AllThingsD » Walt Mossberg

Dell Goes on Ultrabook Diet With Slimmed-Down Laptop

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:03:02 +0000

As 2012 rolls on, consumers shopping for a PC will be seeing more of the thin, light, quick-starting Windows laptops called ultrabooks.

Big names like Lenovo and Toshiba already have entered this new category, and on Tuesday, Dell will introduce its first ultrabook, the XPS 13, starting at $999.

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Dell has had difficulty lately attracting consumers. At one time, it was the go-to brand for many people looking to buy a computer. But, in recent years, its consumer business has faltered as individuals, especially in the U.S., have flocked to Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and even once obscure brands such as Acer and Asus.

Now, the Texas tech titan is making a renewed push for the affections of consumers and the XPS 13 is an important weapon in that push. Like other ultrabooks, it’s an attempt to emulate Apple’s popular MacBook Air by offering a thin, light laptop with good power that has a full-size screen and keyboard, starts up and resumes quickly, uses a solid-state drive and claims decent battery life.

The XPS 13 uses a thinner screen border and a full-size keyboard.

However, Dell’s entry offers an interesting twist: It packs a 13-inch screen into a footprint that is closer to that of models with just an 11- or 12-inch display. This makes it easier to fit in a briefcase or on an airplane tray table in coach. When placed atop a MacBook Air with the same-size screen, the Dell is noticeably smaller.

Dell uses edge-to-edge glass for its screen and leaves much less of a bezel, or border, around the screen, than the Apple does. The XPS 13 isn’t smaller than its competitors in every dimension. It’s thicker and a tad heavier than the comparable MacBook Air. And, like the Apple, it’s significantly heavier than Toshiba’s ultrabook. But the shorter width and height are a nice touch.

I’ve been testing the Dell XPS 13, and there is a lot to like about it, even beyond its compact dimensions. I found it to be solid and well built, speedy and with a good, backlit keyboard, a bright screen, and good looks. It emerged from standby mode quickly and reliably. But this machine has a major downside: subpar battery life. In my standard test, it fell about an hour short of the longest-lived competing ultrabook I’ve tested and two hours short of the 13-inch MacBook Air.

Like other ultrabooks, the XPS 13 isn’t a bargain computer. It’s costlier than the typical, bulkier Windows laptop, which can be had for $400 to $700. But, at $999 with 4 gigabytes of memory and a 128 gigabyte solid-state drive, the Dell is $300 less than the 13-inch MacBook Air with the same specs. Both machines use Intel’s midrange i5 processor. Dell offers an otherwise identical model with double the solid-state storage for $1,299, and a model with double the base storage and a more powerful processor for $1,499.

The model Dell sent me for testing was high end. But based on my tests of other ultrabooks—all designed to tight standards promulgated by Intel—I have no reason to doubt the base model with the midrange processor also is speedy, and no reason to recommend the costlier chip.

The XPS 13, which runs Windows 7 and is part of Dell’s premium consumer line, has a silvery aluminum top and a base made of carbon fiber. It rests on two long rubber runners. The battery is sealed and ports are minimal. There are two USB ports—one is the faster USB 3.0 type—and a video-out port called a Mini Display Port.

The spacious keyboard has nicely separated keys. The touch pad is large, with no physical buttons. But I found it required tweaking in its buried settings screen before it felt right for me.

I was annoyed that, out of the box, the top row of function keys that is commonly used to adjust things like brightness and volume also requires you to hold down a special key to get to these controls. But this can be changed in a settings panel and Dell says it’s considering changing the way this works.

The 13-inch screen fits nicely in a smaller footprint than the Mac’s, but has a lower resolution than the Apple screen of the same size. So, an identical Web page in the identical browser displays more on the MacBook Air than on the Dell XPS 13.

Dell says this is because it had to use the lower-resolution panel for a special manufacturing process it employed on the new ultrabook. It says it will increase the resolution later this year.

Dell’s ultrabook comes with a standard suite of Microsoft and Dell software, including the Windows Live Essentials consumer package, which includes email, and a photo and video program. A starter edition of Microsoft Office contains somewhat stripped-down versions of Word and Excel.

The computer easily handled other programs I installed, including the Google Chrome browser, and Apple’s iTunes.

But Dell still clings to the bad old habit of loading in software you may not want, for which it presumably gets paid. In particular, it has added a Dell-branded Bing toolbar to the Internet Explorer browser.

As noted above, battery life was disappointing. In my test, where I use full brightness, disable power-saving software, leave on the Wi-Fi, and play a loop of music, the battery on the XPS 13 lasted just under four hours, the worst I’ve seen on an ultrabook.

By contrast, in the same test, the longest-lived ultrabook I’ve tested, the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s, got nearly five hours, and the MacBook Air almost six hours. I estimate you could likely get five hours on the Dell in a more normal usage pattern.

Ultrabook shoppers looking for a well-built, unusually compact 13-inch model should consider the Dell, but the relatively poor battery life might be a deal breaker for some.

Write to Walt at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

Stashing Movies

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:02:21 +0000

Can you download movies directly to the AirStash wireless USB flash drive you reviewed recently? Can you play Netflix movies or iTunes movies downloaded to your computer and then moved to the AirStash?

The AirStash is a storage device that is loaded from a PC or Mac with files (of which videos are only one type) and which then uses a special Wi-Fi network to beam those files to devices like iPads that lack USB ports. Because it doesn’t connect to the Internet itself, it can’t download movies or anything else directly via an Internet connection.

As for the Netflix and iTunes questions, Netflix wouldn’t work because Netflix doesn’t sell or download movie files at all. It only streams movies to computers running the Netflix website or mobile devices running the Netflix app. And you wouldn’t need AirStash to view a Netflix movie on, say, an iPad, because the latter can receive them directly via the app.

On iTunes movies, the company says you can definitely use AirStash to beam an iTunes movie you buy (not rent) on a computer, to an Apple mobile device, as long as that device is authorized on the same iTunes account as the computer to which you downloaded the movie.

I am closing my office and moving to a home office. I need a phone that does email, text messaging and has international service. I do not need all the bells and whistles. Would a BlackBerry be good or do you have other suggestions?

BlackBerry phones are especially good for email and not only handle texts well, but have their own free BlackBerry-to-BlackBerry messaging service. They also come with excellent physical keyboards, which some users strongly prefer. The main downside compared with other smartphones is that the devices have a tired user interface and a paucity of third-party apps. If a slicker interface and a wide variety of apps matter to you, consider an Android phone or an iPhone.

Mobile Device That's Better for a Jotter Than a Talker

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 02:02:55 +0000

Lots of folks carry a smartphone, and, at least some of the time, tote a second mobile device—an iPad or other tablet. But some people might prefer a product that combines the two. Similarly, many have come to love the finger-controlled interface popularized by Apple, but might prefer at times to use a stylus, a common tool in the pre-iPhone days.

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Samsung is hoping to offer all of the above. On Sunday, it’s introducing to the U.S. a phone-tablet hybrid with a large 5.3-inch screen that uses a stylus as well as your fingers. It’s called the Galaxy Note and costs $300 with a two-year AT&T contract.

While the Note could be mistaken for a small tablet, Samsung insists it’s a phone that merely offers some of the roominess of a tablet. And in fact, it runs the last purely phone-oriented version of Google’s Android operating system, called Gingerbread. This product positioning may be due to bad memories of another company’s effort to sell such a ’tweener: Dell’s 5-inch Streak, which was marketed as a tablet that could make calls and failed miserably in 2010.

After testing the Galaxy Note, I have decidedly mixed feelings about it. It isn’t a very practical phone and, as a tablet, it can’t match the experience of the iPad, which is more spacious and has over 150,000 apps designed for it. However, I can see where some folks might consider the 5-inch screen a good trade-off for much better portability than other tablets, and Samsung has done some very interesting work in making the stylus, which is stored in a slot on the device, useful.

The S Memo app lets the Note’s stylus draw in different colors and to emulate a brush or marker.

As a mobile phone, the Galaxy Note is positively gargantuan. It’s almost 6 inches long and over 3 inches wide. When you hold it up to your ear, it pretty much covers the entire side of your face. You look like you’re talking into a piece of toast.

The Note is so big, an iPhone can almost fit within its display. And it dwarfs even the more-bloated crop of recent Android phones, like Samsung’s own Galaxy S II series, whose screen can be as large as 4.5 inches. And while it can fit into a large pocket or handbag, the Note isn’t going to slip unobtrusively into your jeans or a small purse. It weighs 6.28 ounces, nearly 30 percent more than the iPhone and nearly 50 percent more than some Galaxy S II models.

For people who use Bluetooth earpieces all the time, or who primarily use the speakerphone function, the Note’s size may not be a problem. But for the rest, the Note is just too large to go without a more reasonably sized phone, which defeats the one-device argument.

Voice quality in normal use was good. But, in my limited tests of its Bluetooth voice capabilities, the caller on the other end felt the Note sounded significantly worse than the iPhone or other Android models I’ve tested.

However, as a data device, I liked the Note a lot. Its screen sports a high resolution that made photos, videos and text look very good. It uses AT&T’s high-speed LTE data network, where available, and in my tests it was very fast. The larger screen enabled more of a Web page to be visible without scrolling than on typical phones.

Like all Android devices, it has fewer, and, in my opinion, generally lower-quality third-party apps than the iPhone. But those I tried worked well. The Note was consistently speedy and responsive.

The 8-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front camera both did a good job. Photos and videos I shot from the rear camera were excellent. But I found the sheer size of the Note undercuts its convenience as a camera and there’s no dedicated camera button or quick way to launch the camera when the screen is locked, as there is on some other phones.

In moderate mixed use, where I played music and videos, surfed the Web, texted, used email constantly and took pictures, the Note’s battery lasted more than a full day between charges.

Unlike Apple, Samsung allowed AT&T to load a bunch of its own apps you might not want on the Note, like a $10 to $15 a month program for locating family members via cellphone GPS. A particularly egregious example is a Yellow Pages app that’s jammed into the very top of your contact list.

Another drawback: While other Android phones I’ve tested can be plugged into either a PC or a Mac so you can manually transfer files onto them, I couldn’t get the Note to do this with either of two Macs I tested with it. It did work with Windows machines.

The stylus is a big plus, at least for users who like to jot down notes, create sketches or annotate documents in a way that’s much more precise than using a fingertip. Even on the iPad, which wasn’t designed for a stylus, third-party styli have become quietly popular, but Samsung has taken the idea much further.

