB port is on the left side of the display.
The 200W6 comes with DVI, analog, audio, and USB cables. It also has SmartMan-
age, a LAN-based
IT management tool. Our DisplayMate image-
quality tests in both analog and digital modes showed that color scales were well defined, screen backlight-ing was uniform, and overall color quality was good.
The 200W6 rendered text well down to 6.8 points (9 pixels), but smaller fonts
were illegible.Moderate smea r i ng
of moving images on our motion tests was typical
of an LCD with a 16-ms rat-ing for pixel response. DVD movies looked good on the widescreen. We were very impressed with the monitor’s wide viewing angle.
Philips 200W6
$599.99 list. Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V., www.philips.com. llllm
Samsung’s $500 SyncMasterPhilips 190P6Pros: Good image quality in DVI mode. Lots of features. Pivots for portrait-mode viewing.Cons: Expensive. Mediocre analog performance. Bottom Line: The Philips 190P6 is a versatile 19-inch LCD monitor that’s loaded with features, including built-in speakers, a four-port USB hub, and a fast (8-ms) pixel-response time. But at nearly $600, it is a bit pricy.
$579.99 list. Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V., www.philips.com. lllhm
Planar PX1910MPros: Good DVI performance. Highly adjustable. Excellent viewing-angle perfor-mance.Cons: Weak analog light-grayscale perfor-mance. Lacks necessary cable management.Bottom Line: The Planar PX1910M boasts a fast pixel-response rate, plenty of fea-tures, and better-than- average image quality when used with a digital signal. However, its analog performance was fl awed.
$469 list. Planar Systems Inc., www.planar.com. lllhm
Sony SDM-S95DPros: Ultra-thin bezel. Dual video inputs. Excellent text output. Cons: The display lacks height adjust-ment. Does not support pivot rotation. Bottom line: The Sony SDM-S95D may not be the most fl exible 19-inch LCD out there, but if good image quality and sleek lines are key, this monitor belongs on your short list.
$470.99 list. Sony Electronics Inc., www.sony.com. lllhm
For an in-depth look at these products, go to go.pcmag.com/guides.
THIS 20-INCH WIDESCREEN is ideal for business users.
SAMSUNG BUCKS TRADITION with this stylish LCD.
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 52
F I R S T L O O K S Projectors
BY M. DAVID STONE
A big part of what ma kes t he Real is
SX50 ($5,000 street) worth noticing is that it’s built around
LCoS (l iquid crysta l on silicon) technology. If you haven’t heard of LCoS, it’s because there haven’t been many LCoS projectors to hear about. With the SX50, LCoS takes a big step towards becoming mainstream.
At 3.8 by 11.3 by 11.2 inches and 8.6 pounds, the SX50 is reasonably portable. Granted, that’s a little heavy to lug around on every business trip, but thanks to the Canon AI-SYS (Aspectua l Illumination System) engine it’s built around, the SX50 is the lightest LCoS projector on the planet—by
several pounds. The native SXGA+ (1,400-by-1,050) reso-lution is both a strong point and a potential problem. With this level of resolution, slides with lots of text and detail—like large worksheets and en-gineering drawings—become highly readable. Unfortunate-ly, SXGA+ is only beginning to become widespread. You may have to buy a new system—or at least a new video card—to use it.
The SX50 offers plenty of connectors, with inputs for S-Video, component and composite video, audio, and both analog and digital com-puter signals. We tested with both digital and analog con-nections.
Our measured 1,428 lu-mens is only 57 percent of the brightness that Canon claims for the unit, but it’s still enough to use with brighter-than-usual lighting. One ge-
neric problem with LCoS projectors is a relatively low con-trast ratio. And, in-deed, we measured
the SX50 at just 99:1. But we saw none of the
dulling of the image that you would normally expect with such a low contrast ratio.
Instead, the image retained its crispness, and colors popped off the screen, prov-ing that rich, fully saturated
colors can make up for a low contrast ratio. Even better, as we expect from an LCoS projector, the images we saw were not marred by either the screen-door effect com-mon to LCD projectors or the rainbow effect common to DLP projectors.
On our DVD video tests, the S-Video image quality was excellent, though it paled in comparison to the 720p HD video clips that Canon supplied for playing through Windows Media Player. Alas, we had to strain to hear the audio at full volume from just a few feet away. But that’s a minor f law in an excel-lent projector, and it’s easily solved with an external audio system. If you can make use of SXGA+ resolution, put the SX50 high on your short list.
Canon Realis SX50$5,000 street. Canon U.S.A. Inc., www.usa.canon.com. llllm
LCoS: A Better Way to Project
A Lightweight Looker BY M. DAVID STONE
Although the Sony VPL-
CX20A, at 4.2 pounds, isn’t the lightest pro-
jector we’ve reviewed, it’s light enough to carry around. It ’s also strong on conve-nience features, and the three-panel, XGA-resolution (1,024-by-768) LCD engine delivers a reasonably bright, high-quality image.
This is one of the best-looking projectors we’ve seen, with a sleek, consumer-electronics style case—but the design is a little too con-cerned with looking good, and usability suffers. With the controls hidden on the side, you can’t read the labels easily, and hitting the wrong button is too easy.
Fortunately, though, you can do everything through
the remote, which, like the menus, is wel l designed and easy to use. One of the remote’s nicer touches is the control it gives of zoom, autofocus, and even tilt, to raise and lower the image. There is no remote mouse control, however.
The unit’s two connectors are also on the side. One is for HD-15 VGA, which can trans-fer an analog computer signal or component video. The other is proprietary and accepts a supplied cable that ends with its own inputs for S-Video, composite video, and audio. Sony also supplies a VGA cable.
T he compa ny c l a i m s brightness ratings of 1,500 lumens for standard mode
and 2,000 for bright mode. We measured standard at 1,177, which is enough to make a reasonable-size image view-able in normal lighting con-ditions. In bright mode, we measured 1,583 lumens, which can stand up to brighter-than-usual lighting. Contrast ratio in both modes was 91:1, a rela-tively low score.
Our DisplayMate (www.di splaymate .com) test s
turned up one image- quality issue worth mentioning: The darkest shades tended to blend into each other, which blurs detail in dark areas of an image. The problem showed up on our video tests as well, although you can minimize it with a feature intended for video that dynamically re-maps image shades to show detail better. Otherwise, im-age quality was good. Audio, however, was barely loud enough for a small offi ce.
If you need a portable pro-jector, these minor issues will
be outweighed by the Sony VPL-CX20A’s light weight and by convenient features
such as autofocus and remote tilt that
make setup easy.
Sony VPL-CX20A
$1,850 street. Sony Electronics Inc., www.sony.com/professional. lllhm
THE REALIS SX50 really makes colors pop.
THIS PROJECTOR puts style over function.
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 53
When’s the time to replace your old systems?(When you finally say enough is enough.)
©2006 CDW Corporation
MONITORS PROS CONS BOTTOM LINE SPECS
NEW Samsung SyncMaster 204T$599 directllllh
Excellent digital image quality. Fully adjustable stand. Wide viewing angles.
Average analog performance. With a Brillian 20-inch LCD panel, sleek lines, and a fl exible stand, the 204T delivers excellent digital performance at an affordable price.
20-inch LCD (1,600-by-1,200), 4:3 aspect ratio, 16-ms claimed pixel response rate.
Samsung SyncMaster 213T$899 listllllh
Portrait-mode rotation. Excellent image quality. Analog and digital connections and cables.
Weak printed documentation. Smearing on moving images.
The SyncMaster 213T is an excellent monitor, from the high-quality LCD panel to the design detail throughout.
21.3-inch LCD (1,600-by-1,200), 4:3 aspect ratio, 25-ms claimed pixel response rate, portrait mode.
PC MONITOR/TV HYBRIDS
Samsung SyncMaster 930mp$700 streetllllm
Excellent viewing angle. Good image quality. Built-in TV and FM radio tuners.
Stand lacks height adjustment and does not swivel. Does not include DVI cable.
Featuring built-in TV and FM radio tuners and a wide array of connec-tion options, this multipurpose display is worth every penny.
19-inch LCD (1,280-by-1,024), 4:3 aspect ratio, 25-ms claimed pixel response rate. Contrast ratio: 1,000:1.
Sony MFM-HT75W$600 streetllllm
Great image quality. Well-designed remote control. Incorporates analog audio/video inputs and an integrated NTSC TV tuner.
Screen technology is best suited for light-controlled environments.
Delivering great image quality and a useful selection of A/V features, the MFM-HT75W handled everything we threw at it with ease.
17-inch LCD (1,280-by-768), NTSC tuner, 16:10 aspect ratio, 16-ms claimed pixel response rate. Contrast ratio: 800:1.
BUSINESS PROJECTORS
Dell 1100MP$799 directllllh
Lots of premium features at an extremely low price. Generally good image quality. Rugged carrying case.
Focus is soft in upper corners. No mouse function on remote. Standard warranty covers only one year.
Dell has created a winning projector by paying attention to detail. The 1100MP delivers much more than its stripped-down competitors.
SVGA (800-by-600) DLP engine, 1,400 claimed lumens (1,429 tested), 4.9 pounds.
NEW Canon Realis SX50$5,000 streetllllm
LCoS technology sidesteps common problems of both DLP and LCD projectors. Bright image. Excellent color and image quality.
Your system may not support the SXGA+ (1,400-by-1,050) resolution. Volume on the built-in speakers is barely loud enough to fi ll a closet.
The Realis SX50 is the lightest LCoS projector on the market so far, and it goes a long way toward fulfi lling the promise of LCoS.
SXGA+ (1,400-by-1,050) LCOS engine, 2,421 claimed lumens (1,428 tested), 8.6 pounds.
ViewSonic PJ256D$1,500 streetllllm
Impressively small and light (2.2 pounds). Surprisingly bright image for its size (1,581 lumens).
No on-board audio. Needs up to 2 minutes to cool down before you can pack it up.
Weighing just 2.2 pounds, the PJ256D is light enough to bring along all the time, and delivers a bright, high-quality image.
XGA (1,024-by-768) DLP engine, 1,500 claimed lumens (1,581 tested), 2.2 pounds.
HDTVS
Brillian 6501mPB$5,999 listllllh
Natural image quality (with good video sources). Illuminated universal remote. Best-in-class contrast ratio.
Lacks an integrated HD tuner. Needs professional installation. Mediocre composite video quality.
The 6501mPB ranks as the best RPTV we have seen to date. But achieving optimal image quality is best left to an installation pro.
65-inch LCoS RPTV, 1,280-by-720, ATSC, CableCard, NTSC tuners. Viewing angle: 170 degrees (horiz.). Contrast ratio: 2,000:1.
Dell W4200 HD Plasma TV$2,799 directllllm
Solid image quality. Good on-screen display controls. Dual built-in tuners (NTSC and ATSC). Good price.
Needs some color/brightness/ contrast adjustments out of the box because default settings look a bit washed out.
It’s tough to beat this deal. The 42-inch Dell W4200 HD Plasma TV delivers very good image quality at a very competitive price.
42-inch plasma, 1,024-by-768, NTSC and ATSC tuners. Viewing angles: 170 degrees (horiz. and vert.). Contrast ratio: 2,300:1.
Optoma MovieTime DV10$1,499.99 listllllm
Good image quality. Quiet operation. Portable. Advanced image controls.
Recessed S-Video input incompatible with some premium A/V cables.
The MovieTime provides good image quality and quiet operation, delivering a complete portable cinema package at a fair price.
DLP front projector, 854-by-480, DVD player. Maximum image size: 99 inches. Contrast ratio: 4,000:1. Brightness: 1,000 lumens.
Sharp Aquos LC-45GX6U$7,499.99 listllllm
Detailed imagery. Responsive universal remote control. Comprehensive and quick menu system. Analog and digital tuners.
Lacks support for 1080p input via DVI/HDMI. Minor grayscale/color tracking problems.
The LC-45GX6U offers impressive clarity with high-quality HDTV. It’s the best of the big 1080p LCD TVs available today.
45-inch LCD, 1,920-by-1,080, ATSC, CableCARD, NTSC tuners. Viewing angles: 170 degrees (horiz. and vert.). Contrast ratio: 800:1.
F I R S T L O O K S Top Products
Our Top DisplaysVisit go.pcmag.com/displays for the full reviews of these and scores of other top-rated monitors, projectors, and HDTVs.
ANALYST'S TIPJOHN R. DELANEY, Lead Analyst
LCD monitors with built-in speakers can help you reclaim valuable desktop real estate (especially in a
cramped home offi ce or studio apartment), but the speakers are generally underpowered and produce
tinny output with very little bass response. In most cases, a cheap set of desktop speakers will sound
exponentially better, particularly when it comes to listening to music.
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 55
New systems help you work better and faster.
Upgrading your systems means upgrading your productivity. At CDW, we have the top-name desktops, notebooks and servers to do just that. Our account managers provide fast answers to your product questions. And with access to the industry’s largest in-stock inventories, you’ll get what you need, when you need it. So get new systems today, and start benefiting tomorrow.
(In other words, they’re actually good enough.)
SMART BUY$300 INSTANT
SAVINGS2
• Intel® CentrinoTM Mobile Technology - Intel® Pentium® M Processor 740 (1.73GHz) - Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200 Network Connection (802.11b/g)• Memory: 512MB• CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive• 15" active-matrix display
HP Compaq nc6120
Recommended accessories:HP Docking Station $149 (CDW 808964)HP Secondary Travel Battery $129 (CDW 810189)
• Intel® CentrinoTM Mobile Technology - Intel® Pentium® M Processor 725 (1.60GHz) - Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200 Network Connection (802.11b/g) • Memory: 256MB• CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive• 14.1" active matrix display
ThinkPad T42
Recommended accessories:ThinkPlus 512MB memory upgrade $139 (CDW 547666)ThinkPlus port replicator $149 (CDW 461019)
$1099
NOTEBOOKCDW 699585
$1299-200 TRADE-IN1
$949
NOTEBOOKCDW 817916
$1149-200 TRADE-IN1
1Eligible processors include Intel Pentium II, III or Intel Celeron Processor; AMD processors do not qualify; trade-in values are estimates only; actual trade-in values may vary from $25 to $500; all products must be in good working condition and have a fair market value; call your CDW account manager for details; offer ends 12/31/05. 2HP Smart Buy instant savings refl ected in price shown; HP Smart Buy savings based on a comparison of the HP Smart Buy price versus the standard list price of an identically confi gured product if purchased separately; savings may vary based on channel and/or direct standard pricing. 3IBM
Express instant savings refl ected in price shown; IBM Express instant savings based on a comparison of the IBM Express price versus the standard list price of an identically confi gured product if purchased separately; savings may vary based on channel and/or direct standard pricing. Offer subject to CDW’s standard terms and conditions of sale, available at CDW.com. © 2006 CDW Corporation
The Technology You Need When You Need It.
$569
DESKTOPCDW 791358
$599-30 TRADE-IN1
$182943 CDW 768981
• Intel® XeonTM Processor (2.80GHz)• Delivers outstanding performance, availability and
capacity—all in a space-saving 2U rack-mountable design• Ideal for storage-hungry applications in your networked
environment or space constrained data center• Offers three 73GB hard drives and 2GB of memory
IBM eServer xSeries 346 Server
Recommended service:IBM ServicePac 3-year, 4-hour, 9 x 5, onsite service $527.89 (CDW 317638)
Additional hard drives sold separately
• Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor (2.93GHz)• Memory: 256MB• 40GB hard drive• CD-ROM drive• Windows® XP Professional
ThinkCentre A51
Recommended accessories:ThinkPlus 256MB memory upgrade $67.76 (CDW 806427)ThinkVision L171 17" LCD monitor $324.95 (CDW 819492)
Monitor sold separately
Hard drives sold separately
• Intel® XeonTM Processor (3GHz) • Optimized for space-constrained data center installations• Embedded Lights-Out technology provides secure
text-based remote console and remote power on/off• Offers optimum fault tolerance for an ultra-dense form
factor, with redundant fans and redundant power
HP ProLiant DL360 G4p Rack-mount Server
Recommended accessories and services:HP 1GB memory upgrade $497.65 (CDW 675404)HP 72.8GB internal hot plug hard drive $587.41 (CDW 442238)HP Care Pack 3-year, 4-hour, 24 x 7 onsite warranty upgrade $523 (CDW 643802)
Recommended accessories and services:HP Compaq 512MB memory upgrade $79 (CDW 586440)HP Compaq 17" LCD monitor $329 (CDW 515635)HP Care Pack 3-year, next business day, 9 x 5, onsite warranty upgrade $93 (CDW 514298)
$509
DESKTOPCDW 739192
$539-30 TRADE-IN1
• Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor (2.80GHz)• Memory: 256MB • 40GB hard drive• 10/100/1000 Ethernet • Windows® XP Professional
HP Compaq Business Desktop dx2000
$3315CDW 703138
$850 INSTANTSAVINGS3
For an in-depth look at these products, go to go.pcmag.com/guides.
I N S H O R T F I R S T L O O K S
Scanners
BY M. DAVID STONE
The Canon DR-2580C
document scanner is a imed at those in small off ices or small workgroups
that need a scanner with an emphasis on speed. It’s the fastest scanner for the price if you want to scan to PDF image files, and the fastest we’ve seen at any price for scanning, recognizing text, and saving to searchable PDF format.
In addition to the 50-sheet ADF (automatic document feeder), the straight-through paper path lets the DR-2580C scan documents as thick as a driv-er’s license or plas-tic ID card. It’s also one of the few document scanners that offer a fl atbed option ($550) to scan books, magazines, or other origi-
gram for enhancing images that are hard to scan well, such as highlighted text.
A document scanner’s core task is turning large stacks of paper into digital format in a hurry, a task the DR-2580C ex cels at. Canon claims that the engine can process 25 pages per minute (ppm) in simplex mode (scanning one side of the page) and 50 images per minute (ipm) in duplex mode. Our test times
when scanning to PDF image files were just be-low those speeds, at 24.5 ppm and 49.1 ipm.
The combined tasks of scanning, recog-
nizing, and saving our 25-page duplex test docu-ment to searchable PDF format took just 1 minute 1
second, a new record.
Canon DR-2580C $875 street. Canon U.S.A. Inc., www.usa.canon.com. llllh
nal documents that can’t go through a sheet feeder.
The software bundle is missing a full-fledged OCR or document-management program, but it includes a combination ISIS and Twain driver plus Adobe Acrobat 7.0 and Canon’s CapturePerfect 3.0, which can scan and save to an assortment of formats. The scanner also supports VRS (Virtual Re Scan), a pro-
Photo Scanning for the AmateurBY M. DAVID STONE
Cer t a i n ly t he most striking feature in the Epson Perfection 4490
Photo is the claimed 4,800-pixel-per-inch (ppi) optical resolution—a very high reso-lution for a flatbed scanner, and higher than you’ll find even in some dedicated fi lm scanners.
Despite its focus on s c a n n i n g p h o t o s , slides, and negatives, the 4490 is also a good choice as an all-purpose scanner. Like other Epson scanners, it offers a set of buttons on the front panel for scanning to e-mail, to your printer, or directly to a PDF fi le. There’s even an optional 30-page automatic document feeder (ADF). The bundled OCR software read both our
8-point Times New Roman and Arial font-test pages with-out a mistake.
Of course, the 4490’s cen-tral reason for being is to scan film, and, for a flatbed scanner, it does that very well. The unit comes with two templates: one for hold-ing up to four 35mm slides
or two strips of 35mm f i lm,
and one for holding 2.25-inch format fi lm.
Scan quality for slides is impressive. At our standard 2,400-ppi scan resolution for slides, the 4490 was a close match for sharpness and de-tail on most scans with the Editors’ Choice Canon Cano-Scan 9950F. However, the scanner falls a bit short on dy-namic range (the ability to see each shade across the entire range from white to black).
The 4490 had no problems with photographic prints, either. The scans were good enough to let us print copies (on an Epson PictureMate printer) that were all but indistinguishable from the originals.
Epson Perfection 4490 Photo$249.99 direct. Epson America Inc., www.epson.com. llllm
Canon Scanner Delivers SpeedCanon CanoScan LiDE 60Pros: Reasonably good scan speed and photo-scan quality. Color restore feature for faded photos. Offers both a simple interface for beginners and an advanced interface for better control. Cons: Minimal software bundle includes only a photo editor and light-version OCR program.Bottom line: The Canon CanoScan LiDE 60 is one step beyond the most basic of scanners. But its combination of speed, scan quality, and fl exibility makes it appropri-ate for a home offi ce as well as home use.
$79.99 direct. Canon U.S.A. Inc., www.usa.canon.com. lllhm
NeatReceipts Professional v. 2.0.2Pros: Package includes scanner along with software. Enhances nearly unreadable receipts. Creates expense reports. Cons: Process is slow. Expense report format has limited fl exibility. Bottom line: NeatReceipts—which scans receipts and keeps track of expenses—is a terrifi c idea, reasonably well executed.
$200 street. NeatReceipts, www.neatreceipts.com. lllhm
IRISPen Trans-lator Executive Pros: Translates both ways between English and your choice of French, Spanish, Russian, or German. Virtually instantaneous translation.Cons: Installs for only one pair of languages at a time. Bottom line: The IRISPen Translator Executive requires practice before you can scan well, and it delivers less-than-perfect translations. But it is useful as a tool for translation or for learning a language.
$229.99 direct. I.R.I.S., www.irislink.com. llhmm
THE DR-2580C FULFILLS YOUR need for speed.
A FLATBED FOR ALL YOUR SCANNING needs.
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 58
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BY M. DAVID STONE
Not everyone needs a printer for tab-loid size (or larger) output. And among those who do, not
everyone needs color. But for those who need both, the Ricoh Aficio CL7200D offers one of the least expensive opt i on s a m on g color la sers—and if you don’t need duplexing, you can get the same printer for even less as the CL7200 ($2,300 street).
The CL7200D is designed for larger workgroups. In addition to its relatively low price, it offers fast perfor-mance, top output quality for its category, and ample paper-handling features, in-cluding an 1,100-sheet input
capacity and duplexing, a 3,100-sheet maximum capac-ity, two fi nisher options, and a 200,000-page-per-month duty cycle. Output size can even go beyond tabloid to 12 by 49 inches.
With an engine rated at 32 pages per minute (ppm) for
monochrome output and 28 ppm for color, you’d expect the CL7200D to be fast. It is. On our business applications suite (timed with Quality-Logic hardware and software, www.qualitylogic.com) the CL7200D managed an im-pressive 7 minutes 19 seconds total. That’s a bit slower than the roughly 6:45 for the much more expensive Editors’ Choice, the Xerox Phaser 7750DN; but the engine in that printer is rated at 35 ppm for both monochrome and color.
Output quality is another strong point of the CL7200D. Text is excellent; most of our test fonts were easily readable at 4 points. Graphics showed no problems worth mention-ing, and the output is easily good enough to give to impor-tant clients and customers.
Photos are near photo quality, and the output is easily good enough for client newsletters and anything else with pho-tos that you’re likely to print on a color laser.
Also, according to Ricoh, this printer supports the widely used HP Web Jet-Admin remote printer admin-istration software—another point in its favor. The com-pany also claims a low cost per page: 1.3 cents for a letter-size monochrome page and 6.7 cents for the same size in color. With all it has going for it, if you need a color laser printer for printing at up to tabloid size and a little larger, you won’t want to overlook the CL7200D.
Ricoh Afi cio CL7200D$3,130 street. Ricoh Corp., www.ricoh-usa.com. llllm
Low Price, High Speed, High-Quality Color
FOR LARGE OUTPUT from a color laser look no further.
PHOTO PRINTERS PROS CONS BOTTOM LINE SPECS AND SCORES
Epson PictureMate Deluxe Viewer$249.99 directllllh
Prints from computers, memory cards, PictBridge cameras, and USB drives. True photo quality. Color LCD to preview images.
Limited to a maximum photo size of 4x6.
This PictureMate offers high-quality output, plus the ability to preview images on a color LCD before printing. It can even run on battery.
Photo ink jet; 6 colors; 4x6; direct printing from cameras and memory cards. 4x6 photo: 1:30.
Epson Stylus Photo R2400 price tkllllm
Photos are superb (with sizes of up to 13 by 44 inches), smudge-proof, and long-lived (with a claimed lightfastness of over 100 years).
Different black ink cartridges for different types of paper mean you may have to change cartridges repeatedly.
The R2400 is the fi rst printer to use Epson’s new UltraChrome K3 ink technology, which can make your prints water- and smudge-proof.
All-purpose ink jet; 8 colors; 13x19. 4x6 photo: 1:17.
HP Photosmart 8250$199.99 directllllm
High-quality output. LCD screen. Separate 4x6 tray makes it easy to switch between printing documents and photos.
Text quality, while good, is low for a photo ink jet. Photos are water- and smudge-resistant, not waterproof or smudge-proof.
For photos, the HP 8250 offers fast printing and very good quality. It also handles text and graphics well, making it a good all-purpose printer.
Photo or all-purpose ink jet; 6 colors; legal size; direct printing from cards and cameras. Business app suite: 15:01. 4x6 photo: 1:07.
PERSONAL AND SMALL-OFFICE PRINTERS AND ALL-IN-ONES
Canon Pixma iP4200 Photo Printer $849.99 direct llllm
Fast performance. Two input paper trays. Duplex printing. New ink and paper technology with claimed 100-year lifetime for photos in storage.
Somewhat slower for photos than the Canon Pixma iP4000 and iP3000 that it replaces.
Although Canon calls it a photo printer, the Pixma iP4200 is good for all-purpose printing, with fast performance and good quality.
All-purpose ink jet; 5 colors; legal size; direct printing from camera. 4x6 photo: 1:18.
HP Photosmart 3310 All-in-One $399.99 direct llllm
Printer, scanner, and standalone fax and copier. Prints from cameras and memory cards. Scans 35-mm slides and fi lm. Excellent performance.
No automatic document feeder. The Photosmart 3310 has everything we expect in a photocentric all-in-one, including scanning 35-mm slides and fi lm.
All-purpose ink jet; 6 colors; legal size; direct printing from camera, memory cards, and slides. Business app suite: 15:42. 4x6 photo: 1:06.
Lexmark C522n $499 direct llllm
Very good to excellent performance for the price. Excellent text quality. Includes Ethernet connector.
Graphics output is relatively low-quality for a color laser printer.
The Lexmark C522n has excellent performance and text quality as well as Ethernet for easy network sharing.
Color laser; Ethernet; legal size. Business app suite: 11:19.
Ricoh Afi cio G700 $449 listllllm
High-quality text. High-quality graphics in best quality mode. Extraordinarily fast performance. Duplexing standard.
Network adapter is optional and external. Graphics in default mode show banding, which limits the usefulness of default mode.
The G700 is technically an ink jet, but it behaves like a color laser. It offers extraordinary performance and high-quality text and graphics.
All-purpose ink jet; 4 colors; legal size. Business app suite: 6:35 (ink jet suite), 13:48 (laser suite).
Samsung ML-2250$230 streetllllm
Compact size. Excellent text quality. Good performance. Ample paper-handling features for a personal printer.
Photo quality is at the low end for inexpensive monochrome lasers, though it’s acceptable for newsletters and the like.
The ML-2250 is faster than most personal monochrome lasers, and the 550-page maximum capacity is enough even for sharing the printer.
Monochrome laser; 22 ppm; legal size; optional networking; optional duplexing. Business app suite: 8:09.
WORKGROUP PRINTERS AND ALL-IN-ONES
Ricoh Afi cio CL7200D$3,130 streetllllm
Fast performance. Top-quality output and low price for a tabloid color laser. Very good paper handling: 3,100-sheet capacity.
No stacker or sorter option for those who want less than a full-fl edged fi nisher.
If fast performance, great output quality, good paper handling, and low price are what you’re after, Ricoh has a winner with the Aficio.
Color laser; 32 ppm mono, 28 ppm color; tabloid size; Ethernet, duplexer. Business app suite: 7:19.
HP Offi cejet 7410 All-in-One$499.99 directllllm
Fast. Very good graphics and photos. Ethernet and wireless networking. 50-page ADF. Prints from memory cards and cameras.
Text quality is acceptable for most users but less than ideal for those who need extremely small type.
With the 7410 you get fast perfor-mance, good to very good quality, and a 50-page ADF, plus Ethernet and 802.11g wireless connections.
Print, scan, copy, fax; 6-color ink jet; legal size; direct printing from cameras. Business app suite: 16:11. 4x6 photo: 1:51.
Xerox Phaser 6300DN$1,499 directlllm
Extraordinarily fast for the price. Easy installation. Includes duplexer and network connector.
Output, while very good, falls short of excellent (even for text).
Equally appropriate for a large workgroup or a small to medium-size offi ce, the 6300DN is fast and feature-rich—a clear winner.
Color laser; 36 ppm mono, 26 ppm color; legal size; Ethernet, duplexer. Business app suite: 7:07.
F I R S T L O O K S Top Products
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 60
Our Top PrintersVisit go.pcmag.com/printers for the full reviews of these and scores of other top-rated printers
ANALYST'S TIPM. DAVID STONE, Lead Analyst
There’s a growing trend for ink jet printers to offer two input trays instead of one. The two trays let you
keep plain paper in one and photo paper in the other, which means you won’t have to change paper every
time you change what you’re printing. If you shift back and forth between printing photos and other kinds
of output very often, that can be a signfi cant convenience, well worth looking for.
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F I R S T L O O K S Multimedia Software
Top-Notch Image Editing and MoreBY GALEN FOTT
PhotoImpact 11, the new version of Ulead’s im-age editing and man-
agement package, adds a few new features to the already abundant tools and programs offered in previous versions. In addition to one editing and two management programs, you get Ulead’s Cool 360 pan-orama software, GIF Anima-tor 5, filters from Alien Skin Software, and thousands of royalty-free photos. Unfor-tunately, PhotoImpact 11 fails to improve on the previous version’s unsatisfactory im-age-organizing tools.
The package’s most wel-come new feature may be support for RAW file for-mats. PhotoImpact 11 lets you adjust characteristics of your RAW photos, such as white balance and color tem-perature, before opening the image into 8- or 16-bit color
mode. Support for 16-bit color is an-other new feature.
PhotoImpact 11 is an excellent image editor and excels at creating graph-ics for the Web. Its remarkably fl exible interface has been enhanced with fi ve different workspace presets, tailored to different levels of experience or to the task at hand.
Two other new features tie into the program’s High Dynamic Range tech-nology, which is designed to let you select and combine the exposures from differ-ent shots of the same subject. The standalone SmartCurves command automatically com-pensates for exposure accord-ing to the make of the camera. The compensation is usually
too strong, so it’s best to apply SmartCurves inside the High Dynamic Range dialog box instead, where you can tweak the settings to taste. There’s also a new Correct Chro-matic Aberration command that effectively eliminates the purple fringing often seen in images containing highly contrasting edges.
Unfortunately, Photo Impact 11 still fails to deliver in the area of photo management, de-spite some good photo-sharing fea-tures. Image orga-nizing and sharing tasks are split be-tween two different applications: Photo-Impact Album 11 and Photo Explorer 8.6. Neither offers a satisfactory way to apply keyword tags
to images to facilitate search-ing through your collection.