The Note’s stylus, called the S Pen, can be used instead of a finger to launch and operate apps. But that isn’t its main purpose. It’s meant to work closely with a special app called S Memo that allows you to take notes or make sketches. These can be saved or shared via email or text messaging, or uploaded to sites like Facebook. They can include photos or typed text.

The software allows the stylus to draw in different colors and widths and to emulate a brush or marker.

A button on the side of the stylus can be pressed while tapping the stylus on the screen to bring up a light version of S Memo for quick notes, or to capture whatever is on the screen as a photo that you can annotate with the pen and send off to others.

Samsung plans more pen-oriented apps, and there are some games and drawing apps for the stylus. Some similar apps are available for the iPad and iPhone, but Samsung is investing more in the stylus and what it can do. For people who like jotting notes or sketching, the stylus alone could be a reason to buy the Note.

The Samsung Galaxy Note isn’t for everyone, and I can’t recommend it as the main mobile phone for most people. But as a stylus-driven small tablet, it might be just what some users are looking for.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

For iPad and Mobile Devices, a 'Port' out of the Norm

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:04:27 +0000

The pocket-size USB flash drive has become nearly ubiquitous in the PC world, for moving files among machines and for adding extra storage. But it can’t be used with most tablets because they lack standard USB ports.

[ See post to watch video ]

Now, there’s a special, modified, pocket flash drive that works as usual with PCs and Macs, but can transfer and stream files to popular mobile devices without standard USB ports, such as Apple’s iPad and iPhone, Amazon’s Kindle Fire and many other Android devices. Its secret: It has built-in Wi-Fi to beam the files to and from tablets and smartphones wirelessly. It can even stream files like videos to many devices simultaneously.

The AirStash drive with removable SD memory card

It’s called the AirStash and is made by a tiny company called Wearable Inc., and distributed by Maxell Corp. It’s available at Amazon.com and a few other retailers for $150 for an 8 gigabyte model, which can increase the storage capacity of a base iPad by 50 percent. An AirStash model with 16 gigabytes is $180.

The AirStash is a clever device that solves a genuine problem, though not without some issues. In my tests, it worked as advertised, without crashing or exhibiting bugs. But it’s pricey and has one big drawback: When a device is connected to the AirStash via Wi-Fi, it can’t be connected to the Internet. The company plans a fix for that as early as next month.

The AirStash looks like other USB flash drives, except a bit wider. Its storage is provided by a removable SD memory card that pops into the bottom edge. You can substitute your own larger card. In fact, you can swap in the memory card from your camera and beam your photos.

This product is aimed at the iPad and iPhone, and the company has a free app for those products that makes it easy to manage and view the files on the drive. But its wireless file transfers also work, via the Web browser, on non-Apple devices, even computers. And the company plans an Android version of the app.

A typical way to use the AirStash would be to first plug it into your computer like any flash drive and copy onto it photos, documents, videos, podcasts or songs. Then remove it from the computer and press a small button on the front of the AirStash that turns on its Wi-Fi network. Next, you connect your iPad to this network, launch the AirStash app and all the files on the drive show up.

The AirStash app allows an iPad to wirelessly import photos from the drive.

The AirStash app allows an iPad to create a new directory on the drive, below.

From the app, you can view documents, play songs, watch videos, view photos or listen to podcasts. On a non-Apple device, there’s no special app, but you can still access the content on the drive. You just link up to the AirStash Wi-Fi network, launch your Web browser and go to airstash.net. A page appears with a list of the drive’s contents.

AirStash performed some feats I found impressive. In one test, I was able, from about 75 feet away, to flawlessly watch three movies stored on the AirStash at the same time on three devices. I had “Inception” playing on an iPad, “The King’s Speech” playing on a Kindle Fire and “Star Trek” playing on a Dell laptop. I stress, none of these movies was stored on the devices—all were stored on the AirStash.

In another test, I was able to watch a movie on an iPad, play a song on an Android-based Motorola Droid and read a PDF file on a Mac, simultaneously. Once again, all these files were stored on an AirStash drive 75 feet away.

The AirStash can beam material to as many as eight devices at once, except for video, where the limit is three devices. It can beam the same video to three devices at the same time. A parent could use one AirStash to provide different videos to each of three kids during a drive in the car.

Wearable, the maker of the AirStash, boasts it works in both directions: You can also write files to the AirStash from a device like an iPad. Technically, this is true. For instance, from the AirStash app, you can export photos stored on an iPad or iPhone to the drive.

But several iPad apps for viewing or editing documents, which the company says work with AirStash, require a geeky setup process, and I couldn’t get them to send edited documents back to the drive.

There are some other limitations. For instance, on non-Apple devices, the Web interface is rudimentary, and on the Kindle Fire, music can’t be streamed from the AirStash.

Finally, unlike most other flash drives, the AirStash has a battery to power its Wi-Fi. The company claims up to seven hours of continuous battery life between charges, and while I didn’t do a formal test, the battery life seemed good to me. You can recharge the device either through a standard USB wall charger, like those that come with cellphones, or by plugging it into the USB port of a computer. In the latter case, the Wi-Fi capability can’t be used while charging.

If you’re pining for easier file transfer or expanded storage on your iPad, iPhone or other mobile device without a standard USB port, the AirStash might be the ticket, albeit an expensive one.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

An iPhoto Slide Show on CD

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:01:04 +0000

How can I burn a slideshow that I made in iPhoto on my MacBook Pro onto a CD?

You can export the slideshow as a video (a QuickTime movie in Apple parlance) and then burn that video to your CD.

Here’s how: In iPhoto, after you’ve created the photo slideshow, with titles, music and so forth, click on the “Export” button at the bottom of the slideshow-creation window. Choose an option for the resolution of your movie and click “Export.”

Then, choose a destination on your hard disk where you’ll temporarily store the movie. Next, insert the recordable CD, and copy the movie into the window representing the CD. Finally, click on the “Burn” button at the upper right of that CD window.

I have recently gone almost all Google: I moved my business email to Google, am using Google Docs, etc. I am in need of a new laptop and am considering a Google Chromebook. My question / concern is: What about programs I may need, such as iTunes, or some printer / scanner software, or an accounting suite? Will there be room for some of these programs and if so, will they operate on Chrome OS?

Google’s Chromebook doesn’t run traditional programs. It is designed to only run so-called Web apps—app-like Web sites, from Google and others, that operate inside the Chrome browser. Also, it has very little local storage and depends on the Cloud—remote Internet servers—for most storage of apps and data. So, the bad news is you can’t install iTunes or your favorite Windows or Mac accounting suite on a Chromebook.

The good news is Google and others are churning out more and more Web apps for Chromebooks. For instance, there are a variety of music and accounting apps that might meet your needs. You can check these out at chrome.google.com/webstore.

I recently switched from BlackBerry to an Android-based phone. Do I need to install any anti-virus or firewall apps on an Android smartphone like what we do on a PC?

It all depends on your tolerance for risk, your tolerance for running security software, how adventurous you are at downloading apps—and who you believe. Various reports have claimed that Android malware is surging, but last week Google disclosed a fairly new technology called “bouncer” that it has been using internally to weed out harmful apps. And the company claims there has been a big drop in malware in its app market in recent months.

My recommendation would be that if you are a safety-first person, or someone who experiments with lots of apps from companies you don’t know, you should consider using security software on Android.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Real Bonding With Family Around the TV Via Skype

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:03:28 +0000

As you read these words, millions of people are conducting video chats using the popular Skype service, now owned by Microsoft. Most of these calls are low-resolution encounters between two individuals, conducted over personal computers.

[ See post to watch video ]

This week, I tested a new device that aims to transform Skype video chats into room-size experiences, involving whole families or groups of friends on each end—seeing each other, chatting and sharing photos in high definition using TVs. It’s called telyHD, and comes from a small Silicon Valley start-up called Tely Labs. In my tests, it worked well.

This TV add-on product is a black, horizontal bar less than a foot long and under 3 inches high with a wide-angle lens and multiple built-in microphones. It installs quickly and easily—typically on top of the TV—and is controlled by a remote from across the room that can be used to place and answer calls, and to zoom and pan your image. It can connect to any other Skype-enabled device—including PCs, Macs, smartphones and tablets—but some of its advanced features require a telyHD on both sides of the conversation.

The $250 telyHD isn’t just a different way to use Skype. It’s part of the race to reinvent the television—to make it a smarter, more versatile digital device. So-called smart TVs, Internet-enabled sets that connect to the Web and run apps, are offered by most major manufacturers. The telyHD device brings added functionality and connectivity to existing “dumb” HDTVs that lack built-in online features.

There is no monthly fee or subscription required by Tely Labs, and video calls between a telyHD and any other Skype device, including another telyHD, are free. You can also make free Skype-to-Skype audio calls, and audio calls to regular phones can be made at Skype’s normal rates.

I’ve been testing telyHD in my family room on my aging Pioneer 50-inch plasma HDTV. I made multiple calls to people at the company using other telyHD units. And, with my wife at my side, in our usual seats, we made video calls to each of our out-of-state children, who were using Skype-equipped computers.

TelyHD mounts on top of even thin TVs using a built-in clamp.

On our end of the calls, we didn’t have to crowd around a laptop webcam, jump up to fiddle with the unit, or do anything different than if we had been watching TV. Our kids reported they could see and hear us both fine, even though we were about 10 feet from the camera. One person I tested with did report some audio feedback on her computer.

I can say that telyHD worked as advertised, and provided good, generally smooth experiences on every call, whether I used a wired network connection or Wi-Fi on my end. The calls to other telyHDs appeared in high definition on our screen, though the calls to computers were lower resolution, as with many Skype calls. And, if you’re concerned about rogue invasions of privacy, the telyHD has a sliding plastic shield to cover the camera when not in use.

You can buy telyHD from the company’s site, tely.com, or at Skype.com or Amazon.com. Ironically, it is hitting the market shortly after Cisco stopped selling a somewhat similar home video-calling product. Cisco’s product cost much more, wasn’t tied into Skype and carried a monthly fee.

TelyHD isn’t just a webcam. It’s a small computing device, powered by Google’s Android operating system. It contains software and Internet capabilities most TVs lack, some of which go beyond simple video calls. For instance, when contacting other telyHD units, I was able to send and receive video voice mails. And I was able to plug into the telyHD a flash memory card filled with pictures. I could share the pictures with another telyHD user and vice versa. I could even choose to copy a photo from the other party onto my own memory card. You can do the same thing with a USB drive.