As an overall package, Ulead PhotoImpact 11 still falls short. But if you’re look-ing for a good image editor that excels at creating Web graphics, it is a good choice.
Ulead PhotoImpact 11$90 direct. Ulead Systems Inc., www.ulead.com.llllm
BY GALEN FOTT
P hotoPlus 10 Studio
Pack i s rea l ly t wo programs: PhotoPlus
10 for image editing and Al-bumPlus 4 for organizing your digital photo collection. As an overall package, the Studio Pack isn’t as strong a choice as Adobe Photoshop Elements 4. Nor does Photo-Plus 10 contain the professional print-ing tools found in Adobe Photoshop. But with its afford-able price, Photo-Plus 10 Studio Pack is worth a look.
AlbumPlus 4 of-fers capable organi-zation features in a polished interface. You can assign tags
and ratings to images in order to facilitate searching through large collections.
AlbumPlus 4 falls short on features for sharing your images. The program does let you view an instant slide show on your monitor and e-mail photos, and it provides
a few printing options. But you can’t burn slide shows to CD or DVD or create cal-endars or Web galleries, and there’s no integration with an online photo-sharing service.
Though AlbumPlus dis-appointed us, PhotoPlus 10 amazed us with its rich fea-
ture set. The inter-face is very similar to those of Adobe P h o t o s h o p a n d Photo shop Elements: PhotoPlus 10 has fa-miliar Histogram, History, Navigator, Paths , Channels , and Layers palettes. The powerful Mac-ros palette, new to Photo Plus 10, mim-ics the Actions fea-ture of Photoshop in its ability to “re-
cord” a sequence of editing steps and play them back with a single click. And PhotoPlus has a healthy complement of commands for correcting digital photos, including Lev-els, Curves, and a command for equalizing image shadows and highlights.
PhotoPlus, however, has only roughly half the num-ber of effects fi lters found in Photo shop or Elements.
The program’s chief draw-back is speed, particularly in the application of filters, where it is noticeably slug-gish. But if you can deal with the slow load times and weak photo-sharing capabilities, PhotoPlus is a solid editing package.
PhotoPlus 10 Studio Pack$80 direct. Serif Inc., www.serif.com. lllhm
A Solid Photo Editor That Won’t Share Easily
THE ALBUMPLUS 4 interface is very similar to those of Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.
PHOTOIMPACT 11’S ADVANCED MODE fi lls the inter-face with the full gamut of the program’s features.
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 63
F I R S T L O O K S Business Software
BY RICHARD V. DRAGAN
With a truly f lex-ible approach to mobile enterprise
messaging and calendaring for a wide range of devices and leading carriers, Seven
Server Edition 6.5 ($4.99 per user monthly for SprintPCS version) offers a good value in a corporate messaging so-lution, one that excels in giv-ing enterprise users mobile access to their e-mail without burdening IT admins.
Getting started with the Seven server module was easy via a 10MB download and simple setup utility. This server component is licensed free and sits on your corpo-rate server connecting your e-mail/messaging solution to your wireless carrier. Seven lets you connect to more types of messaging solutions than its competitors do; you can use Microsoft Exchange,
Lotus Domino, or e ve n I M A P a n d POP3. We tested aga inst a Micro-soft Exchange 2003 server with Sprint PCS as the carrier.
We fou nd t hat the setup process was more stream-lined than it was with Seven’s com-petitors, requiring fewer tweaks to the Exchange server.
Generally the ad-min console keeps it simple. IT admin-istrators can view statistics and quickly add or delete users. We like the ability to share a server directory of corporate documents for all mobile users. End-to-end en-cryption (using 128-bit AES) ensures that data is safe.
When it comes to the cli-ent side, Seven aces the fi eld,
with excellent coverage of the full spectrum of wire-less devices, including high-end and low-end phones and PDAs. Clients supported in-clude Palm OS (missing from RIM’s solution, for instance), Pocket PC, Symbian, and even lower-end phones via a J2ME client. We tested with
a Palm-based Treo 650. Via a welcome e-mail , users can register and log on to the service with-out involving IT.
The Palm-based client also favors s i mpl ic i t y. Sup -port for cradleless synchronization of e-mail, calendaring, and contacts works well . We l ike the ability to call people from e-mai l with just a click.
In general, Seven distinguishes itself with a simple, effective solution: It gives enterprise users secure mobile access to e-mail over a wide variety of devices while they’re away from the offi ce.
Seven Server Edition 6.5
$4.99 per user monthly for Sprint PCS Business Connection. Seven Networks Inc., www.seven.com. llllm
Seven Keeps Mobile Users in Touch
Sproqit in Your Workgroup PocketBY RICHARD V. DRAGAN
Designed to let mo-bi le corporate us-ers get their e-mail
and Outlook information wherever they roam, Sproqit
Workgroup Edition 1.0 ($999 for five users) succeeds as a worthy competitor to more established enterprise message offerings, with a fl ex-ible and IT-friendly solution.
Sproqit installs on any Microsoft Win-dows server node and runs all fl avors of Microsoft Exchange, as well as external POP3/SMTP servers. Generally, Sproqit is less complicated to install and confi gure than its competitors
are. But it’s also less power-ful, lacking extensive sup-port for roles and policies, although you can specify basic security options.
The good news is that for small rollouts, this simplic-ity can be a defi nite plus. As
many as 50 users can be pro-visioned with a single Sproqit Agent, which connects users to their mobile data via the remote Sproqit Server. We like the ability to send a noti-fi cation e-mail to users, along with support for customiz-
able boilerplate text. But event logs are just text fi les, and de-tailed usage statistics are not available.
We tested Sproqit with a Treo 650 and were up and running fast. An installer plac-es the modestly sized Sproqit Companion client software onto your handheld when you first cradle and synchronize.
Via the Sproqit Server, clients con-
nect securely to your Sproqit Agent even if it’s running be-hind a fi rewall.
Once Sproqit is config-ured, the Sproqit Companion client delivers true cradleless Outlook synchronization for e-mail, contacts, calendaring, tasks, and notes.
Our one complaint is that the client insists on restart-ing the session when initially connecting and when de-vices are reconfi gured. This often results in having to re-type passwords.
Though Sproqit is perhaps a notch less powerful than its immediate rivals, its ap-proach to enterprise messag-ing should let even smaller organizations roll out mobile connectivity with ease.
Sproqit Workgroup Edition 1.0
$999 per server (includes 5 users); $149 per additional user; volume dis-counts available. Sproqit Technologies Inc., www.sproqit.com. lllhm
WITH ITS STREAMLINED administration console, Sproqit lets you add and provision mobile users in your workgroup with ease.
IT ADMINISTRATORS can view statistics for their mobile users in the easy-to-use MMC administrative tool available in Seven Server Edition.
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 64 J U M P TO N E X T PA G E >>
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Acer® TravelMate® 4060Enjoy the Freedom of Mobility The Acer TravelMate 4060 strikes just the right balance between performance and affordability. Along with Intel® Centrino® Mobile Technology,you get a panoramic 15.4” wide-screen display for side-by-side document viewing plus integrated wireless with Acer’s exclusive SignalUp technology for enhanced antenna efficiency. An excellent choice for office or home computing, this notebook lets you enjoy the freedom of mobility to work faster and smarter without sacrificing features.
INTEL® PENTIUM® M PROCESSOR 740 (2MB L2 CACHE, 1.73GHZ, 533MHZ FSB) MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP PROFESSIONAL
(LX.TAK06.075)
15.4" WIDE-SCREEN
• Intel® Centrino® Mobile Technology- Intel® Pentium® M Processor- Mobile Intel® 915GM Express chipset- Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200BG network connection
• Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional• 512MB DDR2 533 SDRAM• 80GB1 hard drive• Integrated CD-RW/DVD-ROM
combo drive• 15.4" WXGA (1280 x 800) TFT display • Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900 • 802.11b/g WLAN, 10/100 LAN,
V.92 modem • One-year limited warranty2
For the name of a reseller near you or further information, please call Acer or visit our Web site:
800-571-2237 www.acer.com/us
Acer recommends Windows® XP Professional.Acer recommends Windows® XP Professional.
Acer AL2416Wd
Prices shown are estimated street prices and do not include tax or shipping. Retailer or reseller prices may vary.
• 24" wide-screen TFT LCD
• 1920 x 1200 native resolution
• 1000:1 contrast ratio• 178° horizontal
viewing angle• 178° vertical
viewing angle
• VGA, DVI-D signal connectors
• 500 cd/m2 brightness• 6ms gray-to-gray
response time• Internal power
adapter• Silver color
Acer AL2416Wd
$919(ET.L6102.018)
24" WIDE-SCREEN
Acer ® TravelMate® 2410 Maximum Mobility, Affordable Price
The Acer TravelMate 2410 is designed to deliver high performance in a portable package that's both appealing and affordable. This all-in-one notebookwith integrated wireless connectivity and 15.0" viewing area has the comprehensive feature set and flexibility needed for a busy lifestyle like yours.
• Intel® Celeron® M Processor
• Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
• 512MB DDR2 400 SDRAM
• 60GB1 hard drive
• Integrated CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive
• 15.0” XGA (1024 x 768) TFT display
• Mobile Intel® 910GML Express chipset with integrated graphics
• 802.11b/g WLAN, 10/100 LAN, V.92 modem
• One-year limited warranty2
Acer TravelMate 2413LCi
$799INTEL® CELERON® M PROCESSOR 370
(1MB L2 CACHE, 1.50GHZ, 400MHZ FSB) MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP PROFESSIONAL
(LX.TAC06.022)
WORK & PLAY UNWIRED
• 20" wide-screen TFT LCD,Acer CrystalBrite Technology
• 1680 x 1050 native resolution
• 800:1 contrast ratio• 176° horizontal
viewing angle• 176° vertical
viewing angle
Ferrari F-20
Acer® Flat Panels: Displaying Quality & Value
• Two 5.0W integrated speakers
• VGA, DVI-D signal connectors
• 300 cd/m2 brightness• 8ms gray-to-gray
response time• External power
adapter• Gloss black/red color
Acer recommends Windows® XP Professional.
Prices shown are estimated street prices and do not include tax or shipping. Retailer or reseller prices may vary.
Ferrari F-20
$599(ET.L380B.063)
Acer AL2032W A• 20” wide-screen TFT LCD• 1680 x 1050
native resolution• 800:1 contrast ratio• 176° horizontal
viewing angle• 176° vertical
viewing angle• Two 5.0W integrated
speakers
• VGA, DVI-D signal connectors
• 300 cd/m2 brightness• 8ms gray-to-gray
response time• External power adapter• Gloss-black color
Acer AL2032W A
$539
20" WIDE-SCREEN
(ET.L380B.065)
Acer TravelMate 4062WLMi
$999
Acer® TravelMate® 4060Your Essential Business ToolCount on the Acer TravelMate 4060 for growing your business. Powered by Intel® Centrino® Mobile Technology, this stylish notebook boastshigh-end features at a price that won’t break your budget. The wide-screen15.4” display is perfect for viewing documents side by side. The integrated optical drive offers flexibility and convenience, and the wireless LAN will keepyou connected and productive wherever your work takes you.
• Intel® Centrino® Mobile Technology
- Intel® Pentium® M Processor
- Mobile Intel® 915GM Express chipset
- Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200BG network connection
• Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
• 512MB DDR2 533 SDRAM
• 100GB1 hard drive
• Integrated DVD-Dual drive (DVD+/-RW)
• 15.4" WXGA (1280 x 800) TFT display
• Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900
• 802.11b/g WLAN, 10/100 LAN, V.92 modem
• One-year limited warranty2
INTEL® PENTIUM® M PROCESSOR 740 (2MB L2 CACHE, 1.73GHZ, 533MHZ FSB) MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP PROFESSIONAL
(LX.TAK06.079)
HI-TECH PASSION
15.4" WIDE-SCREEN
Compare LCD Prices/Features & You'll Choose Acer®
Prices shown are estimated street prices and do not include tax or shipping. Retailer or reseller prices may vary.
• 19" TFT LCD with heightadjustment & rotation
• 1280 x 1024 native resolution
• 700:1 contrast ratio• 150° horizontal
viewing angle• 135° vertical viewing angle• Two 1.0W integrated speakers
Acer AL1922r• VGA, DVI-D signal
connectors• 300 cd/m2 brightness• 8ms response time• Internal power adapter• Silver/black color
Acer AL1922r
$349(ET.L2508.091)
ADJUST HEIGHT & ROTATE
Whether you're working in the office, at home or on the go, productivitywon't falter if you're equipped with the Acer TravelMate 4650. Enjoy allthe benefits of Intel® Centrino® Mobile Technology. Connect to workplace peripherals in one easy step with the optional ezDock DockingStation. On the road, expect up to five hours of battery life (dependingon configuration and usage) from this 6.2-pound notebook. And shouldyou want to cut the weight, the modular optical drive is easily removed.
• Intel® Centrino® Mobile Technology
- Intel® Pentium® M Processor
- Mobile Intel® 915GM Express chipset
- Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200BG network connection
• Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
• 1GB DDR2 533 SDRAM
• 100GB1 hard drive
• Modular DVD-Dual drive (DVD+/-RW)
• 6-in-1 card reader for optional SmartMedia™ card, MultiMediaCard™, Secure Digital card,Memory Stick®, Memory Stick PRO™ or xD-Picture Card™
• 15.0" XGA (1024 x 768) TFT display
• Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900
• 802.11b/g WLAN, gigabit LAN, V.92 modem
• One-year limited warranty2
Acer ® TravelMate® 4650 Productivity Powerhouse
Acer TravelMate 4654LMi
$1,299INTEL® PENTIUM® M PROCESSOR 760 (2MB L2 CACHE, 2GHZ, 533MHZ FSB)
MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP PROFESSIONAL(LX.T7506.046)
DVD-DUAL DRIVE
Acer® ezDockThe one-plug Acer ezDock manages and organizes peripheral connections with ease, allowing you to add or remove devicesinstantly, without turning off your notebook computer. This compact docking solution features 21 interface ports and two cardslots for desktop-like expansion possibilities, as well as PCI Express™
technology and a Kensington® lock slot.
Acer ezDock Docking Station
$299COMPATIBLE WITH THE TRAVELMATE 8100, 4650, 4400
3000, C310, C200; FERRARI 4000(LC.D0103.004)
Acer AL1951B• 19" TFT LCD,
Acer CrystalBrite Technology• 1280 x 1024 native resolution• 700:1 contrast ratio• 150° horizontal viewing angle• 135° vertical viewing angle• Two 1.5W integrated speakers• VGA, DVI-D signal connectors
• 400 cd/m2 brightness• 6ms gray-to-gray
response time• External
power adapter• Silver/black color
Acer recommends Windows® XP Professional.
Prices shown are estimated street prices and do not include tax or shipping. Retailer or reseller prices may vary.
Acer ® TravelMate® C310 Tablet & Full-Featured Notebook in OneThe Acer TravelMate C310 is the convertible tablet that you'll want to use asyour primary computer. With a big 14.1" XGA display, full-size keyboard, modular optical drive and optional ezDock Docking Station, it's similar to astandard notebook but offers much more. The screen becomes a writing surface when you rotate it and fold it back over the keyboard, perfect fortaking notes, annotating documents and completing online forms.
• Intel® Centrino® Mobile Technology
- Intel® Pentium® M Processor
- Mobile Intel® 915PM Express chipset
- Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200BG network connection
• Microsoft® Windows® XP Tablet PC Edition
• 4-in-1 card reader for optional MultiMediaCard™, Secure Digital card, Memory Stick® or Memory Stick PRO™
• 14.1" XGA (1024 x 768) TFT display
• NVIDIA GeForce™ Go 6200 graphics
• 802.11b/g WLAN, Bluetooth®, gigabit LAN, V.92 modem
• Full-size EMR pen with eraser
• One-year limited warranty2
Acer AL1717 Bbmd• 17" TFT LCD• 1280 x 1024 native resolution• 700:1 contrast ratio• 150° horizontal viewing angle• 135° vertical viewing angle• Two 1.0W integrated speakers
• VGA, DVI-D signal connectors• 300 cd/m2 brightness• 8ms response time• Internal power adapter• Black color
Acer AL1717 Bbmd
$249(ET.1717B.MD8)
8MS RESPONSE TIME
Acer TravelMate C312XCi
$1,699INTEL® PENTIUM® M PROCESSOR 740
(2MB L2 CACHE, 1.73GHZ, 533MHZ FSB)MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP TABLET PC EDITION
512MB DDR2 533 SDRAM, 80GB1 HARD DRIVE
AND MODULAR CD-RW/DVD-ROM COMBO DRIVE
(LX.T270E.029)
Acer TravelMate C314XMi
$1,999INTEL® PENTIUM® M PROCESSOR 760
(2MB L2 CACHE, 2GHZ, 533MHZ FSB) MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP TABLET PC EDITION
1GB DDR2 533 SDRAM, 100GB1 HARD DRIVE
AND MODULAR DVD-DUAL DRIVE (DVD+/-RW)(LX.T870E.032)
CONVERTS HANDWRITING TO TEXT
Acer AL1951B
$379(ET.L4108.028)
6MS RESPONSE TIME
Acer® AcerPower™ FGAffordable Yet Feature-Rich
The AcerPower FG boasts an impressive feature set in a stylish chassis at aprice that won't break your budget. Ample power means you can efficientlyperform everyday tasks. Multiple expansion slots make the system easy toupgrade, while the eight USB 2.0 ports (four front, four back) give you the ability to connect to the latest peripherals.
Acer® AcerPower™ S260 All-Around Budget Performer
Proven technology, high-level reliability and expansion options help to make theAcerPower S260 minitower a sound investment for home, school or office needs.
Acer® Projectors with DLP™ Technology
• Intel® Celeron® D Processor
• Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
• 256MB DDR SDRAM
• 80GB1 hard drive
• CD-ROM drive
• Integrated SiS MirageTM graphics
• 10/100 LAN
• One-year limited warranty2
Prices shown are estimated street prices and do not include tax or shipping. Retailer or reseller prices may vary.
AcerPower S260
$399INTEL® CELERON® D PROCESSOR 335
(256KB L2 CACHE, 2.80GHZ, 533MHZ FSB)MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP PROFESSIONAL
(APS260-U-3500)
INTEL® PENTIUM® 4 PROCESSOR 516(1MB L2 CACHE, 2.93GHZ, 533MHZ FSB) MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP PROFESSIONAL
256MB DDR2 533 SDRAM AND CD-ROM DRIVE
(APFG-U-P5160)
AcerPower FG
$499INTEL® PENTIUM® 4 PROCESSOR 519
(1MB L2 CACHE, 3.06GHZ, 533MHZ FSB) MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP PROFESSIONAL
512MB DDR2 533 SDRAM AND DVD-DUAL DRIVE (DVD+/-RW)(APFG-U-P5190)
AcerPower FG
$599
• Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor• Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional• 80GB1 SATA hard drive• Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900
• PCI ExpressTM x16 expansion slot• Gigabit LAN• One-year limited warranty2
Digital Light Processing™ from Texas Instruments is an all-digital display technology for projectors and otherproducts that delivers the best picture in terms of clarity, brilliance and color.
GREAT VALUE
$50 PRICE CUT!
Card reader and floppy drive shown are not included on
featured models.
• 2600 ANSI lumens• XGA (1024 x 768) native resolution• 2000:1 contrast ratio• 16.7 million displayable colors• PC and Mac compatible
Acer PD525
• 2000 ANSI lumens• SVGA (800 x 600) native resolution• 2000:1 contrast ratio• 16.7 million displayable colors• PC and Mac compatible
Acer PD100
Acer PD100
$669(EY.J2101.006)
Acer PD525
$889(EY.J1501.W04)
$60 PRICE CUT!
$110 PRICE CUT!
Acer recommends Windows® XP Professional.
Stability, ease-of-deployment and comprehensive management tools are thehallmarks of Veriton, Acer's premier business desktop series. Each of these features has been enhanced in the Acer Veriton 6800, with an improved tool-lesschassis design, fortified security tools, more powerful Intel® processors and Acer eManager software.
Acer ® Veriton® 6800 Optimized for Business
Prices shown are estimated street prices and do not include tax or shipping. Retailer or reseller prices may vary.
Replacement Lamp for PD525,
PD116
$299(EC.J1001.001)
Keep a ReplacementLamp on hand for theAcer PD525, PD116P orPD100 projector.Expected life in hours is2,000 standard mode,3,000 economy mode.
• Intel® Pentium® D Processor or
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor with HT Technology
• Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
• Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950
• Gigabit LAN
• Three-year limited warranty2
Acer Veriton 6800
$999INTEL® PENTIUM® D PROCESSOR 830
(2X1MB L2 CACHE, 3GHZ, 800MHZ FSB)MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP PROFESSIONAL
1GB DDR2 533 SDRAM; 160GB1 SATA HARD DRIVE, 7200RPM;AND DVD-DUAL DRIVE (DVD+/-RW)
(VT6800-U-S8301)
For permanent placementof an Acer PD525, PD116P orPD100 projector in a conference room or classroom,you’ll want an easy-to-installCeiling Mount.
Ceiling Mount
$79(EZ.PCM03.007)
Replacement Lamp for PD100
$199(EC.J2101.001)
• Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor with HT Technology
• Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
• 512MB DDR2 533 SDRAM
• 80GB1 hard drive, 7200RPM
• CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive
• Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950
• Gigabit LAN
• Three-year limited warranty2
Acer® Veriton® 2800 Powerful but Compact
Acer Veriton 2800
$689INTEL® PENTIUM® 4 PROCESSOR 521 WITH HT TECHNOLOGY
(1MB L2 CACHE, 2.80GHZ, 800MHZ FSB)MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP PROFESSIONAL
(VT2800-U-P5210)
Acer Veriton 6800
$799INTEL® PENTIUM® 4 PROCESSOR 640 WITH HT TECHNOLOGY
(2MB L2 CACHE, 3.20GHZ, 800MHZ FSB)MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP PROFESSIONAL
512MB DDR2 533 SDRAM; 80GB1 SATA HARD DRIVE, 7200RPM;AND CD-RW/DVD-ROM COMBO DRIVE
(VT6800-U-P6400)
Display sold separately.
Even if you’re short on space, you don’t need to sacrifice performance. The compact Acer Veriton 2800 business desktopgives you an Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor with HT Technology, dual-channel memory and eight USB ports for connecting to a printerand other office peripherals.
Acer Notebook/Tablet Service Upgrades Protect Your Valuable Investment
1 When referring to storage capacity, GB stands for one billion bytes and MB stands for one million bytes. Some utilities may indicate varying storage capacities. Total user-accessible capacity may vary depending on operating environments.
2 For a free copy of the standard limited warranty end-users should see a reseller where Acer products are sold or write to Acer America Corporation, Warranty Department, P.O. Box 6137, Temple, TX 76503.
© 2005 Acer America Corporation. Information and prices are subject to change without notice. Pricing is effective from January 3, 2006through February 1, 2006. Product images are representations of some of the models available and may vary from the model you purchase. Acer, TravelMate and Veriton are registered trademarks and AcerPower a trademark of Acer Inc. Aspire is a trademark of AcerAmerica Corporation. Intel, Intel logo, Intel Inside, Intel Inside logo, Intel Centrino, Intel Centrino logo, Celeron, Intel Xeon, Intel SpeedStep, Itanium, and Pentium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United Statesand other countries. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. Microsoft and Windows are either registeredtrademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
Quality is built into every notebook and tablet PC Acer makes, and each comes with aone-year standard limited warranty.2 It includes hardware technical support via toll-free phone plusa concurrent International Traveler’s Warranty for travel outside the U.S. and Canada. Extra protection is available with one of these upgrades:
2-Year Extension of Limited Warranty (146.AB820.EX2)
$99Prepays freight to and from Acer repair depot.
Excludes extension of International Traveler's Warranty.
It’s a tough world out there, and accidents do happen—sticky spills, dangerous drops, nastyknocks—which is why you should consider the Total Protection Upgrade. It runs concurrently withthe limited warranty2 and limited warranty extension and covers the cost of a replacement unitif your covered notebook cannot be repaired.
2-Year Extension of Limited Warranty + 3-Year Total Protection Upgrade (146.AD077.002)
$199Prepays freight to and from Acer repair depot.
Excludes extension of International Traveler's Warranty.
For the name of a reseller near you or further information, please call Acer or visit our Web site:
800-571-2237www.acer.com/us
Prices shown are estimated street prices and do not include tax or shipping. Retailer or reseller prices may vary.
Acer recommends Windows® XP Professional.
Everything about the feature-packed Acer TravelMate 8100 is designed toimpress. From the power of the Intel® Pentium® M Processor to the convenience of the optional ezDock Docking Station. From the versatility of theintegrated 5-in-1 card reader to the flexibility of the modular Super-Multi drive.This is the notebook for users who demand the best.
• Intel® Centrino® Mobile Technology
- Intel® Pentium® M Processor
- Mobile Intel® 915PM Express chipset
- Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200BG network connection
• Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
• 1GB DDR2 533 SDRAM
• 100GB1 hard drive
• Modular Super-Multi drive (DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-RAM)
• 5-in-1 card reader for optional MultiMediaCard™, Secure Digital card, Memory Stick®, Memory Stick PRO™
or xD-Picture Card™
• 15.4" WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050) TFT display
• ATI® MOBILITY™ RADEON® X700 graphics, 128MB DDR, PCI ExpressTM x16 support
• 802.11a/b/g WLAN, Bluetooth®, gigabit LAN, V.92 modem
• One-year limited warranty2
Acer TravelMate 8104AWLMi
$1,699INTEL® PENTIUM® M PROCESSOR 760 (2MB L2 CACHE, 2GHZ, 533MHZ FSB)
MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP PROFESSIONAL
(LX.TAL06.096)
DESKTOP CALIBER
Acer® TravelMate® 8100 The Ultimate in Portability
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 73
BROWSER MY THS?
PC Magazine generally treats Macintosh tech-nology fairly, and you often give great reviews to Apple products. But I disagree with two state-ments in your “Special Report: Security” article (November 22).
On page 99, under “Web-Browsing Security” you advise users to “Be Different” (I like that!), but further on you say: “Switch browsers. Most virus, worm, and spyware writers go after the largest targets. That’s the primary reason they tend to attack Windows and Internet Ex-plorer.” I disagree that this is the primary reason.
In the next paragraph, under “Switch OSs. A more radi-cal step . . . ,” you say: “It’s questionable whether these non- Microsoft products’ code is any more secure, but simply because they move below the radar they’re less susceptible to attack.” Your advice on taking steps is good, but your rationale is misleading. You’re saying that if virus, worm, and spyware writers really wanted to, they could attack Mac OS X and non-Microsoft browsers as easily as they attack Win-dows and IE. Really?
The Windows Registry is the primary reason the OS is the major target of malicious attacks. Other operating systems are built better, in a security-conscious manner. And it’s not ques-tionable, as you say, that those other browsers are safer than Internet Explorer; just look at their (minuscule) record of at-tacks. They are safer.
You repeat a misconception that the Mac is ignored by at-tackers because it’s too small a target. Don’t you think that someone out there would want to take credit and glory for be-ing the fi rst to invade OS X and do damage to Mac users? Isn’t that tempting enough to motivate someone? Perhaps the hack-ers haven’t because they can’t.
Sure, Windows gets attacked because hitting a large tar-get provides a big payoff, and Windows is an easier target to manipulate. But you’re spreading a myth when you state that this is the primary reason why the Mac OS doesn’t get attacked, or when you suggest that non-Microsoft products might not be any more secure.
David M. Hollander
FINDING THE WRONG PRODUCT FASTER
When people transitioned from slide rules to cal-culators 30 years ago, I coined the phrase “Cal-culators give you the wrong answer faster.” I suggest that the online shopping services can do the same thing if a buyer isn’t careful.
I tried all of those mentioned in your very use-ful article on these services (“Find It for Less,”
First Looks, December 6). I’ve been thinking about a large-format printer, so I went looking for a specifi c model. All the sites made fi nding it very easy; results in seconds. The prices varied considerably for the same model, so I did some dig-ging. I found several instances where a site listed the NR (net-work ready) version of the printer as the model quoted by the various sellers, yet when I looked at the details I found that the actual printer offered by some sellers was the much less expensive non-NR model. Had I not known the differences, I could have ended up with something much different from what was listed.
I sent an e-mail to the shopping site with the biggest price discrepancy; it will be interesting to hear its response. I’d like to know who would have covered the problem if I had bought the printer based on the site’s description.
Whether you go shopping in a mall or online, you have to know what you’re being offered and what you’re buying. The Internet can fi nd you the wrong product faster.
Norman R. Dotti
GOOGLE LUNACY
Great article! (“Journey to the Center of Google Earth,” No-vember 22, page 74.) Although a coworker turned me on to Google Earth several weeks ago, I was delighted to turn my sights on the Moon. And, when I zoomed in all the way to Apollo 11’s landing site, I was able to confi rm that, indeed, the moon is made of cheese!
Kyle Enns
The Windows Registry is the primary reason the OS is the major target of malicious attacks.
How to Contact UsWe welcome your comments and suggestions. When sending e-mail to Feedback, please state in the subject line of your message which article or column prompted your response.E-MAIL [email protected]. MAIL Feedback, PC Magazine, 28 East 28th Street, New York, NY 10016-7940.All letters become the property of PC Magazine and are subject to editing. We regret that we cannot answer letters individually.
Corrections and Amplifi cations
■ In our December 6, 2005, First Looks roundup of gaming PCs, we mistakenly report-
ed the total hard drive space for the Overdrive Torque.SLI: The confi guration we tested
had 348GB of hard drive capacity. Also, we reported incorrect results for the machine’s
3DMark performance. The PC scored 14,023 at 1,024-by-768 (the best in that roundup),
and 9,884 at 1,600-by-1,200.
■ In our November 22, 2005, story “Get Some Color” we incorrectly published the color
cost per page of the Xerox Phaser 8500 at 7.4 cents. The correct
cost per page is 10.4 cents.
■ In our November 22, 2005, Pipeline, we mistakenly omitted
the credit for the illustration on page 22. It should have read
Illustration©Gina Miller. You can view the animation at www
.nanogirl.com/museumfuture/dermaldisplay.htm.
‘‘ ’’
FEEDBACK
go.pcmag.com/feedback
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 P C M AG A Z I N E 75
For the past decade or more, Microsoft has been freaked out by the possibility that its Offi ce software suite will suddenly stop sell-ing, and the company will be doomed. None-theless, Microsoft has done everything in its
intellectual portfolio—mostly by way of neglect—to make this happen, to no avail. The Offi ce suite still sells like hotcakes. Now the company will try to implement the idiotic notion that users want to “sub-scribe” to a word processor rather than own one.
Over the past few months, Microsoft has been talking a big game about the so-called service model for software. This is similar to the idea conceived by Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems (circa 1998) that all software would run over the Internet and be based on Java code. The idea was laughable then, and it’s even more so now. (IBM toys with a variation on this idea, a model called “software on demand.”)