(TelyHD isn’t the only way to use Skype for a whole-room view from a TV. Some of the new smart TVs, and even some Blu-ray players, come equipped with Skype software. When paired with a webcam, they, too, can conduct Skype video calls via the TV. I didn’t test these for this column.)

TelyHD can be placed on top of the TV, on a shelf, or on a tripod. It requires a broadband Internet connection, either wired or wireless, and an HDMI port on the TV, which is common on HDTVs. It mounts on top of even thin TVs using a built-in clamp that doesn’t require tools. I set up my test unit in about 15 minutes.

The system can’t be used simultaneously with regular TV-watching. Just as with a DVD player, you must switch to a separate “input” on your TV to bring it up. When you do, it signs you into your Skype account and fills the screen with a carousel of big cards representing your Skype contacts. You click on a card with the remote to place or answer a call. There are various screen layouts you can choose, including a small window that shows what you look like to others and windows that show tips on what the remote buttons do.

My only serious complaint with telyHD is that the remote control seems cheap, with hard-to-press buttons. But the company says it has designed an improved remote and will offer this new one free to existing owners. Also, as with many TV services, it’s a pain to peck out user names, or searches, on an on-screen keyboard. And I found a bug in which the unit didn’t recognize certain Wi-Fi network names, but the company fixed it earlier this week.

Tely Labs plans more versions of telyHD and more features. A pricier model for small businesses is in the works, which will allow live file sharing, and have a better camera and a keyboard. A second software version also is coming. It will allow the unit to send to the TV screen video from Apple’s iPad and will also support photo sharing from online services.

The company is working on allowing video calling among up to 10 devices, though that will carry a fee.

I can recommend telyHD for people with HDTVs who want to move their Skype video calling to where whole groups can get into the picture.

Write to Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Track Changes on an iPad

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:02:59 +0000

You recently reviewed an iPad app that lets you use Microsoft Office programs on an iPad. But does this support the “Track Changes” feature of Office, which I cannot find on any of the office-type apps I’ve tried on the iPad?

Yes, it does. And tracked changes are synchronized with your PC or Mac.

As I noted in the review, the new app, called OnLive Desktop, gives you the complete Windows version of Office on an iPad, via the cloud. So all features in the Windows version, including the tracking of changes, are available.

I am a new Mac user and would like to become a Quicken user. I read your February 2010 critique of Mac Quicken. Is there a new and improved version of Mac Quicken?

Intuit, the maker of the stripped-down Quicken Essentials for Mac I reviewed then, has improved the product. But more important, the company now says its last full version of Quicken for the Mac, called Quicken 2007, will soon be revised so that it runs with Lion, the latest version of the Macintosh operating system.

There was outrage from Mac Quicken users when Intuit earlier had declined to rewrite the full version to work with Lion.

Could you please tell me which smartphone today is a must if my last phone was the iPhone 4? Your review of the iPhone 4S indicated it wasn’t a “must” upgrade for iPhone 4 owners.

Changing to a different phone would only be a “must” for you if you were unhappy with your iPhone, or wanted one of a couple of key features only available on competing phones.

One would be a larger screen. The iPhone screen is 3.5 inches, but some newer Android phones, such as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, now have giant screens as large as 4.65 inches. Personally, I find that too large for comfort, but you might not.

Another important feature is LTE wireless capability. A number of Android phones, such as the Motorola Droid RAZR, support LTE, a fourth-generation wireless technology that is much, much faster at data downloads than 3G, though it also tends to use up your battery faster. No iPhone yet supports LTE.

Write to Walt at mossberg@wsj.com

Talk Is Cheap and Reliable on Nokia's $50 Phone

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 02:03:34 +0000

The standard price of a smartphone running one of the modern mobile operating systems is typically $200, with a two-year service contract. Recently, there have even been a few, largely unsuccessful, attempts to boost prices to $300.

[ See post to watch video ]

But phone makers and carriers have been eager to push smartphones into lower price bands to expand the market. Older and more basic models have been showing up for less. Multiple Android models sell for around $100, and a few well below that. Even Apple, which established the $200 standard, sells its iPhone 4, which is outwardly identical to the current iPhone 4S, for $99. And its 2009-vintage iPhone 3GS is free with an AT&T contract.

So this week, I tested a new $50 smartphone to see what you get for that kind of money. It’s called the Nokia Lumia 710, and it runs Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system, the much-praised, but late and struggling, competitor to Android and the Apple iOS software that powers the iPhone.

The Nokia Lumia 710 runs the same Mango version of Windows Phone as costlier models, with its bright tiles that can show live data, like the weather or favorite photos.

After a week of testing the Lumia 710, my verdict is that it’s a good value for the money, and a good choice for people moving up to their first smartphone, or those looking for an alternative to Android and Apple. It has some notable weaknesses and drawbacks, and it doesn’t compare with the iPhone 4S or elite Android models like the Samsung Galaxy S II. But it’s a decent phone that gets the most common smartphone tasks done.

I chose the Lumia 710 because it isn’t an old model or one that runs an outdated version of software. In fact, it’s the first Windows Phone device from Nokia, Microsoft’s principal phone partner, to be offered by an American wireless carrier—in this case, T-Mobile. And it was designed to be a low-cost alternative to most other smartphones, to boost the tepid sales of Windows Phone devices and to launch Nokia’s bid to regain a significant share of the U.S. market.

T-Mobile is promoting the phone heavily in its stores and in national TV ads, and says it will be a major focus for the carrier this winter. Wal-Mart is pushing it for $18.88 in its stores and free online, with a contract, according to T-Mobile and Nokia.

Though it’s the vanguard, the Lumia 710 won’t be the flagship of Nokia’s new Windows Phone line. An entirely different model, the larger but sleeker Lumia 900, is coming from AT&T, probably in March. It will boast a bigger, better screen, more storage and features and a better camera. No price has been announced, but it will certainly cost more than $50.

Another higher-end Nokia model, the Lumia 800, already is available overseas, but hasn’t been picked up yet by U.S. carriers.

The 710 is a somewhat thick, rounded phone that comes in black or white and has a 3.7-inch screen—bigger than the iPhone’s, but much smaller than the huge displays of 4.5 inches or more on some of the newer Android models.

The phone is plastic and fairly light, but doesn’t seem cheap or flimsy. It has a rubbery, curved back and feels good in the hand. And unlike many new smartphones, the back is removable and the battery is replaceable.

This phone runs on T-Mobile’s 4G network, which I have consistently found to be much slower than Verizon’s latest 4G technology, now also being rolled out by AT&T. In my tests, downloads averaged about 2 megabits per second, which isn’t much better than on many 3G phones.

The 710 runs the same Mango version of Windows Phone as costlier models and, in my tests, was generally snappy, though it lagged in a few instances. Like all Windows phones, it has a dedicated button that launches the camera even when the phone is locked. However, Windows Phone has about 10% of the third-party apps as the iPhone.

I was able to use all the main features of Mango, which distinguishes itself from its competitors with a user interface made up of bright tiles that can show live data, like the weather or favorite photos, even before you tap them to open apps. Mango’s “hubs”—features that aggregate information such as your friends’ contact info and social-networking status—also worked fine.

I was able to sync the phone with both a Windows PC and a Mac, using Microsoft software, to add music, photos and videos.

So what corner-cutting was done to get the price down? What are the missing features? One is the absence of a front camera, which means you can’t do video chats on the 710. Also, the phone can’t be used as a Wi-Fi hot spot to connect other devices, like laptops, to the Web. It has only 8 gigabytes of internal storage, which can’t be expanded. The base line for most other new smartphones is 16 gigabytes.

In addition, I found the 5 megapixel rear camera to be no better than adequate, with some pictures I took rapidly coming out fuzzy, though most others were acceptable.

I found the phone’s buttons required more pressure than they should have. The screen, while decent-looking when viewed straight on, was harder to read from an angle than on most competing smartphones.

I didn’t perform a formal battery test, but found the phone’s battery made it through the day in mixed, light-to-moderate use. Sound quality was good and calls didn’t drop.

T-Mobile’s service plans for the Nokia Lumia 710 start at $60 per month for 500 minutes of voice, unlimited texts and a paltry 200 megabytes of data. But the carrier recommends a plan that costs $80 monthly and boosts the data portion to unlimited (T-Mobile slows your connection if you exceed 5 gigabytes of data during the month.)

Bottom line: Nokia will soon have flashier, high-end Windows Phone models in the U.S., but you can get a lot for less in the Lumia 710.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)

Walt Mossberg — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:04:05 +0000

As noted in this Fox Business News interview, it’s not easy to get around the floor of CES when you have one of the most recognizable faces in tech, but Walt Mossberg dutifully pressed through the throngs, and while nothing really blew him away, he did find a few items intriguing:

Samsung Note: Dubbed a “phablet,” the Note is a cross between a big phone and a small tablet.
One Tablet Per Child: The follow-up to the original One Laptop Per Child computer, this tablet is designed for third-world and developing countries.
Digital health and fitness products: A blood glucose meter and blood pressure cuff that interfaces with an iPhone or iPad.
Lenovo Yoga: This Ultrabook switches between a thin laptop and a tablet and is designed for the upcoming Windows 8.

Working in Word, Excel, PowerPoint on an iPad

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 02:04:34 +0000

Although Apple’s popular iPad tablet has been able to replace laptops for many tasks, it isn’t a big hit with folks who’d like to use it to create or edit long Microsoft Office documents.

[ See post to watch video ]

While Microsoft has released a number of apps for the iPad, it hasn’t yet released an iPad version of Office. There are a number of valuable apps that can create or edit Office documents, such as Quickoffice Pro, Documents To Go and the iPad version of Apple’s own iWork suite. But their fidelity with Office documents created on a Windows PC or a Mac isn’t perfect.

This week, OnLive Inc., in Palo Alto, Calif., is releasing an app that brings the full, genuine Windows versions of the key Office productivity apps—Word, Excel and PowerPoint—to the iPad. And it’s free. These are the real programs. They look and work just like they do on a real Windows PC. They let you create or edit genuine Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.

I’ve been testing a pre-release version of this new app, called OnLive Desktop, which the company says will be available in the next few days in Apple’s app store. More information is at desktop.onlive.com.

The OnLive Desktop app stores documents in a cloud-based repository.

My verdict is that it works, but with some caveats, limitations and rough edges. Some of these downsides are inherent in the product, while others have to do with the mismatch between the iPad’s touch interface and the fact that Office for Windows was primarily designed for a physical keyboard and mouse.

Creating or editing long documents on a tablet with a virtual on-screen keyboard is a chore, no matter what Office-type app you choose. So, although it isn’t a requirement, I strongly recommend that users of OnLive Desktop employ one of the many add-on wireless keyboards for the iPad.

OnLive Desktop is a cloud-based app. That means it doesn’t actually install Office on your iPad. It acts as a gateway to a remote server where Windows 7, and the three Office apps, are actually running. You create an account, sign in, and Windows pops up on your iPad, with icons allowing you to launch Word, Excel or PowerPoint. (There are also a few other, minor Windows programs included, like Notepad, Calculator and Paint.)

In my tests, the Office apps launched and worked smoothly and quickly, without any noticeable lag, despite the fact that they were operating remotely. Although this worked better for me on my fast home Internet connection, it also worked pretty well on a much slower hotel connection.

Like Office itself, the documents you create or modify don’t live on the iPad. Instead, they go to a cloud-based repository, a sort of virtual hard disk. When you sign into OnLive Desktop, you see your documents in the standard Windows documents folder, which is actually on the remote server. The company says that this document storage won’t be available until a few days after the app becomes available.

To get files into and out of OnLive Desktop, you log in to a Web site on your PC or Mac, where you see all the documents you’ve saved to your cloud repository. You can use this Web site to upload and download files to your OnLive Desktop account. Any changes made will be automatically synced, the company says, though I wasn’t able to test that capability in my pre-release version.

Because it’s a cloud-based service, OnLive Desktop won’t work offline, such as in planes without Wi-Fi. And it can be finicky about network speeds. It requires a wireless network with at least 1 megabit per second of download speed, and works best with at least 1.5 to 2.0 megabits. Many hotels have trouble delivering those speeds, and, in my tests, the app refused to start in a hotel twice, claiming insufficient network speed when the hotel Wi-Fi was overloaded.

The free version of the app has some other limitations. You get just 2 gigabytes of file storage, there’s no Web browser or email program like Outlook included, and you can’t install additional software. If many users are trying to log onto the OnLive Desktop servers at once, you may have to wait your turn to use Office.

In the coming weeks, the company plans to launch a Pro version, which will cost $10 a month. It will offer 50 GB of cloud document storage, “priority” access to the servers, a Web browser, and the ability to install some added programs. It will also allow you to collaborate on documents with other users, or even to chat with, and present material to, groups of other OnLive Desktop users.

The company also plans to offer OnLive Desktop on Android tablets, PCs and Macs, and iPhones.

In my tests, I was able to create documents on an iPad in each of the three cloud-based Office programs. I was able to download them to a computer, and alter them on both the iPad and computer. I was also able to upload files from the computer for use in OnLive Desktop.

OnLive Desktop can’t use the iPad’s built-in virtual keyboard, but it can use the virtual keyboard built into Windows 7 and Windows’ limited touch features and handwriting recognition. As noted above, I recommend using a wireless physical keyboard. But even these aren’t a perfect solution, because the ones that work with the iPad can’t send common Windows keyboard commands to OnLive Desktop, so you wind up moving between the keyboard and the touch screen, which can be frustrating. And you can’t use a mouse.

Another drawback is that OnLive Desktop is entirely isolated from the rest of the iPad. Unlike Office-compatible apps that install directly on the tablet, this cloud-based service can’t, for instance, be used to open Office documents you receive via email on the iPad. And, at least at first, the only way you can get files into and out of OnLive Desktop is through its Web-accessible cloud-storage service. The free version has no email capability, and the app doesn’t support common file-transfer services like Dropbox or SugarSync. The company says it hopes to add those.

OnLive Desktop competes not only with the iPad’s Office clones, but with iPad apps that let you remotely access and control your own PCs and Macs, and thus use Office and other computer software on those.

But, in my tests, I have found those tricky to use. They require you to leave your computers running and either install special software or learn to use certain settings.

Overall, I found OnLive Desktop to be a notable technical achievement, but it has so many caveats that it’s best for folks who absolutely, positively need to use the full, genuine versions of the three big Office productivity programs on their iPads. For everyone else, the locally installed Office clones are probably good enough, and simpler to use.

Write to Walt at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

Going Back to Internet Explorer

Walt Mossberg — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:59:04 +0000

A few years ago we moved our company completely off of Internet Explorer to Firefox because you wrote in your column that IE had security holes and lacked speed. Our IT Services provider has told us that IE9 has solved all the pitfalls of previous versions, it’s the safest yet, and there are many business-oriented sites that are much friendlier to IE. So is it OK to go back?

I haven’t done a comparative browser review in a while, but I do agree that Internet Explorer has improved tremendously in speed, security and features. I think IE9 is a good browser and a reasonable choice, assuming you are a 100% Windows shop. IE is the only major browser that lacks a Mac version.

Some caveats: Each of the major browsers has improved, and, by some measures, some competitors beat IE in speed. A new, fast-rising contender since I wrote that old column is Google’s Chrome, which I find to be fast and reliable. IE’s market share, while still the highest, has shrunk dramatically and the browser market is more balanced. Finally, the number of business-oriented sites that require or do better in IE has been greatly reduced from, say, five years ago.

Walt and Katie Take a Tour of CES (Video)

Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 06:38:22 +0000

Walt walks the CES floor with Katie, and finds less “newness” at this year’s event, noting that the absent Apple looms over the show.

[ See post to watch video ]

Waiting for Windows 8

Walt Mossberg — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 02:24:14 +0000

I am in need of a new computer. I currently run Windows XP. When is Windows 8 due and should I wait for it? Should I just buy a new computer now with Windows 7 and upgrade to 8 when it arrives?

Windows 8 will likely be released in test, or beta, form, early in the year, and then in final form by the 2012 holiday shopping season. Whether you should wait depends on how badly you need a new PC. One thing to bear in mind if you do buy now is that while Windows 8 will work fine with a keyboard and mouse, its slick new user interface is designed for a touch screen.

What is the difference between the AMD and the Intel microprocessor chips?

They are different designs from different companies, though Intel is the dominant brand by far. In broad strokes, Advanced Micro Devices’ chips have often claimed better graphics performance and have generally been less expensive. But most computer makers choose Intel, which has lately focused intensely on better battery life without compromising performance.

For average consumers, the most important factor is that Windows runs fine on both, and a typical user doing typical, low-stress tasks might find it hard to distinguish between roughly comparable chips made by the two companies. So, if you are on a budget and an AMD-based machine you like costs less, you are safe to go with it.

I read your article about using Boot Camp to run Windows on a Mac and it was extremely informative. But I did not understand how to create the drivers needed to make Windows recognize the particular features of the Mac hardware.

Apple’s Boot Camp Assistant program, which is used to set up the Windows installation on a Mac, includes a step in which you download and store the drivers on either a CD or DVD, or an external USB drive. This is software Windows needs to properly operate the Mac’s keyboard, mouse, trackpad and camera.

If you just follow the steps in the Assistant software, you should be able to download and install these drivers, which Apple calls Windows Support Software. It’s a good idea to print the Boot Camp installation guide before you start, an option that appears on the first screen of the Assistant program.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Diabetic Tester That Talks to iPhones and Doctors

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 02:10:23 +0000

While consumer technology advances by leaps and bounds, the devices patients use to manage diseases often seem stuck in the past. A glaring example is the glucometer, the instrument diabetics use to measure the sugar in their blood—information they use to adjust their diet, exercise and medication.

[ See post to watch video ]

These meters, which analyze drops of blood drawn from fingertips, typically resemble crude PDAs from 10 or 15 years ago. They offer little feedback and can’t connect to the Internet to show results to caregivers. Most diabetics who use them log their readings on paper, which they hand doctors weeks or months later.

But that is beginning to change. Next week, a small start-up will introduce a new diabetes meter it says is the first with wireless technology that instantly transmits a patient’s readings to a private online database, which can be accessed by the patient or—with permission—by a doctor, caregiver or family member. This system charts the results to highlight trends and spot problems, and can be accessed via a Web browser or an iPhone app. It automatically transmits relevant feedback—such as whether your readings seem high or low—and allows doctors to respond.

Telcare can indicate if a reading was taken before a meal.

I’ve been testing this new meter and service, which is called Telcare and comes from a Bethesda, Md., company of the same name. As a Type 2 diabetic myself, I found the Telcare meter a refreshing change, and a significant step toward bringing consumer medical devices closer to the world of modern technology.

Despite some drawbacks, including a high price, I recommend the Telcare be considered by diabetics who want a better substitute for paper logs, or would benefit from real-time sharing of their readings.

However, as with any medical decision, I urge people to consult their doctors before switching meters. Also, I evaluated this product as a consumer technology. I am not a physician or diabetes expert. While I found the Telcare meter convenient and accurate for me, your situation might differ.

An iPhone app can turn results into detailed charts.

The Telcare device works much like a traditional meter. You insert a test strip into a slot on the meter, then prick your finger with a lancing device to get a drop of blood, touch the strip to the drop, and wait for the reading to appear.

The difference is the meter immediately sends results to its online database, where you or your doctor can find it via the password-protected Web site or iPhone app. This transmission is achieved via a built-in cellular modem, which doesn’t involve any cellphone, carrier contract or fee.

That cellular connection is used to send you messages about your readings, if necessary. In this first version, the patient can’t reply to doctors’ messages from the meter, but that’s planned for the future.

Telcare typically uses T-Mobile’s network, but, if that’s not available, the meter will automatically shift to whatever compatible connection it finds. If no connection is available, it will save the results and you can transmit them manually when you’re back in range.

Because it automatically logs results and allows real-time sharing, I believe diabetics who use this new system will be less likely to skip readings, or to fudge the numbers, especially if they allow doctors and other caregivers to see the results instantly. And that could mean an improvement in their health.

While it’s a leap ahead of typical diabetes meters, the Telcare meter isn’t exactly cutting edge. It looks like a thick, old cellphone, though it’s light. Unlike most other glucose meters, it has a large color screen that allows it to display informative graphics and messages.

One drawback is the price. While many diabetes meters cost well under $50, or are free (the money is in the test strips), the Telcare meter costs $150 for a starter kit that includes the meter, a wall charger, a case and accessories. The cost drops to $100 if you subscribe to a one-year supply of test strips. The strips cost $56 for a container of 50, or $36 with the subscription. Insurance may reduce these costs.

Another drawback is battery life. Traditional meters use removable batteries that can last months. The Telcare has a sealed battery and must be recharged frequently, like a cellphone. The company says if you turn it off between readings, a battery charge should last for 200 to 300 tests. If you leave it on, it will go to sleep between tests and need to be recharged every two or three days. In my tests, doing three readings a day for four days, I didn’t need to recharge it, but I turned it off when not in use.