Let me make my position on this clear. If given a choice, people do not want to run Microsoft Word, WordPad, WordPerfect, or even WordStar over the Net on a per-use or subscription basis. Not that it’s a terrible idea, but it just won’t work effi ciently and will probably be too expensive. I can barely toler-ate running software on a 100-Mbps LAN; how could I on what is essentially a 1-Mbps LAN?
Microsoft was founded during the era of the standalone PC, when desktop networking was laughable. The company was late to the party when it came to LANs, fi nally promoting NetBEUI as its solution. The world eventually chose TCP/IP. Microsoft was also late to the TCP/IP game and to the Internet itself. But when it got on board, it did so with gusto. This was good news for users, but along the way Microsoft got the idea that we’d all be running at 10 to 100 Mbps at home by now. It still thinks so, as far as I can tell.
Instead of speed, we mostly deal with sub- megabit data transfer, even when using cable modems. Choke points are everywhere, throttling throughput. When you actually get maximum speed from a connection it’s kind of a shock.
The Net is generally too slow for software-sub-scription schemes to work, and Microsoft couldn’t do it right anyway. To compound the problem, it’s added the developer of Lotus Notes (the most con-voluted PIM/organizer/e-mail client ever devised) as its CTO to spearhead the subscription project.
Take Hotmail (please!), Microsoft’s model for an online application. Anyone who uses Hotmail can imagine how Offi ce Online would work. Hotmail is interesting because it began (in its pre-Microsoft days) as an easy-to-use, nearly elegant system for Web-based e-mail. Over time it took on the char-acteristics of an Italian design turned over to the Japanese—lots of chrome and Hello Kitty features added, until the product became an ugly mess. Worse, Hotmail goes down all the time.
For Microsoft, the subscription appeal is this: Although it’s the world’s largest software company, it can’t help being jealous of enterprise specialists such as SAP or even Oracle, with their pre-PC way of playing in the software game—selling software on a rigid fee-per-seat-per-month basis rather than in a shrink-wrapped box. Just why a company that helped pioneer shrink-wrapped affordable software (thus becoming the world’s biggest software com-pany) would lament a market it created is a matter of stupendous cosmic befuddlement. It’s as though Boeing suddenly stopped selling jets and began in-vesting in Baldwin locomotives.
Much of this insanity stems from the Google bogey man. Microsoft imagines Google will imple-ment an online office suite before Microsoft can defend itself, and we’ll all be running “G-Word” all the time. More likely, we’d download a featureless Google offi ce suite for free and have to endure “ads by Google” as we type terms it fl ags as keywords.
What Microsoft should do is actually invest some effort into improving the Offi ce suite. Power-Point, for example, is a corpse of a program. Do something with it! Grammar checking in Word could be improved, and there is always room for translation services within the product itself. Where is that feature?
Microsoft should give up on old-fashioned con-cepts that stem from the dead minicomputer busi-ness. Yes, SAP and other enterprise packages can make money. If Microsoft put its energy behind a shrink-wrapped SAP clone, how long would SAP stay in business? Instead, the company sees the old-fashioned model as easy money—but it will fi nd this exercise to be a waste of money. Get a clue, boys.
John C. Dvorak Microsoft’s Software Subscription Fiasco
It’s as though
Boeing suddenly
stopped selling
jets and began
investing in Baldwin
locomotives.
MORE ON THE WEB: Read John C. Dvorak’s column every Monday at go.pcmag.com/dvorak. You can reach him directly at [email protected].
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www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 77
Some years ago, when Andy Grove was run-ning Intel, AMD leapfrogged Intel in technol-
ogy. Grove, according to rumors, got mad and let the engineers know that Intel would
never let that happen again. Shortly thereafter, In-tel regained the technology lead. But more recently, AMD once again passed Intel, and Intel has been lag-ging in its attempt to catch up. AMD brought the fi rst true dual-core chips to market, and it’s now expect-ed that it will have quad-core shipping by late 2006. This puts AMD, by a conservative estimate, one to two years ahead of Intel.
Exactly how AMD gained the technology lead is debatable, but I see it as an element of the Silicon Valley mindset. While I’m normally in agreement with the various litanies fl oating around the Val-ley, this one is just off base. Essentially it says that the microprocessor business is going to be forever fl at, so companies like Intel cannot keep riding the
pony; they must get into something else. Hence, In-tel toys around in all sorts of venues not related to microprocessors.
This is not to say that Intel hasn’t always done this. Years ago, it even came out with a line of chil-
dren’s toys that included a little digital camera (out-standing for the price) and microscopes. This move was perhaps in response to seeing Texas Instru-ments become successful with products in various consumer electronics areas. The bigger point is that Intel has not been successful in these ventures.
The problem is that Intel has failed to see that it had evolved differently from companies like TI or National Semiconductor. Somehow it hadn’t noticed that it had become a specialist in micro-
processors, in the process becoming the world’s largest chip company. AMD also fi ddles with other stuff but has not bought into the notion that the microprocessor is dead. Now it’s the leader. It’s focusing on mobile technology and hopes to have some reference designs soon. This is where Intel still leads AMD.
There is great danger here for Intel. Even though AMD seems to have overtaken Intel in many domestic markets and is gaining in others, there is no landslide. But if some software comes along that can actually use the power of a quad-core chip and suddenly an Intel box looks like a pig next to a less expensive AMD box, then things would dramatically shift. The new quad-core from
AMD is what I want! I Thought This Was Weird Dept.: According to
research conducted by Burson-Marsteller and the Economist Intelligence Unit, most top-level ex-ecutives would rather not become the CEO of their
J O H N C . D V O R A K
Inside Trackcompany. This applies worldwide, except in Latin America, where apparently everyone wants to be the boss. And this fi nding seems to be a growing
trend. The rationale for it has to do with a nebulous concept called work-life balance. In other words, the CEO does not get to have enough normal fun—whatever that is. I’m not sure myself since I’m too busy writing.
It’s possible that these well-paying jobs will eventually be peopled only by workaholic jerks. That should have interesting ramifi cations in the society and economy alike.
What, Me Worry? Dept.: In another survey out of the U.K., it was discovered that a third of PDA and smartphone owners use no security whatso-
ever. And we’re talking about executives here—ap-parently the same ones who do not want to be the CEO. The problem here is that too many of these devices have a lot of corporate information, ad-dress books, company passwords, and other sen-sitive data, making the company vulnerable when these phones and devices are stolen. In Britain alone, 700,000 phones are stolen a year. In the U.S., the fi gure is hard to come by but must be well over a million. And apart from the risk of theft, a PDA or a mobile phone can easily fall out of one’s pocket. Many are left on counters. At least use the locking codes if you have any sort of information on the devices.
Another Fine Mess Dept.: I was on the New York City subway the other day and looked at the riders around me. Out of ten nearby passengers, six had
iPods or other MP3 players and were listening to mu-sic. I have seen more and more of this lately: people
detaching themselves from their environments and living in their own little world. At least this situa-tion is better than what we had with boom boxes 20 years ago.
There’s something interesting about this, which I’ve been noticing for a few years. Far too many people seem to be blowing their ears out with these things. If I can hear someone’s earbuds from 10 feet away in a noisy subway, then these people are going to be hearing impaired or even deaf in
no time. This is a huge public-health issue that needs to be addressed. When I was a kid in gram-mar school, an audiologist would come by every year and test the kids’ hearing. I don’t think that is being done routinely anymore. And there used to be something called a health class that would inform kids about these sorts of injuries. That sort of education seems to be missing too. Prediction: In the future we are going to be required to talk a lot louder.
A third of
PDA and
smartphone
owners use
no secur ity
whatso ever.
And we’re
talking about
executives
here.
79 www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 P C M AG A Z I N E
It’s the holiday season, time to get gifts for fam-ily and friends. We bring you the best stuff year-round, but quality may be scarce this time of year. For you last-minute shoppers, here’s my annual list of the year’s ten worst products—as scored
and reviewed by PC Magazine Labs in 2005. These may look shiny and sharp on the shelves, but each one is fundamentally fl awed. You’ve been warned!
10. Oakley Thump: If you’ve overdone it with the eggnog, a $350 pair of sunglasses with a built-in MP3 player might seem a divine combination. It’s not. The poorly fi tting earbuds chafe, the glasses feel fl imsy, and the style is dated. Avoid the fi rst version, and be careful of the second—better, but still not great. And what happens if you want to rock out at night? Unless you’re buying for Bono, pick up an iPod shuffl e and a pair of Revos for less. (Though the Thump was released in 2004, we re-viewed it in 2005.)
9. Voodoo Doll D210: If you give someone this zippy breadbox-sized PC, they’ll be sticking pins in your effigy all year—and you’ll be out more than 3,000 smackeroos, too. Voodoo crammed two CPUs and two hard drives inside, but left out the keyboard, mouse, and monitor. If you buy one any-way, get a pair of industrial-strength ear protectors too, as it whines like a 747 taxiing for takeoff.
8. H2i SimplyTouch OpticalBar: Turn any monitor into a touch screen! That’s the promise; the reality is different. The OpticalBar sits atop your monitor and tracks your fi nger as you touch special parts of the screen. Alas, it works more slowly than the mid-night shift at an all-night diner, and often gets your order wrong, too. Get a tablet notebook instead.
7. Motorola ROKR E1: The Oakley Thump of the mobile phone set; at least it’s a decent phone. The hype around “The First iTunes Phone” created un-fulfillable expectations. It’s not as polished as an iPod, and its limited music storage makes a medio-cre player even worse. Glacially slow music transfer puts the fi nal nail in this coffi n. Sony Ericsson sells a much better MP3-phone combo, but I suggest a shuffl e and a RAZR phone: cheaper, and better.
6. Cinego D-1000: It slices! It dices! It projects your DVDs onto the wall! You might be tempted by this combination front-projector and DVD player, but stay away. Marred by a minuscule remote, a nasty interface, and terrible video quality, it’ll soon be relegated to the garage or eBay. For budget home
theater, hold out for Optoma’s D10, or pick up a cheaper projector and a DVD player for less.
5. PQI mPack P800 Media Player: Looking for a portable music and video player? The mPack looks attractive—you can record video and FM radio directly, and it even includes a CompactFlash slot. But playback is a problem. Even with the most re-cent fl ash update, fast-forward and rewind simply do not work, despite the manual’s direction. The screen is terrible, the interface abysmal, and the physical buttons erratic. Apple’s video-capable iPod, the Creative Zen Vision, and anything from Archos deliver a better experience for less.
4. Dual XNAV3500P: Even alpha males can use a little GPS assistance now and then. This hybrid car and portable mapping system seems solid—un-til you start using it. Marred by an awful interface and a poor data-entry keypad, it failed our tests. Pick up a TomTom GO, or give an IOU for Garmin’s amazing nüvi, debuting here in January.
3. PepperPad: Following in the footsteps of the Audrey, Netpliance, and NIC, this is an Internet bubble failure fi ve years too late. More costly than a laptop, with a battery life measured in minutes, and a tiny 8- by 6-inch touch screen, this home Internet tablet has few redeeming features. Unless you like freaky keyboards, opt for a cheap tablet PC instead.
2. Sony S2 Sports Network Walkman NW-S23: Pity poor Sony. It invented the Walkman and then squabbled as Apple stole its lunch. This player fi nal-ly supports MP3 fi les, yet it lacks so much else. With ergonomics straight from a Klingon warship, balky software, and a poor display, it deserves a place in the remainder rack. You’re better off with a shuffl e.
Now, the moment you’ve been waiting for . . . the year’s worst product—from a surprising source.
1. Samsung Digimax V700: Samsung can seeming-ly do no wrong these days. It has supplanted Sony as the top electronics brand, exuding both quality and cool. We hope this terrible digital camera is an aberration, not a sign of things to come. With slow performance, lousy auto-exposure, and shutter lag, this 7.1-megapixel camera never should have been released. Compact cameras from Canon, Sony and Nikon are far better—even if they cost a bit more.
Jim Louderback
MORE ON THE WEB: You can contact Jim Louderback at [email protected]. For more of his columns, go to go.pcmag.com/louderback.
These may look
shiny and sharp on
the shelves, but each
one is fundamentally
fl awed.
Ten to Avoid: 2005’s Worst Products
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www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 P C M AG A Z I N E 81
There are some challenges facing both users and vendors. First, you don’t choose the service; you choose a phone carrier that offers the service.
Even if your recent phone is GPS-equipped, it probably needs a fi rmware update that the phone companies may not offer. Instead, they’ll point you in the direction of a new phone and—surprise!—another two-year subscriber commitment.
Services have pedestrian modes that will be-come useful only when phones also integrate compasses, later in 2006. Turn-by-turn arrows presume pedestrians are pointed in the right direction; vehicles move fast enough for the phones to self-orient.
The standard price is about $10 a month, but some carriers may also require a data plan for you to get the trip information; others will roll that charge into the monthly price. Static or moving maps, or POI (point of interest) lookups for restaurants and ATMs, may incur additional data charges. Much of the pricing remains in fl ux, because carriers are looking for feedback among partitioning programs on what the traffi c will bear. While it’s cheap com-pared with buying a nav system, most people don’t have one to start with, so this is one more item to add to the monthly budget. If cell-phone nav takes off on the personal (not business) side, there needs to be a family share plan. Some carriers will likely offer 10-packs of trips for about $10. And for an ex-tra $1 per trip, they could offer operator-assisted trip downloads for technophobes; it’s standard on ViaMoto’s rental-car offering.
Should you do it? This is a hit on the digital- lifestyle pocketbook, along with Napster or Rhap-sody, satellite radio, broadband service, cable or satellite TV, DVD rentals, cellular phone service, and the now-annual PC service fees for software to guard against viruses, spam, and spyware. But the odds are that once you try cellular navigation, you’ll be hooked. For business, it’s a no-brainer. And in your personal life, it may help with little things like arriving on time to meet your blind date at the new restaurant across town. If you hit it off, you’ll have to ask yourself whether she was more charmed by your personality or your cell phone.
Odds are, once
you try cellular
navigation, you’ll be
hooked. For business,
it’s a no-brainer.
Cell Phone Nav: The Next Big Thing
Bill Howard
MORE ON THE WEB: You can contact Bill Howard directly at [email protected]. For more of his columns, go to go.pcmag.com/howard.
Y ou have just enough time to make that 2:30 appointment if you don’t get lost. But your car has no navigation system, and you’re not getting far with the gas station attendant you just queried. No problem:
Whip out your cell phone, and you have turn-by-turn (TBT) directions. Or you will shortly. The GPS directions service is the best example yet of location-based services (LBS) for cell phones, and it should be widely available in the coming year.
Move over, pictures, texting, and music. Navi-gation is the next big thing on mobile phones. It’s cool, it’s affordable, and it works spectacularly well, considering that you’re looking at a 2-inch screen. And compare its price—an additional 10 bucks a month on your cell phone bill—with $1,500 to $2,500 for a navigation system in your next car or $750 for a dash-top system.
Here’s how it works: You call up an embedded Java navigation applet, key in the destination ad-dress, and hit Send. The phone uses cell-tower tri-angulation to get a quick fi x on your location while the phone-company server downloads directions and a map. The display shows directional arrows or a street map, turn-by-turn directions (on-screen and spoken), the distance to the next turn, and the distance and time to your destination.
We tried both current and prototype services and were impressed by their quality and accuracy. Cell-phone navigation is just about as good as cur-rent built-in, dash-top, and PDA-based navigation solutions. You have no upfront cost beyond buying a new phone, the data is always up to date, the ser-vices work in every car and rental car you use, and you can still receive calls.
Several companies provide navigation services. Motorola’s ViaMoto is offered in rental cars (Avis Assist; Alamo/National Navigation Station) for $10 a day. Nextel subscribers can also get ViaMoto. Nextel and Sprint support TeleNav, and Verizon is expected to in 2006. Garmin offers Garmin Mo-bile on the Sprint network. Networks in Motion’s promising AtlasBook is expected to be out in early 2006 on CDMA phones, meaning Sprint or Veri-zon. Others have nav, such as ALK’s CoPilot Live, on smartphones (phone PDAs). A Microsoft/Fiat joint venture will incorporate a simple GPS data display in the instrument cluster and use a GSM Bluetooth cell phone to get trip downloads.
M A K I N G T E C H N O L O G Y W O R K F O R Y O U
Getting the Most from Your BatteriesBatteries light up our lives—and a whole array of devices.
Here’s how to choose and use them. BY BILL HOWARD
Batteries. Most every gadget is powered by one, if not sev-eral, of them. You probably don’t pay them much atten-tion, except when they need
to be recharged or replaced—which is less frequently than ever thanks to im-provements in effi ciency. But to get the most out of your batteries, it’s important to know about the different battery types and their characteristics, and about proper charging and storage procedures.
A BATTERY MYTH
True or false: If you run a rechargeable battery down only halfway before re-charging, sooner or later the battery re-members, and you get only half as much battery life. Mostly false nowadays, say most battery experts, with some cave-ats. Such a memory effect did affect older nickel cadmium (NiCd) batteries. But with nickel metal hydride (NiMH) and lithium ion batteries, it’s not an issue, or not one that is going to halve battery life.
Some practices will lop off running time. One is leaving a battery always plugged in to a charger. Here’s a hypo-thetical example: If a set of new, fully charged batteries is capable of taking 100 fl ash pictures in a digital camera, a year from now the constantly charging battery set might be capable of taking perhaps 95 pictures. In comparison, a well-treated one-year-old battery might be capable of taking 98 pictures on a full charge, a couple less than in its prime. No matter how well you treat the re-chargeable battery, though, it’s unlikely to last more than five years, and will probably give you really good service only for the fi rst three.
POWERING LAPTOPS
As the power needs of notebook comput-ers are greater than those of most por-table devices, and notebook portability goes hand-in-hand with battery life, it’s important to understand the power ca-pacity of notebook batteries. Notebook battery packs indicate power in amp-hours (Ah) or milliamp-hours (mAh), but you can’t make apples-to-apples comparisons among notebooks because they can operate at different voltages, typically 7.2, 10.8, or 14.4 volts (multiples of 3.6 volts). What matters is their total energy, expressed in watt-hours (Wh, the amp-hour rating times the voltage). A mainstream notebook battery pack might provide 4.4 Ah (4,400 mAh) at 10.8 volts, or about 47.5 Wh. A notebook battery pro-viding 4.0 Ah at 14.8 volts would produce 59 Wh. The latter battery actually pro-vides about one-third more power, even though its amp-hour rating is 10 percent less. Ultraportables might provide bat-teries with only 20 Wh of performance, while multimedia notebooks might ap-proach triple digits (though they’ll often rate only around 50 Wh because users
aren’t expected to run these machines away from AC power for long.)
Beware of starter batteries. To shave costs and weight, especially on ultraport-ables, you may be offered a four-cell bat-tery pack, when the standard is six cells and extended-life batteries would have eight or nine cells. For longer run time with a mainstream laptop, consider a bat-tery that swaps in to the optical drive bay. Usually it’s half to two-thirds as power-ful as the main battery, and it will often drain before the main battery. If you always leave the bay battery in, after a year of hard use it might be down to half its life, while the main battery will have been called to active duty only a couple times a month on long fl ights.
MAXIMIZING BATTERY LIFE
If you buy a pack of round-cell NiMH re-chargeables, you’ll want get an appropri-ate charger. Higher-capacity batteries call for higher-capacity chargers, un-less you don’t mind waiting a bit longer. More important, NiMH batteries are sensitive to overcharging and require closer monitoring by the charger; plug NiMH batteries into a charger designed for NiCds and you may overcharge and damage them. Chargers for NiMH and lithium ion batteries monitor battery voltage and temperature to sense when the batteries are charged; they then shut down or provide only a trickle charge.
Rapid chargers that recharge a four-pack of NiMH batteries in as little as 15 minutes have some drawbacks. First, when the green “charged” light glows, the batteries are really at about 80 per-
Know Your Batteries Here are the most common battery types found in today’s gadgets:
Single-use lithium (properly, lithium iron disulfide) batteries are great for digital cameras because they pack in a lot of energy, are lightweight, and don’t suffer in the cold.
Prismatic lithium batteries can be shaped to fit inside odd-size cavities. They are used for small laptops, optical-bay batteries, and some music players.
SOLUTIONS
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 82
84 DESKTOP:Your new computer
86 OFFICE:Word toolbars
88 DIY SOFTWARE:Manage partitions for free
90 SECURITY WATCH:Heard any good mal-ware lately?
92 BUSINESS:Free Wi-Fi access for all
95 USER TO USER:Tips and tricks
cent capacity, and you’ll need another one to two hours to reach full charge. Second, battery makers say rapid char-gers are tougher on the internal work-ings of batteries and may reduce their lifetime. But as Anthony Mazzola of En-ergizer notes, “You should use the bat-tery rather than other way around.” Big deal if your $20 pack of NiMH batteries that theoretically lasts 500 full-charge cycles is good for only 400; it’s more im-portant to have the batteries available when you need them.
Once the batteries are fully charged, take them out and set them aside. They won’t lose that much of a charge unless you don’t use them for a month or two. You can store NiMH and lithium ion batteries without charging them, but re-member to put them back in the charger the night before you need them. Cheap chargers may have a timer that shuts off after several hours, which may not accu-rately gauge the charging process; better ones monitor the battery temperature and voltage, so there’s less downside to leaving the battery in the charger.
Batteries should be stored at room temperature. There is no need to keep them refrigerated, and it’s even worse to put them in a garage or shed, where they’ll be subject to temperature fluc-tuations. One exception to the benign neglect rule: Lead-acid batteries should be stored fully charged and be protected from freezing, which is more likely to oc-cur if they’re not charged; the battery’s electrolyte (or liquid) if discharged could freeze in subzero weather and crack the case or its internal plates. For most users, lead-acid means only car and
UPS (uninterruptible power supply) bat-teries. If you’ve got a car stored for the winter, keep a trickle charger attached.
HOW LONG WILL THEY LAST?
As a rule of thumb, a NiMH or lithium ion rechargeable battery is good for about 500 cycles, meaning a full or nearly full discharge and then a full charge. A half-discharge followed by a recharge counts as about half a cycle. In other words, if you plug and unplug, or dock and undock, your notebook 500 times in six months, the battery isn’t going to need replacement.
The highest-power NiMH batteries (2,500 to 2,600 mAh) may last for fewer total cycles than less powerful batteries
(2,000 mAh). Some NiCd batteries may be good for 1,000 cycles. The cycle life of a lead-acid battery depends on how often it’s allowed to run down. It does not take kindly to full discharges.
Once they’re charged, NiMH and lithium ion batteries don’t lose too much of their power sitting in a desk drawer. Single-use batteries, especially lithium, are essentially unaffected by sitting for several years.
Some notebook makers, among them Lenovo, recommend a quarterly condi-tioning, or full discharge, followed by a full recharge. This overcomes any re-sidual memory effect if there is one, and also gets the notebook’s power manage-ment in sync with the battery. Some note-books have a conditioning utility that does that automatically (while you’re plugged in to AC power, so the whole thing happens overnight). If not, go into your notebook’s power management (on most: Start | Control Panel | Performance and Maintenance | Power Options | Prop-erties). Under the Power Schemes tab, choose Always On; under Alarms, disable any suspend or hibernate actions invoked by the low-battery alarm and critical-bat-tery alarm. Let the battery run down for two to four hours, then recharge.
If your batteries are suffering from neglect, a couple of charge-discharge cycles may restore them partially.
BEST PRACTICES
For longest life, charge your round-cell batteries on a standard (not rapid) charger and take them out once they’re charged. The highest-performance bat-teries produce more energy per charge but may last fewer cycles. Run your lap-top on AC power when possible to avoid using up the fi nite number of cycles.
Rechargeable batteries are likely to stop working well after three to fi ve years. Recycle spent lithium ion batter-ies because their innards can be reused, and recycle NiCd and lead-acid batteries because of their toxicity. To fi nd a recy-cling center, see Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (rbrc.org).
Bill Howard is a contributing editor of PC Magazine.
Single-use alkaline batteries in standard sizes are best for devices such as remotes, music players, flashlights, and your kids’ toys.
Most standard-size round-cell rechargeable batteries (double-A, triple-A) are nickel metal hydride (NiMH). You’ll find them in digital cameras and electronic flashes.
Rechargeable lithium ion battery packs are the type most often used in laptops, cell phones, and camcorders, and are found in many digital cameras.
YOU SHOULD CONDITION your laptop battery several times a year by turning off all power-saver options, then running it all the way down.
go.pcmag.com/solutions
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 83
Your New ComputerYour new machine is all ready to go—or is it? Our tips
help you get off to a good start. BY EDWARD MENDELSON
You got a new computer for the holidays and you’re itching to start using it. Before you do,
check out our advice on how to turn your new system into the one you really want—which is not necessarily the one the vendor thinks you should have. To compile our tips, we looked at the latest mainstream laptops from Dell, HP, IBM/Lenovo, Toshiba, and Sony, but our ad-vice applies to the latest desktop models as well. So read on, and enjoy your new machine—safely and economically.
MAKE IT SAFE
New computers typically come with Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2, but they probably do not have the latest security updates. So when you fi rst turn your machine on, leave it disconnected from your modem (cable or DSL) or your network router. Many systems come with a limited-time version of an antivirus program, usually McAfee Security Cen-ter or Symantec Internet Security. When you first run the system, the antivirus software will pop up a series of dialogs prompting you to activate the trial ver-sions. Unless you have another security package ready to install, you should agree to switch on one of the trial versions, be-cause you’ll want to have security soft-ware running when you fi rst connect to the Internet. (If you use one of the trial versions, you needn’t feel obliged to buy an annual subscription when the trial runs out.) If you’d rather install other security software from a CD, do so now. When the software is fully installed (you’ll probably need to reboot to com-plete the process), use the Start menu to open the Control Panel, then open the Security Center. Make sure that Firewall, Automatic Updates, and Virus Protec-tion are all turned on. But don’t connect to the Internet just yet.
Next insert a blank CD or DVD into the appropriate drive and then fi nd and run the software on your system that lets you create a recovery disc, which
will let you restore your system to its original state. Don’t neglect this step: It’s essential if rogue software or an overen-thusiastic family member disrupts your system to the point where you need to return it to its out-of-the-box condition.
Now—and only now—plug in your network cable or connect to a wireless network. You don’t need to turn off your machine before plugging in the cable.
Windows should detect your network automatically. When you’re connected, Windows’ automatic updates service should start running automatically; no-tice the shield-like icon on the taskbar. If it doesn’t start in a few minutes, run Windows Update from the Start menu. Also run any software-updating service that may be installed with your machine. On some systems, the updater will run automatically; others require you to launch a Software Installer or similarly named program. Either way, it’s almost always wise to install any updates pro-posed by the updater.
MAKE IT SVELTE
Many systems come with limited-time or limited-feature versions of standard commercial applications such as Micro-soft Office 2003, Quicken, and Adobe
Photoshop Album. They also typically include menus that encourage you to try and buy a dozen or more other applica-tions. You may want to try some, but take a good look fi rst to see what you’re get-ting. Some systems we tested came with Microsoft Outlook 2003 as the default mail software—but then required you to buy a license in order to use Outlook to send and receive mail. If you don’t plan to pay for Offi ce (or Outlook alone), and don’t want to pay to upgrade the other applications from the trial version, use the Control Panel’s Add or Remove Pro-grams applet to get rid of the unwanted “shovelware” the vendor dumped on to your system. Your system will be faster and more responsive, and your desktop
will be uncluttered.Don’t feel you have to buy
Outlook. Remember that Windows itself comes with the Outlook Express mail cli-ent. Or you can download a free copy of the high- powered Thunderbird mail client from www.mozil la .org . W hi le you’re there, get a copy of the Firefox Web browser, and use it instead of Internet Explorer for fast, safe browsing.
Don’t feel you have to buy Office either. If your sys-tem came with Microsoft Works or the preinstalled version of Corel WordPer-fect, you already have fully
functional, no-extra-charge versions of these programs, and you should keep them. And now is the perfect time to try OpenOffi ce.org 2.0, a free, full-featured office suite that can open and save in Microsoft formats.
You may also fi nd a variety of DVD-authoring and image-management software; Napster (now a membership-based music download service); Real-Player 10.0; AOL 9.0; and, puzzlingly, the ancient version 6.0 of the Netscape Web browser. You’ll need RealPlayer for many Web sites, but depending on your needs, you may want to uninstall some or all of the rest. Computers get clut-tered quickly enough; it’s a good idea at least to start out with a clean machine.
Edward Mendelson is a contributing editor of PC Magazine.
TOSHIBA’S CENTRAL control panel includes system information, restore, and updating features, but it also clutters your screen with ads for hardware and a whole catalog of software you probably don’t want.
D E S K T O P
84
S O L U T I O N S • go.pcmag.com/solutions
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com
Exploring Word ToolbarsCustomize your Word environment with these handy
toolbar options. BY HELEN BRADLEY
Microsoft Word toolbars include buttons to speed up the pro-cesses you perform regularly.
But you can customize the toolbars to make them even more functional. For example, if you often use a particular symbol, you can create a button to insert it automatically. You can also add menu items to shortcut menus and even create extra built-in menus to Word. Let’s see how you can make your Word toolbars even more useful.
To create a toolbar button for eas-ily inserting a symbol into a document, choose Tools | Customize, click on the Commands tab, and locate the All Com-mands option in the Categories list on the left. Scroll down the commands to locate the Symbol: entry and drag and drop it onto a toolbar. When the Symbol dialog opens, click the symbol to attach to the button and click OK.
What the toolbar button displays is the font name followed by the symbol number. To make this friendlier, right-click the button and change the name to something you’ll recognize. (Leave the Customize dialog box open.) If your symbol is a character that can be typed by holding the Alt key and pressing a se-ries of numbers on the numeric keypad, type the symbol and name it this way. For other symbols, you can draw your own button by selecting the Default Style entry from the menu and choosing Edit Button Image.
In a similar manner, you can add a toolbar button that lets you insert an image in your document automatically. Find InsertPicture in the commands list and drag it to the toolbar. Then right-click the button, choose Assign Hyper-link | Insert Picture, and select a picture to associate with the button.
You can create images for your tool-bar buttons from any 16- by 16-pixel image, and you can even take an ordi-nary image and resize it down to 16-by-16 using Microsoft Picture Manager or other graphics software. Then copy the
image to the clipboard and paste it onto a toolbar button by choosing the Paste Button Image option on the menu that appears when you right-click the button with the Customize dialog open.
To swipe button images from other Microsoft Office programs, open the other program’s Customize dialog, right-click the button and choose Copy Button
Image. Once the button face is copied to the clipboard, you can paste it onto your Word button.
The All Commands list contains a number of Word commands that oper-ate like the Symbol: command. These include Color, Column, Condensed, Ex-panded, Lowered, Raised, FontSize, and FileOpenFile. If you select any of these, you’ll be prompted to enter a value for the text color, the number of columns, the amount to condense or expand text or lower or raise it, the font size, or the fi le to open. If you decide you want to re-move a toolbar button, just drag it off the toolbar with the Customize dialog open.
You can also tailor Word to your needs by adding commands to the Shortcut Menus. To do this, from the Customize dialog’s Toolbar tab, enable the Shortcut Menus checkbox. When the shortcut menu toolbar appears, choose Text, Table, or Draw, depending on the
type of shortcut menu you want to work with, and then choose the menu itself. With the menu open, click the Com-mands tab and drag and drop an item from the Commands list onto the menu.
Another great way to customize Word is to add one of its built-in menus such as the Work menu. Built-in menus are also available through the Customize dialog. Select the Built-in menus option in the Categories list and drag the Work menu entry from the Commands list onto any toolbar or onto the Word menu bar (that is, the bar with the File, Edit, View, and other menu choices), which is just an-other toolbar.
The Work menu stores links to docu-ments, letting you open the documents by selecting them from the menu—very handy if you’re working on a number of related documents. To oper-ate the Work menu, close the Customize dialog and open a fi le to add to the Work menu. With the file open, choose Work | Add To Work Menu, and the document will now appear in the list. Do the same to add other fi les to the menu.
To remove a file from the list, press Ctrl + Alt + _ (un-derscore) to display the re-move cursor, which is a thick black horizontal bar. Click
this cursor on the Work menu and then click on the file you want to remove. The file will disappear from the Work menu but not, of course, from your hard drive. You can actually use this cursor to remove any option from any Word menu. Take care when using it, though, because you will not be prompted to confi rm removal of the item before it is permanently removed.
If you do lose a favorite command, you can add it back—or you can reset the menu or toolbar to its original state, though you would lose any customiza-tions. To reset a toolbar or menu, right-click any toolbar and choose Customize and then the Toolbars tab. Select the toolbar, click the Reset button, and an-swer Yes to the prompt. The toolbar will return to its default settings.
Helen Bradley is a contributing editor of PC Magazine.
IN THIS IMAGE we’re adding a Print option to the Draw | inline picture menu.
O F F I C E
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Manage Partitions for Free with QTPartedEven Windows users can run this free Linux hard drive
utility. We show you how. BY KYLE RANKIN
Hard drive capacities are quickly expanding, with internal desk-top drives approaching the half-
terabyte mark. The amount of data you can store on today’s consumer hard drives was unthinkable even a decade ago, but huge apps and multimedia files have pushed this expansion. As the amount of data stored increases, so does the need to organize it. This usually means set-ting up a number of directories, but mul-
tition, usually labeled C: in Microsoft Windows. Think of such a drive as a large house with no interior walls—just a single general-purpose room. Nearly all houses separate different sections into special-purpose areas, such as bed-rooms, kitchens, and bathrooms, to make better use of the space. Hard drive parti-tions operate on the same principle.
One common reason for partitioning is to install several operating systems on
Repartitioning, resizing, or moving a partition is risky, whatever tool you use. Back up any crucial data on a partition before you resize it.
According to the Web site (qtparted.sourceforge.net), QTParted is designed as a Linux-based clone of Partition Magic. The utility provides a simple interface for you to create, delete, move, resize, for-mat, and otherwise manage partitions. Probably the best way to use QTParted is from a bootable Linux disc, since resiz-ing or moving partitions you’re currently booted into is risky. Many bootable Linux distributions, Knoppix among the most notable, include QTParted.
Knoppix is a complete Linux distribu-tion that runs directly from a bootable CD-ROM or DVD. To get the OS, visit www.knoppix.org, download the latest 700MB ISO CD image fi le from a down-load mirror, and burn the image to an op-
tiple partitions are another great way to manage high-capacity drives. A number of tools exist to make this easy, such as Norton PartitionMagic 8.01, our Editors’ Choice (see our review at go.pcmag.com/partitionmagic801) among partitioning programs. But whereas PartitionMagic costs $70, the open-source community has a free graphical partitioning tool with many advanced functions: QTPart-ed. Running QTParted from a bootable Linux CD-ROM or DVD is the safest way to use the program, and a method that lets even Windows users run it.
Partitions split a hard drive into sec-tions. Desktop computers generally come confi gured with only a single par-
the same drive. The fi rst partition might have Windows XP; the second, Windows 2000; and a third, Linux—each OS in its own container. Some PC vendors use multiple partitions for system recovery—the fi rst partition fi lls most of the drive and holds the operating system, while the second contains a recovery image. Another common use for partitioning is to separate out data. The fi rst partition is devoted to the core operating-system fi les; the second is for programs, games, or general storage. This has the extra ad-vantage of protecting you in case of fi le-system errors. Should an error or hard reset corrupt the second partition, the fi rst may remain intact.
tical disc using your burning software’s “Burn Image” option. After you create the Knoppix disc, leave it in the drive and reboot the computer to bring the system up in the Knoppix environment. (For more on Knoppix, see our introduction at go.pcmag.com/knoppixintro.)
After Knoppix boots (type knoppix at the boot prompt), start at the large letter K at bottom left. Select K | System | QT-Parted to launch the utility. The main window is split into left and right panes. The left lists any hard drives (and pos-sibly optical drives) that QTParted de-tects. Click the drive you want to edit (your fi rst—or C:—drive will most likely be labeled /dev/hda, your second /dev/hdb, and so on), and QTParted will scan it for partition information, displaying the details in the right pane. The top section of the right pane displays the hard drive and any partitions in graphical form.
RESIZING A PARTITION in QTParted. The fi rst screen shows the drive structure before resizing; the second, the resize window before any changes have been made; the third, the resize window after the partition has been resized; and the fourth, the new partition structure.
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 88
D I Y: S O F T WA R E
Move operation and drag the partition or manually enter its start and ending locations in the window that appears.
Athough the utility will now show changes, you haven’t changed the actual drive yet— QTParted is only show-ing you the potential results of the operations.
The tool keeps track of your changes and lets you undo them at any time until they are committed. To write the changes to the drive, click on File | Commit. A con-fi rmation window will appear, and once you click on OK, the program makes the changes. Many require a reboot to take effect; click on K and choose Logout to reboot. If you resize a Windows parti-tion, run Chkdsk on it at the next reboot
Below you’ll see detailed information on each partition, including fi le- system type, size, space used, and where the partition starts and ends on the drive. To see the list of changes you can make, either right-click a partition or select it and click the Operations menu.
Since the default on many systems is a single partition for the complete drive, to create extra partitions you must fi rst
■ A fading or blown backlight tradition-ally means death for LCD monitors, with one-year warranties standard and new models being introduced at a rate that quickly leaves the older products unsup-ported. But you may not have to junk your screen anymore. At www.inventgeek
.com/Projects/shorts/lcdfi x.aspx, Jared Bouck shows you the parts you’ll need to make a fi x, where to get them, and how to disassemble the monitor, replace the bulb, and (if necessary) replace the inverter. The price tag: less than $20.
■ Apple’s initial video library for its iPod Video is quite sparse, but with TiVoToGo and a few software tools, you can copy video from your TiVo to the iPod Video. The basic steps include using a program called DirectShow Dump to strip the metadata TiVo inserts (which prevents people trading shows via BitTorrent), converting TiVo’s MPEG-2 fi les (which are incompatible with the iPod Video) to MPEG-4 using the VLC Media Player, and importing the content into the iPod via iTunes. See features.engadget.com
/entry/1234000583063891 for details.
■ In looking for an underwater casing for a camera, Jason Rollette and his son went the do-it-yourself route and con-structed a remotely operated vehicle as a controllable platform for the camera. They cut sections of PVC pipe to house the camera and electronics (including infrared LEDs to illuminate the undersea world), and used six bilge pumps for thrusters. Power for the lights, video, and motors is supplied through two Eth-ernet cables, whose length determines the range of the craft (they can be as long as about 100 feet before resistance and voltage drop become problems). See www.rollette.com/rov/index.html.
DO - IT-YO U RSELF
resize the existing one to make room. Before resizing a Windows partition, be sure to boot into Windows and defrag the drive. After you’ve completed these preparations, select the partition and choose the Resize operation. The win-dow that appears will let you drag on the partition’s representation from either side to shrink or grow it, or you can man-ually set the size. Click on OK, and the main window will display your new partition and the free space you’ve created.
To make a new partition from free space, select the space and choose the Cre-ate operation. Set the parti-tion type and size, and tell QTParted whether to put it at the start or end of the free space. To move a partition within free space, choose the
if Windows doesn’t do so automatically. QTParted lacks some features that
PartitionMagic has, such as merging partitions; converting between FAT, FAT32, and NTFS fi le systems; copying individual fi les between partitions; and managing boot options. Still, for resiz-ing and creating new partitions, QT-Parted is an easy-to-use, free tool that is as reliable as commercial tools.
TO DO... More Cool Projects to Try
THIS SCREEN SHOWS the different options you have in creating a new partition with QTParted.
THE PROPERTIES WINDOW gives you information about a particular partition.
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www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 89
A security hole in Macromedia Inc.’s Flash Player could put millions of Web surfers at risk of PC hijack attacks, the company warned. The vulnerability is rated “critical” and was fl agged in Flash Player 7.0.19.0 and earlier versions. “Us-ers who have already upgraded to Flash Player 8 are not affected by this issue. Macromedia recommends all Flash Player 7 and earlier users upgrade to this new version,” the company said.
According to eEye Digital Security, the fi rm that reported the issue to Macro-media, the vulnerability opens the door for a hacker to run arbitrary code in the context of the logged-in user. Fixes are posted at www.macromedia.com/
shockwave/download/download
.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash.—Ryan Naraine
MACROMEDIA
PATCHES FLAW
TH E LOO KOUT
KEEP YOURSELF SAFE! Subscribe to our
Security Watch newsletter and get
up-to-date info on the latest threats
delivered to your inbox automatically:
go.pcmag.com/securitywatchletter.
Heard Any Good Malware Lately?Digital rights shouldn’t violate civil rights—as Sony’s
DRM rootkit seems to do. BY LARRY SELTZER
it, and your e-mail address. Why do they need this information? You can get an idea of why from Sony’s privacy policy, which the form page links to. If you want to uninstall the malicious software that Sony put on your system without asking permission or even disclosing the fact, you have to let Sony send you e-mails about the artist, promotions and special offers. It may share the information with third parties (“reputable” ones), who may also contact you directly.
Blowing off “technical questions” to First 4 Internet, as Sony does in this case, doesn’t cut it for me. Nobody, and I mean nobody, buying a Sony CD thinks they are buying a First 4 Internet prod-uct. At a bare minimum, Sony needs to say it will never do this again, and I think it needs to clear out the channel.
We hope that by the time you read this, Sony will have addressed this ter-rible situation in a more acceptable way, but as we go to print, we don’t see any encouraging signs that it will.
The law needs to clamp down hard on this behavior and make it clear it isn’t acceptable practice for legitimate com-panies. After all, if it’s okay for Sony to install malware on my computer with-out telling me, why isn’t it okay for any-one else to install malware on my system without telling me?
Larry Seltzer is a contributing editor of PC Magazine.
digital-rights.html) and parallel testing performed by security firm F-Secure (f-secure.com/v-descs/xcp_drm.shtml) show clearly that attackers could take advantage of the rootkit functionality to hide their own fi les and registry entries, and that techniques used by the soft-ware run the risk of making the system unusable. In fact, according to a Novem-ber alert from security vendor BitDe-fender, a new Trojan horse that uses the
cover provided by the Sony DRM component to hide has been detected in the wild.
When a vendor installs a complicated program on your computer, it’s not reasonable to expect them to disclose every single aspect of it, but there’s a difference between being succinct and being de-ceitful. As Russinovich shows, the End User Licensing Agree-ment (EULA) makes no men-tion of the software’s cloaking ability or that it modifi es the operating system. The EULA actually implies that the soft-ware is removable (“Once in-
stalled, the SOFTWARE will reside on YOUR COMPUTER until removed or deleted”), in spite of the fact that no unin-staller is provided and removing the fi les manually will likely make the CD-ROM drive unusable.
First 4 Internet released an update (updates.xcp-aurora.com) that removes the cloaking aspects of the software, stopping the hiding of fi les and registry entries beginning with ‘$sys$’. But it won’t let you remove the software. For that, you are supposed to fi ll out a form at cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/form14.html and then follow instructions. The uninstall form requires that you provide the artist name and album title of the CD, the name of the store where you bought
It bothers me when industry is viewed as the enemy, when it’s assumed that vendors will do the worst and we
have to protect ourselves against them. But practices like Sony BMG’s use of a rootkit to copy-protect its CDs make me understand that mindset.
I’m not inherently hostile to DRM. I live on the proceeds of intellectual prop-erty, so I can understand wanting to pro-tect it from theft. But there’s a right way
and a wrong way to do DRM. Sony BMG and its subcontractor First
4 Internet decided to disregard their customers’ interests and install mal-ware on their systems without asking. Furthermore, they hid the software.
Despite Sony’s and First 4 Internet’s assertions to the contrary (Sony states “This component is not malicious and does not compromise security”), analy-sis from Mark Russinovich, an authority on Microsoft Windows, (sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-
IN ORDER TO GET an uninstaller from Sony, you need to provide the information requested in this form.
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* x=150 KB/sec. 4 GB = 45x. 2-GB card may require updated device drivers. Consult the device documentation for requirements.Please note: Some of the listed capacity is used for formatting and other functions and thus is not available for data storage. For more information, please consult Kingston’s Digital Media Guide at kingston.com/Digital_Media_Guide. ©2005 Kingston Technology Company, Inc. 17600 Newhope Street, Fountain Valley, CA 92708 USA. All rights reserved. All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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Get with the MeshFree Wi-Fi access for all? Here’s how one California
city is doing it. BY SEBASTIAN RUPLEY
Getting a wireless network going in a home or business is easy these days, but unwiring a busy
city is a trickier proposition. When offi -cials in Culver City, California, decided to do just that—install an always-on, free Wi-Fi network for public use—they quickly realized that problems loomed large. But so did the payoff.
“Our working population is primar-ily young, technical, creative folks who use technologies like Wi-Fi,” says John Richo, IT director for Culver City, located not far from Hollywood. “We knew we could add value to downtown visits and increase dwell time with free, wireless Internet access.”
Culver City’s recently renovated Town Plaza, a one-mile square area, bustles every day with film-industry types and tech-savvy young people outfi tted with the requisite cell phones, handheld computers, and notebooks, and aching to connect. But Wi-Fi is radio-based technology that weakens if you’re far away from a signal. Obstacles and weather are also problems.
In a Wi-Fi network for your home, routers and access points hook up to existing PCs and devices. But Town Plaza didn’t have a collection of out-door PCs and devices, and even if it had, a standard Wi-Fi network is often only as strong as its weakest link. If one ac-cess point fails, then the Wi-Fi signal that several PCs depend on is kaput. So Culver City offi cials searched for a wire-less solution that wouldn’t require net-working many outdoor PCs, and would remain on even if one component failed. The product they settled on was the Firetide HotPoint 1000R outdoor mesh router.
“What sold us on Firetide were its mesh architecture and self-healing capa-bilities,” says Carlos Vega, IT manager for Culver City. “Other alternatives that offered the reach we needed were line-of-sight solutions. If one went down, it couldn’t automatically reroute.”
Vega and his staff installed three of the outdoor mesh routers on top of City Hall, a theater, and the Culver City Hotel. The routers come weatherized, and other components, such as adapters for access to electricity, were also placed in enclosures that sheltered them from the weather. At the center of the mesh network, Vega and his team deployed a Vernier Networks control manager for user authentication. And a DSL connec-
tion plugged into a modem goes straight into the mesh network to provide shared Internet access across the coverage area, overseen by the mesh routers and an 802.11b Wi-Fi access point. The routers are repeaters for the Wi-Fi signal.
Within one day after the network was turned on, almost a dozen people had discovered it and registered for free ac-cess. Now, people sign on every day.
“You just plug these units in and cre-ate the mesh without having to deal with any PC confi guration,” says Vega. “The devices turn on and talk to each other. With the mesh technology you can cre-
ate chains, and if a central node goes out, the other mesh routers will seek to fi nd another one.”
That’s exactly what won’t happen on a standard Wi-Fi network if a key access point fails. Each Firetide mesh router em-ploys a 200-mW radio that can cover up to two miles. If you’re within Town Pla-za’s wireless coverage area, your PC or Mac will pick up the signal automatically. When you open an Internet browser, the Vernier Networks control manager di-rects you to a log-on page. If you already have an account, you just log on. Other-wise, you go to a registration page.
“I was talking to one young woman the other day who lives two blocks away from Town Plaza and has dial-up Inter-net access at home,” says Vega. “She
comes and plugs into an AC outlet out in the plaza and instantly has broadband access. She says walking the two blocks saves her time in doing her work.” Some users have even been able to pick up the wireless signal from two miles away.
Internet access isn’t the only benefi t of outdoor wireless access. The city can also plug IP video cameras into the net-work for wireless video surveillance.
With numerous others cities, includ-ing Philadelphia and San Francisco, planning to deploy wireless networks, a wireless free-for-all may soon be com-ing to your town.
Wireless Hotspot Inc. helped Culver City’s town square go wireless by positioning Firetide routers on top of three prominent buildings. The network is expanded using long-range antennas and secured with a Vernier Networks control manager. People can connect using their Wi-Fi–equipped notebooks.
Roam Free
802.11b Wi-Fi access point
DSL modem
Firetide outdoor wireless mesh nodes
Wi-fi signalControl server
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bar and get a continuous movement of
the cursor across the page. This makes
working very diffi cult and frustrating.
I replaced the keyboard, but I still have
the problem. Is there anything I can do to
correct this?
LEO KNOLL
Some users have physical diffi culty using the keyboard. Their hands may tremble, producing multiple keystrokes, or they may have diffi culty pressing and releasing a key quickly enough to get just one char-acter. Windows includes an accessibility feature called FilterKeys that helps these users get around these diffi culties. With FilterKeys active, Windows ignores rapidly repeated keys and drastically slows down the repeat rate for held-down keys—ex-actly the symptoms you’re describing. It sounds as if you’ve accidentally activated this feature.
To turn off this unhelpful helper, launch Accessibility Options from Control Panel. Uncheck the box titled Use FilterKeys, then click the Settings button. Near the top is a box titled Use Shortcut—uncheck it. When this box is checked, holding down a Shift
message “Integer is not valid” when you
click OK. If you enter a number from 501
to 32,767, Excel tells you, “The number
must be between 1 and 500. Try again by
entering a number in this range.” This
seems to imply that the largest number
you can enter is 500. But if you enter
any value between 256 and 500 and
click OK, you’ll fi nd that when you run
the command or reopen the Advanced
settings you’ll see the number has been
reset to a value between 0 and 244! The
number that’s set doesn’t seem to fol-
low an obvious pattern. If you try to use
the spinner control, you’ll fi nd you can’t
enter values above 255; values 255 and
lower will be accepted and retained.
You have to wonder why you can enter
a 500-digit number in a box that will
work properly only with numbers less
than or equal to 255 (a 3-digit number)!
So the error in the article also draws
our attention to some bugs in Excel.
SHANE DEVENSHIRE
Great catch! We checked with Microsoft and it acknowledged that this bug has
been in the product since Offi ce 2000 when the Top 10 AutoShow feature was introduced. The company plans on correcting the problem in the next version, currently called Offi ce 12, which is due out in 2006 (see our review on page 134). How-ever, it declined to say whether the fi x would allow values greater than 255 or just re-spond correctly to num-
bers outside the acceptable range.—BZG
FilterKeys FiascoWhen I type on my keyboard I hear a faint
“dink” sound as I tap each key. When I
type a word that has double letters in
it (such as beet or fi ll), I must pause for
at least two seconds before repeating
the letter. I can’t hold down the space
Dragging a FieldI used Excel 2003 to try to replicate the
item “Drag That Field Again and Again”
from the “PivotTable Magic” story (go.pcmag.com/pivottables). Somehow I
don’t end up with same formatting you
do with two different columns. Instead,
I get two rows. Am I doing something
incorrectly? That was a wonderful
article, by the way. As a database ad-
ministrator, I never thought of Excel as
a powerful tool. With PivotTables, it is!
SHANNON KEITH CLINGERMAN
A few readers ran into this same problem. The tip showed how you could drag a fi eld into the data area multiple times in order to perform different operations on the data each time. For example, one instance of the fi eld could show a sum of values and the other could show a percentage of the total. But if you drag the fi elds into a new table, they may show up as rows instead of as columns (see fi gure below) as we showed in the article. If this happens, sim-ply drag and drop the Data label into the Columns area.—Ben Z. Gottesman
Wrong NumbersIn the “PivotTable Magic” article, under
the topic “Filter Your Data Based on Val-
ues,” there is an error regarding the Top
10 AutoShow command. Although you
can enter extremely large numbers into
the spinner box in the PivotTable Field Advanced Options dialog, if the number
is larger than 32,767, you get the error
SOME OF WINDOWS’ accessibility op-tions can be confusing and irritating if turned on accidentally.
IF IN MULTIPLE instances fi elds show up as rows rather than columns, drag and drop the Data label into the Columns area.
PC MAGAZINE’S COMMUNITY OF EXPERTS AND READERS
Microsoft acknowledged that a bug has been in Excelsince the Top 10 AutoShow feature was introduced.
USER TO USER
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See more tips online at go.pcmag.com/usertouser.
key for eight seconds turns on FilterKeys, which is probably how you turned it on in the fi rst place. While you have Accessibil-
ity Options open, make sure StickyKeys is not enabled, and turn off its shortcut; this is another option that can be unhelpful if you don’t need it. Click OK and OK again to fi nish restoring normal keyboard opera-tion.—Neil J. Rubenking
Site-Specifi c Icons for Web ShortcutsI like to keep shortcuts to the Web
sites I visit frequently on my desk-
top. Some sites have their own logos,
such as MSN’s butterfl y, which makes
it easy to identify them. But peri-
odically these icons disappear and are
replaced with a standard Microsoft
Internet Explorer icon. Is there any
way I can keep this from happening?
RON WARRICK
Web site designers can add a site-specifi c icon in two ways. One way is simple: They just include a fi le named favicon.ico in the root folder of the site. The other involves using script and is less common. When you add a Favorite or create a URL shortcut, the special icon gets copied into your Temporary Internet Files folder (the
browser cache). If you clear the cache, the icon will be lost. Even if you don’t, sooner or later it will be pushed out of the cache by newer content.
As long as the site uses the simple fa-vicon.ico technique, you can prevent this
disappearing act. Open Internet Explorer, click the Address bar, and type the site’s domain name followed by a slash and favicon.
ico—for example, www.pcmag.
com/favicon.ico. If you’re lucky, the browser is now displaying the desired icon. Right-click the icon and choose Save Picture As to save a copy of the icon on your own computer. Next, right-click the URL shortcut or Favorite and choose Properties. Click the
Change Icon button, click the Browse button, and select your saved icon. This one won’t dis-appear on you!
You may prefer to get a copy of PC
Magazine’s FavOrg utility (go.pcmag.com/
utilities). FavOrg automatically checks all of your Favorites for site-specifi c icons and converts them to local copies. As a bonus it will alert you to any URLs that are no longer valid.—NJR
Multifi eld Sorting in AccessI maintain a coin collection inventory
in an Access datasheet. Each coin has a
unique Acquisition Number, and I usu-
ally sort the datasheet by this fi eld.
But sometimes I sort by the date of the
coin, which is one of the columns in the
datasheet. The Access A to Z toolbar
button works great for this, but what if
I want to sort by coin date and also by
coin denomination within a particular
date? Sorting by one fi eld destroys the
sort by the other. Is it possible to sort
an Access datasheet by two nested
criteria? With a very large collection it
would be extremely useful to sort the
coins by date and within each date have
the denominations displayed together.
ALFRED BUONAGURO
Multifi eld sorting is easily handled in Ac-cess using a simple query, which doesn’t change your data—it just offers another view. Start by selecting View | Database
Objects | Queries and double-click the option Create query by using wizard. Select the original table in the Tables/Queries drop-down list. Click the >> button to include all fi elds from that table, then click Next. Leave the query type set to Detail
and again click Next. Give the query a name, check the option Modify the query
design, and click Finish.You will see a tabular view of the query
with all the data fi elds listed from left to right. The second row shows the table from which these fi elds were drawn, and the third is titled Sort. For each fi eld you want to sort on, click within the Sort row and select Ascending or Descending from the menu that pops up. Sorting will be ap-plied starting at the leftmost fi eld, so you may need to reorder the fi elds. To move a fi eld, click the bar just above the fi eld name once to select it, then click and drag. When you’re done, close the query design window and answer Yes when prompted to save changes. You can now open this query any time to view your data table sorted in exactly the way you want.—NJR
HOW TO CONTACT US
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TO KEEP A FAVICON from disappearing, save a copy of the favicon.ico fi le on your computer.
YOU CAN CREATE a query in Access to sort a datasheet by more than one fi eld.
FavOrg automatically checks all of your Favorites for site-specifi c icons and converts them to local copies.
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PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 96 J U M P TO N E X T PA G E >>
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THINKPAD. NOW IN WIDESCREEN.
WIDESCREEN THINKPAD. NOW IN TITANIUM.
Availability: All offers subject to availability. Lenovo reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time, without notice. Lenovo is not responsible for photographic or typographic errors. *Pricing: Prices do not include tax or shipping and handling, or recycling fees and are subject to change without notice. Reseller prices may vary. Warranty: For a copy of applicable product warranties, write to: Warranty Information, P.O. Box 12195, RTP, NC 27709, Attn: Dept ZPYA/B676. Lenovo makes no representation or warranty regardingthird party products or services. Footnotes: (1) Mobile Processors: Power management reduces processor speed when in battery mode. (2) Wireless: based on IEEE 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g respectively. An adapter with 11a/b, 11b/g or 11a/b/g can communicate on either/anyof these listed formats respectively; the actual connection will be based on the access point to which it connects. (3) Included software: may differ from its retail version (if available), and may not include user manuals or all program functionality. License agreements may apply.(4) Memory: For PCs without a separate video card, memory supports both system and video. Accessible system memory is up to 64MB less than the amount stated, depending on video mode. (5) Hard drive: GB = billion bytes. Accessible capacity is less; up to 4GB is service partition. (7) Thinness: may vary at certain points on the system. (8) Travel Weight: includes battery and optional travel bezel instead of standard optical drive in Ultrabay bay, if applicable; weight may vary due to vendor components, manufacturing process and options. (9) Internetaccess required; not included. (10) Client Security Solution: preloaded on selected models; otherwise available by software download. (11) Limited warranty: Support unrelated to a warranty issue may be subject to additional charges. (12) Certain IBM® and ThinkPad® logoproducts: are not manufactured, warranted or supported by IBM or Lenovo; IBM and Lenovo logos and trademarks used under license. Contact Lenovo for details. (13) Activating Verizon Service: Lenovo customers will be contacted after purchase to activate Verizon service. Wireless
With the Think Express Program, ThinkPad notebooks are preconfigured with your business, and your budget, in mind.
ThinkPad Z60t with Fingerprint ReaderDISTINCTIVE INNOVATIONSThinkVantage Client Security Solution 6.010
– Strong security as a standard feature
SYSTEM FEATURESIntel® Centrino™ Mobile Technology
Intel® Pentium® M Processor 740 (1.73GHz)Intel® PRO/Wireless 2915ABG (802.11a/b/g)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
14" Wide XGA TFT Display
512MB DDR2 SDRAM, 80GB Hard Drive
Ultrabay Slim DVD Recordable
Integrated Verizon Wireless EVDOWireless WAN Integrated Bluetooth13
THINK EXPRESS MODEL
$1999 (P/N 2511FEU)
ThinkPad Z60m
ThinkPad Carrying Case Expander$59 (P/N 73P3597)
ThinkPad Women’s ExecutiveRed Leather Tote12
$134 (P/N 22P8858)
DISTINCTIVE INNOVATIONSThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery –one-button recovery and restore solution
SYSTEM FEATURESIntel® Centrino™ Mobile Technology
Intel® Pentium® M Processor 740 (1.73GHz)1
Intel® PRO/Wireless 2915ABG (802.11a/b/g)2
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home3
15.4" Wide XGA TFT Display
256MB DDR2 SDRAM4, 40GB Hard Drive5
Ultrabay Enhanced CD-RW/DVD ROMCombo
THINK EXPRESS MODEL
$1049*(P/N 2529F5U)
Portable 80GB USB 2.0 Hard Drivewith Rescue and RecoveryThinkPlus Portable 80GB USB 2.0Hard Drive with Rescue and Recovery
$259 (P/N 40Y8726)
Call 1 866-426-6651Go to lenovo.com/security/m536
ThinkPad is a product of Lenovo.
To shop or locate your local reseller
data service requires separate agreement with Verizon; service and airtime charges will apply. Roaming charges may also apply. Verizon, not Lenovo, is solely responsible for service. Service not available in all areas; purchaser is responsible for verifying that service is available forthe intended location before purchasing a computer equipped with WAN card. For complete details, visit http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/mobileoptions/broadband/serviceavailability.jsp?opener=b2b. (14) Based on manufacturer’s published figures or CNET.com and results forthe top 10 vendors in second quarter 2005 sales for all notebooks including standard and widescreen as reported by IDC. (15) Verizon Service Speed: Speed averages 400-700 Kbps based on network tests with 5 MB FTP data files, without compression. Speed declines withdistance from cell site and is limited to 1.54 Mbps at certain cell sites with backhaul limitations. Number of users on the Verizon Wireless data network may also affect maximum possible speed. Average upload speeds expected to be between 60-80 Kbps. Speed claim based onnetwork tests with 5 MP FTP data files, without compression. Actual speeds and coverage may vary. Trademarks: The following are trademarks of Lenovo: ThinkPad, ThinkCentre and UltraConnect. IBM and the IBM logo are registered trademarks of IBM and are used under license.Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Intel, Intel logo, Intel Inside, Intel Inside logo, Intel Centrino, Intel Centrino logo, Celeron, Intel Xeon, Intel SpeedStep, Itanium, and Pentium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or itssubsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Other company, product and service names may be trademarks or service marks of other companies. ©2005 Lenovo. All rights reserved.Visit www.lenovo.com/safecomputing periodically for the latest information on safe and effective computing.
INTRODUCING THE WIDESCREEN TITANIUM THINKPAD Z60.The world’s first widescreen ThinkPad notebook is alsothe world’s first titanium ThinkPad. Whether you choosea titanium or classic black ThinkPad Z60t, you get a screenthat lets you view 25% more data than a standard 14" XGA screen, security features you’d expect fromThinkPad and the wireless power of an Intel® Pentium®
M Processor (select models). And, for added protection,both 14" and 15.4" models come with a magnesiumframe.Yet our 14" Z60t is still the thinnest7 and lightest8
widescreen notebook offered by the top 10 notebook vendors.14 The Z60 ThinkPad notebooks, like all ThinkPadnotebooks, are now a product of Lenovo, a new globalcompany uniting Lenovo and the former IBM PC Divisionunder the Lenovo name. ThinkPad service and supportcontinues to be available from IBM in many countries.
INNOVATIVE. ATTRACTIVE. STREAMLINED. BREAKTHROUGH. AND THAT’S JUST THE PRICE.
ThinkPad recommends Windows® XP Professional.
ThinkPad Carrying Case –Leather UltraportableThis sleek black leather case isjust 2.3 pounds with dark bluelined compartments that provide roomfor your essential documents and accessories.