Also, many diabetics carry around their meters, and the Telcare is larger than any traditional meter I’ve seen, though it fits in a pocket or small purse.

Finally, the meter and strips will, at first, be available only from the company, though it’s hoping to sell them in drugstores soon.

In my tests, the meter was easy to use and gave me helpful messages, such as whether I was in my prescribed range, or what my daily averages were. A Telcare official posing as my doctor sent me test messages reacting to my readings.

I can’t judge the accuracy of the Telcare, but it has been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, and the company says it meets or exceeds FDA standards for accuracy. Its readings seemed right to me.

I found the Web site and iPhone app worked well, giving me constantly updated and detailed lists, graphs and pie charts that showed me where I stood over short and long periods. These can be printed out or turned into documents for email. You can also enter notes for any reading and the meter asks you to indicate whether a reading was, say, after or before a meal or physical activity. Using the Web site, you can adjust your preferred range of glucose readings to fit your doctor’s advice. And the iPhone app allows manual entries, if you use another meter.

I did find some bugs, all of which the company pledges will be fixed before next week’s launch. In one case, when a reading produced a clearly erroneous number (something that can happen with every meter I’ve used) the Telcare failed to offer advice on what to do. Two subsequent readings were correct, however, and the company says such errors are rare.

In another case, I found I could alter a reading on the iPhone after transmission.

Telcare isn’t the only company trying to drag the glucose meter into the modern era. Entra Health Systems has a meter called MyGlucoHealth that transmits readings via Bluetooth to a cellphone for transmission to an online portal. And Sanofi and AgaMatrix offer a diabetic-testing attachment for the iPhone called the iBGStar, which isn’t yet available in the U.S., but is sold in some other countries. It can email results.

But the Telcare device is a leap ahead of nearly all glucose meters. If you’re a diabetic, or care for one, it’s worth a look.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Microsoft Office on iPad

Walt Mossberg — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:37:09 +0000

Which app do you recommend for using on the iPad 2 for opening Microsoft Office files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint?)

If you literally just want to open the documents to read them, you don’t need any apps. The iPad comes with built-in viewers for Microsoft Office files. However, for opening, storing and editing the files, I like two products. One is called Quickoffice Pro HD, which costs $20 and handles all three types of files you cite, and more. The other is the tablet version of Apple’s iWork suite, which is sold as three separate apps for $10 each—Pages for word processing, Numbers for spreadsheets and Keynote for presentations.

This also would be a good place to note that there are reports, unconfirmed by the company, that Microsoft is considering releasing an iPad version of Office itself. I have no evidence this will happen.

Do any of your recommended Ultrabooks run Office?

All Ultrabooks run Microsoft Office. While Ultrabooks are thin and light, they are full-blown Windows laptops running the latest Intel processors, and in my tests, they ran Office very well, just as well as many heavier, thicker laptops I’ve reviewed.

My son was told by an Apple phone representative that the iCloud service cannot handle our full iTunes library of 6,000 songs, and it will only sync with your hand-held, wireless devices.

That’s inaccurate. ITunes Match handles 25,000 songs and syncs with Macs, PCs (if they’re running iTunes), the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Walt is on vacation and his Personal Technology column will return Jan. 5. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Year of the Talking Phone and a Cloud That Got Hot

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 02:04:22 +0000

While other industries struggled, consumer technology seemed to march ahead as always in 2011, with important new products and services continuing to roll out. Sure, some tech companies, like BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, suffered reverses. And some products, like Hewlett-Packard’s TouchPad, flopped. But many shone.

[ See post to watch video ]

So here is a look at a few of the biggest tech products of the past year, with some analysis of what they signified and what issues they raise for 2012. As with all my columns, this one is focused only on products and services provided to consumers. Also, as usual, this column isn’t meant to offer investment advice or to evaluate the management skills or financial condition of companies.

The iDevices

Siri, right, the voice-controlled artificial-intelligence system, made the iPhone 4S stand out even though it looked like its predecessor.

Even in a year when its iconic leader, Steve Jobs, resigned as CEO and then passed away, Apple kept going from success to success. In March, it introduced the iPad 2, a thinner, lighter, faster version of its groundbreaking tablet and sold tens of millions of them. In October, it brought out the iPhone 4S, which proved popular even though it looked identical to the prior model. One reason: The phone introduced a voice-controlled artificial-intelligence system called Siri that answers questions and performs tasks without requiring typing or searching. Siri, while still rudimentary, could herald a revolution in practical artificial intelligence for consumers.

The lesson here is that Apple is driving the industry toward simpler, more reliable digital experiences tied into ecosystems of content and cloud services. It is expected to bring out radically new iPhones and iPads in 2012. But can it fend off challenges from popular, rapidly improving rivals using Google’s Android operating system? And, in the absence of Mr. Jobs, can it keep churning out game-changing hits?

With its ultralow price and Amazon connection, the Kindle Fire may be the first tablet to gain significant traction against the iPad.

The Kindle Fire

Despite some initial software flaws and its chunky, plain hardware, the diminutive Fire appeared to be the first color tablet to gain significant traction against the iPad. The biggest reasons are its ultralow $199 price and its tie-in to Amazon’s huge content library. But the Fire may have started a trend that could be a problem for Google: It demotes the Android operating system to an under-the-covers piece of plumbing, ignoring Google’s user interface and apps marketplace.

In 2012, Amazon is expected to bring out a larger, possibly sleeker Fire, and, if it continues to prove popular, it could attract larger numbers of apps designed for the Fire and sold only through Amazon. But despite its success with simple e-readers, Amazon has little experience as a maker of general-purpose computing devices, and it will have to be nimble and creative to keep up with Apple and more-traditional Android rivals.

LTE

Though several cellular technologies claim the moniker “4G” to indicate fast data speeds and greater capacity, only one, LTE (Long Term Evolution), delivers true broadband speeds consistently. This past year, it finally spread significantly in the U.S., both in terms of geography and in the number of devices supporting it. The LTE leader by far is Verizon Wireless and it has the potential to make the wireless Web, and wireless streaming of video, the equal of their wired counterparts. AT&T is racing to catch up and Sprint, which uses a different 4G system, says it will join the LTE parade.

But at this stage, LTE still consumes too much battery power. And LTE networks, if they become the norm, could get overwhelmed. To fend off this prospect, the biggest carriers in 2011 began charging more for greater data usage, a move that could curb the spread of innovative services that rely on large data downloads, such as video streaming and sharing of music and high-resolution photos.

More companies took advantage of cloud computing, with Google introducing the Chromebook, which relies almost entirely on the cloud.

The Cloud

Many players began offering consumers the opportunity to both store their data on, and run apps from, remote servers on the Internet, a system called cloud computing. Google even introduced a new kind of laptop, the Chromebook, that has almost no internal storage and relies almost entirely on the cloud. An example of a cloud service: music “lockers” that store all your songs on multiple devices. Cloud services are sure to expand in 2012, but questions remain on their reliability, security and privacy. And while most now cost little or nothing, these offerings could become another monthly fee burden for consumers.

Android became easier to use with the release of the Ice Cream Sandwich version, used in the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

The Android Army

In 2011, Android overtook Apple’s iPhone and iPad operating system, called iOS, in users. Though no single Android device is as popular as the iPhone or iPad, Android is now the collective leader, with hundreds of devices using it. Samsung, in particular, had success with its Android-based Galaxy devices. And a new version, called Ice Cream Sandwich, continued Android’s steady improvement by making it easier to use. However, Google may be losing control of Android, as hardware makers and cellular carriers redefine it to suit their own needs, and fail to offer consumers updates in a timely fashion. Except for the Kindle Fire, the operating system hasn’t caught on in tablets.

Windows

Microsoft has been way behind in the new areas of super-smartphones and tablets. In 2011, the software giant began to try to reverse that situation. It introduced the first competitive version of its sleek, sophisticated Windows Phone software, called Mango, though so far without much uptake by consumers. And it previewed a bold new version of main Windows, called Windows 8, with a multitouch interface that, unlike Apple’s approach, is a single operating system meant for both PCs and tablets. It will start shipping in 2012.

Following in the Apple MacBook Air’s footsteps, a crop of thin and speedy ultrabooks, such as the Toshiba Portege Z835, pictured, became the new standard for laptops, with Windows PC makers coming up with their own versions of the machines.

Still, Windows Phone must somehow attract many more users. And Windows 8 is a gamble, because it includes two interfaces: the new tabletlike face and the old, familiar Windows look, which could confuse consumers.

Ultrabooks

In 2011, Apple’s MacBook Air, previously a niche product, became the new standard for laptops—thin, light, speedy, with long battery life and solid-state memory for storage instead of a hard disk. Now, Windows PC makers are following suit with similar machines called Ultrabooks.

Ultrabooks may recharge the Windows laptop scene in 2012. However, they will have to become less costly—they now hover at around $1,000—and their solid-state drives don’t offer the capacity of hard disks at an affordable price.

The Lenovo IdeaPad U300

Television

The reinvention of television picked up steam in 2011, albeit in a small way. Despite some miscues, Netflix streaming of TV shows to many devices grew in popularity. Set-top boxes that bring Internet video to TVs, like the Roku box and Apple TV, got better and more popular, though Google’s competing effort was a dud. Microsoft’s Xbox is set to compete strongly, using its Kinect add-on to find and play media apps with gestures and voice commands.

The big test may come in 2012, when Apple is believed to plan to ship a whole new type of Internet-connected TV, which the company hasn’t confirmed. A big obstacle: Cable and media companies will have a huge say in this potential revolution, and the current system serves them well.

So, 2011 was an exciting year in consumer technology. I can’t wait for 2012.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Ultrabooks Bring Speed and Light to Windows

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:03:14 +0000

Rejoice, Windows users!

If you envy Apple’s sleek, speedy MacBook Air laptop, and yearn for something like it that comes with the Microsoft Windows operating system, your wish has been granted. It’s a new type of Windows laptop called Ultrabook. A handful already are available, and more are likely to arrive in the new year.

[ See post to watch video ]

The Ultrabook concept, which is being driven by giant chipmaker Intel, is governed by a set of specs covering everything from thinness to battery life to start-up times. But it is basically an effort to emulate the MacBook Air, which has been a hot product in a challenging market despite selling for double what some bulkier, but capable, Windows laptops fetch. (Apple doesn’t disclose sales of specific Mac models.)

Ironically, the MacBook Air, which came out in 2008 and now starts at $999, uses the same Intel processors Ultrabooks do, and can, if its owner wishes, run Windows capably along with the Mac operating system. But it now will have much more competition.

The Lenovo IdeaPad U300s, with a sturdy aluminum body, has a superb keyboard and roomy touch pad.

I’ve been testing a couple of the new Ultrabooks, from Lenovo and Toshiba, to get a feel for the category, and I’m a fan. I love the idea of a machine that combines low weight with good speed and battery life, yet doesn’t compromise on keyboard and screen size.

I found some drawbacks to both machines, and to Ultrabooks in general. For instance, like the Apple, they lack internal DVD drives and removable batteries, things that will bother some folks. And, at least for now, the Ultrabooks mostly tend to cluster at around $1,000, which rules them out for shoppers on a tight budget. But, overall, I think the advent of the Ultrabook is a good thing for consumers.

In general, I preferred the Lenovo, but the Toshiba has some advantages as well, and you won’t go wrong with either. In my tests, neither did as well as the Apple in such measures as battery life or start times. But both cost less than the comparable Apple model.

Toshiba’s Portege Z835 is lighter and has more ports, including an Ethernet port, than the comparable Lenovo IdeaPad or MacBook Air.

The idea behind the Ultrabook is to make a light, thin laptop that has a full-size screen and keyboard—unlike a cramped netbook—yet also gets strong battery life, starts up and resumes quickly, and is powerful enough to handle a wide variety of common consumer tasks. It is meant to be good enough to be your main computer, but it isn’t aimed at those who need extra horsepower for things like hard-core gaming.

To be clear, there have been thin and light Windows laptops for many years, but these machines have typically been so expensive that few people could buy them, and they often had poor battery life and other serious compromises.

I tested the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s and the Toshiba Portege Z830, and also compared them with the latest, comparable MacBook Air. Both have 13-inch screens, are made of metal, weigh under three pounds, and use a solid-state drive—storage chips—instead of a hard disk. This improves speed, reliability and battery life, but limits storage capacity.

The Lenovo starts at $1,095 with a 128 gigabyte drive, 4 GB of memory, and Intel’s mid-range i5 processor. The Toshiba starts at around $900 for a model with the same specs except for the processor, which is a less powerful chip called an i3. However, both Toshiba and Best Buy have recently put this machine on sale, and I found it on Best Buy’s website for $700.

By contrast, the 13-inch MacBook Air with the same amount of solid-state storage and memory, and the i5 processor, costs $1,299.

Beyond their price and processor differences, I found each machine had its strengths and weaknesses.

The Toshiba weighs just 2.47 pounds, versus 2.91 for the Lenovo and 2.96 for the Apple. It also boasts the most ports, including three USB ports versus two for the others and an Ethernet port the others lack. But I found its magnesium body felt more fragile than the other two, which are aluminum and sturdier.

I also disliked the fact that on Toshiba’s keyboard, using the keys for common things like brightness and muting required you to hold down a second function key. And the Toshiba came in last among the three in my tests of battery life, cold start-up time and reboot time. Plus, Toshiba has pre-loaded an annoying Best Buy promotional app that pops up at launch.

The Lenovo feels sturdy and has a keyboard I found superb, and a roomy touch pad. Unlike the other two, it isn’t tapered at the edges, and my test unit sported an orange color, though it also comes in gray. Also, like the Apple, but unlike the Toshiba, Lenovo offers a roomier, 256 GB solid-state drive for extra money.

However, the Lenovo froze once during my tests; the others didn’t. And, unlike the others, it lacks a slot for memory cards.

Both Ultrabooks did fine at all the common tasks I threw at them. But their screen resolution is less than the Mac’s, meaning less material can be seen without scrolling. The Mac also felt sturdier to me than even the Lenovo.

Both Ultrabooks claim battery life of up to eight hours or so. In my battery tests, where I turn off all power-saving features, crank the screen brightness up all the way, leave the Wi-Fi on, and play a continuous loop of music, they fell well short of that. The Toshiba lasted 4 hours and 36 minutes and the Lenovo 4 hours and 50 minutes.

Still, these are respectable numbers in my harsh tests, and suggest to me that in more normal use with power-saving on, you could get six hours or so easily on these machines. However, the MacBook Air did much better, lasting 5 hours and 51 minutes on the same test—suggesting users would likely achieve Apple’s claimed seven hours of battery life in more normal use.

The two Ultrabooks booted up and rebooted much faster than most Windows laptops I’ve tested in the past, reaching a ready-to-use state, with Wi-Fi fully connected, in about 30 seconds when booting from scratch and under a minute on a reboot. They recovered from sleep in under 10 seconds. But the Mac beat them handily on all three measures.

For Windows shoppers who can afford to spend a little more this season, I believe Ultrabooks are a great choice.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at walt.mossberg@wsj.com.

Sending Music to the Cloud

Walt Mossberg — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 23:47:47 +0000

If I upload my music collection to Apple’s iTunes Match cloud service, is it deleted from my computer? I ask because I wouldn’t want to lose my music if the service was killed or suffered some massive failure.

No. Any songs that currently are stored on your computer’s hard disk remain there, so even if iTunes Match is discontinued, your music is safe. However, you will gain access from the cloud to additional songs that live on other computers or Apple devices you own, but now are also stored in your iTunes Match account.

I am considering buying the 10″ Toshiba Thrive tablet you reviewed a while back. It comes in three memory configurations. Other than the amount of internal memory, do the three models have the same internal hardware?

Yes. A glance at the Thrive website suggests that all other key components, such as the screen, the processor, the ports, the sensors and the cameras are the same. For more, see http://bit.ly/vvy2rM.

I just got an iPad 3G with Verizon. I want an all-in-one printer, but it seems I need a Wi-Fi connection to use a printer. Is something available that would work with my Verizon connection?

There are some iPad apps that claim to print over 3G. Just go to the app store, search on “print,” and study the descriptions.

But it doesn’t matter, because every iPad, including those like yours that come with 3G, also includes Wi-Fi, and can print to compatible printers. The Verizon 3G is an added, alternate connection capability—not a replacement for Wi-Fi. Just make sure when you buy your printer that it’s compatible with Apple’s AirPrint technology. More information is at http://bit.ly/r2A5VG.

Solid Keyboard Elevates This Tablet, Though Software Lags

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 02:03:52 +0000

One of the biggest things that deters people from relying on tablets is the lack of a convenient physical keyboard. Now, Taiwan-based Asus is attacking this issue with a new Android-based tablet and accompanying keyboard dock, due on store shelves in the U.S. on Dec. 15.

[ See post to watch video ]

This 10-inch tablet, called the Eee Pad Transformer Prime, starts at $499, the same price as the market leader, Apple’s iPad 2. But it has twice the memory—32 gigabytes—at that price. The keyboard dock, with an additional battery and added ports, is an optional extra for $149.

The new Asus has another notable feature: It is the first tablet to use a new processor from chip maker Nvidia that has four cores, double what other recent tablets use.

Asus and Nvidia, which developed the product jointly, claim this processor, called the Tegra 3, offers more power when it’s needed, and the flexibility to sip less power when it’s not, for overall better performance and battery life. I expect this same chip to show up in other tablets in coming months.

I’ve been testing the Transformer Prime, and I found it to be the best standard Android tablet I’ve used. In my tests, the Prime had snappy performance, and decent battery life, though less than the iPad’s (more on that later). It is a tad lighter and thinner than the iPad 2 and has a sharp, pleasant screen.

The Transformer Prime tablet starts at $499. Keyboard dock is an extra $149.

Plus, when the tablet is coupled with the keyboard dock, by nestling it into a hinge, it becomes the screen of what is essentially an Android netbook. When docked, the tablet even folds down over the keyboard like a lid. I found typing on the keyboard to be easy and accurate.

However, as with all other tablets based on Google’s Android platform, its weak point is software. The tablet-oriented Honeycomb version of Android on the Prime isn’t as slick or smooth as the iPad’s operating system, though the Prime’s potent processor makes it more fluid than is typical on such Android devices. And Google’s Android Market offers only a small number of tablet-optimized apps, compared with 140,000 for the iPad.

The Transformer Prime

In addition, the Prime lacks access to a large, unified ecosystem of music, videos and books, unlike the Apple or Amazon’s Kindle Fire. It does offer Google’s new music store, and a movie-rental service. But, when I tried to rent two movies, neither would play.

The Prime will gain a fresh version of the Android operating system, called Ice Cream Sandwich, early next year, according to Asus. The company says early buyers of the Prime will be able to upgrade for free.

Fans of the iPad will point out that it, too, can work with optional physical keyboards. But Apple doesn’t make one that couples with the iPad 2 the way the Asus docking station mates with its tablet, and the extra battery in the Prime’s keyboard dock can supposedly add up to six hours of unplugged power, a claim I didn’t test. The Prime’s dock also has a USB port and a memory card slot.

The Prime is actually the third try by Asus to mate a tablet with a physical keyboard. An earlier, bulkier version of the Transformer wasn’t embraced by many consumers, and a thick tablet with a cramped slide-out keyboard, called the Slider, also hasn’t been a big hit. But Asus is hoping that the slimmer, lighter Prime and its dock will do the trick.

The Transformer Prime, when coupled with the keyboard dock, can fold down like a lid.

The stand-alone tablet is 0.33-inch thick and weighs 1.29 pounds. The dock adds 1.18 pounds and 0.4-inch of thickness. Together, they cost $648, just $49 more than the cheapest 32 GB iPad, but hundreds more than many standard 10-inch Windows netbooks.

The companies are stressing how the processor improves the graphics and speed of games on the tablet, and boast that the Prime can be used with gaming-console controllers. This is good news for tablet gamers, and, in my tests, some sample games the companies provided looked impressive. But I wasn’t blown away with their superiority over iPad games.

To me, the keyboard dock is the big story here. I found it to be a solid companion. Its keys were well spaced despite the unit’s small overall size, and the hinge that holds the tablet as a removable screen was sturdy. Special keys control Android functions such as Home, Back and Search. And there’s a roomy, responsive touch pad.

The screen was responsive and the speakers were good. In my tests, email, Web browsing, and streaming of music and videos worked well over good Wi-Fi connections. But the Prime lacks any cellular connectivity, meaning it is crippled when you’re out of Wi-Fi range. When I tested it at a hotel with slow Wi-Fi, the Prime was notably pokier at streaming the same YouTube video as an iPad 2 using Verizon’s 3G cellular network.