$79 (P/N 73P5186)
ThinkPad 72W SlimAC/DC Combo Adapter
$99 (P/N 73P4485)
WHY THINKPAD NOTEBOOKS?Each ThinkPad notebook you see here hasThinkVantage Technologies – innovations thatwiden the lead between ThinkPads and allthe wannabe PCs.
Active Protection System: Help protect your harddrive from some damage caused by certaindrops and jolts (select models).
Rescue and Recovery: Recover previously saveddata in minutes with our one-button solution.
Access Connections: Switch between wired andwireless connections easily.9
ThinkVantage Client Security Solution 6.0 Help protectdata and keep it private with our combinedhardware and software solution10 (preloadedon select models).
ThinkPad R50e
Mainstream performance and features.
SYSTEM FEATURESIntel® Centrino™ Mobile Technology
Intel® Pentium® M Processor 725 (1.60GHz)1
Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200BG (802.11b/g)2
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional3
15" XGA TFT Display (1024x768)
512MB DDR SDRAM4, 60GB Hard Drive5
Multiburner Plus with DVD burner
1-yr limited warranty11
THINK EXPRESS MODEL $1199 (P/N 1842SUU)
ThinkPad R50e
Mainstream performance and features.
SYSTEM FEATURESIntel® Celeron® M Processor 360 (1.40GHz)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
14.1" XGA TFT Display (1024x768)
Intel Pro Wireless 2200 DDR SDRAM
256MB DDR SDRAM, 40GB Hard Drive
CD-ROM1-yr limited warranty11
THINK EXPRESS MODEL $699 (P/N 1842T4U)
ThinkPad R50e
ThinkPad X41
ThinkPad X41 Tablet
DISTINCTIVE INNOVATIONSThinkVantage Client Security Solution 6.0– Strong security as a standard feature
SYSTEM FEATURESIntel® Centrino™ Mobile Technology
Intel® Pentium® M Processor LV 758 (1.50GHz)Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200BG (802.11b/g)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Tablet
512MB DDR SDRAM, 40GB Hard Drive
Only 1.1" thin7 and 3.5-lb travel weight8
THINK EXPRESS MODEL $1899 (P/N 18695CU)
Perfect balance of performance and portability.
DISTINCTIVE INNOVATIONSThinkVantage Client Security Solution 6.010
– Strong security as a standard feature
SYSTEM FEATURESIntel® Centrino™ Mobile Technology
Intel® Pentium® M Processor 750 (1.86GHz)Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200BG (802.11b/g)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
14.1" SXGA +TFT Display (1400x1050)
512MB DDR2 SDRAM, 60GB Hard Drive
Ultrabay Slim Multiburner Plus with DVD Burner
Only 1" thin and 4.7-lb. travel weight
1-yr battery limited warranty11
THINK EXPRESS MODEL $1779 (P/N 2686DGU)
ThinkPad T43 with IntegratedFingerprint Reader
ThinkPad T43ThinkPad T43
Call 1 866-426-6651Go to lenovo.com/security/m536
ThinkCentre and ThinkPad are products of Lenovo.
To shop or locate your local reseller
Availability: All offers subject to availability. Lenovo reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time, without notice. Lenovo is not responsible for photographic or typographic errors. *Pricing: Prices do not include tax or shipping and handling, or recycling fees and are subject to change without notice. Reseller prices may vary. Warranty: For a copy of applicable product warranties, write to: Warranty Information, P.O. Box 12195, RTP, NC 27709, Attn: Dept ZPYA/B676. Lenovo makes no representation or warranty regardingthird party products or services. Footnotes: (1) Mobile Processors: Power management reduces processor speed when in battery mode. (2) Wireless: based on IEEE 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g respectively. An adapter with 11a/b, 11b/g or 11a/b/g can communicate on either/anyof these listed formats respectively; the actual connection will be based on the access point to which it connects. (3) Included software: may differ from its retail version (if available), and may not include user manuals or all program functionality. License agreements may apply.(4) Memory: For PCs without a separate video card, memory supports both system and video. Accessible system memory is up to 64MB less than the amount stated, depending on video mode. (5) Hard drive: GB = billion bytes. Accessible capacity is less; up to 4GB is service partition. (7) Thinness: may vary at certain points on the system. (8) Travel Weight: includes battery and optional travel bezel instead of standard optical drive in Ultrabay bay, if applicable; weight may vary due to vendor components, manufacturing process and options. (9) Internetaccess required; not included. (10) Client Security Solution: preloaded on selected models; otherwise available by software download. (11) Limited warranty: Support unrelated to a warranty issue may be subject to additional charges. (12) Certain IBM® and ThinkPad® logoproducts: are not manufactured, warranted or supported by IBM or Lenovo; IBM and Lenovo logos and trademarks used under license. Contact Lenovo for details. (13) Activating Verizon Service: Lenovo customers will be contacted after purchase to activate Verizon service. Wireless
WHY THINKCENTRE DESKTOPS?ThinkVantage Technologies are innovations thathelp you work more efficiently and productively.
ThinkVantage Design: ThinkCentre® desktops offer aneasy-to-service steel chassis design to help increaseuptime and protect the contents of your system.
ThinkVantage Client Security Solution 6.0: Help protectdata and keep it private with our combinedhardware and software solution (preloaded onselect models.)
Rescue and Recovery: Recover previously saveddata in minutes with our one-button solution.
ThinkCentre A51 Tower
PCI Express technology.
SYSTEM FEATURESIntel® Pentium® 4 Processor 630 withHT Technology (3GHz)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
512MB DDR2 memory at 533MHz
80GB 7200 rpm serial Hard Disk Drive,CD-RW/DVD Combo
6 USB 2.0 Ports (2 frontside)
1-yr limited warranty with onsite service11
THINK EXPRESS MODEL$839 (P/N 8131D3U)
ThinkCentre A51Tower
PCI Express technology.
SYSTEM FEATURESIntel® Celeron® D Processor 331 (2.66GHz)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home
256MB DDR2 memory at 533MHz
40GB 7200 rpm serial Hard Disk Drive,CD-ROM Drive
6 USB 2.0 Ports (2 frontside)
1-yr limited warranty with onsite service11
THINK EXPRESS MODEL $439 (P/N 8131AKU)
ThinkCentre A51Tower
PCI Express technology.
SYSTEM FEATURESIntel® Pentium® 4 Processor 531 withHT Technology (3GHz)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
256MB DDR2 memory at 533MHz
40GB 7200 rpm Serial ATA Hard Disk Drive,CD-ROM Drive
6 USB 2.0 Ports (2 frontside)
1-yr limited warranty with onsite service11
THINK EXPRESS MODEL$649 (P/N 81313BU)
ThinkCentre A51(monitor not included)
ThinkCentre A51
Ultra small form factor.
SYSTEM FEATURESIntel® Pentium® 4 Processor 531 with HT Technology (3GHz)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
256MB DDR2 memory at 533MHz
40GB 7200 rpm Serial ATA Hard Disk Drive,CD-ROM Drive
6 USB 2.0 Ports (2 frontside)
1-yr limited warranty with onsite service11
THINK EXPRESS MODEL$749 (P/N 810524U)
ThinkPlus USB Fingerprint ReaderIntegrated fingerprint swipe sensor puts yourpasswords at the tip of your fingers.
$69 (P/N 73P4774)
ThinkCentre A51(monitor not included)
ThinkCentre A51(monitor not included)
ThinkVision C400 Wireless ProjectorProjects a bright, qualityimage for professional presen-tations using 802.11b/gwireless technology.
$2500 (P/N 0039WA1)
15'' ThinkVision L151p MonitorWith an ultra-thin frame design,this monitor is ideal for use inmulti-monitor environments.
$279 (P/N 9205HB2)
data service requires separate agreement with Verizon; service and airtime charges will apply. Roaming charges may also apply. Verizon, not Lenovo, is solely responsible for service. Service not available in all areas; purchaser is responsible for verifying that service is available forthe intended location before purchasing a computer equipped with WAN card. For complete details, visit http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/mobileoptions/broadband/serviceavailability.jsp?opener=b2b. (14) Based on manufacturer’s published figures or CNET.com and results forthe top 10 vendors in second quarter 2005 sales for all notebooks including standard and widescreen as reported by IDC. (15) Verizon Service Speed: Speed averages 400-700 Kbps based on network tests with 5 MB FTP data files, without compression. Speed declines withdistance from cell site and is limited to 1.54 Mbps at certain cell sites with backhaul limitations. Number of users on the Verizon Wireless data network may also affect maximum possible speed. Average upload speeds expected to be between 60-80 Kbps. Speed claim based onnetwork tests with 5 MP FTP data files, without compression. Actual speeds and coverage may vary. Trademarks: The following are trademarks of Lenovo: ThinkPad, ThinkCentre and UltraConnect. IBM and the IBM logo are registered trademarks of IBM and are used under license.Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Intel, Intel logo, Intel Inside, Intel Inside logo, Intel Centrino, Intel Centrino logo, Celeron, Intel Xeon, Intel SpeedStep, Itanium, and Pentium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or itssubsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Other company, product and service names may be trademarks or service marks of other companies. ©2005 Lenovo. All rights reserved.Visit www.lenovo.com/safecomputing periodically for the latest information on safe and effective computing.
From industry heavyweights to nimblebantamweights, everyone’s a contender for this year’s prize for innovation.
22 ANNUALAWARDS TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE
ndF
OR
Plus we recap the highlights of the year’s breakthrough technologies and products.
Once a year, we scout the ranks of technology players for the people, products, and innova-tions that did the most to advance our industry in the previous 12 months. Our editorial and lab staffs nominate breakthrough develop-
ments and the people behind them, and we get together (vir-tually) to deliberate (oh, how we deliberate), discuss (ditto), and fi nally, vote, to determine which products, technologies, and individuals were the champs and which were simply the sparring partners.
In this story, we recap the most infl uential tech develop-ments of the past year in nine product categories. We look not only at the technical excellence winners but at the trends that influ-
enced them and the products against which they competed. Maybe you’d have guessed that the Apple iPod nano would win for outstanding design, but you might not have thought of the WowWee Roboraptor, the NEC WT610 projector, or any of the half-a-dozen other contenders. The standouts this year, from dual-core microprocessors and high-defi nition camcorders to rockin’ Web sites and inventive entertain-ment gadgets, truly impressed us.
We never know where innovation is going to come from, but the debates we had as we put this story together helped put the past year into perspective for us as much as for our readers. Visit us on the Web at go.pcmag.com/techex2005 to
let us know what you think of our selec-tions and what you would have chosen.
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 102
From the editors of PC Magazine
Illustration by Joe Zeff
C OV E R S T O R Y
104 PCs & Components
105 Displays
106 Mobile Devices & Components
107 Digital Imaging
108 Digital Music
110 Web Applications
111 Software & Development Tools
112 Design
129 Entertainment
130 People of the Year, Special Recognition
131 Lifetime Achievement
I N T HI S S TORY
COMPUTERS GOT THEIR BIGGEST boost in 2005 from their brains: micro-processors. The first with dual cores arrived in the spring and have rapidly become key parts of the best systems. In-
tel made waves with its Pentium D, Xeon,
and Pentium Extreme Edition 840 dual-
core chips, as did AMD—our winner in this category—with its Opteron work-
station/server dual-core technology and Athlon 64 X2 dual-core CPU for desktops. (See sidebar.)
IT TAKES TWO
A dual-core chip has two CPUs, boosting performance and drawing less power at elevated clock speeds than a combina-tion of single-core processors. Dual-core chips deftly run multiple applications at once, and their multithreading profi -ciency really shines with multithreaded applications such as Adobe Photoshop. Dual-core laptops are slated for 2006, when the AMD Athlon XP-M and Taylor
will appear, along with the Intel Con-
roe and Merom dual-cores for mobile devices. Quad-core chips will eclipse dual-core in the years to come—Intel has more than ten quad-core chips in the works—but dual-core’s success this year seals the deal for these advancements.
Gaming machines also got a shot of adrenaline in 2005 from the multi-threading and other capabilities of dual-core chips. We clocked some great benchmark-test times in our labs on sys-tems such as the Athlon X2-based Falcon
Northwest Mach V. Many of the growing fl eet of systems aimed at multimedia enthusiasts got dual-core boosts as well. The Dell Dimension 9100, based on Pentium D 840 dual-core tech-nology, is a fi ne example of one that can speed through tasks such as encoding video while running antivirus software in the background.
BEYOND THE CPU
Among PC components, special mention goes to the Creative X-Fi
Xtreme Fidelity audio processor,
found on the Sound Blaster line of sound cards. This is the most sophisticated single-chip audio architecture ever, with over 51.1 million transistors. It’s great at delivering audio effects in games. We were also impressed with nVidia’s SLI technology,
which lets PCs use two graph-ics cards in tandem for unpar-alleled graphics performance. SLI was previously restricted to high-end gaming machines but is rapidly moving downstream.
Gamers and graphics pros were rewarded with nVidia Ge-
Force 7800 GTX boards, which take advantage of an ultrafast graphics processing unit (GPU). The GPU features nVidia’s newly improved Shader Model 3 architecture. But speed
isn’t all 7800 GTX cards have going; they also offer Transparency Anti-Alias-ing, which improves im-age quality in scenes with many transparent shades. To optimize its hardware, nVidia modeled the op-erations of 1,300 common shaders f rom popu la r games. The cards have 24 pixel-shader pipelines, compared with the previ-ous generation’s 16. The combination of pumped-up speed and slicker graphics handling makes gaming ul-trarealistic.
Improvements to Microsoft’s Win-dows Media Center systems helped them gain traction. Media Center PCs can now fl exibly stream content to PCs and gadgets throughout your home, and they also got better at connecting to ex-isting hardware. Muscle systems like the HP z555 Digital Entertainment Cen-
ter can easily replace the DVD player, CD changer, FM tuner, and DVR in your family room. Media Center systems’ ability to reach out has also extended, for many models, to HDTV tuners and camera and iPod docking ports. We like the liquid cooling technology showing up in some Media Center PCs, too.
With multicore chips in their infancy and PCs morphing into full-fl edged en-tertainment systems, 2006 is likely to be a year of even more exciting develop-ments.—Sebastian Rupley
PCS & COMPONENTSCan you say “dual-core microprocessors” two times fast?
In the race to deliver dual-core processor technolo-gies, Intel was fi rst out of the blocks with a desktop CPU, but AMD quickly responded with dual-core Opteron chips for worksta-
tions and servers followed by the Athlon 64 X2 for desktops. Servers and workstations make extensive use of concurrent processing, so Opteron was a huge win for AMD.
The Athlon 64 X2 and Opteron were conceived as dual-core, with high-speed connections built in. Intel’s chips weren’t and can suffer from bottlenecking. AMD’s System Request Interface and Crossbar Switch technologies let cores communicate at higher speeds, and on-chip memory controllers connect to memory directly, so memory traffi c doesn’t rely on a chipset.
Dual-core technology will make a bigger splash when next-generation multithreaded software applications and Microsoft’s Win-dows Vista arrive in 2006. We commend AMD for designing intelligent dual-core chip tech-nologies that are making big improvements in computing today and setting the stage for even greater improvements in the future.—SR
AMD’s dual-core chips let both onboard CPUs communicate with each other at high speeds.
AMD’s Dual-Core
CPU 0
System request queue
Crossbar
1MB L2 cache
Memory/DRAM controller
1MB L2 cache
32 Gbps per link running at 1 GHz (full duplex)
Sour
ce: A
MD
6.4 GBps using DDR 400 memory
CPU 1
64KB I-cache 64KB D-cache 64KB I-cache 64KB D-cache
72-bit
HTlink 0
HTlink 1
HTlink 2
72-bit
AMD’s Dual-Core Technology
W I NN E R
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 104
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2005 WAS THE YEAR OF THE LCD. DLPs and plasma TVs improved, and new technologies are on the horizon, but LCDs—liquid crystal displays—took enormous steps forward in the past year, growing to dominate the PC world and
Twelve months ago, a 24-inch LCD flat-panel display would have set you back $1,500. Today, Dell sells good ones for $899. A 19-inch flat-panel sells for around $350, 17-inch models for a measly $250, and 15-inchers are bundled with even bottom-of-the-line desktop PCs. LCDs are so cheap, CRTs are disappear-ing. In October, Sony stopped producing its famous Trinitron CRTs.
The real excitement is found at the LCD market’s high end. Sharp recently introduced a 65-inch LCD television, the Sharp LC-65D90U Aquos, that offers 1,920-by-1,080 resolution and an 800-to-1 contrast ratio. Samsung demonstrated an 82-inch fl at-panel LCD, the product of a new seventh-generation manufactur-ing plant. LG.Philips LCD is also open-ing a seventh-generation plant.
Meanwhile, NEC introduced the fi rst LCD using LEDs for backlighting, the SpectraView LCD2180WG. Freed from fluorescent tubes, such displays warm up faster, last longer, and can be thinner as well. BrightSide offers similar dis-plays, and Sharp has announced an LED- backlit display with an amazing claimed contrast ratio—a million to one.
We also saw improvements to rear-projection LCD TVs—a cheaper option in which a backlight passes through a transparent LCD panel and falls onto the back of a separate screen.
Brillian developed a rear-projection LCD that uses liquid crystal on silicon, or LCoS, technology. LCoS LCDs provide
brighter, higher-contrast im-ages. The Brillian 6501mPB is a winner in the displays category. (See sidebar.) This 65-inch rear projection TV has three separate LCoS panels, each processing a single primary color, eliminat-ing the rainbow artifacts some-times seen on displays that use DLP (Digital Light Processing), a competing technology that re-fl ects light off a matrix of micro-scopic mirrors.
LCoS is also driving front-projection displays, including the Canon Realis SX50. This business projector is wonder-fully portable, yet it produces bright, high-quality images. It’s a winner in this category, too. (See sidebar.)
Of course, LCDs weren’t the only eye-catchers in the past year. Although they are much more attrac-tive for smaller screens, at the high end plasma still reigns supreme, es-pecially for those who watch sporting events and other high-motion video. This fall, Sam-sung unveiled a plasma prototype measuring 102—yes, 102—inches. And Panasonic just introduced the first 50-inch plasma with 1,920-by-1,080 resolu-tion, the Panasonic TH-50PX500.
AFTER THE LCD
Mitsubishi recently announced a palm-size DLP device called the Pocket-
Projector. Using color LEDs rather than a spinning wheel of color fi lters, it’s far
more durable and less expensive than traditional projectors, yet still provides a high-quality 800-by-600 image.
We’ll also soon see the arrival of two brand-new display technologies. Toshi-ba and Canon recently demonstrated a technology called SED (surface-conduc-tion electron-emitter display), which could provide CRT-like image quality from extremely thin fl at panels. Mean-while, Kodak and Samsung, are showing big-screen OLED displays that don’t re-quire a backlight.
There’s much afoot in the display, TV, and projector market, but LCDs took the headlines in 2005.—Cade Metz
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DISPLAYSLiquid crystals learn some impressive new tricks.
OUR CONTRIBUTORS: Sebastian Rupley is a senior editor. Cade Metz is senior writer. Davis D. Janowski is a lead analyst, and Kyle Monson is a section editor. Executive editor Carol L. Gonsher and features editor Sean Carroll were in charge of this story.
In the world of displays, televisions, and projectors, we recognize two products, built on the same ground-breaking technology. This year, the Brillian 6501mPB redefi ned the art of rear-
projection television, and the Canon Realis SX50 took front-projection to new heights. At the heart of each, you’ll fi nd something called liquid crystal on silicon, or LCoS, a new alter-native to DLP (Digital Light Processing) and classic LCD technologies. Whereas traditional LCDs use amorphous silicon, LCoS displays are manufactured on pure silicon wafers. Transis-tors are smaller and closer together, allowing for a much brighter, higher-contrast image.
Equipped with a three-panel LCoS light engine—one panel for each primary color—the Brillian 6501mPB shows none of the rainbow artifacts DLP projectors can, and its response
time is better than almost any LCD on the market. In much the same way, Canon’s new LCoS projector, the Realis SX50, affords the kind of bright, high-quality image you’d never expect from such a compact device (It measures 3.8 by 11.3 by 11.2 inches and weighs 8.6 pounds). LCoS has been
around for ages, but thanks to products like the Brillian and the Realis, it’s fi nally
reached maturity.—CM
For news, reviews, and opinions about the companies and products mentioned here, visit us on the Web at www.pcmag.com.
More on the Web
W I NN E R S
CanonRealis SX50 &Brillian 6501mPB
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 105
T E C H N I C A L E X C E L L E N C E A W A R D S
MOBILE DEVICES TOOK SEVERAL leaps forward in 2005—not only in Eu-rope and Asia, but also in the U.S.
EV-DO GETS GOING
In the U.S., the biggest story was the ar-rival of 3G (third-generation) cellular networks, which are old news elsewhere in the world. AT&T launched a limited U.S. service in 2004, but 3G’s broadband-like speeds didn’t take off in the U.S. until Verizon unveiled its EV-DO network last January. Available in major metropolitan areas, Verizon EV-DO, aka BroadbandAc-cess, provides high-speed connections to notebooks, cell phones, and PDAs.
Cell-phone manufacturers have yet to tap the network’s true potential, but ac-cess cards like the Kyocera KPC650 work wonders in handhelds and laptops. In our tests, the Kyocera reached speeds of over 760 kilobits per second, suitable for Web surfi ng and even downloading video.
Cingular and T-Mobile offer the EDGE network; it’s known as a 2.5G network and is about a fi fth the speed of EV-DO, but it currently has better coverage. Fi-nally, Cingular plans to bring its UMTS network online by the end of 2005. This should be somewhere between EV-DO and EDGE in speed and will be available in only a few cities, initially.
The fi rst digital TV–ready cell phone was introduced in Korea. Analog televi-sion was already available on Japanese phones, but LG Electronics and Samsung
were the fi rst to go digital. Soon after, Nokia and Siemens fol-lowed suit in Europe.
The U.S. also saw the debut of 2-megapixel camera phones: the Sony Ericsson Walkman W800i and the Samsung SPH-A800.
Meanwhile, LG introduced the VX8000, the first U.S. camera phone with integrated CCD, add-ing a new sharpness and clarity to phone pics. Yes, there are 7MP camera phones in Asia, but in America, these 1.3MP and 2MP cameras were a big step forward.
Sony u nvei led t he f i rs t music phone with high-quality sound: the Sony Ericsson Walk-
man W800i. And Motorola in-troduced the first to connect seamlessly with Apple’s iTunes service: the Motorola ROKR. Un-fortunately, the ROKR is other-wise unimpressive.
Mobile devices took a leap forward in design, with the Motorola RAZR V3. For more on this super-slim handset, see our Design story (page 112). Despite a ridiculously thin profile, the RAZR offers a Bluetooth adapt-er for a wireless headset. This was the year Bluetooth reached the mainstream, and Qualcomm has finally supplied enough Bluetooth chips to satisfy consumers.
We’re on the cusp of the era that will see GPS- enabled chipsets in a l l mobile devices. GPS chip manufacturer SiRF, our Tech n ic a l E xcel lence winner, released its sec-ond-generation SiRFstarIII chipsets, which are small-er than ever, require less power, and attain levels of signal sensitivity previ-ously unheard of in mobile devices. (See sidebar.) Few products use the chips—the Garmin nüvi 350 is the only one we’ve reviewed—but we expect more soon.
PDA POWER
Dell introduced the fi rst PDA with hard-ware-based graphics acceleration: the Dell Axim X50v. Equipped with the Intel
2700G and its 16MB of dedicated graph-ics memory, the X50v delivers games and videos with desktop-like quality. Similar chips arrived from ATI and nVidia. And in Korea, LG introduced a cell phone with hardware video acceleration.
Palm launched the palmOne LifeDrive,
a PDA with a 4GB hard drive. Sharp had already introduced a hard drive–equipped handheld in Japan, but the LifeDrive was the fi rst in the U.S.
EV-DO is far from blanketing the country, and even the best cell phones and PDAs are far from the do-it-all mini-computers of our dreams. Still, 2005 brought us a few steps closer.—CM
Sprint expects that its EV-DO broadband Internet service will reach 150 million people by the end of 2005. Verizon is building its own network.
Sprint’s Broadband Wireless Service
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Your son’s out late, not an-swering his cell phone. You can start calling hospitals and police stations, or you can hit the Web, log on to your cell-phone carrier’s site, and locate your AWOL
offspring even inside a friend’s home. The tiny, low-power, ultrasensitive SiRF
GSC3f GPS chipset in your tardy offspring’s cell phone provides accurate location information, even in the urban canyons of big cities. Potential uses for the technology abound. The chipset can integrate with all sorts of portable gadgets and can be embedded in valuable property, giv-ing a practical way of tracking everything from a sports car to truck fl eets.
The SiRFstarIII architecture de-buted in 2004, but products using it have just begun appearing. We recently reviewed the Garmin nüvi 350, which uses the chipset, and were impressed with its sensitivity. Several innova-tions make the chipset technically extraordinary, including an integrated assisted-GPS digital baseband processor, a ra-dio-frequency front end, and 4 megabits of fl ash memory in a single 7mm by 10mm package that draws only 13 mA. In addition, the chipset’s de-sign lets manufacturers easily drop this ready-made solution into an assortment of gadgets. This is one to watch.—Davis D. Janowski
W I NN E R
SiRF GPS Chipsets
MOBILE DEVICES & COMPONENTSGotta-have phones for music, camera, and TV.
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 106
CAMERAS GAVE US MORE megapix-els in 2005, and camcorders delivered sharper video. Both deepened their con-vergence with desktop PCs, printers, and Web services. Also, transferring pictures and videos from one place to another is getting easier. Equipped with PC-like hardware, digital imaging devices are
In 2004, the leading digital cameras made the giant leap from 5 to 8 megapix-els. Last year’s jump was more modest. Fuji introduced a pair of 9MP cameras, the Fujifilm FinePix S9000 and E900,
and Sony debuted the 10.3MP Cyber-
shot DSC-R1—none are SLR (single-lens refl ex) cameras, though. As we went to press, Nikon’s new digital SLR (D-SLR), the 10.2MP Nikon D200, was yet to ship.
Wireless Wonders
The real improvements came from the lower end of the market. Three cameras, the Kodak EasyShare-One and the Nikon
Coolpix P1 and P2, introduced integrated 802.11 wireless networking, letting you easily move pictures from cameras to printers, PCs, and Web sites.
The Nikons shipped first, but the Kodak, with its integrated LCD touch screen, is a more intriguing design. You can access online photo-sharing ac-counts from the camera, uploading pic-tures and downloading thumbnails. You can easily e-mail thumbnails (with links to online albums), send images to your desktop PC, or print.
Manufacturers have long of-fered wireless accessories for D-SLRs, but these were the fi rst digital cameras with true inte-grated wireless. It’s a pity they don’t take the best pictures, but more models are coming.
The Kodak was just one of many new cameras to tie straight into PC printers using either wireless or wired con-nections. Most notably, the market’s fourth wireless cam-era, the Canon PowerShot SD430
Digital Elph, lets you instantly send pictures to Canon Selphy and Pixma PictBridge printers. Once the SD430 connects to your wireless network, you can print with the touch of a button. Transmitting a photo takes 6 seconds, and printing requires less than a minute.
Editing software is a crucial component of digital imaging, and the most important new application was Adobe Photo-
shop CS2, the latest version of the ubiquitous image-editing tool. The software is wonder-fully adept at handling RAW image formats and comes with Adobe Bridge, a powerful new image browser for managing and processing photos. We also love Flickr, a big leap forward for photo sharing. The service creates an online
community of photo sharers and fi nally brings photo tag-ging into the mainstream. And Apple has released Aperture, a post-process-ing app for pros and ama-teurs. The software is great at handling RAW files and has tons of tools, including a virtual light table that lets you group pictures together the way you would on a real light table, but with all kinds of capabilities.
Unreal Home Videos
On the camcorder scene, one product stood out far
above the rest: the Sony HDR-HC1 HDV
1080i Handycam, our winner. (See side-bar.) It provides high-definition video unlike anything we’ve seen from a per-sonal camcorder. In one respect, how-ever, it’s behind the times: it records to MiniDV tape. In fact, the other big ad-vance was the growing number of cam-corders that record to high-capacity SD cards—making the transfer of video to PCs easier—or to hard drives, saving the cost of removable media.
Panasonic leads on the SD side, with the Panasonic SDR-S100 SD Camcorder. JVC was the pioneer on the hard drive side, unveiling the JVC Everio GZ-MG30U, which, despite its integrated 30GB hard drive, weighs a mere 13 ounces.
More megapixels is a good thing. But true innovation is even better.—CM
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Kodak’s EasyShare-One lets users transmit pictures to PCs and printers wirelessly. You can e-mail thumbnails linked to online albums, send pictures to your desktop, or print them on a networked printer.
Snap It, Zap It
Kodak EasyShare-One
Home PC
Photo Printer
Wi-Fi Signal
The gap between Scors-ese and the average Joe is shrinking. The Sony HDR-HC1 HDV 1080i Handycam is the fi rst high-def cam-corder for ordinary con-sumers. It may cost twice
as much as a typical camcorder, but its video is breathtaking. Previous HD camcorders, includ-ing the Sony HDR-FX1, were aimed at pros and rabid hobbyists, and cost over $3,000. The HC1 cuts that by more than a third but still delivers professional video quality. The enormous Carl Zeiss lens and 1/3-inch CMOS sensor offer superb dynamic range and realistic color, with few artifacts or aberrations. The only draw-back: There’s no easy way to burn movies to portable media until high-def DVDs arrive.
In testing, the HC1 managed 750 lines of resolution, easily surpassing the 300 to 400 of other camcorders. The HC1 switches effort-lessly from outdoor settings to those for dimly lit rooms. And it’s adept at capturing details, right down to the ripples on the surface of a swimming pool.
Don’t look back, Martin. they’re gaining on you.—CM
W I NN E R
Sony HDR-HC1 HDV 1080i HandycamDIGITAL IMAGING
Innovation in how we capture and handle our images.
T E C H N I C A L E X C E L L E N C E A W A R D S
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 107
LESS WAS MORE LAST YEAR IN por-table music and media gadgets. The de-sign and capacity of digital music players seriously impressed us, and the concept of video in your pocket came of age. With overhauls to MP3 players and Apple’s family of iPods, carrying your entire mu-sic library with you became much easier.
NANO’S TECHNOLOGY
Apple scored a hit with its iPod shuffl e player, but the random-play feature wasn’t really new. For serious innova-tion, though, the Apple iPod nano stood out with its svelte design and its 4GB of fl ash memory—enough for 1,000 songs, which you can browse on the LCD (a component the shuffl e lacks). The nano is thinner than a No. 2 pencil and nar-rower than a credit card. This player, unlike many bulkier models, can be discreetly tucked away. Hold it, and you have to marvel.
Apple didn’t entirely rule the music-player scene. The MobiBLU DAH-1500i
MP3 player is a tiny square box about half the size of a double-A battery, but it stores 1GB of songs in flash memory and lets you listen to and record radio. It also has a small display, unlike the iPod shuffl e, which has none. The design is so smart that the headphone jack triples as a USB port and charging jack.
Among other technical innovations in digital music, the Pioneer XW-HT1 wire-less rear-channel speaker proves how easily you can get high-quality audio wirelessly, and the Logitech Wireless
Headphones for MP3 use Bluetooth tech-nology to untether you. Apple’s Garage-
Band 2 software introduced an advanced interface for compos-ing and playing along with mu-sic, and the breakout M-Audio
iControl gives you a GarageBand mixer/controller.
Apple’s iTunes online music store continues its streak, but subscription services had the edge in innovation. Microsoft’s
Janus technology, pioneered by Napster To Go, Rhapsody, and Yahoo! Music Unlimited, is our winner here. (See sidebar.)
TV to Go
Portable video wasn’t new in 2005, but viewing it was a hassle previously, and designs had a long way to go. That changed in a big way last year. The stand-outs here are the Apple’s video-
capable iPod and the Creative
Zen Vision, which are both great at juggling audio and video.
The video-capable iPod is sig-nifi cantly thinner than previous iPods. After the company made breakthrough deals to offer Dis-ney television shows, including Desperate Housewives, as well as thousands of music videos on its iTunes service, it followed up with the fi rst fast and easy way to buy, load, and watch compel-ling video programming on the go.
Downloading a commercial-free, one-hour TV show requires no transcoding, and the transfer takes 10 to 20 minutes depending on your connection speed.
Apple didn’t cut corners with the quality of the video. Sure, it’s displayed on a 2.5-inch screen, but it’s great-looking, 320- by 240-pixel, MPEG-4 and H.264 video. The content is protected by Apple’s Fair-
Play digital rights management technol-ogy.
Although getting compelling porta-ble video with the Creative Zen Vision player isn’t as easy, the player has a beau-tiful 3.7-inch, 640- by 480-pixel screen that produces 262,144 colors. What’s more, it has a 30GB hard drive, and its compatibility with TiVoToGo for viewing TiVo video is a big step forward.
No doubt the momentum in digital music and portable video technology will quicken next year. Watch for more mobile music and video on your portable player soon.—SR
Microsoft may have been overly ambitious in dubbing the Janus DRM scheme PlaysForSure—the service is anything but sure. Still, despite the terrible execu-tion, this is one of the most
radical new ideas in DRM technology. This digital rights management model,
fi rst unveiled in the Napster To Go subscription music service, charges a fl at monthly fee for unlimited music downloads. You keep all the music you want as long as you pay the monthly fee (though you can’t burn tunes without pay-ing 99 cents per track). The technology has since been picked up by Rhapsody and Yahoo! Music Unlimited, and the list of compatible devices has ballooned to include a large pile of MP3 players along with phones, PDAs, and portable media players.
The subscription plan allows for incredible freedom and music discovery, since you’re not paying for music on a per-track basis. Still, try-ing to navigate the sometimes rocky relation-ship between the DRM, the music service, and your “compatible” player can be incredibly frustrating. But although serious bugs need to be worked out, Microsoft Janus technology and Napster To Go challenge the way we think about digital music.—Kyle Monson
W I NN E R
Microsoft’s Janus technology
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 108
T E C H N I C A L E X C E L L E N C E A W A R D S
DIGITAL MUSICOnline music services and tiny players turn up the volume.
HIT PARADE: MUSIC PLAYERS HAVE EVOLVED FROM CLUNKY TO CUBIST.
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WEB APPLICATIONS Blogs, podcasts, and photo sharing hit their stride.
IN 2005, THE INTERNET’S essentially democratic nature reasserted itself in a big way. Blogs, podcasts, photo-sharing sites, RSS aggregators, and videocasts of all kinds provided new ways to share and collect information and entertainment offerings via the Web. Way back in 1995, when the commercial Web was young, Yahoo! cofounder Jerry Yang said “Web site operators won’t create most of the content on the Internet—users will,” and 2005 saw that prediction borne out.
Yahoo! has assembled a great collec-tion of the tools, and wins in this space. (See the sidebar). Sites such as myspaces
.com, LiveJournal, MSN Spaces, and Yahoo!
360 have become popular vehicles for op-erating blogs, sharing photos, and more. These sites offer tools and templates for sharing information and media effi cient-ly and with panache. Grouper has an in-novative application for sharing photos, videos, and more with friends and family, where the size of groups is limited so ac-tions like streaming music among mem-bers don’t violate copyright laws.
Services such as Streamload let you securely store gigabytes of photos, vid-eos, music, and other files on the Web, accessible from any browser, for under $10 a month—a leap forward for the con-cept of online storage repositories.
PIX AND FLIX
The rise of digital photography to as-cendancy is well under way, and last year saw many imaginative offerings
at online digital photo manage-ment and sharing sites. Sites such as Club Photo and Apple’s .Mac added features and gained ever-growing collections of digital shots. But special men-tion has to go to Flickr, acquired by Yahoo! in 2005.
Flickr isn’t your average pho-to-sharing service. It’s built to optimize the feeling of commu-nity. You can choose either to share photos privately or to par-ticipate in a rich online commu-nity of photo sharers. The site’s method of letting you easily tag photos for searches later is es-pecially innovative and simple, and gets ever more useful as you store more images.
Sites that let you search for video, such as blinkx and Yahoo!
Video Search, offered much more f lexibility and reached out to more content, and TV offerings on the Web became more demo-cratic and fl exible, too. For exam-ple, at TVexe.com you can watch hundreds of global channels for free, in case you just can’t miss, say, that soccer game in Italy.
POWER PODCASTING
If you thought the economics of running a broadcasting op-eration seemed daunting, think again. The enormous success of Apple’s nearly
ubiquitous iPod digital music players spilled over into new kinds of appli-cations, and that ’s how podcasting got its wings. Podcasts—audio broad-casts you can download from the Web and play on your music player—have appeared for an enormous-ly varied set of topics.
You can listen to com-edy, debates, technology discussions, and more, via podcasts offered by ama-teurs and professionals alike. Podcast aggregation sites such as Apple’s iTunes
and Yahoo! Podcasts are loaded with nif-ty features that let you search for topics rated by like-minded listeners.
The popularity of RSS—Really Simple Syndication—gave rise to a new fl eet of aggregation sites, too. NewsGator, RSS
on My Yahoo!, Google Reader, Pluck, andOnfolio are all very efficient at giving you alerts when content that interests you appears on Web sites and blogs. And blogging services like LiveJournal can even incorporate RSS feeds. Meanwhile, shared searching was another new chap-ter in this year’s tale of Web democracy. Del.ici.ous, Shadows, MyWeb, and other sites help you tag online content, book-mark it, and share it with others.
Without a doubt, innovation in Web applications in 2005 focused on fi nding a place and a voice for everyone.—SR
Web applications saw new tools coming from several directions in 2005, but for assembling a cutting-edge collection of Web-related tools, Yahoo! is our winner. In particular, it offers many
best-of-breed applications for sharing informa-tion, photos, and media.
Flickr, which Yahoo! acquired last year, has a fun, communal atmosphere. You can choose either to share photos privately among friends and family or participate in online groups of photo sharers that include people you don’t know. A fantastic photo-tagging feature makes searching easy, and its utility becomes more evident as you store more photos.
My Web, a subset of Yahoo! Search, does a great job of letting you save and tag Web pages and connect to others to see what they’re shar-ing and tagging. And while people have viewed news headlines on Yahoo!’s home page for years, the RSS to My Yahoo! service goes several steps beyond, letting you receive customized, syndicated, clickable headlines throughout the day. In addition, Yahoo! Mail has taken major steps forward—especially with its interface—since the company’s purchase of Oddpost.
Thanks to a big basket of imaginative ser-vices, Yahoo! gets the nod.—SR
Thanks in large part to its inclusion in Apple's iTunes 4.9, podcasting caught on in a big way this year. And market researchers don't see demand fizzling out anytime soon; the number of podcast listeners is expected to increase by 10 million each year.
Podcasting: For the People, by the People
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PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 110
WEB-BASED APPLICATIONS ARE going like gangbusters, but good old-fashioned desktop and server software products still have plenty of life in them. In fact, the growing inf luence of the open-source movement sparked an un-usual level of innovation in 2005.
The best example: Mozilla’s Firefox
browser, one of this year’s winners. (See sidebar). Tabbed browsing, an RSS reader, and smart keywords are among the many innovations that brought new life to the formerly moribund browser space.
OPEN SOURCE RULES
The infl uence of Firefox and the newly revived open-source community is only beginning to be felt. We’ve seen a startup called Flock debut a beta version of its own Mozilla-based open-source browser, introducing what it calls “so-cial Web browsing.” Integrated with various online services, Flock encour-ages the free exchange of information among browsers. It dovetails with the del.icio.us online service, letting you easily share browser favorites and view them remotely. Flock also hooks into the innovative photo-sharing service Flickr.
Another startup, Zimbra, recently rolled out an open-source alternative to Exchange, Microsoft’s server platform. Like Exchange, Zimbra handles e-mail, contacts, and group calendars, but it communicates with various clients via XML and creates relatively light net-work traffi c.
Many old-school software companies are beginning to build applications around open-source code. Sun offers the best example, with its OpenOffice suite of business applications and its OpenSolaris server OS. Even Microsoft is sharing some code with outside developers. And in an effort to compete with this groundswell of open-source software, companies have more incentive to innovate.
On the proprietary side of the fence, we’re impressed with Adobe Creative Suite 2, an as-tounding collection of graphics tools, including Photoshop, Illus-trator, InDesign, GoLive, and Acrobat 7.0 Professional. It has too many new features to list, but our favorite is Illustrator’s Live Trace, which transforms bitmap images into line art, blurring the distinction between pixels and vectors. When you’re working with a color photo, for instance, Live Trace can replace the original colors with those in a predefi ned swatch library.
WEB VIDEO MAKERS
Then there’s Macromedia Stu-
dio 8, a suite of apps for Web designers and other developers that includes Dreamweaver, Flash Pro-fessional, Fireworks, Contribute, and
FlashPaper. Most notably, Studio now lets you encode professional-quality videos in Flash format. Thanks to an alpha channel, you can even create interactive movies, mixing video with all sorts of nifty effects.
The past year was great for graphics apps. We love Serious Magic’s Ovation,
which transforms ordi-nary PowerPoint slides into eye-catching presen-tations. You can add video, moving backgrounds, high- resolution text, and more—in a matter of seconds.
In the world of CRM (customer re-lationship management), we were im-pressed by Salesforce.com’s Appforce,
which is being renamed AppExchange.
This suite lets you easily build, custom-ize, and deploy your own on-demand business applications—without any heavy-duty programming experience.
Looking to fundamentally change the way you use PCs? Consider Altiris’s Soft-
ware Virtualization Solution, or SVS, our cowinner in this category. (See sidebar.) Converting PC applications into self-contained units called virtual software packages, SVS lets you easily install, ac-tivate, deactivate, and reinstall them.
Web applications may get the lion’s share of the attention these days, but they aren’t the only software tools push-ing the envelope.—CM
Mozilla’s Firefox Web browser, the new poster child for the open-source movement, wins our award as the most innovative piece of consumer soft-ware. Offering the sort of
inventive new tools missing from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer in recent years, Firefox did the unthinkable by grabbing almost 10 percent of the browser market in 2005. It popular-ized tabbed browsing, which lets you easily move from site to site within a single window. It brought RSS to the fore, letting you quickly browse online news feeds. And it introduced smart keywords to stream data instantly to the browser toolbar.
Meanwhile, Altiris’s Software Virtualiza-tion Solution could reshape the PC landscape at the IT level. Your applications run as virtual software packages, so if one app interferes with another, you can simply turn one off. Now you want to run that app? Turn it back on and switch the other off. A third app is damaged in some way? Reinstall it. All this is as easy as a mouse click. Your base Windows confi guration stays in pristine condition—forever. SVS im-pressed us enough to share the spotlight with Firefox. And that’s saying something.—CM
Altiris’s Software Visualization Solution creates a permanent virtual machine that lets you manage programs with ease while the original Windows configuration remains untouched.
Now You See It
Base environment
Virtual environment
Filter driver
User end view
W I NN E R S
Mozilla Firefox & Altiris SVS
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 111
T E C H N I C A L E X C E L L E N C E A W A R D S
SOFTWARE & DEV TOOLSThink desktop apps are on the way out? Think again.
DESIGNIt’s not just what you can do; it’s how cool you look doing it.
FOR PRODUCT DESIGN, 2005 WAS A banner year, with ultrasleek, gotta-have cell phones, music players, and PCs making their debuts. Sometimes a great design takes an existing technology to-ward new applications, and sometimes it provides an affi rmation—a sign of ar-rival—for an emerging product. We saw both this year.
MINI MARVELS
Small, thin, and mobile were the man-tras for consumer-electronics gadgets in 2005. The standouts—and recipients of our Technical Excellence Award—are the Motorola RAZR V3 cell phone and the Apple iPod nano. (See sidebar.) The MobiBLU DAH-1500i MP3 player also im-pressed us. Though hardly any larger than a sugar cube, this tiny MP3 player squeezes in a display and features you won’t find in iPods. (See page 108 for more on these full-scale achievements in little products.)
In laptop computers, where product designers wrestle with stringent size limitations, several products took the spotlight. The Sony VAIO VGN-U750P is a slick handheld Windows XP PC—remi-niscent of the older OQO model 01 note-book—weighing only 1.2 pounds and measuring just 6.6 by 4.3 by 1 inches. And the 2.7-pound Sony VAIO VGN-TX670P is a very slim ultraportable with a bounty of cutting-edge features, including a built-in DVD burner and Cingular’s 3G WAN radio for broadband access anywhere.
Advanced multimedia features for gaming and entertainment was one of the biggest notebook trends in 2005. On
that front, the Toshiba Qosmio
G25-AV513 is the best-designed multimedia notebook we’ve seen to date. It’s especially notewor-thy for its integration of A/V features. The G25 has the most A/V ports we’ve ever seen on a multimedia notebook, including connectors for a TV tuner, com-ponent video, and composite vid-eo in. It’s a Media Center system and can add muscle and fl exibil-ity to your entertainment center. The dashboard, which includes 11 multimedia keys, gives you instant access to TV and DVDs without even need-ing to boot up your system. For watching TV or a DVD, player controls, including Play/Pause, Stop, Rewind, and Fast Forward, are right there in front of you.
The Lenovo ThinkPad X41
Tablet and Fujitsu LifeBook
P1510 also deserve design kudos for being the lightest convertible notebook/tablets around, at 3.5 and 2.2 pounds, respectively. Until this year, convertibles were notoriously heavy. And although Tablet PCs haven’t had a seismic impact on the portable-computer market, many proponents are betting that their future lies in designs that can of-fer both the tablet and the standard note-book interfaces. These new convertibles prove that one easy-to-tote system can swing both ways.
UNDERWATER PIX
Some hardware designs were so far out of the box that they surprised even us. The Pentax OptioWP andOptioWPi point-and-shoot digital cameras made a splash with a special coat-ing that allows you to take them underwater to fi ve or six feet. Onboard video lets you shoot moving images while submerged—very cool. Other camera manu-
facturers have underwater cas-ings, but they’re awkward and pricey.
The WowWee Roboraptor
robot dinosaur was another design surprise, sending robot evolu-
tion forward by leaps and bounds. With its fi ve motors, multiple touch sensors, head- and snout-mounted infrared sen-sors, and stereo audio sensors, it’s able to move about and even inspect its envi-ronment and react to it.
Finally, NEC engineers scored an impressive design coup with the NEC
WT610 projector, which has a series of mirrors and optics that lets it sit just 2 feet from the wall yet still project a big image. Now you can place a projector in the front of the room and not worry about ceiling mounts or people walking in front of the light beam.
Imaginative engineering spanned a gamut of products last year, setting the stage for even more spectacular design breakthroughs in the future.—SR
We were so enamored of two of this year’s design innovations that we gave them both Technical Excellence Awards. The Apple iPod nano digital mu-sic player and the Motorola
RAZR V3 cell phone are miniaturiza-tion marvels.
The RAZR V3 was the coolest-looking cell phone of 2005 and has already inspired a fl ock of imita-tors. It’s only half an inch thick, and its slick anodized aluminum case redefi nes how a fl ip phone should look. When it’s closed you wouldn’t expect it to have a big, bright display, but it does.
And raised rubber keys make typing easy.
When Apple’s Steve Jobs fi rst introduced the iPod nano this past September, he made the point that it’s so small and thin, you could put it in one of those tiny pockets in a pair of jeans—and you can.
But, despite the nano’s size, it’s still a fully functional iPod that can store up to 1,000 songs. The nano is one of those rare go-anywhere products. Once you hold one, you’re bound to want it.—SR
W I NN E R S
Apple iPod nano &Motorola RAZR V3
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 112
T E C H N I C A L E X C E L L E N C E A W A R D S
MOBIBLU DAH-1500I
J U M P TO N E X T PA G E >>
ENTERTAINMENTJust in case you weren’t already watching enough TV…
NEVER BET AGAINST CONSUMERS’ hunger to have TV, music, and other entertainment anywhere, at any time. The past year saw boundaries broken in content delivery, with TV and video streamed over the Internet and to con-nected devices in ways that promise to change the way we think about viewing. The proliferation of broadband connec-tions and more powerful mobile gadgets fueled many technical advances in enter-tainment services and media hardware. Never-before-seen devices arrived, and TV and video began to fl ourish online.
One of the slickest entertainment technology innovations we tested was the Sling Media Slingbox, the recipient of our Technical Excellence Award. (See sidebar.) But the Slingbox isn’t alone in serving up inventive ways to stream mul-timedia content to you wherever you are, even if you’re carrying a device smaller than a laptop. Orb (a service from Orb Networks), Sony LocationFree TV, andTiVoToGo all broke new ground, too.
TV REMOTE
With Orb, you can watch or record live TV remotely from anywhere, but the service does much more than just that,
all for free. Say you’ve been busy ripping your CD collection to your PC’s hard drive, storing songs bought online, transfer-ring the images from your digi-tal camera, and recording TV shows at home. Orb Networks’ client software and service is a great solution for accessing all of that content remotely.
The company’s real innova-tion, though, was eliminating the need to worry about what format a fi le is stored in or what the de-vice at hand can play. A 10MB client applet that lives on a home PC resizes the file to match the device’s resolution and connec-tion speed and sends the content using a secure server.
IPTV—Internet Protocol television—is now an official buzzword, and communica-tions services such as Verizon and SBC are getting in on the act. Among innovative devices in this arena, Interactive Tele-vision Networks’ ITVN box is a standout. The ITVN service streams TV over your existing broadband connection rather than through cable or satellite, allowing ITVN to add inter-active features to many of its channels. We found the image quality indistinguishable from broad-cast shows. ITVN gives you a generous number of programming choices and serves up HDTV.
Akimbo also deserves a nod for its Akimbo Player and its service for Win-dows Media Center PCs, which let you choose shows from over 150 sources. The player plugs into your TV and broad-band connection to download content licensed from Internet providers—great for those who want special-interest pro-gramming. You can even stream video to an Xbox 360.
TV shows also appeared on cell phones this year. MobiTV, available through sev-eral wireless providers, serves up top channels to your phone, effi ciently send-ing large packets of video that are thor-oughly watchable on the small screen.
HOME HUBS
With advances in audio hubs like the Sonos ZonePlayer—a real engineering coup—you can now pump high-qual-ity music throughout your home, and synchronize it, too. This digital audio hub plays MP3 and WMA fi les, and the integrated 50-watt-per-channel stereo amplifi er lets you use traditional audio speakers. The hub has an Ethernet jack, a four-port 10/100-Mbps switch, and proprietary wireless technology, so only the fi rst hub you install has to be wired. After an amazingly simple setup, you can stroll from room to room playing songs by remote control.
The latest ultracool gadgets and ser-vices give us the ability to be ultra couch potatoes around the house, on the go, or around the globe.—SR
The name doesn’t do much for us, but the hardware itself does plenty. The Slingbox, from Sling Media, is a good-looking set-top box that compresses live TV, satellite, and DVR video
and transfers it from your home to a computer anywhere in the world. Now you can watch Desperate Housewives as it airs, even if you’re in an airport in Fiji without a TV. You don’t even have to have a PC running at home, although your remote PC must have SlingPlayer soft-ware installed.
The Slingbox connects to your TV set, cable box, DVR, or a PC equipped with a TV tuner and infrared remote. The box has a wired Ethernet jack as well as inputs and outputs for most kinds of video. An IR port controls power, chan-nels, and pausing on the TV, cable box, or DVR. You can have on-screen controls overlay the display or appear in an adjacent window.
We were impressed with the response time for executing remote commands such as changing channels and pausing record-ings—the tasks took only seconds—and video quality is excellent. The Slingbox is a well-de-signed, powerful way to get the TV and video you need (or, more likely, want) no matter where you are.—SR
Slingbox
W I NN E R
T E C H N I C A L E X C E L L E N C E A W A R D S
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 129
MOBITV ON A TREO 650
THE MOZILLA FOUNDATION HAS al-ways been offbeat. Its president, Mitch-ell Baker, goes by the title Chief Lizard Wrangler at www.mozilla.org. Innova-tion lies off the beaten track, too, and that’s what the foundation produced this year with its Firefox Web browser and its free e-mail app, Thunderbird.
Baker and organization chair Mitch Kapor head the foundation, but Firefox is the product of a core of 100 or so de-velopers and thousands of open-source contributors who did the unthinkable this year: They took signifi cant market share away from the dominant browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer.
As of November 2005, Firefox’s share of the browser market had grown to just over 8 percent, up from 3 percent the prior November. With 40 to 50 million active users and 12 million downloads a month, it is without a doubt one of the biggest software success stories of 2005.
Its innovations make Firefox one of the most successful open-source soft-
ware applications ever. Tabbed browsing lets you stay in one window as you move from site to site, and smart keywords let you stream infor-mation to your toolbar. Firefox also has a good RSS reader and an ex-cellent pop-up ad block-er, and it is targeted by hackers less frequently than Internet Explorer. And Firefox won’t run ActiveX controls, which are frequently exploited by hackers.
The Mozilla Foun-dation, which began in 2003 with support from America On-line’s Netscape division, provides legal, fi nancial, and other services for ongoing open-source software projects.
For bringing competition back to browsers when many had written off the
possibility, Mitch Kapor, Mitchell Baker, the lead developers behind Firefox—in-cluding Brendan Eich, Boris Zbarsky, Mike Conner, and Robert O’Callahan—and everyone at the Mozilla Foundation earn our People of the Year award.—SR
THE EDITORS, WRITERS, AND LABSexperts here at PC Magazine share a pas-sion for technology. And what drives that passion more than anything else is our leader, Michael J. Miller. For more than 14 years as Editor-in-Chief, Michael has tire-lessly shepherded PC Magazine through many of the most transformative events
in the history of computing, and he has championed the industry with unstoppable enthusiasm. He will continue to do so as he moves up to his new position as Executive Vice President and Chief Content Offi cer of Ziff-Davis Media, overseeing our corporate parent’s magazines, Web sites, and business ventures, leaving PC Magazine in the capable hands of our new Editor-in-Chief, Jim Loud-erback. Because of Michael’s many contributions to our staff and to the tech industry, we decided (un-beknownst to him) to add a special award this year in his honor.
Michael had an appropriate education for his career: a B.S. in computer science from Rensse-
laer Polytechnic Institute and an M.S. from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. After honing his skills at technology magazines Popu-lar Computing and InfoWorld, he took the helm of PC Magazine in 1991. Since then, he has shaped the magazine in in-numerable ways. Under his guidance,
we expanded PC Magazine Labs to be the foremost product testing facility in the industry, initiated our valuable Ser-vice and Reliability surveys, and built PCMag.com and our other successful online components. Michael is a widely respected commentator on the industry and an award-winning journalist; he is considered one of the most influential technology journalists writing today. Although he’s moving up, he’ll continue sharing his insights and opinions in his PC Magazine column.
Michael’s passion for technology is infectious, and his depth of knowledge is astounding. On a more personal level, he is renowned for responding to all his e-mail (and the number of messages he receives is mind-boggling), for attend-ing thousands of product demos, and for supporting his colleagues and staff with incredible loyalty. For this, the staff of PC Magazine cannot thank him enough, but we hope that this very special Tech-nical Excellence Award shows our and the industry’s appreciation. No one de-serves it more.—The Editors
SPECIAL RECOGNITION
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PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 130
BRENDAN EICH (LEFT) AND MITCHELL BAKER (RIGHT)
LEGEND HAS THAT IT THE TWO OF them needed just an hour to launch a revolution. On October 17, 1969, Willard Boyle and George Smith stood at a black-board inside Bell Labs and designed the CCD—the cornerstone technol-
charge-, are the foundation of
everything from cameras and scanners to copiers, fax machines, and barcode readers. If it captures images and turns them into digital data, it probably uses a CCD. You’ll even fi nd the sensors in the Hubble Space Telescope.
Much like a microprocessor or mem-ory chip, a CCD is an integrated circuit built on a silicon wafer. It includes col-umn after column of tiny light-sensi-tive capacitors, or photosites. When you project an image onto it, the light hit-ting each capacitor causes a change in charge. The more intense the light, the greater the change. In this way, an image
is recorded as a grid of picture elements, or pixels. This storage information can then be removed from the device by shifting charges down ea ch column, one capacitor at a time.
William Boyle joined Bell Labs in 1953, overseeing research in quantum elec-tronics and radio astronomy. In the early sixties, he was part of the Apollo space program, helping NASA decide where to land a man on the moon. George Smith arrived in 1959, and within five years he took over as head of the Labs’ device concepts department, overseeing lasers and other semiconductor technologies.
When they dreamed up the CCD, they had an eye on developing a new kind of memory, but the CCD quickly took on a life of its own. By 1970, it was the core of the world’s fi rst solid-state camera. By 1975, it was adept enough for broadcast television. And by the early eighties, as-tronomers were using CCDs to map the
heavens. But the real revolution didn’t arrive for another two decades.
Today’s CCDs are lightweight, con-sume little power, and last as long as other integrated circuits. The recent digital media revolution wouldn’t be possible without them. Chances are there’s a CCD at the heart of your digital camera. The technology is behind most camcorders. CCDs are also beginning to bring a new level of sharpness and clarity to the leading camera phones. LG recently introduced a CCD phone here in the U.S., and for the fi rst time, Ameri-cans can take phone pics they’d actually like to print.
If not for Boyle and Smith’s CCD, you couldn’t move pictures and videos onto your PC with such ease, edit them with the click of a mouse, or send them to friends and family over e-mail. You wouldn’t be able to print photos from the comfort of your own living room, or upload them to Flickr, Snapfish, or Smugmug.
In short, the PC—and everything that goes with it—wouldn’t be the same with-out Boyle, Smith, and their CCD.—CM E
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www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 131
T E C H N I C A L E X C E L L E N C E A W A R D S
BOYLE (LEFT) & SMITH (RIGHT), SHOWN IN 1974, INVENTED THE CCD.
A MODERN-DAY DESCENDENT (INSET)4
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writing and reading mail. Except for an almost traditional drop-down File menu, the old top-line menu with its Edit, View, and other items is gone forever, not even available as an option.
It’s too early to guess at the speed and polish that you’ll see in the fi nal version. But our tests suggest that Microsoft has put most of its energy into fi xing the interface and the back-end connections to SharePoint servers. The inner logic of the applications remains essentially the same. The new interface makes it easy to access features that were almost inaccessible before, but Word and Excel still perform automated changes that you may not want or expect, and they still expect you to learn their own obscure inner logic before you can master them.
Overall, the new interface offers a lot of advantages. Galler-ies of page and spreadsheet layout options drop down from the Ribbon, so you can apply commonly used formats by choos-ing among clear graphic options, instead of hunting through menus for each individual feature. This means you can insert a footer on a page simply by clicking on a picture of a page with
WWhen the new version of Microsoft Offi ce—currently code-named Offi ce “12”—arrives sometime in the second half of 2006, you may stop hating the suite. We looked at an early, private beta version of it and found a lot of improvements. Although the interface is radically changed, a lot of the underlying features and commands remain the same. We won’t promise that using Offi ce “12” will be trouble-free, but so far, it looks like a big step forward.
Instead of the cluttered, impenetrable interface that developed haphazardly over the past 20 years, Offi ce “12” will introduce a completely new interface, one based on tabs that organize functions under headings such as “Write,” “Page Layout,” and “Review,” plus a combination toolbar/menu called the Rib-bon, which displays a different set of icons and menu items, depending on the current tab. The Ribbon also displays differ-ent sets of icons depending on whether you’re working with text, graphics, tables, or other kinds of data. The new interface appears in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access, but not in Outlook, except in the window where Outlook uses Word for
“ “OFFICE12EXTREMEMAKEOVER
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 134
a footer, instead of visiting Word’s Insert and Format menus before you remember that the command you want is on the View menu. Traditional dialog boxes are still used for detailed settings, but most users will be content with the Galleries.
Offi ce’s tools for controlling visual settings such as zoom level and window arrangement have been moved from the top-line menu to the status bar on the window frame, so that view-ing options are clearly separated from options that control the actual document. Unfortunately, users may still be confused by the way the visual-settings tools jump between the top and the bottom of the screen when you switch from conventional print and Web-based views to the Reading view that hides most icons and other controls.
Offi ce XP and 2003 use a proprietary XML-based document format, but Offi ce “12” intro-duces a new XML-based format called Offi ce XML. Word documents get a DOCX fi lename
extension; Excel spreadsheets get a new XLSX extension. This new format is actually a standard ZIP fi le; change the exten-sion of a DOCX document to ZIP and you can open it in Windows Explorer to see all the XML-based components inside. The Offi ce XML format—based on human-readable components instead of binary data—seems to be Microsoft’s attempt to answer criticism that Offi ce documents contain too much data that users can’t access but that can contain hidden corporate and government
secrets. The new format also seems to be an attempt to catch up with the accessibility of the new Open Document format used in OpenOf-fi ce.org 2.0. The latest version of Offi ce will be able to save fi les in the older versions’ formats, but whether older versions can be retrofi tted to read the new formats is still unknown.
• NEW RIBBON INTERFACE
• INFORMATION SAFETY • DOCUMENT SECURITY OPTIONS
• IMPROVED CHARTING
• NEW GRAPHICS
• DYNAMIC SLIDE LIBRARY
• PAGE LAYOUT THEMES
- by Edward Mendelson www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 135
M I C R O S O F T O F F I C E P R E V I E W
136 Word
136 Excel
137 Outlook
137 PowerPoint
138 Access & More
138 OneNote
I N T H IS STORY
The biggest news in Word “12” is the new Ribbon interface, which organizes Word’s myr-iad features in a sensible way
for the first time ever. It also provides quick access to features that until now have been buried too deeply for almost anyone to use. Integration with Share-Point and other back-end services makes it easy for corporate users to insert stan-dard graphic and text elements that are stored on a server, and when they change on the server, they can be automatically updated in whatever documents use them. A new Document Properties panel stores metadata such as title, author, and comments in an XML-based InfoPath fi le stored within the Word document. Doc-ument-management systems can access this metadata by reading the InfoPath fi le.