Gauging the battery life on this tablet is a bit complicated. I performed the same battery test I have used for every tablet since the original iPad appeared. In that test, I set the screen brightness to 75%, leave the wireless on and play locally stored videos back to back till the unit dies.

The Transformer Prime lasted just shy of seven hours, compared with slightly more than 10 hours for the iPad 2, a big difference. Still, that seven hours was better than many other full-size Android tablets have achieved in this test.

Asus and Nvidia build in three battery modes, and I tested only the one called Normal. Unfortunately, Nvidia now says that nomenclature is misleading, and that Normal is really meant for only high-performance tasks. So, early next year, when it switches to the next version of Android, it plans to rename Normal as “Performance,” to steer users to a less power-hungry mode called “Balanced.” I can’t say how the Prime’s battery will perform in that scenario with the new OS.

I still believe the iPad 2 is the best overall tablet available. However, if you’re looking for a model using Google’s Android interface and are yearning for a well-designed, easily integrated keyboard solution, or want to play more power-hungry games, the Transformer Prime is a good choice, as long as you can tolerate its software limitations.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Loading Photos Into the Kindle Fire

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:38:34 +0000

How do I load family pictures into the Kindle Fire that I just bought for my 94-year-old mother?

One of the weaknesses of the Fire is that it is heavily tied into Amazon’s cloud services, and, unlike Google or Apple, Amazon doesn’t have a cloud-based photo service. There are a number of work-arounds for getting photos into the Fire. Here are two. In my tests of the Kindle Fire, I found that the simplest method was to plug it into a laptop using a special USB cable (not included) and drag photos onto the Fire from the laptop. You also can save photos to the Fire that are attached to emails received on the device, but I found this didn’t always work.

Do you have any guidance about all-in-one touch-screen desktop PCs for the holiday buying season?

I haven’t reviewed these in a long time, but take a look at Hewlett-Packard’s latest TouchSmart models, which seem well-equipped and start at $600, after various discounts. Note: I don’t know how well the touch screens on these PCs, or any others currently on the market, will work with the upcoming Windows 8, due out next year.

I have an Asus Transformer tablet and want to get Swype on it. How can I get it?

Swype, which is an alternate keyboard for Android devices that works by letting you swipe your fingers across letters, typically comes preloaded on devices, rather than being installed by users like a typical app. The product’s site, at swype.com, shows how you can tell if your device came with it. If not, you can try installing a beta version by going to beta.swype.com.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Introducing Lauren Goode

Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:00:44 +0000

We are thrilled to welcome another strong reporter to the AllThingsD team: Lauren Goode, who will cover consumer tech products and issues. She’ll be based in New York.

Lauren comes to us from the digital arm of our sister news organization, The Wall Street Journal, where she was a video producer and reporter, from 2008 to 2011. She helped launch the Journal’s live-streaming video programming and produced and co-hosted the daily “Digits” technology show, which regularly features our ATD staff along with Journal reporters and editors. (We hope to see her there from time to time as a guest herself now.) She was also a contributing writer to the Digits blog on WSJ.com, and wrote posts on consumer technology products.

Prior to joining the Journal, Lauren worked in cable television from 2003 to 2008, producing and writing shows for A&E Television Networks’ award-winning “Biography” series, after having started her career as a production assistant at ESPN in New York.

The addition of Lauren to AllThingsD is just the latest move in an expansion that has seen our staff more than double in the past year, including adding new reporters, editors and developers. This has allowed us to broaden and deepen our coverage, to break more news and also to begin doing different types of stories than many other blogs offer, such as our recent series on Facebook’s smartphone effort.

We have more new coverage and staff expansions planned, so stay tuned. And, as always, thanks for your readership, which has been increasing strongly quarter after quarter. We aim to keep earning your loyalty and trust.

Going forward, Lauren can be reached at lauren@allthingsd.com, and you can read more about her bio and ethics statement here.

– Walt & Kara

Digital Music Meets Its Match in Apple iCloud

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:03:21 +0000

One of the more interesting ideas in the new wave of cloud-computing services is the music locker. This is a service that lets consumers store their music collections on a remote server and access them from any device, either by streaming the tunes or downloading them.

[ See post to watch video ]

Amazon and Google offer such locker services. But they have a big downside: You have to upload all your music to your locker first. If you have a collection of several thousand songs or more, that can take days as most home Internet connections have slow upload speeds, even if their download speeds are decent.

Now, Apple has introduced a locker service that mostly eliminates that problem by doing away with the need to upload the vast majority of your music, while still allowing you to populate your locker with your songs quickly and easily. It’s called iTunes Match, and it’s the last piece in the company’s rollout of its massive iCloud initiative, which includes things like wireless synchronization of contacts and calendars.

Here’s how it works. Instead of making you upload your song files to Apple’s servers, iTunes Match scans the iTunes library on your Macs or Windows PCs, then matches the titles you have with the 20 million songs Apple has the right to distribute via its iTunes store. If your songs are included in that 20 million, Apple simply places them in your online locker. In almost all cases, users will be left with only a small remnant of songs to upload—such as recordings by garage bands. (ITunes Match works only for digital music, not movies, TV shows or audiobooks, even if they’re available in iTunes.)

Once the songs are in the cloud, they also appear in your library in iTunes on computers, or in the Music apps on iPads, iPhones and iPod touch devices. You can stream the music, or press an icon with a downward arrow inside a cloud to download it. You can include up to 10 devices in iTunes Match. Plus, iTunes Match—which costs $25 a year for up to 25,000 songs—covers any song you own, regardless of how you obtained it. That includes songs purchased from non-Apple music services or imported from CDs, or even those that were downloaded illegally.

Pressing the cloud icon beside a song downloads it to a device.

I’ve been testing iTunes Match on several Macs, a Windows PC, and on an iPad and an iPhone. In general, I found Match delivers on its promises, despite some limitations and glitches, several of which Apple told me it will remedy via software updates.

Because of Match, my music collection is now complete and essentially identical on all my computers and on my iPad and iPhone, allowing me to access any of my songs from any of these devices, without manual synchronization via a cable, or paying more than once for the same song. My Match locker is even accessible from my Apple TV device.

Match is an optional addition to an existing free service called iTunes in the Cloud, which covers only songs you bought from Apple’s iTunes store, or which you buy there in the future. Songs bought from the iTunes store don’t count against the 25,000-song limit in iTunes Match.

Google’s music locker is currently free, but limited to 20,000 songs. Amazon is now offering unlimited music storage for $20 a year as part of a broader plan that allows storing various types of files in the cloud.

One nice aspect of iTunes Match is that even if your songs are in a lower-quality format before they go into your iTunes Match locker, Apple streams or downloads them in a relatively high-quality format.

In my tests, I scanned and matched the iTunes libraries on several computers containing all my music—about 5,500 songs, a number Apple says is fairly typical for iTunes users. The process took under an hour, including the time needed to upload the minority of songs Apple couldn’t match. However, I have a mostly commercial collection and a fast Internet upload link in my home. I have heard from at least one colleague with a larger library and a slower Internet broadband link, who says it is taking forever to upload his nonmatched songs to Apple.

In my case, some of my songs weren’t accepted by iTunes Match, and were marked with cryptic icons that Apple doesn’t adequately explain. A handful were declined because of an unspecified “error.” Apple later told me these files were corrupted, sometimes so subtly that it didn’t affect playback. Others were declared “ineligible.” Mostly, these songs had been imported from CD years ago at a quality rate of lower than 128 kilobits per second. Also ineligible are things like audiobooks or PDF booklets Apple sells with some albums.

In my case, these exceptions were reasonable and few, but Apple needs to explain them better. The company says it is working on doing just that. In the case of the subtly corrupt files, Apple says a new version of iTunes coming soon will be more liberal about disqualifying a song.

I also ran into two Match problems on my iPhone and iPad that Apple says are bugs that will be fixed in an upcoming release of the operating system for those devices. One bug scrambles the alphabetical order of songs, albums and artists. Another causes album art to either never appear, or to show up only when a song is almost done playing. Apple won’t say when the bug fixes will be ready.

There are a couple of issues that Apple has no intention of changing. One: If a person has more than 25,000 songs, Match won’t allow the user to designate a subsection for storage in the cloud.

The other: On iPhones and iPads, Apple downloads the whole of any cloud-based song you’re streaming, even if you don’t want it on your device. Apple says it does this for smooth playback, and for playback when you’re offline. It adds that all songs stored on your hand-held devices are now placed in a special cache from which old or rarely played songs are automatically removed periodically to make room for new ones.

In all, I like iTunes Match, and can recommend it to digital music lovers who want all their tunes on all their devices. It’s another nice feature of iCloud, priced reasonably.

Write to Walt at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

Kindle Fire, A Grown-Up E-Reader With Tablet Spark

Walter S. Mossberg — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:28:03 +0000

It’s often said that there isn’t really a tablet market, just an Apple iPad market with a bunch of other contenders fighting over the remnants. But, starting this week, that is likely to change, because Amazon is adding a multifunction color tablet to its popular Kindle line that costs less than half as much as an iPad 2.

[ See post to watch video ]

This new $199 device is called the Kindle Fire, and after testing it for a week, I think it’s a good—though not a great—product and a very good value. It doesn’t just add color to the Kindle, it adds a robust ability to store and stream music, TV shows and movies—and a weaker ability to store and display color photos. And it offers about 8,500 apps at launch, including Netflix, Angry Birds and QuickOffice.

To be clear, the Kindle Fire is much less capable and versatile than the entry-level $499 iPad 2. It has a fraction of the apps, a smaller screen, much weaker battery life, a slower Web browser, half the internal storage and no cameras or microphone. It also has a rigid and somewhat frustrating user interface far less fluid than Apple’s.

Kindle Fire

But the Fire has some big things going for it. First, the $199 price, though the Fire’s seven-inch screen is less than half the surface area of the iPad’s display. Second, the Amazon and Kindle brands, already known and loved for e-readers and more. Third, Amazon is the only major tablet maker other than Apple with a large, famous, easy-to-use content ecosystem that sells music, video, books and periodicals. The Fire can be thought of as a hardware front end to all that cloud content.

Finally, while the Fire, like many other tablets, is based on Google’s Android operating system, Amazon has taken the bold step of hiding Android. It shuns its user interface and nearly all of Google’s apps and services, including Google’s app store. The Fire’s software is all about the content and apps Amazon has sold you and the easy purchase of more.