Just as Word makes it easier to get metadata into a document, it also makes it easier to get it out. A new Document Inspector dialog lets you clear all com-
Excel “12” is both bigger and better: Worksheets now can include one million rows and 16,000 columns. It’s also smart-
er, with a “Structured Referencing” fea-ture that lets you select any cell inside a
table of data and click on the Table icon from the Ribbon. The instant result is a fully formatted table with row and col-umn shading that you can fine-tune in a layout Gallery, and with each column automatically named as a range and the
column headers available as labels for cross-referencing from other cells. If you add a column to the table and start entering data, these labels are available from a drop-down list for quick formula creation without using traditional cell addresses.
Excel finally adds an ac-tive Page Layout view to the old and mostly inactive Print Preview, so you can work on a spreadsheet while view-ing the same layout and data that will appear on a printed page. The rulers at the top and sides show the row numbers
and column letters in addition to inch measurements. The Ribbon interface in-cludes a feature-packed Formulas ribbon with drop-down lists of commonly used functions, a Name manager for keeping track of named ranges, and a panel of Formula Auditing features that are al-ways visible for quick troubleshooting. As in the rest of the updated suite, the view features have been moved to the status bar, and a slider lets you zoom in and out of a spreadsheet, instead of us-ing the preset zoom percentages, as in earlier versions.
The Conditional Format menu can automatically apply a color spectrum to table data so that high and low numbers are instantly recognizable. Other condi-tional-format options apply “data bars” so that each cell is overlaid by a horizon-tal band of color that refl ects its number. PivotTables become easier to manage with a new task-pane interface at the far right of the window, in which you select fi elds for organizing data and stack the selected fi elds in the order you want the table to sort them. Chart- building func-tions also get their own ribbon, with one-stop shopping for labels, grid lines, and grouping.—EM
EXCEL’S NEW charting options include shadow, glow, soft-edge, rotation, and other advanced effects, easily applied and customized from the Ribbon.
ments, metadata, tracked revisions, and other information that you don’t want to show the world. Sadly, there’s still no easy way to prevent such metadata from getting into the fi le in the fi rst place. A
Finish Document menu lets you prevent any further revisions to a document after you’ve completed it. Microsoft also includes PDF export, years after every-one else added it.
The Ribbon interface makes a re-freshing change from the old menus. For most of the work you do in Word, you’ll use the Write ribbon, which includes fi nd/replace, font and paragraph options, a Quick Formatting panel with frequently used styles illustrated graphically, and proofing tools. The Page Layout ribbon starts with a Theme Gallery for choos-ing among prebuilt font and color palettes, plus page and section breaks, hy phenat ion (no more trips to Tools | Language to hyphenate your f ile), and “background” features
such as watermarks and border designs. Unfortunately, there’s no change to the confusing underlying system of “sec-tions” with specifi c settings for margins, footnotes, and other options.—EM
THE NEW RIBBON INTERFACE includes drop-down galleries of formats, including this display of prebuilt styles for tables. The style highlighted in the gallery automatically appears as you move through the gallery.
WORD
EXCEL
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 136
OUR CONTRIBUTORS: Edward Mendelson and Richard V. Dragan are contributing editors of PC Magazine. Features editor Michael J. Steinhart was in charge of this story.
Outlook “12” doesn’t bring the same shock of the new that comes with the rest of the updated Office, but it adds
enough features to make it worth a fresh look. The new version has a slightly split personality, with the new Ribbon inter-face evident only in the mes-sage editor, but the whole program works so smoothly that no one is likely to com-plain. The most welcome change is a built-in indexer that displays search results in the pane normally used for the message list. You can type search terms into a box at the top of the search pane for quick results or create
The beta version of PowerPoint “12” includes two major ad-vances over earlier versions. The first is the new Ribbon
interface, which offers instant access to lines, shapes, and galleries of diagrams. As soon as you choose a diagram type—such as hierarchy or cy-cles—the Ribbon displays a gallery of simple and three-dimensional styles that you can apply, together with a gallery of prebuilt options for coloring its lines and shapes.
As in the rest of the re-vamped suite, PowerPoint’s graphics capabilities are more fl exible and dynamic than before, so you can now convert a bulleted list into a diagram with one click on the Ribbon, and then
continue to modify the diagram with op-tions that appear automatically on the same interface.
The second major advance is a dy-namic slide library that can be stored on
a SharePoint server. Slides in the library can be dragged into the current presen-tation directly from the library, and vari-able data—such as the names of people with specifi ed job titles—can be updated dynamically from the current version of the data on the server by using a new “Refresh Slide” option on the right-click menu. Although this refresh requires a few clicks, we expect that fully auto-matic updating will be possible through programmed macros. (Microsoft hasn’t confi rmed this yet.)
Other new features include an option to save custom layouts, so that they can be dragged into a new slide without the tedious copying required in previous versions, and new advanced text ef-fects. —EM
THE COLOR SCHEME you select in the drop-down gal-lery at the right will be applied instantly to the chart in the slide.
structured searches from an optional dia-log that displays criteria for narrowing the search. This feature is integrated so tightly that you may forget it didn’t exist in earlier versions. It eliminates the an-
noyance of the old, slow search feature, which displayed its message list in a sepa-rate pop-up window that didn’t look or act like a standard list of messages. The new search displays results in a list just like the inbox list, and you can act on the messages as needed.
The only other significant change is the optional To-Do bar that appears at the far right, like the Task Pane in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. The To-Do Bar dis-plays fl agged messages, today’s Outlook tasks, and any meetings or jobs assigned to you in Access, OneNote, and Share-Point Services—possibly a mixed bless-ing, because the sight of all those tasks in one list may make you want a day off.
A few other notable new features re-main well hidden until you look for them. One convenient addition is the ability to send a calendar page or a request to share a Microsoft Exchange calendar. And new SharePoint integration capabilities let you modify shared calendars without leaving Outlook, making collaboration easier and smoother. — EM
OUTLOOK’S NEW INDEXER and search functions fi t right into the existing interface.
POWERPOINT
OUTLOOK
POWERPOINT’S NEW SLIDE LIBRARY displays thumbnails of presentations.
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 137
M I C R O S O F T O F F I C E P R E V I E W
igate often-used features quickly. Adding columns to a database is a simple matter of typing in data. Another major improve-ment is the visual report designer, which offers a live preview of your data as you build a report—no more mazes of fi elds and formulas. A versatile wiz-ard lets you group data by fi elds like product or state for sum-mary and cross-tab reports.
Another good reason to move your data from lists in Excel to databases in Access is the new version’s power-ful sharing abilities. With one command, Access “12” will share a database on your ma-chine with a workgroup. It can also publish the database to a whole organization via the new SharePoint Services. The upsizing wizard also lets you publish a database on SQL Server, as in previous versions. With Web-enabled solutions available from Quicken (QuickBase) and
Alpha Five, Access’s new sharing abilities should help it compete.
In terms of new server compo-nents in Offi ce “12,” the new Share-Point Services technology—due out in Beta 2 in 2006—deserves special mention. Beyond sharing Access da-tabases, it should greatly facilitate collaboration throughout the Of-fi ce “12” product line. In particular, Microsoft envisions organizations defi ning and modifying workfl ows, including enterprise content man-agement schemes, using Offi ce. For example, Outlook “12” can publish e-mail messages to SharePoint auto-matically for archiving (a common legal requirement for many orga-
nizations). Redmond also foresees ex-tensive search capabilities and indexing made available for all SharePoint data. The new version will also ease making business decisions, as it enables combin-ing traditional Office documents (like Excel spreadsheets) with the sharing, archiving, and publishing abilities of the next version of SharePoint.
Microsoft is clearly betting that work-flow management will move its Office suite beyond creating and sharing docu-ments.—Richard V. Dragan E
With some slick produc-t iv ity en hancements and a completely new interface, Microsoft Ac-
cess “12” has gotten more of a makeover than any other component in the Offi ce suite. The new interface is far more col-orful and graphical, with tabs for navi-gating between screens replacing the blank workspace of older versions. An improved template library provides in-depth, business-oriented databases that let you get started quickly.
You can also easily import an Excel spreadsheet for use as a database, proof that Microsoft realizes that vast numbers of users use XLS fi les as mini-databases. In fact, the default look-and-feel in the new Access is a spreadsheet-like view of your live data, searchable and sortable by columns. You can import address books (and whole IMAP folders) from Outlook “12,” and import XML forms designed in InfoPath, the form-design tool Microsoft introduced with Offi ce 2003.
As with other Office “12” productiv-ity apps, Access’s new toolbars are more graphical, and menu options configure themselves on the fl y so that you can nav-
ACCESS & MORE
>MORE ON THE WEB For slide shows of the exciting new
interface of Microsoft Offi ce “12”
visit go.pcmag.com/offi ce12
OneNote started out as an innovative note-taking, drawing, and voice-recording tool bundled with Offi ce 2003. The new version takes the product into the realm of digital scrap-booking, where pictures, audio, and text can be combined and shared.
In the Beta 1 version, OneNote’s interface remains familiar, with tabs used to indicate open pages for your notes. You can combine all sorts of media within notebooks, including pictures taken from smartphones that are running OneNote Mobile, Web clippings, voice recordings, video clips, all standard Offi ce document types, and PDFs. The program also bundles in OCR support for searching text in images. All content can be reor-ganized by dragging and dropping it.
The new OneNote’s main push is in collaboration. You can share OneNote documents via e-mail or HTML, or as folders containing all supporting documents. A whiteboarding feature lets team members add content to centrally hosted OneNote fi les. OneNote maintains a local copy (in addition to the shared version) for use when you’re not connected. Links to Outlook “12” let you sync up tasks from within OneNote and access notes for contacts within Outlook.
OneNote “12” facilitates collect-ing, clipping, and sharing multi-media—almost like a powerful blog tool. —RVD
Microsoft OneNote “12” Beta 1
ACCESS “12” has a completely reworked user interface, with tabbed windows for moving eas-ily between different views of your databases.
ONENOTE “12” has support for rich content like graphics, sound, and even video, placed alongside typed or handwritten notes.
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 138
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©2005 MPC Computers, LLC (“MPC” or “Seller”). MPC is not responsible for omissions or errors in typography or photography. All offers are subject to availability. Prices and specifications maychange without notice; prices do not include shipping, handling or applicable taxes, unless specifically required under contract. Seller's return policy does not include return freight and originalshipping/handling charges, and a restocking fee may be charged. All return and warranty periods begin from date product is shipped. All sales are controlled by Seller's current terms and condi-tions of sale and limited warranty, copies of which are available on Seller's website or from its sales representatives. On-site service is provided at sole discretion of MPC. A qualifying diagnosticdetermination must be made by MPC prior to on-site service (if any). On-site service is provided by a third-party service provider under a separate contract between you and the service provider.Advertised configurations may differ from award-winning configurations. Intel, Intel Inside, Intel Inside logo, Intel Centrino, Intel Centrino logo, Celeron, Intel Xeon, Intel Speedstep, Itanium, Pentiumand Pentium III Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks ofMicrosoft Corporation. Other product names herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies. 1. All hard drive sizes calculated with 1GB equal to1 billion bytes. 2. MPC 56K modems capable of receiving downloads at up to 56Kbps and sending at up to 31.2Kbps. Due to FCC regulations on power output, receiving speeds are limited to53Kbps. Actual speeds may vary. 3. 52X = 52X max./17X min. 48X=48X max./17X min. 24X = 24X max./10X min. 8X DVD = 8X max./1X min.
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www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 143
wWhether you use your personal printer in the offi ce or your offi ce
printer at home, we have an all-in-one for you. The seven AIOs we
review represent the best of all the options available today. That’s
why you’ll see three Editors’ Choices in this story, each one built
for a slightly different user. The entries range in price from
about $90 to $500. Some are designed with photos in mind;
others are made for offi ce applications and business use and
have automatic document feeders (ADFs). One even prints
on CDs. Though they all print, scan, and copy, their fax
functions vary. If you’re in the market for an all-in-one,
you’re in the right place. Read on.—Sarah E. Anderson
[DO-IT-ALLS]
Check out seven of our favorite all-in-one ink jets for the home and offi ce.
144 Brother MFC-420cn lllmm
144 Canon Pixma MP500 llllm
145 Dell Photo AIO Printer 924 lllhm
146 Epson Stylus Photo RX700 lllhm
146 HP Offi cejet 7410 All-in-One llllm
147 HP Photosmart 3310 All-in-One llllm
147 Lexmark P4350 All-in-One lllhm
144 Summary of Features
145 Editors’ Choice
145 Scorecard
146 Performance Tests
IN THIS STORY
A L L- I N - O N E P R I N T E R S
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 144
on excellent, with some similar hues blending into one another in-stead of standing out as different colors.
Performance is the 420cn’s most notable weakness. The total time on our business appli-cations suite was the slowest in the roundup, at 48 min-utes 22 seconds. The next-slowest in this group, the Lexmark P4350 All-in-One, came in at 23:04. For photos, the average time for a 4-by-6 was over 9 minutes.
This AIO isn’t for the impatient. But if you print only a few pages a day, you probably won’t mind the speed. And you’d be hard-pressed to find many other AIOs with this many features at this price.
Brother MFC-420cn$130 street. Brother International Corp., www.brother.com. lllmm
If your printing, copying, scanning, and faxing needs are light (less than 30 pages a day), the Brother MFC-420cn is just right. For just $130 (street), the 420cn gives you all these functions and more, including direct photo printing as well as scanning and faxing over a network.
Setup is typical, with a separate cartridge for each of the four colors. More important, network setup is fully automated. Paper handling is limited, though: Capacity is 100 sheets, and the automatic document feeder (ADF) holds only about 10 pages. If you print and copy more than about 30 pages per day, constantly refi lling the tray can turn into an annoying chore. If you don’t need an ADF or network connection, check out the MFC-210c, which is otherwise essen-tially identical.
Graphics quality is good. Text is ac-ceptable but may be a problem in docu-ments using small or unusual type. More than half our test fonts were easily readable at 5 points or less, but two h igh ly styl ized fonts needed 12 points.
Most of the individual graphics pages were very good or excellent. On full-page graphics, however, we saw light banding where the ink didn’t fully cover the area. Graphics are good enough for internal business use but not much more, with severe banding on dark back-grounds. Photos just missed out
CANON PIXMA MP500 PHOTO AIO
BROTHER MFC-420CN
> ALL REVIEWS BY M. DAVID STONE
Canon Pixma MP500 Photo All-in-One
$199.99 direct. Canon U.S.A. Inc., www.usa.canon.com. llllm
The lack of an ADF on the Canon Pixma MP500 Photo All-in-One limits its use-fulness in even a small office, but this AIO earns Editors’ Choice for its excel-lent paper handling and duplexing and superb performance. At $199.99, it comes in just under the $200 cutoff for the Value category.
The MP500 uses fi ve cartridges, and each one has a status light that turns on to confi rm that it’s properly installed. It offers a PictBridge connector, memory card slots, a 2.5-inch color LCD, and two paper trays, for a total capacity of 300 pages. The front panel has a copy menu that lets you copy a photo directly to photo paper.
An option in its PC-based control software lets you scan to your e-mail program. If you have a fax program, the
S U M M A R Y O F F E A T U R E S
All-in-One Printers
y YES o NO Brother MFC-420cn
Canon Pixma MP500 Photo All-in-One
Dell Photo All-in-One Printer 924
Epson Stylus Photo RX700
HP Offi cejet 7410 All-in-One
HP Photosmart 3310 All-in-One
Lexmark P4350 All-in-One
Price $130 street $199.99 direct $89 direct $400 street $499.99 direct $399.99 direct $130 street
Rated speed at default resolution: color (ppm) 15 19 20 20 20 31 15
Rated speed at default resolution: mono (ppm) 20 29 16 20 30 32 22
Ethernet/Wireless y o o o o o o o y y y y o o
Scanner type Flatbed with ADF Flatbed Flatbed Flatbed Flatbed with ADF Flatbed Flatbed
Scanner’s optical resolution (ppi) 600 1,200 1,200 3,200 2,400 4,800 1,200
Maximum scan area 8.5 x 14 8.5 x 11 8.5 x 11 8.5 x 11 8.5 x 14 8.5 x 12 8.5 x 11
Copier/Fax y y y o y o y o y y y y y o
RED denotes Editors’ Choice.
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 145
software can call on the MP500’s Twain and WIA scan drivers to scan and fax.
Output quality was more than accept-able. More than half our test fonts were easily readable at 4 points, though one of the highly stylized fonts needed 12. Graphics were good enough for inter-nal business use and marginally good enough for external use. Thin lines tend to disappear, however, and full-page graphics made our test paper curl.
Most of our test photos were true photo quality, making them good enough for snapshots and framing. But we also saw a tint in our monochrome test photo and posterization. The photo output is waterproof from the moment it comes out of the printer.
Performance is a strong point. The MP500 had a total time of 15 minutes 17 seconds on our business applica-tions suite, the fastest ink jet AIO we’ve seen. Performance for photos was a little slower relative to other printers but still totaled 3:55 for three 4-by-6s and 3:12 for each 8-by-10.
We’d ideally like the MP500 to have one or more improve-ments in the form of an ADF, a fax modem, or better graphics and photo output. Never-theless, it offers the strongest combination of speed, quality, and features in its price range.
Dell Photo All-in-One Printer 924
$89 direct. Dell Inc., www.dell.com. lllhm
The Dell Photo All-in-One Printer 924 has an appropriate combination of speed and quality—as a regular printer. But with no ADF or fax modem, it’s not the best AIO. Nevertheless, it’s the least ex-pensive unit in this roundup, it can scan to any fax program that uses a modem in your PC, and it prints directly from a PictBridge camera.
Setup is standard for AIOs that con-nect by USB 2.0, with a fully automated installation program. You can install either the included black and tricolor cartridges or replace the black with a
SCORECARD lllll EXCELLENT llll VERY GOOD lll GOOD ll FAIR l POOR
RED denotes Editors' Choice. Text Graphics Photos
Brother MFC-420cn lll lll llllh
Canon Pixma MP500 Photo All-in-One lllh lllh llllh
Dell Photo AIO Printer 924 lll llll llllh
Epson Stylus Photo RX700 lllh lllh llll
HP Offi cejet 7410 All-in-One lllh llllh llll
HP Photosmart 3310 All-in-One lll lllh llllh
Lexmark P4350 All-in-One lllh lllh llllh
The 924 is also strong on output qual-ity. Most fonts are easily readable at 6 points or less, with two highly stylized
fonts needing 12 points. The very good rating for graphics is rare for a printer at this price. Although we saw some banding and a tendency to lose thin lines, graphics are good enough to con-
vey a sense of professionalism. Though most photos are true
photo quality, we noticed that mono-chrome photos had a slight greenish
tint and colors in some photos were too punchy. Our quality results for the 924 were achieved with the new Dell Premium Photo Paper, which has a light-fastness rating of 90 years behind stan-dard glass, according to Dell. However, it’s not water-resistant.
As long as you don’t mind the poten-tial need to reprint photos that can smudge from handling on humid days, and you don’t need an ADF or built-in fax modem, the 924 offers a good com-bination of speed, quality, and features for the price.
DELL PHOTO AIO PRINTER 924
photo cartridge for six-color printing. On our performance tests, the 924
established itself as the new fi rst-place AIO among photo printers that cost less than $150. On our business applications suite, it managed a total time of 19 min-utes 47 seconds. Similarly, the 924 had the second-highest speed for photos, total ing 3:42 for three 4-by-6s and 8:05 for three 8-by-10s.
OUR CONTRIBUTORS: M. David Stone is a contributing editor of PC Magazine and a lead analyst at PC Magazine Labs. Features editor Sarah E. Anderson was in charge of this story.
A L L- I N - O N E P R I N T E R S
The $199.99 Canon Pixma MP500 Photo All-in-One delivers the best bang for the buck but lacks an automatic document feeder (ADF). Even with “photo” in the name, it outperforms every printer here on our business applications suite—in fact, it’s the fastest ink jet AIO in business printing to date. It’s not loaded with features, though, which helps keep its price in the Value category.
For offi ce use, the HP Offi cejet 7410 is tough to beat. It simply offers the best fea-tures and performance in one package. It has an ADF (essential for the offi ce), as well as a legal-size scan area, Ethernet and wireless network connections, and very good speed for business apps.
For photos and home use, we love the HP Photosmart 3310 All-in-One. It scored second on our business applications suite, and its photo capabilities make it a perfect printer for most amateur photographers. It also offers a transparency adapter for slides and a dedicated paper tray for 4-by-6 photo paper.
VALUE: Canon Pixma MP500 Photo All-in-One OFFICE: HP Offi cejet 7410 All-in-One PHOTO: HP Photosmart 3310 All-in-One
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 146
standalone copier and fax machine. Its software lets you scan to or fax from your computer even over a network, and its memory card slots and PictBridge connector let it print directly from memory
cards and cameras without a com-puter. The 7410 is large for an ink jet AIO,
at 13.9 by 21.6 by 17.2 inches (HWD). Connection choices include USB 2.0, 802.11g, and Ethernet, which is what we used. The unit comes with black and tri-color cartridges, but you can replace the black cartridge with a photo cartridge for six-color printing or a photo gray car-tridge for monochrome photos. Setup is straightforward, thanks largely to HP’s fully automated network setup.
Performance is impressive and then some. On our business applications and photo suites, the 7410 turned in excellent performance, at a total of 16:11 for busi-ness applications, 5:32 for three 4-by-6 photos, and 12:59 for three 8-by-10s.
business applications and photos. The 16-minute total on our business applica-tions suite just missed the 15:42 posted by the photocentric HP 3310, an Editors’ Choice. The two AIOs are close for pho-tos, too, with the RX700 totaling 3:31 for three 4-by-6s and 7:29 for three 8-by-10s, compared with 3:26 and 8:17 for the 3310.
Although the RX700 offers much to like, it’s not as good a value as the 3310. But if you want to print labels directly on discs, it’s currently the only AIO game in town.
HP Offi cejet 7410 All-in-One$499.99 direct. Hewlett-Packard Development Co., www.hp.com. llllm
For nearly a year, the HP Of-ficejet 7410 All-in-One has held the Editors’ Choice for office-oriented ink jet all-in-
ones, and it’s still undefeated. Though it’s the most expensive unit here, it eas-ily justifi es its price with built-in wire-less capability, fast performance, good to very good print quality, and almost any feature you might hope for.
Its 50-page ADF and built-in fax modem let it work nicely as a
Epson Stylus Photo RX700 $400 street. Epson America Inc., www.epson.com. lllhm
Although the Epson Stylus Photo RX700 is limited to printing, scanning, and standalone copying, it stands out because it handles photos so well. It’s an intrigu-ing choice if you’re looking for a personal digital photo lab for your home.
The built-in transparency adapter, combined with a 3,200-ppi optical scan resolution, lets you scan 35mm slides and fi lm. Among the printers reviewed here, only the RX700 and the HP Photo smart 3310 have this capability. The RX700 can also print directly from both slides and fi lm, as well as from memory cards and PictBridge cameras, and it has a 2.5-inch LCD and a well-designed menu. Direct fax support is missing, but you can scan and fax from your own fax program and PC fax modem. The RX700 has a 150-sheet tray in front and a 120-sheet tray in back.
Setup is typical for an AIO that con-nects via USB 2.0 and uses six ink car-tridges. Simply load the paper and cartridges, run the installation routine, and plug in the USB cable.
On our tests, colors on some photos were a bit muddy, and we saw a distinct color balance problem on our mono-chrome photo, with tints of varying colors at different gray levels. But most prints qualifi ed as true photo quality. The output is waterproof immediately, which is unusual for an ink jet. Also, the RX700 prints directly on printable optical discs.
Text is good enough for nearly any pur-pose, with more than half our fonts easily readable at 5 points. Graphics were okay except for images with thin lines.
Performance was excellent on both
BUSINESS APPLICATIONS (default settings)
All times are in min:sec. Low scores are best. Bold type denotes fi rst place. Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Microsoft Excel 2003
RED denotes Editors’ Choice.
4 pages text and photos (portrait mode)
4 pages text and photos (land-scape mode)
1-page table with grid
1 page, table without grid
1-pagetable with back-ground tints
1-page graph
Brother MFC-420cn 7:28 8:08 0:26 0:25 1:18 1:24
Canon Pixma MP500 Photo AIO 1:49 1:45 0:14 0:14 0:31 0:29
Dell Photo AIO Printer 924 2:50 2:47 0:10 0:10 0:40 0:38
Epson Stylus Photo RX700 1:26 1:28 0:24 0:23 0:28 0:27
HP Offi cejet 7410 AIO 2:10 2:01 0:15 0:12 0:35 0:38
HP Photosmart 3310 AIO 1:53 1:47 0:25 0:17 0:33 0:33
Lexmark P4350 AIO 3:15 3:06 0:14 0:13 0:49 0:46
We ran these ink-jet based AIOs through our standard tests, using QualityLogic’s PageSense 4.0 software and hardware (www.qualitylogic.com) to control and time them. Because
the printers’ claimed speeds are for draft modes, not the higher-quality settings we use, they don’t predict results very well. For example, the Epson Stylus Photo RX700 tied overall with the HP Offi ceJet 7410 overall on our business applications suite, despite a much lower claimed speed for color printing.—MDS
W H AT T H E N U M B E R S M E A N
EPSON STYLUS PHOTO RX700
HP OFFICEJET 7410 AIO
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 147
Lexmark P4350 All-in-One $130 street. Lexmark International Inc., www.lexmark.com. lllhm
The Lexmark P4350 All-in-One focuses on photos for home users. It doesn’t have an ADF or a fax modem, but it does in-clude software that lets you scan and fax using a modem in your PC. More impor-tant for a photocentric AIO, it offers high-quality photos at reasonable speeds.
Setup is easy. Load the ink cartridges, connect by USB cable, and run the auto-mated setup program. The P4350 comes with a tricolor cartridge and a photo car-tridge for six-color printing, but you can replace the photo cartridge with a black
cartridge for four-color printing. It also has a PictBridge connec-tor, card slots, and a 1.7-inch color LCD on the top front.
The P4350 completed our business applications
suite in 23:04, more slowly than most of
the printers here but more than twice as fast as the Brother M FC- 42 0 c n .
For photos, it totaled 7:53 for three 4-by-6s and 17:15 for three 8-
by-10s. Most fonts were
easily readable at 5 points or less, and all but one were easily readable at 8, with one highly stylized font needing 12. Graphics were adequate, though unac-ceptable for external business use. Most photos were true photo quality.
Photos showed a distinct yellow shift because of a faulty photo ink cartridge. Lexmark’s policy is to replace the car-tridge, and that should fi x the problem. We wish the P4350 had an ADF and fax modem, but if you don’t need to scan or fax multipage documents and don’t need a standalone fax machine, it’s a good fi t as a home AIO. E
and fi lm, and preview photos and video frames on a 3.6-inch color LCD. The 3310 works as a standard flatbed scanner and a standalone fax machine and copier; it also lets you use its modem to fax from a PC. It earns extra points for including drivers that enable scanning and fax-
ing over a network as well, and 802.11g wireless networking is built in. Dual paper trays, with one for 4- by 6-inch stock, are another nice touch. To set it
up, just load paper, insert the six ink car-tridges, and plug in the network cable.
Performance was excellent. The 3310 ran our business tests in 15 minutes 42 seconds. It also did well on our photo suite, total-ing 3:26 for the 4-by-6s and 8:17 for the 8-by-10s.
Output quality ranged from good to the high end of very go o d . Tex t wa s eas ily readable at 5 points or less; two highly stylized fonts needed 12. In high-quality mode, prints were marginally good enough for external business use . Most photos were true photo quality or close. And with HP’s new inks and paper, output is water-resistant, though it can still show water stains.
The transparency adapter for slides does not leave room for an ADF. But if you have a particular interest in photos and need to connect to a network, the HP Photosmart 3310 is the photocentric AIO to get.
PHOTOS (hi-quality settings)
Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 Microsoft Word 2003
TOTAL OUTPUT TIME
Adobe Photoshop 7.0(total output time)
3 pagescharts and graphs
4 full-page slides
2 pages text
2 pages text and clip art
2 pages text and photos
12 pages monochrome text
12 pages color text
Three 4x6 prints
Three 8x10 prints
5:16 9:35 0:49 1:18 1:42 4:04 6:29 48:22 27:41 59:32
1:21 2:06 0:30 0:33 0:36 1:49 3:20 15:17 3:55 9:37
1:40 2:31 0:17 0:51 0:47 1:31 4:55 19:47 3:42 8:05
1:00 1:39 0:40 0:41 0:40 3:23 3:21 16:00 3:31 7:29
1:23 2:06 0:23 0:37 0:34 1:49 3:28 16:11 5:32 12:59
1:13 1:56 0:31 0:41 0:41 2:39 2:33 15:42 3:26 8:17
2:00 3:06 0:21 1:00 0:57 1:40 5:37 23:04 7:53 17:15
LEXMARK P4350 AIO
HP PHOTOSMART 3310 AIO
MORE ON THE WEB For extended versions of these
reviews as well as buying guides
and hundreds of other reviews for
all-in-one printers, photo printers,
laser printers, and more, check out
go.pcmag.com/printers.
Output quality is also a strong point. Graphics, which we rated at the high end of very good, showed only minor fl aws. Photos, which earned a rating of very good, were hurt primarily by mild band-ing in the monochrome test photo. Text, with a rating at the high end of good, was easily readable at 5 points or less for most fonts.
A few AIO ink jets offer better- looking output, but not by much, and not with anything like the 7410’s speed. The com-bination makes the HP Officejet 7410 a clear winner—and the ink jet Editors’ Choice—particularly well suited for the offi ce, but strong on photos, too.
HP Photosmart 3310 All-in-One$399.99 direct. Hewlett-Packard Development Co., www.hp.com. llllm
The HP Photosmart 3310 AIO ex-cels at photo printing and also handles text and graphics well. It produced good output at relatively
high speeds and earns an Editors’ Choice in the photocentric AIO category.
You can print directly from a cam-era, memory cards, and 35mm slides
A L L- I N - O N E P R I N T E R S
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FUJI FinePix S3• 12.3 Mega Pixels• 2.0” LCD$139999FP E500 ...$159.99 FP E510 ..$184.99FP E550 ...$229.99 FP E900 ..$344.99FP F10......$249.99 FP F11.....$284.99FP F460....$209.99 FP S20 ....$429.99
NEW!
SONY HDR-HC1• 2.8 MegaPixels• 10x Optical Zoom• 2.7” LCD Screen$119999
DCR-TRV280...............$259.99DCR-TRV480...............$299.99NEW! HDR-FX1.........$2519.99NEW! HVR-A1 ...........$1729.99NEW! HVR-Z1 ...........$3899.99
NEW!
CANON PowerShot SD550• 7.1 MegaPixels• 3x Optical Zoom$32999SD30......$309.99 SD400.......$249.99SD430........CALL SD450.......$279.99SD500....$309.99 S70 ...........$384.99S80 ........$399.99 Pro 1.........$539.99
MINOLTA Dimage A200• 8.0 MegaPixels• 7x Optical Zoom$49499
G5W .........CALL X1...........$269.99X60 .......$199.99
SONY Mavica CD-500• 4.0 MegaPixels• 2.5” LCD Screen$44999
CANON DIGITAL REBEL XT KIT• 6.8.03 Megapixel CCD• 1.8” LCD Screen$70999
Rebel Digital XT.....................$649.99
CANON EOS 20D• 8.2 MegaPixels• 1.8” LCD Screen$109999
EOS 5D....$2579.99 EOS 20D kit.$1169.99EOS 1DSII$6349.99 EOS 1D IIN...$3199.99KODAK Easyshare P880• 8.0 MegaPixels• 12x Digital Zoom$41999EShare 1 . $469.99 ES P850......$344.99ES Z700. $154.99 ES Z740......$219.99ES Z730 . $204.99 ES Z760......$239.99ES V530. . $214.99 ES V550......$239.99ES DX7590 $249.99 ES Z7590....$249.99
PENTAX Optio WPi• 6.0 MegaPixel • 2.0” LCD Screen$2249960...........$169.99 750Z ......$319.99S5Z ........$209.99 SVi.............CALLS55 ........$199.99 S6..........$229.99S60 ........$179.99
FUJI Finepix S9000• 9.0 MegaPixels• 10.7x Optical Zoom$49999
FP S5200...............................$279.99FP Z1 .....................................$234.99FP Z2 .....................................$269.99
NEW!
NEW!
NEW!
JVC GZ-MC500• 1.33 MegaPixels• 2.5” Color LCD$99999
GR-D250......................$244.99Special! GR-D270.......$259.99GR-D295 .....................$264.99GR-DF450 ..................$319.99NEW! GR-DF470 .............CALLNEW! GR-DF550 .........$339.99NEW! GR-DZ7 .................CALLNEW! GR-PD1.................CALLNEW! GR-X5 ...............$829.99
NEW!
NEW!
CASIO EX-Z750• 5.25 MegaPixels• 3x Optical Zoom$29499EX-S500.$269.99 EX-S600..$299.99EX-Z10 .......CALL EX-Z110 ..$199.99EX-Z120 .$234.99 EX-Z57....$239.99EX-Z500 .$254.99
NEW!
VIDEO PROJECTORSOPTOMA EZPRO 739• 2200 Max Ansi Lumenss• DLP$104999
EZPRO 758 ...............$1629.99EZPRO 759 ...............$2049.99H77 ............................$2409.99
CANON GL-2• 20x Optical Zoom• 100x Digital Zoom• 2.5” LCD Screen$169999
NEW! XL-H1 ..............$7399.99XL-2 ...........................$3079.99ZR-100.........................$249.99ZR-200........................ $254.99ZR-300.........................$319.99Special! ZR-400..........$364.99
TELEVISIONSPANASONIC TH-50PX500U• 50”• HDTV$379999
TC-32LX50 ................$1599.99TH-42PX50U .............$2349.99TH-42PD50U .............$1699.99
NEW!NEW!
NEW!
CANON PowerShot S2-IS• 5.0 MegaPixels• 1.8” LCD Screen$38999
A410........$124.99 A510 ...$144.99A520........$164.99 A610 ...$234.99A620........$299.99 G6.......$469.99
NEW!
NIKON Coolpix 7600• 7.1 MegaPixels• 3x Optical Zoom$19999
CP 4600.$159.99 CP 4800 ..$254.99CP 5600.$189.99 CP 7900 ..$259.99CP 8400.$399.99 CP 8800 ..$699.99
OLYMPUS P440• Dye-Sublimation• 1.8” LCD• USB
$37999
SONY DCR-HC90• 3.3 MegaPixels• 120x Digital Zoom• 2.5” LCD $66999
DCR-HC21...................$319.99DCR-HC32...................$379.99DCR-HC42...................$419.99
NIKON D2X• 12.4 MegaPixels• 2.5” LCD Screen$324999
D2HS...................................$2299.99
SONY DSC-T7• 5.1 MegaPixels• 2.5” LCD Screen$33499
DSC-T3.$249.99 DSC-T5 . $274.99DSC-T9 ..$404.99 DSC-T33$249.99
PENTAX *IST-DL• 6.1 MegaPixels CCD• 2.5” LCD Screen$48999
NEW! *ist-DS2 .....................$659.99
JVC GZ-MG70• 200x Digital Zoom• 10x Optical Zoom• 2.5” LCD Screen$64999
GZ-MG20.....................$504.99GZ-MG30.....................$549.99GZ-MG40.....................$549.99GZ-MG50.....................$599.99NEW! GZ-MG60 ..............CALLGY-DV5000................$3849.99NEW! GY-DV5100 .....$3899.99GY-HD100U ...............$4049.99JY-HD10U ..................$2199.99
NIKON Coolpix S4• 6.0 MegaPixels• 10 Opt/4x Dig Zoom$27999CP 8700.$449.99CP L1.....$219.99 CP P1 ......$339.99CP P2.....$269.99 CP S1 ......$224.99CP S2.....$279.99 CP S3 ......$249.99
OLYMPUS Stylus SP-700• 6.0 MegaPixels• 10x Digital Zoom$29999ST-P310 ..$279.99 ST-P350...$309.99ST-P500 ..$284.99 FE-100.....$129.99FE-110.....$169.99 FE-120.....$189.99i:robe 300 $279.99 i:robe 500.$159.99
SONY DSC-R1• 10.3 MegaPixels• 5x Optical Zoom$77999DSC-S40..$149.99 DSC-S60 $169.99DSC-S90..$189.99 DSC-H1 . $369.99DSC-M1....$339.99 DSC-M2 . $409.99DSC-N1....$409.99 DSC-R1 . $879.99 SONY DCR-VX2100
• 48x Digital Zoom• 12x Optical Zoom• 2.5” LCD Screen$194999
Special! DSR-PDX10$1599.99Special! DSR-PD170 $2449.99
PANASONIC PV-GS250• 3.1 MegaPixels• 2.5” LCD Screen$64999
AG-DV2500 ...............$1369.99AG-DVC200...............$3199.99PV-GS19......................$264.99PV-GS31......................$299.99PV-GS35......................$369.99PV-GS150....................$469.99PV-GS400....................$919.99
CANON DC20• 2.2 MegaPixels• 10x Optical Zoom• 200x Digital Zoom$52999
NEW! DC10 .................$469.99Elura 80 .......................$329.99Elura 85 .......................$389.99NEW! Elura 90.............$479.99
CANON FS4000• 5888 x 4000 pixels• 4000 DPI OpticalResolution• USB$46999
DIGITAL CAMERAS
PANASONIC DMC-FZ30 (K/S)• 8.32 MegaPixels• 12x Optical Zoom$47999DMC-FX8 ....$269.99 DMC-FX9..$299.99DMC-FZ4.....$239.99 DMC-FZ5..$329.99DMC-FZ20 ..$394.99 DMC-LX1..$414.99DMC-LZ1.....$189.99 DMC-LZ2..$209.99
PANASONIC AG-DVX100B• 3-CCD Imaging• FLIPOUT 2.5” LCD Screen
$249999
AG-DVC7.....................$869.99AG-DVC30 .................$1169.99AG-DVC60.................$1619.99AG-DVX100A.............$2299.99NEW! AG-HVX200.....$5499.99NEW! AJ-HDX100 ...........CALLNEW! SDR-S100 .........$809.99VDR-M53 .....................$419.99VDR-M75 .....................$479.99Special! VDR-M95 .......$639.99
BENQ PB8120• 1800 Max Ansi Lumenss• DLP
$69999
PB 6110 .......................$699.99PB 7230 .....................$1499.99PB 8240 .....................$1549.99
SHARP LC-32D7U• 32”• Aquos Liquid• TFT Active Matrix$199999
LC-20B9US..................$679.99LC-37D70 ..................$2699.99LC-45GX6U ...............$4149.99
IN FOCUS LP600• 2000 Max Ansi Lumenss• DLP$124999
X2 ................................$699.99LP-640 .......................$1249.99LP-820 .......................$2099.99
SONY KDE-37XS955• 37”• HDTV$249999
KDE-42XS955 ...........$3399.99KDE-50XBR950.........$5699.99KLV-32M1 ..................$2049.99
NEW!
NEW!
NEW!
NEW!
NEW!
CANON OPTURA 600• 200x Digital Zoom• 10x Optical Zoom• 2.5” LCD Screen$71999
Optura 50.....................$509.99Optura 60.....................$579.99Optura 400...................$419.99Optura 500...................$519.99NEW! Optura S1..........$549.99
NEW!
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 17, 2006 P C M A G A Z I N E 161
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T E C H N O L O G Y O N Y O U R T I M E
be Batman will save the day with his fi ghting game,
which lets players defend Gotham City from the likes
of the Joker and Clayface. Wearing a set of gauntlets and a chest plate for two-way interaction with the on-screen action doesn’t just make you look the part—you’ll also feel small vibrations when you’re hit. The game connects directly to the TV, so no console or PC is needed. But the graphics aren’t too great, nor do the thrills extend much longer than a typical Batman cartoon. (Spider-Man and other games are also available.)
$49.99 street. Thinkway Toys, www.thinkwaytoys.com. llhmm
QMotions Baseball It’s never too early
to think about spring training, and this con-
trol ler system will help get you into the swing of things. Although it isn’t a game itself, QMotions
EyeToy: Kinetic The problem with most digita l f it-ness programs is that they can’t tel l if you’re doing things right. That’s not the case with this game, which uses the Sony EyeToy camera to help you through 12 weeks of training. Four zones—Cardio, Combat, Toning, and Mind & Body—let you vary your fi tness regimen as you re-act to two on-screen personal trainers.
Some of the minigames are focused more on fun than fi tness, but anything that gets you started can’t be all bad. Best of all, though, as your move-ment is tracked via the
Sony EyeToy camera, you get real-time performance evaluations. For Sony PlayStation 2.
$49.99 street. Sony Computer Enter-tainment America Inc., www.us.playstation.com. llllh
M.A.G. The Batman Villains of Gotham CityGett ing younger kids excited about exercise can be challenging. May-
Baseball will work with most PC and Microsoft Xbox baseball simulations. Take your turn at the plate, which is included, along with a bat sleeve and foam bat. (The sleeve can also be used over a real bat—but you'd better watch where you swing that thing!) The down-
side is that you get to experi-ence only the batting aspect of the sport, so QMotions Base-
ball doesn’t make for serious two-player competition. But it’s a
good alternative to the batting cage on a snowy day. For PC and Xbox.
$149.99 direct. QMotions Inc., www.qmotions.com. lllhm
QMotions Golf As with the baseball controller, this de-vice isn’t a standalone game—although it does come with EA Sports Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004. It combines the elements of a game with that of a putting green and driv-ing range and is compatible with real clubs (again, watch where you’re swinging). Tee off or putt with the inter-active swing arm, which replaces mouse and key-board input. This is still more of a game than a true simulator, but it does offer a very immersive experi-ence. And you don’t have to wait to play through. For PC.
$199.99 direct. QMotions Inc., www.qmotions.com. llllm
Real-World Action Gaming BY PETER SUCIU
S ome video games really get your heart racing, and the intense action on the screen can make you break into an adrenaline sweat. But there’s a new generation of gadgets and games that require you to move more
than just your trigger fi ngers. We review gadgets and software that get you up off the couch and really put you into the game.
AFTER HOURS
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llllm VERY GOOD
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llmmm FAIR
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WHAT THE RATINGS MEAN
Eyetoy: Kinetic
www.pcmag.com JANUARY 2006 PC MAGAZINE 163
alistic boxing gloves for some shadow boxing of the digital variety. The
power of your punch isn’t actually measured, but this
game will help you improve your endurance while taxing your
refl exes and speed. For XaviXport.
$59.99 direct. SSD Co. Ltd., www.xavix.com. llllm
XaviX J-Mat You don’t get moves like Jackie Chan just by watching his movies. Though it isn’t likely that you’ll be fi ghting terrorists or ninja warriors in real life, you can virtu-ally by working out with the martial-arts star in this interactive game. It will have you dodging on-screen obstacles and run-ning through Hong Kong. The action can be a little hokey, though, and the vid-eo footage of Jackie Chan is limited. For XaviXport.
$89.99 direct. SSD Co. Ltd., www.xavix.com. lllhm
Yourself! Fitness Remember the V H S w o r k o u t craze? A workout tape gave the viewer some needed direction,
XaviX Golf Here is another way to hit the greens without leaving the living room. XaviX Golf features a driver and putter and uses a swing sensor as you play through 18 holes or take part in a challenging hole-in-one minigame. The system’s clubs have the feel of miniature golf clubs. And since the TV-connected XaviXport console ($79.99 direct) lacks the refi ned graphics of an Xbox or PS2, you may feel as if you’re playing on an unkempt pub-lic course. But the variety of modes, in-cluding tournament and exhibition play, keeps things fresh. For XaviXport.
$79.99 direct. SSD Co. Ltd., www.xavix.com. lllmm
XaviX Jackie Chan PowerBoxing We wished this game also featured Chris Tucker and Luke Wilson—be-cause getting to punch Jackie Chan’s costars would make it a contender for game of the year. Even without them, this one is a lot of fun: You put on re-
but the downside was that after you had watched it a few times the repetition made your eyes glaze over. But this interactive program, which features more than 500 unique exercises from yoga, Pilates, strength training, and cardio fitness, keeps your interest. Maya, the on-screen guide and personal trainer, cre-ates customized health and fi tness routines that won’t feel routine;
you can even progress at your own pace. The six on-screen locations are varied, including a Japanese dojo and an Alpine retreat. And
since working out is only half of the battle (of the bulge), Maya
offers diet suggestions from more than 4,500 recipes. Even without the inter-
action you’d get in a real gym class, you’ll
shape up faster than you would playing Ballistic. For PC, PS2, and Xbox.
PC, $29.99 direct; PS2 and Xbox, $34.99. respondDesign
Inc., www.yourselffi tness.com. llllh
MORE ON THE WEB go.pcmag.com/afterhoursSee Personal Technology online for more Quick Clips and Gear + Games reviews.
Digital FitnessHere are some devices that can help elevate your workout.—Peter Suciu
CycleOps Pro 300PT
The weather might be frightful, but you can still go for a spin. This bike lets you do the miles even when you’re staying put. It uses a minicomputer that can connect to the PC via USB and provides biometric data, including your heart rate, speed, distance, time, and ca-dence. The weighted disc wheel lets you get a natural spin, and, unlike most cycle trainers, the bike is quiet.
$1,899.99 list. CycleOps, www.cycle-ops.com. lllll
Garmin
Forerunner 301
When you’re out running, you shouldn’t lose track of where you’re going. That can be tough, though, when you hit the sidewalk in a new town. The Garmin Forerunner 301 is
more than just a heart-rate monitor: It also tracks distance, speed, pace, and
calories burned, and its built-in GPS sensor pro-vides basic navigation. The unit is bulky, and you won’t
win any style points—but at least you won’t fi nd yourself running
in circles.
$325 street. Garmin Ltd., www.garmin.com. llllm
Oregon
Scientifi c MP121
Nothing helps you get into the fi tness groove
like a little music. This MP3 player features 512MB of memory, an inte-grated FM radio, a rechargeable battery, and—best of all for exercisers—a built-in pedometer. The storage capacity might be a little sparse for those who hit the gym on a regular basis, but the MP121 is the perfect size for taking on a run, and it’s durable—and even water-proof.
$149.95 direct. Oregon Scientifi c, www.oregonscientifi c.com. lllhm
Now Presenting…
The Mythix iWand Presenter is a mixed blessing: lots of features on a presenter’s remote control
but very closely spaced buttons. The remote has mouse arrows and click keys, including click-hold, blank-black and blank-white screen buttons, and even a dedicated start-the-show button. Most functions work on apps other than PowerPoint too. You’ll fi nd the largish aluminum metal storage case for pre-senter and remote either neat or bigger than necessary.—Bill Howard
$90 street. Mythix Inc., www.mythix-inc.com. lllhm
Could You RepeatThat?
To use your XM Satellite Radio receiver indoors, you need to have a window that
faces in the right direction. But if the room where you want the radio is on the wrong side of the house, the Delphi XM Signal
Repeater can solve your dilemma and eliminate long antenna cables. Just place the repeater and XM antenna near a window with a good signal and connect the repeater antenna to your XM receiver. The repeater, which can support multiple repeater antennas and receiv-ers, rebroadcasts the signal up to 75 feet.—Craig Ellison
$169 list; additional repeater antennas, $69 each. Delphi Corp., www.delphi.com. llllm
Natural Comfort
For incredibly comfortable ergonomic designs, we’ll take Microsoft products any day. The Microsoft Natural
Ergonomic Keyboard 4000’s groundbreaking design features a split keyboard layout, a 14-degree rise in the center that angles the hands, a 7-degree reverse slope for holding them in a downward position, and a soft wrist rest. The combi-
nation feels perfectly natural—like the keyboard we’ve always been waiting for. Add in a zoom slider to magnify things on
screen, and we say Microsoft has a winner. If it had a scroll wheel and a pointer device, we’d never take our hands off it.—Troy Dreier
$64.95 list. Microsoft Corp., www.microsoft.com. lllll
Capture Your Video
The ADS Tech Video Xpress lets you capture home movies even from a non-FireWire camcorder. Just plug one end of the included RCA cable into your video camera and the other end into the audio and video jacks on the
USB-connected device, and you can Spielberg anything. The package includes Ulead Movie Wizard for capturing and simple editing with titles; you can even capture video stills. The tiny USB driver didn’t cause any PC hiccups; it sup-ports 720–by-480 NTSC video and three common fi le formats (AVI, WMV, and MPEG-1). Video clips look superclean, even after you burn them to DVD.—John Brandon
$50 street. ADS Technologies Inc., www.adstech.com. llllm
GEAR + GAMES
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 164
A F T E R H O U R S • go.pcmag.com/afterhours
Think Outside
Stowaway Keyboard
Jabra A210 Bluetooth Adapter Wireless headsets give you more freedom, but they don’t work with older cell phones. The Jabra A210 Bluetooth Adapter solves that problem. Just plug the cable from the matchbook-size adapter into the 2.5mm headset jack on your phone and start talking. The A210 works only with Jabra’s Bluetooth headsets, but the one-button Bluetooth pairing is actually a plus, since it eliminates the usual complexity. A three-position switch on the adapter lets you adjust for phone- specifi c interference. $35 street. Jabra, www.jabra.com. lllmm
Nokia Wireless GPS Module LD-1W This device is a step in the right direc-tion for mobile wayfaring. The small black box connects wirelessly to any Bluetooth phone or PDA; your pocket device displays your exact location or turn-by-turn directions. To install the Wayfinder Navigator Service, your phone must support MMC flash cards and the Symbian OS, but other phones and PDAs can use third-party programs. The GPS module works seamlessly with the Nokia 6682, 6630, and 6670 phones. Your mileage may vary as you drive around town, though, since the LD-1W needs a direct view of the sky.$300 list. Nokia, www.nokia.com. lllmm
Parrot Easydrive Bluetooth Speakerphone Now this is truly hands-free. The Parrot Easydrive Bluetooth Speakerphone plugs into your cigarette l ighter and connects to any Bluetooth-
capable cell phone. With the attached di-
rectional microphone, you can chat easily without wearing a bu lky headset or
fumbling with a slippery Motorola. In the quiet confines
of a Chevy Suburban, the Easydrive worked flawlessly, but road noise in a Honda Civic made it almost unusable. A voice-recognition system that lets you say a name to dial a number makes up for some of the technical glitches.$100 street. Parrot S.A., www.parrot.biz. lllmm
Plantronics Pulsar 590 This trendy metallic head-set weighs just 3.5 ounces, but when you make the Bluetooth connection, you’ll instantly notice improved fidelity. Only
newer phones such as the Motorola 680i support the Bluetooth AD2P stereo pro-fi le, although older phones still work in mono. A pause button on the headset lets you receive calls easily. The in cluded Universal Adapter lets you connect to any device with a 3.5mm miniplug, and the stand doubles as a charger.$200 street. Plantronics Inc., www.plantronics.com. llllh
Think Outside Stowaway Universal Bluetooth Keyboard Give cramped fi ngers a break with this soft-touch keyboard. It uses 18mm key spacing for faster text messaging on, say, your Treo 650. Bluetooth support
means the keyboard works fi ne with a tablet PC or PDA. The color-coded function keys are easy to use, and, with a sturdy underlayer, the key-
board stays rigid on your lap during long e-mail sessions. The power-on but-ton might be too small for large fi ngers. Also, we had to reconnect the device over Bluetooth each time our cell phone went on standby. $149.99 direct. Think Outside Inc., www.thinkoutside.com. llllm
Cell-Phone AccessoriesBY JOHN BRANDON
Hardware upgrades aren’t just for top-of-the-line cell phones. We take a look at add-ons to fi t most phones and tastes, whether you want to hot-rod your old clunker or augment your new beauty.
QUICK CLIPS
Dungeon Siege II Most fantasy games have a simple for-mula: An evil power makes an appearance, and it’s up to you to save the day. That’s the plot of Dungeon Siege II, where you customize your character and decide whether you’re a hack-and-slash warrior, an archer, or a mage. You recruit fellow adventurers for your epic quest; after you fi nish, you can replay at a harder level. But unless you repeat the game, you might miss some of its most powerful villains and weapons.—Peter Suciu
$49.99 list. Microsoft Corp., www.microsoft.com/games. llllh
Finding Nemo: Learning with Nemo Youngsters ages 2 to 5 can swim along with Nemo and Dory in this learning title from Disney Interactive. The pair joins a scavenger hunt, photographing sea animals and plants and pausing for simple games involving letters, numbers, shapes, and math. Although the game is colorful and lively, it’s brief and holds little replay value, and the games aren’t integrated well with the story.—Troy Dreier
$19.99 list. Disney Interactive USA, disney.go.com. llhmm
ComicBase 10 ComicBase 9 was the best comic-collecting soft-ware we’d seen, so we’re impressed that Version 10 is a must-have upgrade. In addi-tion to CB9’s 250,000-issue price guide, slick interface and tutorials, PDA interface, online price-checking features, and fl exi-ble search and reporting, the new version, with a bar-code reader, lets you quickly enter books and updates itself every week with new releases and pricing changes. It offers an unmatched combination of ease of use, comprehensiveness, functionality, and timeliness.—Don Labriola
Standard edition, $149 list; Archive edition, $299. Human Computing, www.comicbase.com. llllh
A F T E R H O U R S • go.pcmag.com/pipeline
166 PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com
Plantronics Pulsar 590
What is this Notice About?A lawsuit is pending in the Federal District Court for the Eastern Districtof Michigan (“the Action”) that may affect your rights. That lawsuit allegesthat certain models of HP desktop computers from the “Pavilion” familycontain a defective motherboard that causes the computers to sufferperformance problems such as “hanging, freezing and locking” (the“Alleged Motherboard Defect”). HP denies plaintiff’s allegations andadmits no wrongdoing. The parties have reached a proposed settlementof the lawsuit. The purpose of this Notice is to explain the settlement andadvise you of your legal rights.
Am I a Member of the Class?The class is defined as: “All end-user purchasers who purchased one ofthe following models of HP Pavilion desktop personal computers: 8655c,8660c, 8750c, 8754c, 8755c, xl756 or xl759. Excluded from the class areall persons who are employees, directors, officers and agents of HP or itssubsidiaries and affiliated companies, as well as the Judges of the Courtsin which the Complaints are pending.”
What Does the Settlement Provide?Subject to Court approval, the parties have agreed to a settlement underwhich you may be entitled to receive a direct monetary payment, a discountcertificate, or both. Your eligibility for this relief depends upon (1) themodel of HP Pavilion desktop personal computer you purchased, (2)whether you contacted HP prior to January 1, 2004 to complain of recurring“hanging, freezing, or locking” (as that phrase is defined in the Stipulationof Settlement) with your computer, and (3) whether HP remedied thoserecurring “hanging, freezing, or locking” problems.
What Benefits Could I Receive?• Class members who: (1) purchased a Pavilion 8655c, 8660c, 8750c,
xl756 or xl759, and (2) contacted HP prior to January 1, 2004 tocomplain of recurring “hanging, freezing, or locking” are eligible toclaim a check for $75.00 and a $50.00 discount certificate providedthey complete, sign, and return a pre-printed certification attesting, underthe penalty of perjury, that their HP computer exhibited recurring“hanging, freezing, or locking” problems, and that HP’s support centerdid not remedy the recurring nature of that problem when they calledHP.
• Class members who (1) purchased a Pavilion 8754c or 8755c, and (2)contacted HP prior to January 1, 2004 to complain of recurring “hanging,freezing, or locking” are eligible to claim a check for $40.00 and a$50.00 discount certificate provided they complete, sign, and return apre-printed certification attesting, under the penalty of perjury, that theirHP computer exhibited recurring “hanging, freezing, or locking”problems, and that HP’s support center did not remedy the recurringnature of that problem when they called HP.
• Class members who: (1) purchased a Pavilion 8655c, 8660c, 8750c,8754c, 8755c, xl756 or xl759; and (2) contacted HP prior to January 1,2004 to complain of recurring “hanging, freezing, or locking” will alsobe eligible for up to $750.00 in reimbursement of reasonable out-of-pocket expenditures incurred for the purpose of curing the allegedmotherboard defect, provided they attest, under the penalty of perjury,that these costs were incurred in an attempt to cure recurring “hanging,freezing, or locking” problems with their computer and submit writtendocumentation that identifies and itemizes these expenditures.
• Class members who purchased a Pavilion 8655c, 8660c, 8750c, 8754c,8755c, xl756 or xl759 and contacted HP prior to January 1, 2004 tocomplain of recurring “hanging, freezing, or locking” but do NOTcomplete any of the certifications referenced above, will only receive adiscount certificate in the amount of $50.00.
• Class Members who purchased a Pavilion 8655c, 8660c, 8750c, 8754c,8755c, xl756 or xl759, but did NOT contact HP prior to January 1,2004 to complain of recurring “hanging, freezing, or locking” problemswith their Pavilion, will receive a discount certificate in the amount of$50.00, provided they complete, sign, and return a pre-printedcertification attesting that they experienced recurring “hanging, freezing,or locking” problems.
• If you did not receive notice of the settlement directly from HP, eitherby email or mail, you will, in order to be eligible for any of the settlement
Attention Hewlett-Packard (“HP”) Pavilion Computer OwnersIf you purchased an HP Pavilion with the model number 8655c, 8660c, 8750c, 8754c, 8755c, xl756 or xl759,
this Notice is to inform you of a proposed class action settlement that could affect your legal rights.benefits described in this section, be required to provide the serial numberof your Pavilion or some other proof of ownership of one of the Pavilionsthat is the subject of the Action. If you provide only a serial number,HP has the right to request additional documents from you in order toestablish that you purchased one of the affected computers.
What Are My Rights?1. You Can Accept the Settlement. If you wish to receive the benefitsunder the settlement, you MUST fill out and submit a Claim Form byMay 1, 2006. You can obtain a Claim Form by: (1) calling the SettlementAdministrator at 1-877-874-7559, (2) mailing a written request for a ClaimForm including your name and mailing address by regular mail to: HPPavilion Class Action Settlement, c/o Claims Administrator, P.O. Box 542,Minneapolis, MN 55440-0542, or (3) downloading the Claim Form andinformation at www.hppavilionsettlement.com. If you fail to timely submita Claim Form and do not exclude yourself from the settlement, then youwill be bound by the settlement but will not receive any benefits of thesettlement.
2. You Can Object to the Settlement. If you believe the settlement isunsatisfactory, you may file a written objection with the Clerk of the Courtfor the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan andsend copies to the following Counsel representing the Class and defendant:
Plaintiffs’ counsel: Defendant’s CounselCyrus Mehri Michael J. HolstonMehri & Skalet, PLLC Morgan Lewis & Bockius1300 19th St. NW 1701 Market StreetSuite 400 Philadelphia, PA 19103Washington, D.C. 20036~ or ~
John P. ZuccariniElwood S. Simon & Assoc. PC355 S. Old Woodward Ave., Suite 250Birmingham, MI 48009
3. You Can “Opt-Out” of the Settlement. If you do not wish to participatein this settlement, you must provide written notice so indicating. Suchnotice shall include your name, current address, and the followingstatement: “I DO NOT WANT TO BE A PART OF THIS SETTLEMENT.I UNDERSTAND THAT IF I AM EXCLUDED, I WILL NOT BEELIGIBLE TO RECEIVE ANY BENEFITS OR PROCEEDS OF THESETTLEMENT. PLEASE EXCLUDE ME.” Such notice must bepostmarked no later than February 10, 2006. Your written notice shouldbe sent to: HP Pavilion Class Action Settlement, c/o Claims Administrator,P.O. Box 542, Minneapolis, MN 55440-0542. Please be advised that ifyou “opt out” of the settlement, you will not receive any money or benefitsunder the settlement and will be responsible for any attorneys’ fees andcosts you incur if you choose to pursue your own lawsuit.
When Will the Settlement Be Approved?The Court will hold a hearing on March 16, 2006 at 2:00 p.m. in theFederal District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, 200 E. LibertyStreet, Ann Arbor, MI 48104, to determine: (1) whether the proposedsettlement is fair, reasonable and adequate and should receive finalapproval; and (2) whether the application of plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees andexpenses should be granted. Objections to the proposed settlement byclass members will be considered by the Court, but only if such objectionsare filed in writing with the clerk before February 10, 2006. Class Memberswho support the proposed settlement do not need to appear at the hearingor take any other action to indicate their approval.
Additional InformationYou may seek the advice and guidance of your own attorney if you desire.A complete copy of the proposed settlement agreement may be examinedduring regular office hours at the Office of the Clerk of Court, 200 E.Liberty Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. Information is also available atwww.hppavilionsettlement.com.Please do not contact the Court or Clerk for information.By order of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District ofMichigan
Legal Notice Legal Notice
PC MAGAZINE JANUARY 2006 www.pcmag.com 168
2006? WE KEEP FORGETTING…IS THERE AN OLYMPICS THIS YEAR?Edited by Don Willmott
PC Magazine, ISSN 0888-8507, is published semi-monthly except monthly in January and July at $44.97 for one year. Ziff Davis Media Inc, 28 E. 28th St., New York, NY 10016-7940. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY 10016-7940 and at additional mailing offi ces. POSTMASTER: Address changes to PC Magazine, P.O. Box 54070, Boulder, CO 80328-4070. The Canadian GST registration number is 865286033. Publications Mail Agree-ment No. 40009221. Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to P.O. Box 503, R.P.O. West Beaver Creek, Richmond Hill, ON L4B 4R6, Canada. Printed in the U.S.A.
If your entry is used, we’ll send you a PC Magazine T-shirt. Submit your entries via e-mail to [email protected] (attachments are welcome) or to Backspace, PC Magazine, 28 E. 28th St., New York, NY 10016-7940.
Ziff Davis Media Inc. shall own all property rights in the entries. Winners this issue: Jeff Baehr, Victor Padres, Robert Palmer, Shumaes Rasheed, Afron Raymond, Eric Rhey, and Anthony Vickery.
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Display sold separately.
Display sold separately.
Sony recommendsWindows® XP.