When compared to the iPad 2, I suspect the Fire will appeal to people on a budget and to those who envision using the iPad mainly to consume content, as opposed to those who see the larger tablet as a partial laptop replacement. For instance, while the Fire has a decent Web browser and a rudimentary email program, it lacks basic built-in apps, such as a calendar, notepad or maps. However, for people primarily interested in reading books and periodicals, the Fire may seem too heavy and costly when compared with a low-end Kindle or Nook.

Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet

The Fire isn’t only competing with the iPad and other general-purpose tablets. It has to contend with a new, low-price, similar-size color tablet out this week from e-reader rival, Barnes & Noble. This device, the Nook Tablet, is B&N’s second-generation color slate and costs $249, still less than an iPad. I’ve also been trying it out for a few days and found it has some pluses and minuses compared with the Fire.

The Nook Tablet boasts double the internal storage and a slot to expand it. It has better battery life and a more interactive approach to children’s books. But beyond books and magazines, it lacks either Amazon’s or Apple’s large, simple, built-in ecosystem for other kinds of content, such as music, movies and TV shows.

Instead, Barnes & Noble boasts it offers choice, by including video apps like Netflix and music apps like Pandora. However, these same apps also appear on the Fire and the iPad, along with the Amazon and Apple stores.

And it appears to offer even fewer apps than Amazon does (Barnes & Noble doesn’t provide a number). Also, while its screen is the same size as the Fire’s, the Nook is larger overall, though a bit lighter.

Hardware

The Fire’s hardware is plain and clunky. It’s a thick black box with zero style. There isn’t even a volume control or a physical home button, and the on/off button is a small thing hidden inconveniently on the bottom edge.

In the quest to meet the $199 price point, Amazon omitted many features common on other tablets. There are no cameras or microphone, no GPS for determining your location, no Bluetooth for headsets or wireless speakers and no included earbuds. The Fire is Wi-Fi only—it has no built-in cellular connectivity. There isn’t even an included cable for connecting to a computer, something you may want to do to get photos into the Fire, since Amazon lacks an online photo service.

There is just 8 gigabytes of memory, half the total of the base iPad or the Nook Tablet, and only about 6 gigabytes of that is available to store content. If you want to download movies, you won’t be able to fit many into the Fire.

User Interface

When I first saw it, I really liked the Fire’s user interface. Instead of screens full of icons or folders, it presents virtual shelves filled with the books, magazines, music, TV shows, movies, apps and websites you’ve used. A large one has the most recent items, with smaller shelves below it. These are for your favorite items. Across the top is a search bar and a list of categories, like Books, Music, Videos, Apps.

But I became frustrated with the interface. There’s something off with the touch calibration on the top shelf, or Carousel, which scrolls through a seemingly endless stream of items. It can be difficult to get it to stop on the item you want and it takes more pressure than it should to open the selection.

Also, you can’t configure the main screen much. You can’t reorder the top shelf, and while you can place items on the favorites shelves, they are in the order you added them, not how you like them.

On the Nook Tablet, the user interface is a jumble of different approaches, which I consider confusing. There’s a main screen where you can place favorite icons but also see a scrolling row of items, a drop-down list of other items and a bottom row of tiny icons representing categories. But there’s also a separate interface called the library, with categories and shelves.

Browser

A big selling point for the Fire is a supposedly speedy Web browser called Silk, which splits the task of fetching Web pages between the tablet and Amazon’s super-fast cloud computers. The latter can cache common, static page elements and learn which sites and pages people most often use, so they are pre-fetched and ready to go when needed.

However, in my tests, the Fire’s Silk browser was noticeably slower than the iPad 2′s browser.

This pattern was consistent over scores of Web pages, and on four Wi-Fi networks and two different Fire devices. Amazon’s explanation is that its split-browser system requires lots of user data to achieve its speed advantages, and only a small number of people are using it, so it will get faster over time.

Content

I found it easy to buy, stream, download and use content on the Fire. Reading books was a pleasure, as on any Kindle. Movies and TV shows looked good, and music played quickly and well, despite weak speakers. In general, I found magazines and newspapers looked better on the iPad, mostly due to the larger screen.

Recognizing this, Amazon offers a “text view” of magazines, which makes them easier to read but loses the original formatting.

Screen

After years of suggesting the gray-scale, E-Ink screen on the Kindle was better for reading than a color LCD screen, Amazon now has a Kindle with the latter display. If anything, it struck me as glossier than the iPad screen. It’s vivid and sharp, but not high definition. When I asked an Amazon executive about the reading issue and the company’s past position, he suggested people who prefer E-Ink buy one of each Kindle and use the older style for reading, pointing out the pair would cost less than an iPad. I said, while that was true, such people would be carrying two devices, not one.

Battery Life

In my standard tablet battery test, playing back to back videos with the wireless turned on and the screen at 75% brightness, the Fire lasted 5 hours, 47 minutes, or less than 60% of the iPad 2′s performance on the same test, and about an hour less than the Nook Tablet’s performance. In more general use, I didn’t find myself worrying about the battery. But the Fire requires charging much more often than the traditional Kindle.

Bottom Line

At $199, and with Amazon’s content ecosystem behind it, the Fire is an attractive alternative for many people who might otherwise have bought an iPad or another Android device, especially if their principal interest is content consumption.

The Nook Tablet also is worth considering, though it lacks a music and video ecosystem.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

iPad 3 Coming Soon?

Walter S. Mossberg — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:27:27 +0000

I am in the market for an iPad, but have been advised to wait for the iPad 3, which rumors suggest will be arriving shortly. What do you advise?

I have seen similar rumors, but I have no confirmation of them and no information on the timing or details of the next iPad. If I had to guess, I’d guess the next iPad will be announced in March or April, which is when the last two were announced.

I would like to purchase a laptop for use only with my stock brokerage firm, my mutual-fund company, my bank and my local credit union. No email, music, photos, games, surfing the Web, online purchases, video chat, etc. I think this will cut down greatly on the chances of my financial information being stolen. Am I mistaken?

This approach might help, but I believe you may be overestimating its benefits. You have to go online, via a Web browser, to perform financial transactions, and you will have to use email in order to do things like confirm sign-up information. Once you are using a Web browser and email, you are open to identity theft if you are careless. Obviously, avoiding any website or online activity where malware or spyware might lurk will help, but you’d still need to be very careful, and—especially if it’s a Windows PC—to install strong security software.

Email Mossberg’s Mailbox at mossberg@wsj.com.

A Guide for PC Buyers Not Looking for a Tablet

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 02:02:27 +0000

If you’re shopping for a laptop this autumn, you’ll find most of the capabilities and prices in the sluggish market unchanged. You’ll still likely be considering whether it’s time to get a tablet instead of a new laptop.

[ See post to watch video ]

But if you’re focused on a Windows machine, and you look carefully, you’ll see that a new class of portable PC is beginning to appear. It’s called the “ultrabook,” and is essentially the Windows version of Apple’s popular, nearly four-year old MacBook Air—an ultraskinny, light, speedy, versatile laptop with long battery life.

The arrival of the ultrabook is a welcome development, not only because it spices up the market, but because I consider the MacBook Air the best all-around consumer laptop available, and anything that emulates it is a good idea, if done well.

There are only a few ultrabooks available this season and they aren’t for everybody. Most have limited storage and, like the MacBook Air, are priced near the $1,000 range—rich territory in a tight economy where Apple buyers seem comfortable, though not many others. Still, this new class of Windows laptop is the only fundamentally fresh choice in the laptop market.

If the price is too high, you should be able to get a capable major-brand laptop for between $500 and $800, with plenty of storage and memory.

My annual fall laptop buyers’ guide today offers tips for wading through the technobabble in computer ads, and in online and physical stores. As always, these tips are for average consumers doing common tasks, such as email, Web browsing, social networking, general office productivity, photos, music, videos and simple games. This guide isn’t meant for corporate buyers, or for hard-core gamers or serious media producers.

The recently unveiled Asus Zenbook

The tablet question: Tablets like Apple’s iPad 2 and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 can perform many, though not all, of the functions of a laptop. Most tablet lovers find themselves reaching for their laptops less often to do things like email. If your budget is limited and you’re thinking of shelling out $500 for a full-size tablet, consider whether you can put off getting a new laptop this year instead of buying both.

Future Windows: If you’re shopping for a Windows laptop, be aware that in 2012, Microsoft will offer a new version of Windows, called Windows 8, with a radical new multitouch interface that makes use of a touch screen. The software giant stresses that Windows 8 won’t require such a screen, and will still work with a mouse or touch pad. But unless you have a laptop with a multi-touch screen, you won’t be able to take advantage of the Windows 8 touch-screen features.

Ultrabooks: Four companies make this class of laptop: Acer, Lenovo, Asus and, shortly, Toshiba. These machines are under 0.8 inch thick, weigh less than three pounds, and generally claim long battery life and almost-instant startup times. All run Windows 7; none has a touch screen. Like the MacBook Air, they use solid-state drives (though some combine these with standard hard disks) and have screens of either 11 inches or 13 inches. Prices generally run from around $900 to $1,100.

Windows vs. Mac: Mac laptops cost more and offer less variety than Windows laptops. The least expensive Mac laptop is $999, while a few stripped-down Windows portables can be had for under $300. Well-equipped Windows laptops start at $500 to $600. But Apple laptops combine beauty, ruggedness and long battery life with good customer service. Macs also come with better built-in software, including the new Lion operating system, which includes some tablet-like features. And they can run Windows, at extra cost.

Finally, Mac users don’t fear viruses and other malicious software, because virtually none work on the Mac.

Memory: Get at least 4 gigabytes of memory, or RAM, on a new Windows computer. On a Mac, most consumers can get away with 2 gigabytes.

Processors: Intel’s latest chips are the i3, i5, and i7 Core models. But a laptop with chips from rival AMD, or older Intel dual-core chips, also is OK.

Graphics: Usually less expensive machines have wimpier graphics hardware, and costlier ones have more powerful graphics. Better graphics can make your whole machine faster, because more and more software is designed to offload general processing tasks onto the graphics chips.

Hard disks: A 320-gigabyte hard disk should be the minimum on most PCs. Solid-state disks, like those in the new ultrabooks or the MacBook Air, generally come in sizes of 128 GB or 256 GB. They omit moving parts and use flash memory to store your files, as on a smartphone or tablet. They are costlier, but faster, and use less power.

Ports: Many PCs now come with a port called HDMI, which makes linking to a high-definition TV easy. There is a new, much faster USB port, called USB 3.0, but few peripheral devices can use it. And Apple has introduced yet another high-speed connector that has little practical use so far, called Thunderbolt.

As always, be wary of sales pitches and don’t buy more laptop than you need.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.